My 486 with the Amptron DX-9700 m919v3 motherboard

[scharfshutze009]

Here are the specs

CPU

Supports 80486/5x86 Processor running at 25 up 133 MHz.
Intel P24D, P24T, DX4(P24C), DX/DX2-SL, 80486DX2/DX/SX.
Cyrix/IBM/Ti/SGS DX/DX2/DX4.
AMD Enhance DX2/DX4
Cyrix/IBM/AMD 5x86.
Architecture

3 PCI Local Bus slots and 4 x 16 bits ISA Bus slots include One 32-bit VL-Bus Master slot.
Cache Memory Slot

128K/256K/512K/1024KB asynchronous SRAM module supported.
System Memory

Use 72-pin SIMM modules x 4 auto banking or 30-pin SIMM modules x 4, 72-pin SIMM x 2 (The 72-pin SIMM modules x 2 should be the same size) in multiple configuration up to128MB using combinations of 256K, 1M, 2M,
4M, 8M, 16M, 32M, 64M SIMM Modules.
I/O SPEC.

2 PCI IDE interface on board support ATA spec.
Support two 16550 compatible enhanced serial port. up to mode 4 IDE interface. Floppy disk interface and, EPP/ECP high performance parallel port function,
System BIOS

Supports Flash ROM, Plug and Play, Green Feature, NCR 810 SCSI BIOS.

I currently have the AOpen S3 Virge 4MB PCI Graphics card, a US Robotics 56K ISA Modem, A VLB (VESA Local Bus) SCSI card, 256MB of RAM, and a AMD 5x86 P75 133Mhz CPU in this computer with an Athena Power 400 Watt AT Power Supply.

 

[Perilous]

Yo, Danny, you need to upload smaller pictures.

 

[LightningCrash]

I want one of these:

 

[dandragonrage]

Where's your Gravis Ultrasound?

 

[papa_lazarou]

That's a beast. How's the overclocking?

 

[scharfshutze009]

That's a beast. How's the overclocking?

It's not overclocked and it never will be. Besides I can't even get it to boot from any drive that I can install an OS from.

 

[cyclone3d]

Holy thread necro Batman.

 

[weebob]

Cool, I loved my S3 Virge.


.... but does it run crysis

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

Where's your Gravis Ultrasound?

Or at least an AWE32?

Cool, I loved my S3 Virge.


.... but does it run crysis

I think trying to run Crysis on an S3 86c925 would cause there to be a crater where the graphics chip used to be

I want one of these:

I'd have been drooling more if it had dual DX CPUs with built-in FPU. On that note, I recall seeing a Compaq ProLiant Quad P66 system running NT 3.x that I thought was to die for back in '93-94

 

[Red Falcon]

Oh boy, this brings back some good memories.
I have to agree, if that P2-motherboard supported DX CPUs, it would be a much better deal; dat FPU.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

Oh boy, this brings back some good memories.
I have to agree, if that P2-motherboard supported DX CPUs, it would be a much better deal; dat FPU.

That particular model only supports SX CPUs? I did not know this. And yes, glorious, glorious x87. Integrated FPU? 1.2M transistors? What kind of witchcraft is this, I say?

I am almost inspired to take some photos of the vintage stuff I have and post them. A very small collection, but suits my compatibility needs

 

[Red Falcon]

That particular model only supports SX CPUs? I did not know this. And yes, glorious, glorious x87. Integrated FPU? 1.2M transistors? What kind of witchcraft is this, I say?

I am almost inspired to take some photos of the vintage stuff I have and post them. A very small collection, but suits my compatibility needs

LOL

Same amount of transistors as my 68040!
Who needs x87 when you can have 68882/68881 FPU?

68040 vs 80486
WHO WILL WIN?!

 

[dandragonrage]

Man, I wish Intel had lost that war. 68k was better than anything Intel had at the time. I want a 68060 machine just to see what that was like.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

LOL

Same amount of transistors as my 68040!
Who needs x87 when you can have 68882/68881 FPU?

68040 vs 80486
WHO WILL WIN?!

I bet if the 68040 scaled in clock (topped out at 40MHz, the 50MHz version was scrapped due to overheating issues) like the 486 did I do believe we both know the answer to that question.

Man, I wish Intel had lost that war. 68k was better than anything Intel had at the time. I want a 68060 machine just to see what that was like.

So was the 603e versus the Pentium in many cases. But marketing dollars and business alliances talk and everything else walks, even if it happens to be better technology.

 

[Red Falcon]

Man, I wish Intel had lost that war. 68k was better than anything Intel had at the time. I want a 68060 machine just to see what that was like.

Oh, I hear you on that.
68060 systems are super rare, and even more expensive.

In terms of performance, I believe the 68060 was about on par, clock-for-clock, to the Pentium.
For integer performance, the 68060 was faster, but when it came to the FPU, it lost out badly, and couldn't be overclocked to the speed that the Pentium could.

Those systems can still run older/custom versions of Linux, as well as NetBSD if you wanted to run modern software on them as well.
20+ year old software is cool and all, but not very secure at this point.

 

[bds1904]

This brings me back to my old pentium overdrive 83mhz. That thing was a huge step up from the i486DX2-66 it replaced. I remember microsoft flight simulator being wonderful after that... oh old games.

 

[GoldenTiger]

I remember my Pentium 90mhz server rig with 1GB hard drive... it was absolutely insane for the time . I used computers back to the 8086 and 286 at home, but the server... was mine !

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

This brings me back to my old pentium overdrive 83mhz. That thing was a huge step up from the i486DX2-66 it replaced. I remember microsoft flight simulator being wonderful after that... oh old games.

I had said overdrive chip as well, but still was no substitute for a real-deal Pentium.

 

[Oleg34]

I have tons of SDRAM for it somewhere.

 

[scharfshutze009]

I have tons of SDRAM for it somewhere.

For you or for me. You realize this board does not take SDRAM and actually only supports SRAM.

 

[scharfshutze009]

Oh, I hear you on that.
68060 systems are super rare, and even more expensive.

In terms of performance, I believe the 68060 was about on par, clock-for-clock, to the Pentium.
For integer performance, the 68060 was faster, but when it came to the FPU, it lost out badly, and couldn't be overclocked to the speed that the Pentium could.

Those systems can still run older/custom versions of Linux, as well as NetBSD if you wanted to run modern software on them as well.
20+ year old software is cool and all, but not very secure at this point.

Yea, but I still need to be able to boot from floppy to install Linux, NetBSD, or Novell don't I and this board will not do it for some reason.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

For you or for me. You realize this board does not take SDRAM and actually only supports Fast Page mode DRAM.

FTFY.

 

[Red Falcon]

FTFY.

Dat FPM DRAM.
I'm enjoying 256MB of the stuff with my 68040.

Yea, but I still need to be able to boot from floppy to install Linux, NetBSD, or Novell don't I and this board will not do it for some reason.

Sometimes these older systems will allow booting from an optical drive, which would be far more ideal.
Do you have a PATA/IDE or SCSI controller with an older (6x or lower) CD-ROM drive by any chance?

Also, this might help: http://hackaday.com/2011/08/12/installing-linux-on-a-386-laptop/

 

[scharfshutze009]

Dat FPM DRAM.
I'm enjoying 256MB of the stuff with my 68040.




Sometimes these older systems will allow booting from an optical drive, which would be far more ideal.
Do you have a PATA/IDE or SCSI controller with an older (6x or lower) CD-ROM drive by any chance?

Also, this might help: http://hackaday.com/2011/08/12/installing-linux-on-a-386-laptop/

I have an adaptec VESA SCSI card, but I don't have the manual and adaptec won't reply to the email in which I asked them for support with this device. I also have a couple adaptec ISA SCSI cards, with the same problem. The computer has a CD-ROM drive, but I'm not sure what spead and it has an IOMEGA CD-Writer Drive that I'm not sure of the speed on either and I'm unable to check because I'm not at home because I'm living between two places. The person I bought the motherboard said that I would lose DMA channels if I installed more than 64MB of RAM, which makes me wonder why this board even supports that much because apparently that's when you start losing things like Floppy Drive support. However, losing DMA channels is no longer a problem because I don't have more than 64 MB memory installed any more. I'm guessing that once you get everyihing installed that requires booting from floppy then you can increase to 256MB if you no longer need the floppy drive, but that sounds like a real hassle of constantly taking and puting the side of the case back on. I guess people did that though if they want 256 MB with these boards though.

 

[Red Falcon]

I have an adaptec VESA SCSI card, but I don't have the manual and adaptec won't reply to the email in which I asked them for support with this device. I also have a couple adaptec ISA SCSI cards, with the same problem. The computer has a CD-ROM drive, but I'm not sure what spead and it has an IOMEGA CD-Writer Drive that I'm not sure of the speed on either and I'm unable to check because I'm not at home because I'm living between two places. The person I bought the motherboard said that I would lose DMA channels if I installed more than 64MB of RAM, which makes me wonder why this board even supports that much because apparently that's when you start losing things like Floppy Drive support. However, losing DMA channels is no longer a problem because I don't have more than 64 MB memory installed any more. I'm guessing that once you get everyihing installed that requires booting from floppy then you can increase to 256MB if you no longer need the floppy drive, but that sounds like a real hassle of constantly taking and puting the side of the case back on. I guess people did that though if they want 256 MB with these boards though.

That makes logical sense, so use 64MB or less during the initial setup, then increase it later once everything is done; you could also just leave the side off until you are done, I did that with my Quadra 950 for months until it was finally completed.
As for the optical drives you mentioned, I'm not sure what the models are, but I can tell you, they are probably between a 1x and 4x read-speed.

If you have to create a NetBSD (or other OS) installation disc, make sure to burn it at the lowest possible speed, no faster than 8x if possible.
Discs which are burned at higher speeds are difficult for older, lower-speed optical drives to read and access.

I had this same issue when using an Apple CD-300 SCSI CD-ROM drive which could read discs at 1x or 2x maximum.
When burning discs at 8x or lower, they could be read, but anything higher than 8x and the discs would start to give read-errors and wouldn't work properly.

Really, at the start, you aren't looking for performance as much as compatibility.
Once everything has been setup, then you can max the system out as much as possible.


EDIT:
I was looking at your motherboard again, and just realized it has two PATA ports built-in.
What you might be able to do, is install NetBSD or GNU/Linux on a PATA HDD on a third-party system, and then move the drive over to this system.

It might require a pre-i686 32-bit OS to work, but I see no reason it shouldn't.
This would allow you to bypass trying to boot from an optical drive on your system.

This system is x86, so it should be vastly easier to setup than non-x86 systems from that era, especially with its backwards compatibility (Intel did something right there).

 

[scharfshutze009]

Yo, Danny, you need to upload smaller pictures.

Whatever, I wanted them to see the details of the board I can't help it if they don't have a high enough resolution monitor if they hope to notice the detail and besides the picture turned out blurry anyway. Hopefully, this isn't considered thread neckroing either especially, since it's my own thread.

 

[Red Falcon]

Whatever, I wanted them to see the details of the board I can't help it if they don't have a high enough resolution monitor if they hope to notice the detail and besides the picture turned out blurry anyway. Hopefully, this isn't considered thread neckroing either especially, since it's my own thread.

How dare you not support those tiny 1024x600 netbook resolutions.
If your images aren't 160x120, then no soup for you!

 

[Red Falcon]

I had said overdrive chip as well, but still was no substitute for a real-deal Pentium.

I know this post is really old, but just wanted to say that you are right.
The Pentium Overdrive was a real Pentium, but the data bus was only 32-bit, compared to the 64-bit data bus of the native Pentium.

This was done in order to fit the 32-bit data bus of the 80486, but because of this, it took two clock cycles to do what the native Pentium could do in one clock cycle due to half the data bus.
Very similar to to the 8086 vs an 8088; both are 16-bit CPUs, but the 8088 only had an 8-bit data bus, resulting in half the performance at the cost of compatibility with 8-bit ICs back in the day.

Cheers!

 

[scharfshutze009]

How dare you not support those tiny 1024x600 netbook resolutions.
If your images aren't 160x120, then no soup for you!

I would, but didn't consider this because I've never own a netbook or felt it was necessary. Also, aren't they considered a failed product anyway, even though I should be nice and be considerate of them anyway hoping this reply won't be considered thread necroing.

 

[scharfshutze009]

I know this post is really old, but just wanted to say that you are right.
The Pentium Overdrive was a real Pentium, but the data bus was only 32-bit, compared to the 64-bit data bus of the native Pentium.

This was done in order to fit the 32-bit data bus of the 80486, but because of this, it took two clock cycles to do what the native Pentium could do in one clock cycle due to half the data bus.
Very similar to to the 8086 vs an 8088; both are 16-bit CPUs, but the 8088 only had an 8-bit data bus, resulting in half the performance at the cost of compatibility with 8-bit ICs back in the day.

Cheers!

Thanks, that's such a minuet detail that I used to be good at remembering especially when you compare it to the 8088, but glad you brought that up and that you knew. What a difference it probably makes too considering it took two clock cycles to complete. Hopefully, my reply isn't considered thread necroing either.

 

[Red Falcon]

I would, but didn't consider this because I've never own a netbook or felt it was necessary. Also, aren't they considered a failed product anyway, even though I should be nice and be considerate of them anyway hoping this reply won't be considered thread necroing.

haha, don't worry about it, in fact, I never realized the original post was from 2010 until you mentioned it.
It is your thread, though, so if you want to resurrect it again in 2020, that's cool, too.

Yes, netbooks failed hard as CPU technology (Intel Atom) were not powerful enough to do anything worth while, and even basic web browsing was a chore for those systems.
Not to mention, smartphones and tablets started to take off, did what those netbooks should have done, did it better, and then squashed them with both battery life and performance by 2011, so you are right about them being a failed product.

I still enjoy them as glorfied portable terminals, since tablets and smartphones never really filled that niche area, but that task is hardly mainstream and is more for convenience than anything else.

Thanks, that's such a minuet detail that I used to be good at remembering especially when you compare it to the 8088, but glad you brought that up and that you knew. What a difference it probably makes too considering it took two clock cycles to complete. Hopefully, my reply isn't considered thread necroing either.

Oh definitely, and that's why the 386DX was such an advantage over the 386SX as well, as the SX only had a 16-bit data bus, compared to the DX's full 32-bit data bus.
The 88 and SX models were kind of the "Celeron" processors of their time, being low-cost but still keeping the compatibility of the full processors.

The NEC V20 was an 8088-compatible CPU which gave an automatic 10% performance boost, and had 8080 ISA compatibility as well built in; it was a nice drop-in upgrade for systems back then.
The NEC V30 was an 8086-compatible CPU with 8080 ISA compatibility, but the V33 was an 8086-compatible CPU with 80286 performance-per-clock, and was about three times faster clock-for-clock over the stock 8086.

There was also an NEC V33A which was an 80286 ISA compatible processor with protected memory mode as an alternative, and those can be found pretty easily on Yahoo Japan Auctions (or a proxy like buyee.jp).
This stuff was a lot of fun and I'm glad you and the others here enjoy it so much!

You might enjoy this video, if you have time:

 

[buzzbomb]

Extra points for picking up a 2-year old conversation like no time has passed!

 

[H1HID]

This thread really brightens my day. reminds me of my very first PC. A Packard bell 386SX-20 with 2MB of ram and a 120 MB HDD. It came with dos 5.0 and MS windows 3.0

 

[Red Falcon]

This thread really brightens my day. reminds me of my very first PC. A Packard bell 386SX-20 with 2MB of ram and a 120 MB HDD. It came with dos 5.0 and MS windows 3.0

You might enjoy this thread as well, especially page 2.
It's amazing to see how far this tech has come in the last 30+ years, but the older the tech, the more fun it is to go back and rediscover it!