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So who has one of those oddball 486 systems?

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Unknown_K

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The 486 3D thread has a video posted for the rare Creative 3D Blaster card. I watched the video and when it was done there was a link to the Computer Chronicles showcasing the 486. They showed a funky old DELL 486/50 with a special card for the CPU that plugs into the mainboard, and a second system where they stuffed a whole video card onto that CPU daughterboard and it was speedy. Makes me wonder if that prototype made it to market and other oddball setups like that before standard VLB, EISA, and PCI took over. They also had some company that showed a modular system where the whole drive section came off with a handle (never seen that in a retail machine) so that you could swap your setup to a working machine while the techs fumbled around with the old dead motherboard.

I have all kinds of 486 setups but none of them are that exotic other then the BUS used (ISA, VLB, MCA, EISA). I guess my PS/2 model 90 with the removable processor card might be close.

Anyone have an oddball system?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdFJZKJMerA
 
Acorns RiscPCs with 486 co-processor are certainly oddball ;)

On my CDS 524 and 5522 Compaqs the mobo tray slides out and can be swapped around leaving the monitor hdd, cdrom and fdd in place.
 
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I have several of those Dell processor cards, some with and some without the 486DX-50 CPU. That's because I already sold some of the CPUs without the processor boards.
 
Caluser2000 said:
Acorns RiscPCs with 486 co-processor are certainly oddball ;)

On my CDS 524 and 5522 Compaqs the mobo tray slides out and can be swapped around leaving the monitor hdd, cdrom and fdd in place.
Click to expand...

If you mention the co-pro slice than don't forget the SunPC Sbus cards.
I'm pretty sure ALR made something absurd for the 486. They did make some absurdly powerful and proprietary systems for the 386 and Pentium series.
 
When I was growing up a friend owned a 386 that used a CPU card. I don't have any PC's like that now, but I do have the IBM 6150 which has a big processor card and 16Mb of 'high speed' ECC RAM.
 
Stone said:
I have several of those Dell processor cards, some with and some without the 486DX-50 CPU. That's because I already sold some of the CPUs without the processor boards.
Click to expand...

Did you have any of the machines or just the CPU modules?
 
Does a Powermac 6100/66 DOS Compatible count? Its DOS card uses a 486DX2/66, has local bus video on board, plus it has a mini Soundblaster 16 daughter card!

vwestlife has a Leading Edge Model D4/MT which uses a CPU card and has an Opti Local Bus slot for 32-bit video cards.
 
Unknown_K said:
The 486 3D thread has a video posted for the rare Creative 3D Blaster card. I watched the video and when it was done there was a link to the Computer Chronicles showcasing the 486. They showed a funky old DELL 486/50 with a special card for the CPU that plugs into the mainboard, and a second system where they stuffed a whole video card onto that CPU daughterboard and it was speedy. Makes me wonder if that prototype made it to market and other oddball setups like that before standard VLB, EISA, and PCI took over. They also had some company that showed a modular system where the whole drive section came off with a handle (never seen that in a retail machine) so that you could swap your setup to a working machine while the techs fumbled around with the old dead motherboard.

I have all kinds of 486 setups but none of them are that exotic other then the BUS used (ISA, VLB, MCA, EISA). I guess my PS/2 model 90 with the removable processor card might be close.

Anyone have an oddball system?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdFJZKJMerA
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about the Dell, but the second modular computer they showed was an AST of some sort. I believe all or most of the ASTs at that time used a "CUPID" bus backplane setup with proprietary 64-pin DRAMs. I've wanted one of their EISA systems with a 386 CPU card for a while, but the weirdo memory is kind of a turnoff.

I am now the proud owner of this neat Acer motherboard that does pretty much the same thing. It takes anything from a single 486 all the way up to dual Pentium 100s. Mine is a VL-EISA backplane with a dual P60 processor card. Takes up to 1MB L2 cache and 512mb in 72 pin SIMMs. Fits in a standard AT case too.
 
Have a picture of that Acer motherboard? Dual P60 does sound interesting but also power hungry, what do you need for a PS and connectors?
 
IMG_2846.JPG


J3+CPU+card.jpg


It uses the standard power plug, plus an optional plug for more current (depending on the configuration).

I noticed that the two P60s that came with my board are not matched. I am considering to upgrade them to matching P66s...or POD5V133s (hard to find). Better yet, I'd like the P54C CPU card instead.
 
How do you cool those CPU's, I don't see anything to attach heatsinkes to them and they will fry in short order without cooling.
 
Absurd of course is all relative. Each P60 consumes 15W. Even together that is 30W, which is way less than anything a P4 or an Athlon consumes.

Good observation about the CPU sockets. I'm guessing the heatsinks should be epoxied in place...either that or use overdrives.
 
The bracket holding the card is perforated for airflow over the chips, so I assume the heatsinks were epoxied on (common on P60/66) and a fan in the case blew air over them and out the slot.
 
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