My 8086 Deskpro is on its last legs.....Upgrade time!

[Klee]

I ordered some eproms and flashed them to REV S.1, the latest version I found.

It works!! and the INSPECT program on the Compaq setup disk correctly shows the new ROM version.

Now I can have a 1.44 mb floppy without the 2M-XBIOS.EXE workaround. I currently have a 1.2 mb floppy temporarily installed.

Will install my new in the box Pine Technology PT-104 hard drive and floppy controller card in a day or two.

Will need to decide what hard drive to install, i'm leaning towards a Seagate 89 mb drive since its a bit noisy like the original 20mb MFM drive. But that might change since its a little tall to fit the custom 3.5 drive bracket I made using a old Seagate MFM front cover and LED.

Since it has 16 bit ISA slots that opens up some more cards I can use, sound and network especially since I have tons of those.

So far I am VERY pleased on how its turning out.

 

[Klee]

Just a little update, I had a little trouble booting off the 1.44 floppy drive.

Ended up having to boot a 720k floppy with the setup program to configure it as a 1.44 mb drive and then after a reboot it then boots fine off of 1.4mb floppys

I installed Concurrent DOS XM 6.0 and it runs fine, defiantly ALOT different than MS-DOS. So much more going on.

Still learning the OS.

The memory settings are a bit of a learning curve but I am able to give a max of 640K ram to DOS programs, never freed up that much in MS-DOS.

Ran a couple of programs off a floppy just for a quick test.

 

[wafflehouse]

I just picked up the 286 deskpro. I don't know if I have a power supply problem or a short on the motherboard. power supply with no load spins up the fan and runs. If I hook it to the motherboard with nothing else no cards no drives nothing it just power cycles very quickly. Not wanting to spend a small fortune on a replacement supply I was thinking of building a cable and using an older AT style PSU. Also, the service manual recommends the 192 watt PSU you may be running the 160 watt one since it was an 8086 to begin with.

 

[Klee]

https://www.pcjs.org/machines/pcx86/compaq/deskpro286/

Lots of technical documents on the Deskpro 286 in the above link.

Should give you the info to diagnose what is wrong.

It might not be the power supply that is bad, could be a short in a expansion card or on the motherboard itself.

My Deskpro's power supply went bad about ten or twelve years ago and was replaced by a NOS Compaq power supply, I bought a couple about fifteen years ago. I don't remember what they are rated at but have had zero issues so far. The original power supply's fan was 110v but the replacement is 12v and also the internals are a bit different.

I want to give all the OS's that will work on the board a try, Compaq DOS ver 3.31, 4.01 and 5.0. OS/2 1.10 Compaq OEM, and finally Xenix 286.

I installed Microsoft OS/2 ver 1.10 Compaq OEM tonight, I had to convert the images to 1.44 mm floppys since my last box of unopened 1.2 mb floppys were all unusable as none would format without errors.

The install went great and after I rebooted I installed Microsoft Word 5.5 and it runs fine.

The OS/2 GUI is a bit different and bare but with either OS/2 or the DOS command windows full screen they are fine.

Still learning the OS.

So far I like Compaq DOS 5.0 the best on the upgraded 286 board, probibly because I am more familiar with it that the other OS's.

Concurrent DOS XM on a 286 feels kludgy but I will defiantly give Concurrent DOS 386 a try on a 486 with its much better memory handling ans its ability to deal seamlessly with both DOS and CP/M floppy's since that will be handy when I build a 8088 pc just for CP/M-86.

 

[digger]

The shapes of the keys on the keyboard look very similar to those on the keyboards that came with the Olivetti M24 / AT&T 3600. Probably not a coincidence? I guess there weren't that many third party keycap manufacturers back in the day, and IBM was perhaps the only manufacturer big enough to design their own?

 

[Klee]

Just a little update.

Still running like a champ, I installed a NOS SMC EZ Card 10 ethernet card since I needed the 3com 3C503 for another pc.

Still running the 89 mb IDE drive.

Added a Logitech serial mouse.

Still using the original video card and amber monitor.

Installed Compaq MSDos 5.0 about a year or so ago and it runs really nicely, the Fastart utility configures the 2 mb ram painlessly.

So I changed my mind about hating Compaq Dos 5.0 and seems the perfect os for the this 286 motherboard.

I still have the 1.44 mb floppy as the A; drive and the original 360k as drive B.