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Questions about this 386?

I

ilyaz

Experienced Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2012
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148
Location
MD near DC, USA
Here's another machine that has been sitting in my basement for quite awhile. It seems to be some type of no-name brand (it says "Digital speech" on the front panel)

Would like to learn more about it. What sort of machine is this? 386? Do you see anything special/unusual/interesting there?

Turned it on it at least partially booted. Now I want to see if I can somehow connect it to an LCD monitor. Looks like I need a DB9 to DB15 VGA converter, but I am not sure what sort of signal it outputs. CGA? EGA? Something else? Can I figure it out from the type of video card that it uses? What type of converter would I need?

Thx!
 

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Pull the video card and show us pics of both sides so we can see any markings. Easiest thing is to get any old ISA vga/svga card and plonk it in there and hook it up the the LCD monitor. A crusty old Trident card should do the trick. Stripping all the cards should show exactly what the processor is and if a math co-pro is present. Bios has 386SX on it.
 
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Seeing it has three modems (or similar voice boards) it must have been used for some kind of communications. The sticker on the back says something about voice mail - maybe it was used for that?

The combined parallel / db9 card looks like an old monochrome card to me. But you could pull it out and chuck a VGA card in like Caluser2000 said. That way you can at least see if it POST's.
 
Digital Speech is still in business and still selling computerized voice mail.

Take pictures of the controller card, the hard drive and the RAM. The hard drive looks like it is poking a little into the empty bay so it may be one of the higher capacity drives for the era. Phone boards don't sell for much but some voicemail systems got very good components.

I expect the system to have 4MB of RAM and a hard disk in the 100 - 500 MB range. Can't tell from the pictures given whether the drive is SCSI or IDE.
 
I don't know--386SX system with AMI BIOS. That video card could well be a Hercules monochrome. After all, why would you need anything more on a voicemail machine? Looks like about 4MB in the SIMM slots. Hard disk appears to be an IDE, judging by the number of wires in the cable.
 
Swapped the video card with one from a 486DX2 machine that I have. The original card is shown in the 1st 2 photos.

The machine booted up but the CMOS battery is dead so I need to change CMOS settings from the defaults. It worked for Primary Display, but I don't know what to enter for the HDD. Unfortunately, I can't pull it out since two of the screws that are holding it are damaged so bad that I would need a drill or some other "high powered workaround" to get it out. So I snapped a couple of photos of the top and bottom. Is this enough info to figure out what I need to enter for HDD settings?

Thx!
 

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The original video card is a mono w/printer, probably a Diamond Flower.

The Quantum drive can be anywhere from 52 MB to 540 MB. And there's about 10 - 12 sizes in between that range. So you'd need the model #. Or, you could plug it into a machine that can auto-detect Hard Drive size.
 
I recommend removing the HDD anyway so you can see the specifics. Without a HDD model # it is near impossible to configure it. You could however (with a long IDE cable) connect it to a late 486 or Pentium MOBO that has auto detect and then write down the specifics.
 
If you can boot from floppy, try the following utility--it should determine the geometry. But you first need to get that battery replaced.
 

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ilyaz said:
Unfortunately, I can't pull it out since two of the screws that are holding it are damaged so bad that I would need a drill or some other "high powered workaround" to get it out. So I snapped a couple of photos of the top and bottom. Is this enough info to figure out what I need to enter for HDD settings?
Click to expand...

The model number is located on a white sticker between the power connector and the IDE connector. It looks like it is a 105AT (I have one just like it) and if it is then the C/H/S settings are 755/16/17. It could have been formatted with different settings however so there's no guarantee it will boot successfully.

EDIT: Also, even if it will manage to boot with incorrect geometry settings it could damage the filesystem if there's a write to it. Something to consider if you want to make sure to preserve the contents of the drive.
 
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Thanks. Before I proceed, though, I want to figure out whether the extra effort is worth it. It looks like, aside from the CMOS, the main components are working. I can't really test the phone boards but I am pretty sure I do not want to keep this machine. So I can offer it to someone as a whole or in parts. I got a feeling as a whole it's not particularly valuable even if I get it to recognize the hdd. (Or am I wrong?)

So I am tempted to take it apart
 
Selling parts usually works out better. System cases are dead weight: expensive to ship. Especially since this a generic clone: not an OEM.
 
I remember selling some working 386 and 486 base units with keyboard for about $200 each and $30 shipping on ebay. The parts alone in that system are not particularly special, but a complete working machine is something some people just getting into the hobby will pay money for.
 
Based on recent eBay USA sales 386s go from $20 to $515. When MS-DOS and HDD are confirmed to work they go for more $. And OEM go for more (people have more explicit memories attached to them I guess or more collectible: no point in collecting generic clones).

$515: http://cgi.ebay.com/311089672923 (Tandy with MCA)
$230: http://cgi.ebay.com/191217070158
$200: http://cgi.ebay.com/331314929457
$190: http://cgi.ebay.com/231310364767
$130: http://cgi.ebay.com/201194800992
$091: http://cgi.ebay.com/301278330461
$090: http://cgi.ebay.com/151421676323
$085: http://cgi.ebay.com/311111226270
$075: http://cgi.ebay.com/161422527890
$050: http://cgi.ebay.com/371168926847
$047: http://cgi.ebay.com/361058983065
$040: http://cgi.ebay.com/361046639357
$036: http://cgi.ebay.com/141373407132
$023: http://cgi.ebay.com/261565676750
$021: http://cgi.ebay.com/251621795740
$020: http://cgi.ebay.com/301292471929
 
PeterLI said:
Based on recent eBay USA sales 386s go from $20 to $515. When MS-DOS and HDD are confirmed to work they go for more $. And OEM go for more (people have more explicit memories attached to them I guess or more collectible: no point in collecting generic clones).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the details. I took this one apart and will later post the parts I pulled from this box.

I also have a working 486 system that I will keep intact, at least for now.
 
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