Subj : 386 machines
To   : Charles Angelich
From : Andy Ball
Date : Sun Apr 22 2001 05:13 pm

Hello Charles!

  CA> Many 386 max out at 8megs...

I've been wondering about that recently.  I ought to try squeezing 16Mb in a 
386sx machine I recently built.

  CA> ...there are many 4meg 386s out there...

Very true, I've seen a lot of 386 SX machines with 4Mb RAM and a 40Mb fixed 
disk (often a Conner CP3044).

  CA> Older memory chips are not truly available if you're
    > not in a group of hardware techs.  Many say they have
    > boxes full of them - I have yet to see these boxes?

As an individual geek I can honestly say I literally had boxes full of DIP DRAM 
chips when I lived in Britain.  Many were 256K x 1 bit, or 256K x 4 bits, and 
might have been appropriate for upgrading some 386 boards.  I used four of the 
256K x 4 bit chips to upgrade an Atari 520 STFM to 1Mb of RAM.

  CA> The other problem that is overlooked is that at one
    > time a 500meg hard drive was all that DOS could use
    > and most were engineered for DOS use.

I remember a time when DOS was limited to 32Mb drives.  I imagine you're 
referring to the imfamous 528Mb barrier though, which was a result of combined 
limitations of DOS and BIOS.  I could make really good use of a few 500Mb ATA 
drives right now!

  CA> On older PS/2's you find 35meg drives on 386s and the
    > PS/2 drive not using a ribbon cable and having MCA
    > slots makes upgrading dicey.

Many PS/2s are a creature all of their own.  MCA was technically very good, but 
doesn't help if you have a drawer full of ISA cards.  They tended to use ESDI 
drives on some machines, which can complicate upgrades.

  CA> All conversations regarding the 386 machine become
    > theoretical, vague, and then just dwindle away.

Why?  I built one just recently.

Regards,
  - Andy.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-2
 # Origin: FamilyNet HQ (8:8/2)
 # Origin: FamilyNet Echogate [972] 496-0650 (1:124/5009)
 * Origin: BBS Networks @ www.bbsnets.com 808-839-5016 (1:10/345)

.