Just bought this 386 motherboard off ebay today. It was advertised as working, so I am hoping that there will not be much pain in getting it to work.

When I was looking at the ad, I noticed a couple of interesting things about it that caught my eye:
First, it uses SIPPs. The ad said it is maxed out in RAM capacity.
Second, it includes the 387 coprocessor.
Third, and possibly most interestingly, it has a spot for a 287. This is the most interesting thing in my opinion. Why would a 386 motherboard use a 287? Does it use it in addition to the 387? Or is it perhaps just for if you were too cheap to buy a 387?

This is my first desktop 386 machine, so I am pretty excited to add it to my collection. I have a PS/2 P70 and a Compaq SLT 386/20, but I have never owned a desktop 386.

When the first 386 CPUs were released the 387 was not available - so early 386 motherboards had 287 sockets.

dkarguth wrote:

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/dk4AAOSwmetcXLvQ/s-l1600.jpg […]
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at first glance looks like extremely early 386 board, but datecodes on some chips are from 93? 😮 so extremely budget

Where have you seen a 93 date code ? All I saw was 89 datecode.

Even by 1993, a board of this size with that many chips couldn't have been cheap.

Deksor wrote:

Where have you seen a 93 date code ? All I saw was 89 datecode.

you are right, it was 893 with 8 being mangled by jpeg compression

dkarguth wrote:

Just bought this 386 motherboard off ebay today. It was advertised as working, so I am hoping that there will not be much pain i […]
Show full quote

Just bought this 386 motherboard off ebay today. It was advertised as working, so I am hoping that there will not be much pain in getting it to work.

When I was looking at the ad, I noticed a couple of interesting things about it that caught my eye:
First, it uses SIPPs. The ad said it is maxed out in RAM capacity.
Second, it includes the 387 coprocessor.
Third, and possibly most interestingly, it has a spot for a 287. This is the most interesting thing in my opinion. Why would a 386 motherboard use a 287? Does it use it in addition to the 387? Or is it perhaps just for if you were too cheap to buy a 387?

This is my first desktop 386 machine, so I am pretty excited to add it to my collection. I have a PS/2 P70 and a Compaq SLT 386/20, but I have never owned a desktop 386.

Nice board, have almost the same - #2 here:
80386 BIOS image collection

This was sitting on eBay for months now. Decided to lowball the seller and sure enough he accepted. Seems he just wanted to get rid of it.
Interestingly the datecode on the card shows 3rd quarter 1996, while the BIOS chip says 1999.

ATI Xclaim VR (Rage II, 4 MB)

Have got this card on ebay last month.

It's full boxed version of ELSA Synergy II (nvidia workstation card) with Riva TNT2 chip.

Found a "Zoltrix Nightigale Pro 6" in a local thrift store for the equivalent of $2.
No idea if its any good, works fine tho.

bofh.fromhell wrote:

Found a "Zoltrix Nightigale Pro 6" in a local thrift store for the equivalent of $2.
No idea if its any good, works fine tho.

Seems like a decent sound card after looking it up. Did yours come with the extra audio port daughter board?

liqmat wrote:

Seems like a decent sound card after looking it up. Did yours come with the extra audio port paddle board?

Unfortunatly not, just the board.

Buying a lot of stuff as I'm visiting a recycler every other week or so for the last 2,5 years now. I found a lot of my hardware there, it's cheap when it works and becomes expensive very quickly when stuff is broken and I get around 1/3 of the price back. But it is worth it none the less and I am extremely happy they let me go trough all of the stuff . Even better: they start recognizing stuff that I might want and keep it separated for me 🤣

It is amazing how much old stuff still comes trough every once and a while, but it is getting less and less...

I bought a big chunk of my collection from them and wouldn't have been able to find a lot of it without the place. Especially because of the fact that I don't use Ebay.

2 weeks back they got a massive lot of cpu's from i7 down to 386 etc. and I helped sorting them out partially on a saturday! Ofcourse I went for the older loads (like ceramic cpu's) already sorted into giant baskets full of s7, 486 etc. They sell off the i5/i7 etc. for about normal going rate after checking them btw.

I already had a lot of cpu's and again: they are not exactly free (and all have bend pins that need to be straigtened by me!!) otherwise I would have saved A LOT more....so I sorted these for myself:

A bunch of Cyrix5x86 (including a 120GP!), IDT winchip 2's, Via C3's, AMD k5-166 and k6-III etc. and a VERY nice socket 8 Pentium overdive 333 cpu. I also like the evergreen AMD 586 P75.

I do have one question. Does anybody have any info about the IBM cpu on the small pcb? Is this also something like the evergreen and capable of running on a 5v motherboard?

that p2 overdrive is worth everything else combined times two. Provided it works. Its worth the effort to find the heatsink!

I received this today :

50 brand new 5"1/4 HD floppy disks that seem to work flawlessly

and a NOS MS-DOS 5.0

I also received a new power rocker switch to complete my AT case that lacked one, see here : Replacing a rocker switch on a AT case

luckybob wrote:

that p2 overdrive is worth everything else combined times two. Provided it works. Its worth the effort to find the heatsink!

Thanks, couldn't find a price on it on Ebay since there only is a spanking new boxed one on there. So what is it worth when it works? Doesn't really matter a lot as I will not sell it but it is fun to know.
Can not test it for a long time probably as I only have one pentium pro board and I am not willing to risk it on a maybe bad cpu.... but I will find another one and then test it.

I asked about the heatsink but it wasn't there. They get this stuff pretty much pre-sorted from customers who know what they have (in gold value that is...) and take all coolers, brackets, bios chips, batteries etc. etc. off. I do find complete stuff also from others that they buy from but the majority has been gone trough (but even that can be fixed sometimes and/or works fine).

it varies, but $100-$150(US) seems "normal" right now.

luckybob wrote:

it varies, but $100-$150(US) seems "normal" right now.

I would have guessed a 100. And it that case it is not the same as all the others as I paid on average 6-7 euro per cpu I think (bought more stuff). But I know what you mean and I was glad to get it!

I have the cx5x86-100 CPU as above with a green heatsink, does not run at 120mhz I was surprised as it's like a 97 or 98 build CPU.

meljor wrote:

Buying a lot of stuff as I'm visiting a recycler every other week or so for the last 2,5 years now. I found a lot of my hardware there, it's cheap when it works and becomes expensive very quickly when stuff is broken and I get around 1/3 of the price back. But it is worth it none the less and I am extremely happy they let me go trough all of the stuff . Even better: they start recognizing stuff that I might want and keep it separated for me 🤣

It is amazing how much old stuff still comes trough every once and a while, but it is getting less and less...

Nice man. I have contacted two major e-waste recyclers in my area in the past; one didn't reply and the other one simply wrote that sorting out old stuff isn't interesting for them (I even offered money for it). I have also read somewhere that they are not allowed to sell stuff that was collected for recycling (some kind of EU policy). On top of that in recent months I have also not been able anymore to take something home out of the electronics container at my municipal waste facility. They have way too many staff keeping an eye on everyone and everything plus now they put the big appliances in front of the smaller electronics, so I can't take anything out of it. It's just so stupid; lots of old computer hardware could get a second life in enthusiasts hands but they rather recycle it and make a Samsung Galaxy out of it that will end at e-waste within 4 years after production 😒

SpectriaForce wrote:

meljor wrote:

Buying a lot of stuff as I'm visiting a recycler every other week or so for the last 2,5 years now. I found a lot of my hardware there, it's cheap when it works and becomes expensive very quickly when stuff is broken and I get around 1/3 of the price back. But it is worth it none the less and I am extremely happy they let me go trough all of the stuff . Even better: they start recognizing stuff that I might want and keep it separated for me 🤣

It is amazing how much old stuff still comes trough every once and a while, but it is getting less and less...

Nice man. I have contacted two major e-waste recyclers in my area in the past; one didn't reply and the other one simply wrote that sorting out old stuff isn't interesting for them (I even offered money for it). I have also read somewhere that they are not allowed to sell stuff that was collected for recycling (some kind of EU policy). On top of that in recent months I have also not been able anymore to take something home out of the electronics container at my municipal waste facility. They have way too many staff keeping an eye on everyone and everything plus now they put the big appliances in front of the smaller electronics, so I can't take anything out of it. It's just so stupid; lots of old computer hardware could get a second life in enthusiasts hands but they rather recycle it and make a Samsung Galaxy out of it that will end at e-waste within 4 years after production 😒

Yeah I know what you mean. I'ts the same here at the normal waste recycling center, you can take nothing at all... that's why I feel extremely lucky that I can at the recycling that I come now for such a long time. Not everybody can come they said, I simply treat everybody with respect, never complain about anything and am glad to pay something extra so it is nice for them too.

My only problem? I got way too much stuff and have to keep my collection in check (but it keeps on growing anyway 🤣 )