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Your input requested: Scope of the Pentium subforum

The Pentiums weren't 64-Bit until recently. Sorry.
But I personally feel that the PIII is a good stopping point. All of them are old, and most have been long retired.
Also, those PIII laptops from '04? Those were 2001 CPUs on new boards. The last PIII released was the Tualatin line, which lasted from 2001 until early 2002.
 
hello
some more brainstorming - Sub grouping could be oriented by which OS's the hardware can run
8 bit ( 8088 )
16 bit ( 286 )
32 bit ( 386-486 )
64 bit ( Pentium + -> )
again just a thought. :)
/cimonvg

I'm not sure I follow that.
 
I'm not sure I follow that.

It's pretty simple, when explained.
The 8088 was 8-bit, and could run 8-bit Operating Systems.
The 8086 to the 286 were 16-Bit, running stuff like early Windows systems.
The 386 to Pentium III and some Pentium 4s were 32-bit, capable of running systems such as Windows 9X and, later, XP.
 
It's pretty simple, when explained.
The 8088 was 8-bit, and could run 8-bit Operating Systems.
The 8086 to the 286 were 16-Bit, running stuff like early Windows systems.
The 386 to Pentium III and some Pentium 4s were 32-bit, capable of running systems such as Windows 9X and, later, XP.

The number of bits of any measure of the processor has little relation to the number of bits of an operating system it can run.
 
Yes, that is pretty much what I had in mind as well. Possibly instead of "Pentium and up" it may be more interesting to draw the line between AT and ATX machines.
So you'd get PC/XT, AT and ATX categories.

No, because many mainboards at the transistion era were availabe as BAT and ATX at the same time, same chipsets, same features, etc. Some of the ATX boards of that era even had BAT + ATX power connectors and you could choose which one to use.
 
No, because many mainboards at the transistion era were availabe as BAT and ATX at the same time, same chipsets, same features, etc. Some of the ATX boards of that era even had BAT + ATX power connectors and you could choose which one to use.

I don't see why this would be an argument against the division, as I already said before.
It's not a problem if a few edge-cases cross over on the boundaries.
I mean, you could also argue that there are boards that fit both a 386 and a 486, or that there are 486 boards with a Pentium Overdrive etc. There will always be edge-cases. I just think the division I suggested is the most logical one, for a very very large number of extremely good reasons, both hardware and software. I haven't heard anyone with better arguments. Only some noise about edge-cases.
 
Back on topic

Back on topic

I like the suggestion of changing the "charter" of the Pentium subforum to cover systems through the Pentium III.

Wouldn't it work better to set up a poll (I assume the forum software can do it, but I don't know how)?

1. Leave it alone: Pentium only.

2. Cover through all (Super) Socket 7 systems.

3. Cover through the Pentium II.

4. Cover through the Pentium III. [My Vote]

5. Whatever...
 
Would it be possible to have the Pentium form listed as "Pentium-Legacy"? Then it could be sub-divided into the Pentium 1 (and compatibles), Pentium Pro, P-II (and compatibles), and P-III (and compatibles). That would allow for the addition of P-4 (and compatible) systems to that discussion area at a later time. Another suggestion would be to make a category for "Server-designed processors" which would include the Pentium Pro, Xeon, and Opteron.
 
Would it be possible to have the Pentium form listed as "Pentium-Legacy"? Then it could be sub-divided into the Pentium 1 (and compatibles), Pentium Pro, P-II (and compatibles), and P-III (and compatibles). That would allow for the addition of P-4 (and compatible) systems to that discussion area at a later time. Another suggestion would be to make a category for "Server-designed processors" which would include the Pentium Pro, Xeon, and Opteron.

Considering the relatively light usage of this subforum, there is little justification for any further subdivision. Even if the usage here doubled due to the inclusion of Pentium Pros, IIs, and IIIs (and competitors), we'd still have less than half the amount of threads and posts of the "Later PCs" subforum.
 
I don't see why this would be an argument against the division, as I already said before.
It's not a problem if a few edge-cases cross over on the boundaries.... Only some noise about edge-cases.

:) All of Socket 5, 7, 8, 370, and Slot 1 straddle the AT/ATX 'divide' and are not edge cases. PC-CHIPS' ambiguous motherboards were mainstream and common in their day.

Now if I were to mention the true edge cases of the couple of P4 Socket 478 systems I have here in AT cases (AT case; industrial passive backplane system)..... then that would be stretching the divide with edge cases. Those are running XP. In an 4U rackmount AT case. With 14 ISA slots.....

But there was a substantial period of time (several years) where the software you ran, the video cards you used, the processors available, the RAM you installed, and the disks you formatted were common and nearly equally divided between AT and ATX. We had several MS-DOS machines here at $day_job that were Socket 370 Celeron systems in the mid 400's speed that were ATX, and I'm sure a lot of ATX Pentium (Socket 5) systems were sold with early DOS-containing Windows 9x. And likewise all the AT-cased Socket 7 systems sold by Pionex and others (Sam's Club sold boatloads of AT-cased Cyrix MII kit), sold on the same shelf and at the same basic price point as identically-specced ATX systems with the same software stack loaded.

Not edge cases.
 
How about separate them by frequency? Lets say Pentium and derivates up to 200/233 MHz stay here, that means anything from Pentium 60 to 233MMX, K5 & K6, Cyrix/IBM 6x86 stay here. 233/266 Mhz up to 1.3 Ghz go to new subforum, that would include Pentium II 233 up to Pentium 3 / Celeron up to 1.3 GHz, K6-2, K6-3, K7 Athlon and Via C3. The 1,3 Ghz limit would declare Pentium 4, Athlon XP and newer as out of focus of this forum for now. Only issue is that early Centrino, Atom also started below 1.3 Ghz.

Or look at the mainboard manufacturers, for example MSI
MS-21xx=286
MS-31xx=386
MS-41xx=486
MS-51xx=P60/66,P54C,P55C,K5,K6,K6-2,Cx/IBM 6x86,Geode
MS-61xx=P2,P3,K7,K8,P4 (after the 61xx numbers were full, they didn't continue this scheme, someone lost overview there, me too...)
 
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...Only issue is that early Centrino, Atom also started below 1.3 Ghz,

Early? How about Core2Duo in a Panasonc Toughbook CF-19 at barely above 1GHz? P3 max was 1.4GHz as far as I recall, and Athlon's Thunderbird (prior to the first Athlon XP, Palomino) went to 1.4GHz, too.

I again agree with mbbrutman in that while there should be a divide it should be a bit fuzzy, yet clear. I think clock speed is too 'clear' and case form factor (AT vs ATX) is too fuzzy, with the Netburst arch being the divide in the Goldilocks range, in my opinion.
 
Era ending at P3-800
Windows XP off topic

I think it was mentioned earlier. Apply this with common sense, and there wont be an issue. I don't think it needs to be anymore complicated than this.
It's all about the era, not so much the technical specifics.

Earlier I said '500' as a cut off, but I've been battling with a Duron 800 all week, and the topic and the equipment I'm using certainly would fit in that part of the forum.
 
I have chosen 1.3 GHz as the upper frequency as the slowest Pentium 4 started with 1.4 Ghz. It's quite difficult to declare a real frontier as there was so much overlapping. But a core2do at 1 Ghz might be something what someone barely would use for serious work with a still supported os today,
 
Era ending at P3-800
Windows XP off topic.

I'm onboard with just making it "Pentium III or less" as long as the second qualifier there is included.

(Just describe the whole category as "Pre-Windows XP"? That would technically include the very first Pentium 4s, mostly Socket 423 machines, but, eh, it's a fuzzy line anyway. If someone were asking for help getting Windows 98 going on their Northwood Pentium 4 I'd let it slide, and conversely a thread about trying to get XP or a modern Linux to install on something really rusty like a Super Socket 7 box might be fun. It's a combination of post-2001 hardware AND software that starts demanding a kick down to off-topic.)
 
I'm onboard with just making it "Pentium III or less" .... "Pre-Windows XP"? That would technically include the very first Pentium 4s, mostly Socket 423 machines, but, eh, it's a fuzzy line anyway. If someone were asking for help getting Windows 98 going on their Northwood Pentium 4 I'd let it slide, and conversely a thread about trying to get XP or a modern Linux to install on something really rusty like a Super Socket 7 box might be fun. It's a combination of post-2001 hardware AND software that starts demanding a kick down to off-topic.)

Works for me exactly as stated. P3 and pre-XP.
 
We had several MS-DOS machines here at $day_job that were Socket 370 Celeron systems

in a pinch to bootstrap a few old machines then and now I have been known to boos MS-DOS on my AMD FX (home) and my 3rd gen i7 (work), if it wasnt for the sound card you could actually make a dos gamer out of them (given your hard drives are set in legacy IDE mode, not AHCI .. not sure about EFI, both machines have halfbreed bios/efi set to legacy bios)
 
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