6885P5H
Experienced Member
Well the manual does already make false claims, by saying that the board was made by Olivetti 
but it's right about the 386. It will support a 386, if you solder one in the space designated for it (which I highlighted in red in my picture).
I can understand why you are confused. That "socket" is really 2 different sockets put into one, as shown in my picture. You can try to put a 386 in there if you want, but it won't even fit.
Is it fair to say that this board can support a 386 if installing one requires soldering it to the board? Yes because, while it may seem like an extremely daunting task to a person, to a factory it's nothing at all, and some of these boards did come out of the factory with a 386 in them. Yours wasn't one of them, but solder a 386 in there and it would work.
I know but, manufacturing a board with ICs that are all at least 2 years old seems like quite a stretch to me, can't say I've ever seen that before.
And in the case of this motherboard, it simply does not look like something that was made in 1990. Not even 1991 I'd say. 1992 would make sense, and what I believe is the official manual from FIC themselves has a date of September 1992.
If the VIA chipset found on the board wasn't invented yet in 1990 then yes they would've had to wait for its creation before making a batch of printed circuit boards made for it. And I even have reasons to believe that the chipset was invented in 1992 but in conclusion, I am certain that it was created in 1992, the particular one discussed in this thread could've been made in 1993, 1994 seems like a stretch but theoretically it could be possible. This is why I date it to have been made in either 1992 or 1993.
but it's right about the 386. It will support a 386, if you solder one in the space designated for it (which I highlighted in red in my picture).I can understand why you are confused. That "socket" is really 2 different sockets put into one, as shown in my picture. You can try to put a 386 in there if you want, but it won't even fit.
Is it fair to say that this board can support a 386 if installing one requires soldering it to the board? Yes because, while it may seem like an extremely daunting task to a person, to a factory it's nothing at all, and some of these boards did come out of the factory with a 386 in them. Yours wasn't one of them, but solder a 386 in there and it would work.
I know but, manufacturing a board with ICs that are all at least 2 years old seems like quite a stretch to me, can't say I've ever seen that before.
And in the case of this motherboard, it simply does not look like something that was made in 1990. Not even 1991 I'd say. 1992 would make sense, and what I believe is the official manual from FIC themselves has a date of September 1992.
If the VIA chipset found on the board wasn't invented yet in 1990 then yes they would've had to wait for its creation before making a batch of printed circuit boards made for it. And I even have reasons to believe that the chipset was invented in 1992 but in conclusion, I am certain that it was created in 1992, the particular one discussed in this thread could've been made in 1993, 1994 seems like a stretch but theoretically it could be possible. This is why I date it to have been made in either 1992 or 1993.
