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Gifted two 386s

Caluser2000

Caluser2000

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Jan 3, 2010
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New Zealand
Got given a couple of 386s today.

A DX25 with co-pro, 8megs of ram, scsi controller with scsi 160meg hdd and 3.5" fdd. Works fine with wfw 3.11 installed on it. First ISA based scsi card I've had yippee!! The hard drive is labeled as an Apple product. Strange case with speed LEDs and a sliding door the hides the 51/4" bays.

The second, an SX of some sort, 16mhz I think, has an error on startup does the ram count and reboots. Can't seem to get into the bios for some reason, even though DEL is the correct key to press to access it. Came with a 50meg IDE hdd with some cool dos based software, including what looks like satellite tracking software. Direct Access is the front end to launch the programs. Tested that hdd is functioning ok by connecting it the one of my 486s that can auto detect the hdd size. This machine has the nicer case of the two. If I have no luck getting it running properly I'll just strip it. No sign on either of battery leakage.

A whole lot of disks came with them both 51/4" and 3.5" in various formats.

Edit:SCSI drive on the DX isn't being picked up now, bummer. Oh well, looks like I'll be fitting the good IDE drive in that.
 
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Maybe my description wasn't that great. Just has the MHz display. 25mhz high with 8mhz low. Camera battery is flat at the moment but I'll put pics up when I'm able. The SX board is toast. The DX is the more interesting of the two anyway. MITEK branded (local comp. support outfit) with Opti chip set. Hard case how it does the system check then the screen display slides once the checks have been completed. Is'nt really a particularly pretty case. The motherboard has a riser slot on the front left of the board. Not quite sure what that is for yet.

The DX needs a few things rearranged. I'll remove the 3.5" drive from it's current location in a 51/4" bay. Probably fit a bigfoot 4 gig in bottem 51/4" bay ,maybe a cdrom and 51/4" fdd in the other two. It'll be fitted with a DE-220 nic and sound card as well.

The SX had an 8bit nic with BNC connector I'll put aside in case an XT class machine falls into my lap. Not looking particularly hard for one though. And of course there's the fdds and psu I can use as spares.
 
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Bigfoot 4gig fitted with Ontrack DDO, DE-220 fitted. MSD reports the Bios date as 15 Jan 88. Everything I've run on it has done so without error. Looking closer at the mobo there isn't the traditional barrel or Dallas style rtc at all. It's holding bios settings fine though. Weird.

Tracked down a cdrom and fdd that's discoloured enough to not look out of place with the case. I've got the dig deeper for matching 51/4" drive though. I'm not usually this fussy.
 
Caluser2000 said:
Tracked down a cdrom and fdd that's discoloured enough to not look out of place with the case. I've got the dig deeper for matching 51/4 drive though. I'm not usually this fussy.
Click to expand...

Hey now you're talking my language! :) Perhaps it's time to start a thread about how to make newer plastic look older so it isn't such an eyesore. Maybe we could formulate something. Ha!
 
Honestly I've looked for beiged CD drives before as a snow white drive looks odd in a yellow case :p.

As for the lack of a visible RTC or battery...I had a 386 board that was the exact same way, no battery header, no Dallas or compatible RTC or SRAM box, but somehow it kept time and kept the CMOS settings...
 
Looking at the few other earlier 386 mobos I gather the extra slot front left is for cache ram, something to keep a eye out for I guess. Haven't found one with exact same configuration though. Close but not quite the same.
 
intense UV rays should yellow plastic nicely, though different plastics will yellow drastically different sometimes.

SCSI is awesome... why not track down another SCSI drive?

please post pictures, if you would?
 
SCSI drives don't really come up that often in our neck of the woods whereas IDE drives are readily available. The bigfoot with overlay seems to be as quick as the 160meg SCSI drive it replaced anyway. I'd like to go the CF card route eventually but have to kill the few dozen IDE drives I've accumulated first. I don't like wasting anything.

I promise to post pics this weekend.

I wasn't expecting to get this beasty and have a few other projects on the boil. An unexpected email from a chap I'd won a previous local auction remembered I collected older kit and was kind enough to deliver it to my door step.
 
Pic of testing prior to re-assembly. Found a suitable 51/4 drive. Used a soft brush to remove the mouse poo and corrosion. Had a few senior moments but all sorted. Final assembly will be done tomorrow. The camera flash makes components it look whiter than they actually are.

The PC Cards for the RiscPCs arrived this morning, as did the two PC Dos 6.3 bundles and Risc OS 3.6 manuals so I'll be having a play with them.
 

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A week late. Finally altogether. Cd tray kept jamming so fitted an old cdrom drive and found that the fdd ribbon cable wouldn't connect to the 3.5" fdd when located on the side. Digging through the bag of cables in the garage soon had that issue sorted. Pics of the peek-a-boo slide setup below. Not the best pictures but you get the idea.

Edit-added small gif of gui showing all the drives and pic of something I use on a daily basis that is 10 years older than any computer I own just for a bit of variety. The bag on the seat has contained a few PC parts over the years.
 

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Nice to see you got it all in working order. A vertical floppy drive and the drive bays cover is a neat combination. I assume you use your motorcycle for local PC emergencies with your repair kit in the strapped bag? :)
 
Caluser2000 said:
...The bigfoot with overlay seems to be as quick as the 160meg SCSI drive it replaced anyway.
Click to expand...
Now that's something I never thought I would hear, "bigfoot" and "quick" in the same sentence ;-)

Joking aside, that's a really nice score!! I need to get some 386 boxen, its about the only era not represented in my collection right now, had to pear down my collection a few years back when I moved, now that I have the space again I should start looking.
 
Cheers folks. Le Trog(the m/c) is just generally used for pickups of yesteryears relic parts. Best purchase I ever made. Sorta 386sx of the motorcycling world-nothing flash but gets the job done. Has been refered to as the motorcycle of last resort ;).
 
Just been going through all the old screws and expansion slot plates, replacing all the rusted items just for the hell of it. I'm also toying with the idea of bead blasting the case and getting it powder coated. I've rearranged the hobby area now the I have the 19" CRT in place. I'll have to get a couple of KVM leads as well.

Tomorrow I might crawl under the house and relocate the 50ohm coax..... That'll be fun with the grandson tagging along.
 
Time for another toodle on the 386. Attempted to install Windows 3.1 using the 3.5" disks I've used for years( bought them new in the early 90s) and disk 4 gave an error on a couple of files. I pulled out the 51/4s I have that I got for a few $ including all the packaging/books etc and all went well. First time I've used 51/4s for decades and bought back fond memories of my 286. I suspect it's more drive alignment issue on the 3.5" than anything else though. No marks on the disks to indicate they're damaged in any way.

Just been going though my Win 3.x era stuff to see what else I've got. Seems I haven't thrown much away judging from the boxes I've just been though. I really should make an inventory of it.................
 
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Just been testing the nic with packet driver and the mTCP suite of tools. All is well. Just hooked them up using coax. They're only to feet apart. I'll have a shot at setting up networking WfW at some point. It's been a while. A copy of MS Dos 6.21 & WfW turned up yesterday. Quite pleasantly surprised how well win 3.x runs on this thing.

Tracked own a nice PM FTP client for OS/2 off Hobbes today as well. Also unboxed my new, to me, Acorn machines. They'll the last machines I'll be getting for quite some time.
 
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