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Vintage 1995 Pionex 486 DX2 66 Mhz Computer

Quantex 486/66 (supplied by Fountain)

Quantex 486/66 (supplied by Fountain)

I have a Quantex 486/66 that I bought in 1992 (and still have) that looks just like this (no surprise, they were supplied by Fountain). The boxes on these units were great and I used mine into the early 2000s, through two or three motherboard upgrades. But before I upgraded the motherboard, I did a CPU upgrade from the original 486/66 to a Cyrix 5x86/133. The cool thing about this box is that you could then change the jumpers on the panel so that when you turned it on it said 133 - which I did (after some trial and error). Very cool!

(I should note that I had been originally under the impression that the "066" on the display was actually somehow tied to the CPU clock and I had thought that when I plugged in the Cyrix, the new clock speed would be sensed and it would automatically show "133" - how naive!)
 
Indeed, from thinking back to the 90s I originally thought my LED display automatically adjusted when I went from a P120 to a 233MMX. Imagine my surprise when I started getting into retro computing a couple years ago and realized they were just dumb displays. This Pionex box is great though. Very solid case, a great AT design. I still can't get the display to change when I hit Turbo, no matter how I arrange the jumpers. I must have shorted something out on the signal connection pin that goes to the display. But I can leave it on 66 and change the numbers with the jumpers if I need to. I'm good with that. Now I need to wait for a replacement battery to arrive from overseas before I can do anything with it -- can't run a hard drive as it won't remember the settings, even without turning the power off. Oh well.
 
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