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PC vs. AT: reasons to own one over the other

kantexplain

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Aug 14, 2023
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You can come at this from any angle you like.

I only own 1 IBM machine afaik. A PC/AT I found on the road some years ago. No plans of adding any others (I wouldn't mind another model 25 though).

I don't pass up any clones though. I have 2 PC class units that I can think of. And an actual IBM PC/XT motherboard. With gold ram chips. An oddity.

Now I know a PC (or PC/XT) is more vintage. But I feel the usage often constitutes a misnomer. Old or older or oldest can have something to do with collectibility.
But it doesn't mean that's why an individual appreciates something. Now we all like "old" machines. But if some company began producing say Tandy 3000s in the
10s of thousand, wouldn't you still want 1?

Let's not belabor that point. What gets your vote, a PC or an AT, regardless of manufacturer.
 
If I have to pick between a clone XT or clone 286, I would go for the 286 every time depending on condition and build quality.
Having said that there is something cool about the original IBM PC (64K motherboard) that made me get one along with the IBM keyboard.
 
Well, IMHO, the 286 is the least usable system of all. Too fast to run anything made for the PC/XT, and too slow for newer stuff, with very few exceptions. Now if you have to select between a clone XT and an IBM AT, of course you take the AT. But in any other case (IBM PC/XT vs. IBM AT or clone XT vs. clone AT), I would take the XT.
 
I tend to favour the 286 as well. As much as I like my XT-clone project machine, I'm waiting for the guy who's trying to make an AT-clone PCB design.

From a quality-of-life perspective, an AT can probably run more things-- than even an equally fast XT. GeoWorks 2+ and Windows 3.10 will run on a 286, but not an XT; you could also try early OS/2, Minix, or some old commercial Unices. If you want to stick with DOS, there's some options for relatively flat higher memory.

You also tend to get lighter compatibility hacks: $3 CF-IDE adaptor instead of $40 XT-CF card, simple pin adapter for a cheap PS/2 keyboard, no having to triple-check compatibility for common 16-bit VGA cards.
 
From a quality-of-life perspective, an AT can probably run more things-- than even an equally fast XT. GeoWorks 2+ and Windows 3.10 will run on a 286, but not an XT; you could also try early OS/2, Minix, or some old commercial Unices. If you want to stick with DOS, there's some options for relatively flat higher memory.
Fully agree. but this is something I just don't understand. Yes, you *can* run Windows 3.10 or early OS/2 on a 286, but it will be barely usable. If you want to run that stuff, get a proper 386/486 32-bit machine. Because that is the issue I already stated: the 286 is in a weird spot of being either too slow or too fast (for e.g. XT/CGA games).

There is stuff that runs correctly on an XT only (incl. modern demos). For games you also have the 16-color composite mode of CGA.

But there is nothing that only runs correctly on a 286...
 
I tend to favor the PC\XT. I like to tinker with machines and that can be done better with a XT than an AT. Two things I really like: open source BIOS available, 8088/8086 can be replaced by V20/V30 or MicroCoreLabs Teensy project.
 
It's nice to have a 5150 around for testing software and hardware. Also, you can blow peoples' minds by loading programs from cassette.
 
Let me add: 5150 + 10/27/82 bios, because of its ability to use extension bios and 720k floppies.
 
My first computer was PC/AT i286-10Mhz based machine and I love 286's, but if the choice is XT vs. AT only, I will definitely go for the XT based machine.

For early DOS games, the usual 6-12 Mhz 286 is too fast, and it is too slow for the games from the late 80's and early 90's. To cover the whole 80's DOS period, I would prefer Turbo XT machine with 8088 CPU and 386sx based machine as a second PC.
 
My first real pc was an ITT XTRA XP. It had an 80286 but only 8bit ISA slots. I was confused then and have been ever since.

I believe that may have been the first time I needed to substitute an ic (no maybe the 2nd time, T2K had a bad parity chip). And I had to do detective work to get it done.it's fdc was made by Rockwell, a 6765. It stumped me for a while then it dawned the house number was based on the upd765. Pulled the 8272 out of my Tandy and was back in business.
 
If we're talking stock machines...

I think the 5170 is the best looking 'PC' IBM made. And it has support for hard drive and 1.2mb floppies 'out of the box.'. Seems like they took an approach to not care about making the AT any smaller or lighter and just slapped out a giant, heavy, computer. Probably figured business users wouldn't care since it would just sit on a desk all day. The case is massive, stock full height hard drive is massive, power supply is massive. Only thing smaller than the PC was the half height floppies.

Of course now a days it's not hard to add that stuff to a PC for a fairly cheap cost either.
 
Can't remember. Do aftermarket AT cases take pc/xt or baby-at motherboards? I believe they're the same thing.
 
Well, IMHO, the 286 is the least usable system of all. Too fast to run anything made for the PC/XT, and too slow for newer stuff, with very few exceptions. Now if you have to select between a clone XT and an IBM AT, of course you take the AT. But in any other case (IBM PC/XT vs. IBM AT or clone XT vs. clone AT), I would take the XT.
Absolute rubbish....

Where do you get this info from? It is certainly not personal experience....
 
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I like the looks of the PC better. The 5162 XT/286 is my favorite. 286 performance with the XT case. Although tall 16 bit cards won't fit, still pretty cool.
 
My first computer was PC/AT i286-10Mhz based machine and I love 286's, but if the choice is XT vs. AT only, I will definitely go for the XT based machine.

For early DOS games, the usual 6-12 Mhz 286 is too fast, and it is too slow for the games from the late 80's and early 90's. To cover the whole 80's DOS period, I would prefer Turbo XT machine with 8088 CPU and 386sx based machine as a second PC.
There is no one PC that covers all of 80's gaming and neither a XT or 386sx will do Tandy graphics and sound.
 
Can't remember. Do aftermarket AT cases take pc/xt or baby-at motherboards? I believe they're the same thing.

There were plenty of aftermarket AT cases that took full-size AT boards; many early 386 and 486 motherboards were the extra few inches wide of the original IBM AT. Even some relatively small footprint desktop cases could take them. (I used to have a compact, but fairly tall, desktop case that originally had a 386/40 motherboard in it that could take a full AT board; it could do this because its power supply was physically much smaller than the ginormous one in the 5170.) Cases that take XT-size boards were called "Baby ATs"... and yes, by the 90's the full AT board *had* pretty much died out so many of the "AT" cases from then were actually baby ATs.

(If you look through magazine ads from the mid-1980's the term "baby AT" was sometimes applied to Turbo XTs that happened to come in cases styled to look like an AT, and that may actually be the origination of the term. IBM's 5162 XT/286, even though it *wasn't* styled like a "baby AT", may have actually contained one of the first "baby at form factor" 286 motherboards. Very few cloners actually followed IBM's lead in putting 286 motherboards in XT-styled cases, however, they already had their looks-like-an-AT cases to shove the boards into... which probably was the right choice when it comes to customer confusion.)

I have vague memories of full AT form-factor Pentium Pro, and *possibly* Pentium II motherboards(?) being a thing, but they're rare as hen's teeth. Those would be the last examples of the full AT form factor.

Per the original question: I wouldn't mind having a 286 if someone gave it to me, it would be an interesting challenge to try to make a RAM card for it (ISA bus sizing is a fascinating subject, and I even wrote some GAL code and tossed together a draft design for an extended memory card, but that project fell behind the sofa in part because I don't actually have a 286) and it might be fun to play with some of the more obscure examples of software/OSes that run in Protected Mode (the holy grail is probably the abortive attempt by Digital Research to make a 286 version of Concurrent DOS; that only runs on certain revisions of the 286 chip because Intel kept changing some undocumented instructions out from under the DR developers). But the blunt fact is that most 286s spent the majority of their lives acting as fast XTs running Real Mode software (which they ran fine, but too fast for some old XT-dependant games), and the only protected mode OSes with even a modicum of software available for them (OS/2 1.x, Windows 3.x) came out so late you need an unusually maxxed out 286 to meaningfully run, and unless you have an unusually fast one they seriously chug. (And in the case of Windows 3.x you're missing out on things like DOS program multitasking that you'd get if you ran on a 386 instead.) So, yeah, I think the argument that 286 ATs are simultaneously "too new" and "too old" holds some water.

If you could only have *two* computers I definitely don't see making a 286 one of them, a Turbo XT (or Tandy 1000!) and a 486 with an 8mhz Turbo switch would cover about the maximum ground between 1982 and the early-mid-90's. A 286 just cuts off the start of the spectrum without adding anything unique. (A 486 at 8mhz will perform about like a 20mhz-ish 286, should be mostly okay running all the software a 5170 can run well.)
 
Only one or the other? Sadly I'd have to pick PC/AT. My first machine was a PC/XT, I'd hate to be stuck with just that or less.

Boy I sure would love to have the original though. Always wanted to play around with some cassette Basic, hear those relays, and generally explore the internals. I like how they list the source code in the documentation, would love to get my hands on a set of those books.
 
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