Shadow Lord
Veteran Member
The Everex STEP Megacube….
….a monster beast of a server from the 1990s in the heyday of the 486 processor. I had read about this system back in the day in a series of Jerry Pournelli article. Of course w/ a base price of $4,559 and a top of the line price of almost $10,345 (for a 486DX/33 and 8MB of RAM) this was not going to find its way into a bedroom. The case, motherboard, and even the memory subsystem were custom designed by Everex (this was the day and age where being a clone maker actually meant you made something not just assembled it). There were also other innovations in there, many of which we take granted now, but back then were unheard of or rare:
This thing was built solid and weighed ~65lbs w/ just the case, PSU, and MB (no drives). The motherboard is EISA based w/ 10 EISA slots, a special 32bit memory board slot, and an 8-bit ISA slot. The system can support 64MB of RAM and 256kb of cache. There is also an on board bi-directional parallel port and two 16450 compatible serial ports. There are no FDC or HDD controllers on board.
Everex EV-18113
An old InfoWorld ad describing the STEP Megacube.
Every few years I’d go around the net looking for an old 486 cube system and usually would find nothing. So I was very surprised when I found one on e-bay quite by accident after I lost a bid on a Gateway Tower. The system was in sorry condition and the seller said it would not POST but I went ahead and ordered.
On arrival the system was dirty and abused and it did not POST. The usual checks failed and it turned out the PSU was bad. Also this being an EISA system you needed a CFG file and associated overlay file to setup the system and of course none was provided.
Dirt and Dust Everywhere
The paint has been chipped and the steel is tarnished after 20 years of abuse
The drive bay door, operating on a hydraulic system, won’t stay down by itself
And of course there are no keys for the camlocks (a surprisingly good one w/ SEVEN tumblers).
However, thanks to help from members of this forum, specially Chuck(G) who fixed the PSU, I was able to get the system to POST. I also located a post from 2003 where someone else had gotten one of these machines and was looking for the EISA CFGs. Surprisingly, I was able to track him down seven years later and he still had the files!
*Everex B.01 EISA Configuration Utility 1.10* Unfortunately the forum will not let me attach it due to its size of ~400KB
I tracked down the OEM for the drive bay door latch and replaced the latch:
I cleaned up the case and used metal polish to get rid of the tarnish on the case and parts:
Luckily the computer only used a Tadiran TL-5242-W for CMOS and it is still in production. I purchased one from the local Rat Shack and the CMOS is as good as new:
And we have POST :D:
The cam locks are a different issue. I plan to replace both of them w/ new ones w/ keys.
I am still toying with the idea of painting the sides and the top cover. However, I am worried about color matching with the front face.
Current Specs:
Still to be installed:
Planned Upgrades :
Wish List (If you have any of these and are interested in getting it to a good home please PM me):
More pics to come! Plus some benchmarking and stress testing, and of course I am sure more trouble shooting!
Also in case anyone else is interested, or buys one of these beasts, drop me a line!
….a monster beast of a server from the 1990s in the heyday of the 486 processor. I had read about this system back in the day in a series of Jerry Pournelli article. Of course w/ a base price of $4,559 and a top of the line price of almost $10,345 (for a 486DX/33 and 8MB of RAM) this was not going to find its way into a bedroom. The case, motherboard, and even the memory subsystem were custom designed by Everex (this was the day and age where being a clone maker actually meant you made something not just assembled it). There were also other innovations in there, many of which we take granted now, but back then were unheard of or rare:
- Everex Thermal Management System: separation of MB and drives, temperature controlled case and PSU fans
- Thumb screws for easy access
- “Quick Release Drive Bays”
- LED read out of POST codes in ENGLISH on the front panel. It also lists the tracks being accessed on the floppy in real time.
- Freaking black cube case – remember PCs are supposed to be rectangular and dirty grey
This thing was built solid and weighed ~65lbs w/ just the case, PSU, and MB (no drives). The motherboard is EISA based w/ 10 EISA slots, a special 32bit memory board slot, and an 8-bit ISA slot. The system can support 64MB of RAM and 256kb of cache. There is also an on board bi-directional parallel port and two 16450 compatible serial ports. There are no FDC or HDD controllers on board.
Everex EV-18113
An old InfoWorld ad describing the STEP Megacube.
Every few years I’d go around the net looking for an old 486 cube system and usually would find nothing. So I was very surprised when I found one on e-bay quite by accident after I lost a bid on a Gateway Tower. The system was in sorry condition and the seller said it would not POST but I went ahead and ordered.
On arrival the system was dirty and abused and it did not POST. The usual checks failed and it turned out the PSU was bad. Also this being an EISA system you needed a CFG file and associated overlay file to setup the system and of course none was provided.
Dirt and Dust Everywhere
The paint has been chipped and the steel is tarnished after 20 years of abuse
The drive bay door, operating on a hydraulic system, won’t stay down by itself
And of course there are no keys for the camlocks (a surprisingly good one w/ SEVEN tumblers).
However, thanks to help from members of this forum, specially Chuck(G) who fixed the PSU, I was able to get the system to POST. I also located a post from 2003 where someone else had gotten one of these machines and was looking for the EISA CFGs. Surprisingly, I was able to track him down seven years later and he still had the files!
*Everex B.01 EISA Configuration Utility 1.10* Unfortunately the forum will not let me attach it due to its size of ~400KB
I tracked down the OEM for the drive bay door latch and replaced the latch:
I cleaned up the case and used metal polish to get rid of the tarnish on the case and parts:
Luckily the computer only used a Tadiran TL-5242-W for CMOS and it is still in production. I purchased one from the local Rat Shack and the CMOS is as good as new:
And we have POST :D:
The cam locks are a different issue. I plan to replace both of them w/ new ones w/ keys.
I am still toying with the idea of painting the sides and the top cover. However, I am worried about color matching with the front face.
Current Specs:
- Everex STEP Megacube
- Intel 486DX 50Mhz
- Everex EV-18113 Motherboard Rev 3
- Everex EV-18127 Memory Expansion board w/ 16MB DRAM
- Elsa Winner 1000 EISA S3 928 1MB VRAM
- CompatiCard IV w/ 1.05 BIOS FDC
- Adaptec AHA-1742A SCSI 2 EISA Controller
- 3COM 3C-597TX Fast Ethernet EISA NIC
- Teac 1.44MB FDD
- Sony GDM-C520K Monitor
Still to be installed:
- Roland LAPC-I Revision 01
- SB AWE 32 CT 2760 with 32MB of 70ns RAM and Roland SCD-15 wavetable
- 64MB 60ns FPM DRAM
- 1 MB VRAM upgrade to Elsa Winner
- Teac 1.2MB FDD
- SCSI 2 HDD (1-2GB)
- SCSI 2 PlexWriter CD-RW
- SCSI Seagate/Conner TapeStore 8000
- Cambridge Soundworks FPS2000 Digital Speakers
- Central Point Copy II PC
- Teac 360KB FDD
- USR Courier V. Everything Modem
- Northgate Omnikey 101 Keyboard
- Logitech C-Series Serial Mouse
- Install OS: MS DOS 6.22 w/ MS Workgroups 3.11 addon for DOS w/ 4DOS 7.50
- Windows for Workgroups 3.11
Planned Upgrades :
- 16550A or better Serial Port Card
- Logitech MouseMan Cordless
Wish List (If you have any of these and are interested in getting it to a good home please PM me):
- Central Point Copy II PC Deluxe Enhanced Option Board (the one with the switch on the back)
- Stacker AT/16 Option Board
- Teac 2.88MB FDD
More pics to come! Plus some benchmarking and stress testing, and of course I am sure more trouble shooting!
Also in case anyone else is interested, or buys one of these beasts, drop me a line!
