i386 Finally Gone the Way of the Dodo

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Some guests to the party never really know when to leave and so is the case with our old friend i386 (for those old enough to remember its heyday). i386 was finally shown the door by the introduction of a new Linux kernel, ending an era. Windows XP, pay attention. :D

Developers of the Linux kernel decided to drop support for it. The 386-CPU's support was causing a few headaches for developers and killing it off "zaps quite a bit of complexity".
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My first PC was a 386...Tandy 2500 SX/20 with a working turbo button. man I feel old =(
 
Can XP actually run on a 386?
"Windows XP is not compatible with processors older than Pentium (such as 486) because it requires CMPXCHG8B instructions" according to Wikipedia.

Most Linux distributions have been compiling for 486 or later for quite a while, anyway.
 
pankkake said:
Can XP actually run on a 386?
"Windows XP is not compatible with processors older than Pentium (such as 486) because it requires CMPXCHG8B instructions" according to Wikipedia.

Most Linux distributions have been compiling for 486 or later for quite a while, anyway.
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Hell most linux distributions that were i386 compiled ran like shit on a 386 or a 486 anyway.
 
dyzophoria said:
developers had actually support for i386 til recently? :eek:
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Hell, Ubuntu was still compiling their 32-bit distro i386....nvm the fact that even the boss of UbuntuForums couldn't get Ubuntu to boot on 386, and Even a stripped down bare bones server install of Ubuntu ran like absolute shit and was unusable...they *still* compiled for i386

Lemmings follow lemmings so all the *buntu clones were still doing i386...and, well, Debian supports anything.
 
The first home computer we got was a 386, with 1MB of RAM. My first ever hardware upgrade I performed myself was upgrading that computer to 4MB of RAM. It had a 20MB hard drive, DOS, 2400 baud modem, upgraded to Windows 3.0 but it wouldn't run in color on that machine, first foray into local BBS multiplayer gaming with that PC. Long live the 386, good memories.
 
dyzophoria said:
developers had actually support for i386 til recently? :eek:
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Heck, Intel kept making 386 processors up until about five or six years ago. Definitely not for desktop use, but they did find a niche in the embedded market for a little while.
 
Ur_Mom said:
You feel old? My first Intel PC was a 8088. Damn.
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Yep... I had the original IBM PC back in 81. Had 64K RAM, and I was lucky enough to have CGA and 2 floppy drives! My uncle was a researcher for IBM, so I was able to get lucky and have him apply his employee discount. Still cost us close to $3000 for the unit.
 
Ahh, memories. I still have my AMD made 386sx16. It is soldered right to the mobo. Still not my first computer though, that was the Sinclair ZX80 with its screaming 3.25 Mhz cpu.
 
After high school I went to a community college and was working part time in an autocad classroom. They still taught manual drafting but had 286 computers also at that time with autocad.

I can still remember people working on one specific project where they had to make a 3D looking lamp as a wireframe. Then part of the homework was to have autocad remove lines that should be hidden. They would type in the command, put a note on the computer that it was working, and come back the next day and hope it was finished and that it had not crashed overnight.

When that teacher later got 386 machines with a math coprocessor he was really excited. It was like he had been given a Ferrari.

Oh, and he had a cabinet with a bunch of old files and programs on 8" floppy disks.

OK, one more good memory. All the old 286 and 386 machines were running dos, not windows. There were no CD drives. AutoCAD came on 14 floppy disks if I remember correctly. When it was time to install a new version I had to install it on each machine one by one, one disk at a time.
 
pgaster said:
After high school I went to a community college and was working part time in an autocad classroom. They still taught manual drafting but had 286 computers also at that time with autocad.

I can still remember people working on one specific project where they had to make a 3D looking lamp as a wireframe. Then part of the homework was to have autocad remove lines that should be hidden. They would type in the command, put a note on the computer that it was working, and come back the next day and hope it was finished and that it had not crashed overnight.

When that teacher later got 386 machines with a math coprocessor he was really excited. It was like he had been given a Ferrari.

Oh, and he had a cabinet with a bunch of old files and programs on 8" floppy disks.

OK, one more good memory. All the old 286 and 386 machines were running dos, not windows. There were no CD drives. AutoCAD came on 14 floppy disks if I remember correctly. When it was time to install a new version I had to install it on each machine one by one, one disk at a time.
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I think in my PC Parts Morgue I still have the Win3.1 floppy set.
 
My first computer was a Packard Bell 386. Started me on upgrading,put in a 486 so I could run Doom.
 
My first PC was an IBM PC XT (8088 yo!), with a 5.25" floppy drive and 10MB hard drive. Ran MS DOS 3.3. Good times.
 
It's good that Linus is officially signaling the end of i386 support. It may be a bit of a hassle for the specialized 386-class low power embedded cores which don't have 486+ instruction set.

The topic came up on /. recently. There are still likely to be 386 supporting distributions, and at least one does it by trapping the few invalid instructions and emulating that functionality.
 
Since the thread went to "my first PC"...

I used Commodore home computers first, but those don't really count.

My first PC was a bunch of parts from the "can't RMA back to manufacturers pile" at work. If the stuff worked, I could either have it for free or really cheap (old stuff with nothing wrong). So it was a home built 286-16 (I think it was AMD, but could have been Harris), with DIP memory and a full height 5.25" MFM drive running on a RLL ISA board (20MB overstoraged to 30MB), and a HGA clone (soon replaced by a 16 color CGA Plantronics video card). The case was a heavy boat anchor calibur IBM XT style one, and I had a 5150 clone keyboard.

That was also the first system I overclocked (~23 years ago). I desoldered the 16MHz oscillator and replaced it with a 20MHz one. On later boards, before the oscillator came socketed, I would install a socket after removing the original oscillator. If anyone remembers back then, yeah zip ties hold oscillators in the socket!
 
My first home computer was a Commodore 64 , my first PERSONAL computer was an IBM PS/2.

Those were the days ... of shitty computing :p
 
My first was a 286, but yeah most linux distros have been doing i586 or i686 these days for 32-bit builds. i486, i586, and i686 arent a WHOLE LOT different than i386, but obviously they have several new instructions. I believe i686 includes mmx.
 
I obviously used a 386 at school but my first PC was a 66 mhz 486. I remember that poc well. I also remember the blistering pace at which advances were happening back then. I got that thing right after intel made the 486 DX avalible and within 6 months there were already games and software that had a minimum requirement of 100 Mhz or better. I think I paid $600 or $800 just to have a CD-ROM and I can't recall how much the 20 MB HDD was. The total build was $2600.
 
I still remember my dad bringing home my first 386. 33mhz of sheer performance. There was strange pleasure of installing using floppies. Exiting windows to launch a little X-wing. The good ol days.
 
Skripka said:
Lemmings follow lemmings so all the *buntu clones were still doing i386...and, well, Debian supports anything.
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Actually Debian started requiring a 486 w/ Debian 3.1 (sarge, released June 6th, 2005); unless you compiled everything yourself (which is no fun if you're on a 386!)
 
man i am young..LOL first system i built i was 17...i think.. PIII 533, intels first 133FSB CPU, had it overclocked to... 614Mhz i think....
 
My first computer was a hand-me-down from my dad when he got his first 486. It was a 33MHz 386. Some of my favorite memories growing up were going with him to Hamvention and Computer Fest. I was always in awe at the sheer number of vendors selling everything from German enigmas to the latest processors at the time.
 
My first PC was a used Commodore 64, but if we aren't counting them, then it was a brand new, TOP of the line Pentium 100 w/ Win95, 4X cd-rom, 8MB of ram, a whopping 1GB HDD and a 2MB video card, along with a 33.6 ISA modem/soundcard combo. The computer along with a 14" SVGA monitor was roughly ~$2500 from Sam's Club.

MrGuvernment said:
man i am young..LOL first system i built i was 17...i think.. PIII 533, intels first 133FSB CPU, had it overclocked to... 614Mhz i think....
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I had the exact same cpu running @ 680mhz (4x 170mhz FSB baby!!) on a Slot One Soyo board. At the time it was the fastest cpu around on Anandtech, and most people couldn't believe how high the FSB was..God love the ole 440BX chipset (IIRC)..
 
pankkake said:
Can XP actually run on a 386?
"Windows XP is not compatible with processors older than Pentium (such as 486) because it requires CMPXCHG8B instructions" according to Wikipedia.

Most Linux distributions have been compiling for 486 or later for quite a while, anyway.
Click to expand...

When XP was first released, the minimum requirements were a 233MHz Pentium I and 64MB of RAM.
 
First computer I had was a 486sx that my dad bought for me. It had 8MB RAM and a 1GB hard drive (what was consumed with bad sectors unlike anything I have yet to see to this day). It ran Doom perfectly. We bought it used and it crashed within a year.

I started out using 386's and old Macs at school. Oregon Trail and Carmen Sandiego ftw.
 
Godmachine said:
My first home computer was a Commodore 64 , my first PERSONAL computer was an IBM PS/2.

Those were the days ... of shitty computing :p
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Those were the days of awesome computing. Compared to now... Yea, probably sucks. But, back then, it was the best. The C64 was more powerful than a Nintendo NES, and you could make your own games.

Those early days are what got me into computing. It was great, and that's what I was really good at. Just kept building on those skills to today. Now, I don't really know shit compared to some others, but I'm not that bad...
 
That's interesting that they were still producing 386 and 486 chips until 2007 for embedded applications.
 
Skripka said:
Then why does Debian on their d/l page list i386 on their website? Or is Debian being idiots and choose to play fast and loose and use i386 as a pseudonym for 32-bit?
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It's listed as i386, because it was appropriate historically, and changing the architecture name would be a big pain in the butt (for developers and users; this is why x86_64 is still called amd64). If you look at the release page, it says 32-bit PC (i386), http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/.
 
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