That's peak Intel 386 that is, don't need changing in my book. Sure an AMD DX40 is slightly faster, but they were a budget box by the time that made it out the door. VGA Wonder 16 is pretty good for it's time, some will say you could go faster, but that's dragging it out of 1990 into 1991 or 1992, where it's not king of the world any more. 8MB is plenty for that era too.

The Dallas chip could use swapping out for a fresher one, or a replacement with battery holder.

Alright, very cool! 386 machines are a lot of fun to play with. They're the first 32 bit PCs, so they're a little slow for later 32 bit games or Windows 95, but they are absolute speed demons for 16 bit programs, and do well with Windows 3.1.

They're the fastest class of machine that have only a 16 bit ISA bus by definition. 486 systems on the other hand can (and therefore, from a system builder's perspective, you might say "should", otherwise why the 486?) have a VLB bus, which means much faster graphics... but a 386 can max out a fast ISA graphics card and you can have a lot of fun that way.

I have a video on YouTube in which I built a 386 machine a few years ago, and there is some info in there about the issues I encountered while building it. You may find it useful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0zZlfXppV0

From what I can see, you have really scored big time with this machine.

Here are your specs from what I can see in the images:

-DTK PEM-3301 Cache 386 motherboard - good that it supports cache. That will help a 386 along nicely. Here is the manual for your motherboard: https://theretroweb.com/motherboard/manual/pe … 31662660119.pdf
-Installed cache: Not sure, I can't find info on those chips. But I'm guessing it's 64KB.
-Intel 386DX-33 (the fastest Intel 386, and an excellent choice for a fast machine. AMD 386DX-40 is the absolute fastest 386, and a lot of people choose those, but I like the 386-33 because I'm an Intel snob)
-387 math coprocessor (not a lot of 2D games use this, but it's neat to round out the complement by filling that copro socket)
-8MB RAM (in those SIMM sockets)
-1988 Datatech 386 BIOS (I don't know much about this BIOS, but that's fairly early for a 386-33. Would have been a very high end machine at the time.)
-ATI VGA Wonder 16 - a neat graphics card, but unfortunately among the slowest 16 bit ISA video cards for DOS. I like the WD90Cxx series, like the WD90C11, WD90C30, and WD90C31 for excellent speed and compatibility. The Cirrus Logic 542x series is also very good. Both of these will match the more commonly recommended ET4000 for speed but will not have the compatibility issues the ET4000 is plagued with.
-Seagate ST3144A hard drive. Check out the specs here: https://theretroweb.com/harddrives/68 - 131 MB is an alright capacity for a 386, but you may find yourself wanting more. Max capacity for this machine is likely 504MB. You can use a hard drive or a low capacity Compact Flash card as they are IDE compatible.
-Some kind of floppy+IDE combo controller

Overall a very nice machine.

Yes, that Dallas DS1287 chip is indeed your "CMOS battery" - it is the real time clock chip, and has the battery inside of it. These chips are the bane of every vintage PC enthusiast, because the battery dies inside of them and you can't replace it.

Your options are:
-Replace the entire chip with a new DS1287 or compatible
-Replace the entire chip with one of these nifty things, which has a normal coin battery socket: https://www.ebay.com/itm/134217827379

Let's see what you have on hand in terms of Sound Blaster cards! An SB Pro 2.0 or SB16 would fit this machine nicely.

MS-DOS 5.0 is an excellent choice of operating system. Because it's a 386, you can ditch the bulky HIMEM+EMM386 memory management software DOS comes with, and use JEMMEX instead - you'll get ~700K free RAM this way.

I would love to see pictures of the outside of it. I'm pretty sure id Software used DTK 386-33s when they built Commander Keen - they appear in early photos of John Carmack at work. You may have a very similar, or perhaps identical, machine.

Incidentally, a 386-33 is the perfect machine to play Commander Keen games on. I recommend perusing the KeenWiki and checking the "Mods" section to find new Keen games to play - the community has done an incredible job creating new games using the old engine. One of the best recent projects is called "Foray in the Forest".

I wish you luck in your endeavors! This is a fun project to embark upon.

Honthro wrote on Today, 02:46:

Hi everyone 👋

I recently picked up this DTK 386 system from Facebook Marketplace (messaged a lady selling a mirror about the beige box in the reflection!). I grew up on PCs in the late 90s and still have a retro Pentium III 450 100 MHz that I tinker with, but 386 territory is a bit before my time (was 5 in 1991) so hoping some folks on here can help guide me through reviving this beast.

Hi there!

Now, THAT is what I call entrepreneurship, seeing an ad for a mirror, spotting a cool computer and taking action! Kudos!

This 386 looks pristine! It is an insanely good find.

I am also a snob for the 33MHz Intel chips. I have one on an Asus 386 board, also with 8MB RAM, although no FPU.

I would leave the system as is (meaning not remove anything, even the modem) and just add an SB16 as well as an NE2000 or a 3c509.

If the disk gives trouble, I would swap it out for another small IDE disk.

64K cache is plenty for a 386, would not bother it at all.

What a great find! (if possible, please post a picture of the "beige box" too). If you can forget about FPS-games for a little while, this machine is the perfect way to explore the early to mid DOS era. Graphic Adventures, Puzzle games, Platformers, SIMs, RPG's ... so much great stuff... It even has a CO-PROCESSOR installed !!! So you could get into mindbending mathematical calculations and CAD design (or simply play the original Sim City which will make use of it). As others mentioned, a soundblaster is a a must though...

It's a fine system as is. I agree with what the others said.
Add a soundcard and maybe exchange the ATI VGA Wonder 16 to something else (since it's a bit slow, ex ATI VGA Wonder user here).
Like an Paradise VGA or an Western Digital WD90C00 or later model.
Since the system has shadow memory, loading a RAM BIOS utility to speed up VGA BIOS maybe isn't needed.
Loading a VESA VBE 1.2 TSR or using an older UniVESA/UniVBE utility might be a nice addition for picture viewers etc.
As an extra, an early CD-ROM drive isn't wrong, either. Mitsumi Lu005s or an vintage SCSI model.
The early PAS16 had an SCSI controller, for example. But some SB16 models had one, too.
In principle, every CD interface is fine. Except IDE/ATAPI, I would say.
The technology was still immature in the days of 386/486 PCs and ISA IDE host adapters.

It's a really good 386, but set your expectations right. You can't play DOOM in this PC (unless potato mode in fastdoom). Wolf3d , pinball dreams, pinball fantasies, stunts, point and click adventures yes.

keenmaster486 wrote on Today, 03:46:

-Replace the entire chip with one of these nifty things, which has a normal coin battery socket: https://www.ebay.com/itm/134217827379

I second this. I use these DS1287 replacements in all my 386 and 486 systems that need them. Very handy.

id recommend running xtide in some form to improve storage handling. I usually run it off a eeprom on a network nic, but there are other standalone isa card methods.
Ive used glitchworks and cf lite.
mt32 is also useful in this era so i try to run a mt32-pi in wavetable form. Paired with the picogus 2 it provides hw intelligent mode, otherwise softmpu is needed.

This looks like a very lovely system. 386 DX-33 is an ideal performance range for early 90s games, especially early VGA adventure and strategy titles.

As others have mentioned, you could replace the graphics card with something a bit faster, though that may not be entirely necessary depending on what you are playing.

You'll definitely want to add a sound card or two. A Sound Blaster Pro or compatible equivalent would be period correct for a 386. And something can do MIDI might be worth it if you're interested in going down that route.

I'd also go with a compact flash card + adapter for storage (256 - 512 MB would be ideal for this era).