Ole Juul
Veteran Member
I have been putting together a new box for a project and wanted the oldest pentium compatible board I could find which had an ISA slot for an older modem. I didn't want to use any of my 386/486 boards since this box is going to be on 24/7 and I don't want to wear out more valuable stuff. I found a nice little board with a single ISA slot, but I couldn't get it to fire up. Anyway, to make a long preamble shorter, I found what I think is a very cool board. It seems a bit of a waste for a dedicated application, but it's what I got that fits the bill.
It's a GA - 586TX Pentium Processor PCI - ISA BUS MAINBOARD. AWARD BIOS 05/28/97
What makes this so special in my opinion? Well it takes a lot of options, which would actually make it a great test bench board. There's a long list of CPUs, two kinds of memory, ISA/PCI, and most interestingly, two kinds of power supply connectors. Here's the list:
This board seems to be the perfect bridge between generations. It's probably one of the last times a baby AT board was used, yet it has PCI and USB.
I really like the looks of the metalwork for this generation of computer, so I always leave off the cover. No idea where this one went anyway, since it was just in the junk pile. It also helps cooling for this kind of machine, and keeps dust from collecting inside like on the vacuum cleaner type of designs, which this would be if it had the bodywork intact. Here's what it looks like now.
This box is going to be running a dialup BBS, so here it is with a 1.2 meg floppy drive, a video card, two SIMM sticks, and a modem. I've got lots of Pentium chips, but I chose a 100mhz one. Those came out in March of 1994. I'm trying to put this thing vaguely at the end of an era which ended with the takeover by the internet.
I don't want to put an IDE drive in it, since that will make more noise and the old drives are better saved for true vintage use. I was contemplating using a CF card and plugging it straight into the MB, and may still do that. Actual telephone connection tests show the floppy to be adequate for the purpose. But I may change my mind and I'll make another thread about that later. Ironically, if I do use a CF drive, I'll probably run the BBS in a ramdisk and just use the CF for backup. Another irony is that I stuck two 16MB simms in it because I didn't have smaller ones handy, and i could certainly have filled up the DIMM slots for over-the-top memory . . . times have changed.
For space saving convenience this box is now attached to my KVM. More about the BBS another time.
It's a GA - 586TX Pentium Processor PCI - ISA BUS MAINBOARD. AWARD BIOS 05/28/97
What makes this so special in my opinion? Well it takes a lot of options, which would actually make it a great test bench board. There's a long list of CPUs, two kinds of memory, ISA/PCI, and most interestingly, two kinds of power supply connectors. Here's the list:
Code:
- Pentium Processor based PC / AT compatible mainboard with PCI - ISA Bus.
- 4 PCI Bus slots, 3 ISA Bus slots.
- Supports Pentium Processor running at /90-200 MHz, P54CT (150 166),
MMX (150 / 166 / 200 / 233), P54CTB (150 / 166 / 180 / 200), AMDK5
(PR-133 / PR-166), AMDK6(PR2-166/180/200 (2.9V) /233 (3.2V)), Cyrix /
IBM 6x86-120/ 133(PR-150+ / PR-166+), Cyrix / IBM 6x86L (PR-150+ /
PR-166+(2.8V)), Cyrix / IBM M2 (PR2-166/180/200/233).
- Supports true 64 bits CACHE and DRAM access mode.
- Supports 321 Pins (Socket 7) ZIF white socket on board.
- Supports 512 KB Pipeline Burst Sync. 2nd Cache.
- CPU L1 / L2 Write-Back cache operation.
- Supports 8 - 256 MB DRAM memory on board.
- Supports 2*168 pin 64/72 Bit DIMM module.
- Supports 2-channel Ultra DMA/33 Enhanced PCI IDE ports for 4 IDE Devices.
- Supports 2*COM (16550), 1*LPT (EPP / ECP), 1*1.44MB Floppy port.
- Supports AT Keyboard & PS/2 Mouse port.
- Supports Green function, Plug & Play function.
- Licensed AWARD BIOS, FLASH EEPROM for BIOS update.
- 22cm x 33cm, 4 layers PCB.
- Supports USB port.
- Supports Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI).
This board seems to be the perfect bridge between generations. It's probably one of the last times a baby AT board was used, yet it has PCI and USB.
I really like the looks of the metalwork for this generation of computer, so I always leave off the cover. No idea where this one went anyway, since it was just in the junk pile. It also helps cooling for this kind of machine, and keeps dust from collecting inside like on the vacuum cleaner type of designs, which this would be if it had the bodywork intact. Here's what it looks like now.
This box is going to be running a dialup BBS, so here it is with a 1.2 meg floppy drive, a video card, two SIMM sticks, and a modem. I've got lots of Pentium chips, but I chose a 100mhz one. Those came out in March of 1994. I'm trying to put this thing vaguely at the end of an era which ended with the takeover by the internet.
I don't want to put an IDE drive in it, since that will make more noise and the old drives are better saved for true vintage use. I was contemplating using a CF card and plugging it straight into the MB, and may still do that. Actual telephone connection tests show the floppy to be adequate for the purpose. But I may change my mind and I'll make another thread about that later. Ironically, if I do use a CF drive, I'll probably run the BBS in a ramdisk and just use the CF for backup. Another irony is that I stuck two 16MB simms in it because I didn't have smaller ones handy, and i could certainly have filled up the DIMM slots for over-the-top memory . . . times have changed.
For space saving convenience this box is now attached to my KVM. More about the BBS another time.
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