Subj : Re: Back from the dead
To   : kirkspragg
From : hyjinx
Date : Thu May 22 2025 06:51 pm

 ki> Hello from Christchurch NZ! How is late Autumn/Winter treating you?

I left the UK because I couldn't stand the weather and the darkness. Nobody told me that sub-tropical means 'not-tropical'! I deplore the early sunsets. So, to put it bluntly, I am *not* enjoying it!

ki> I'm more than slightly jealous! Working Inboard/386s are very hard
to find  ki> good on you for finding one. I look forward to hearing how it performs, I  ki> imaging that being stuck with an 8-bit ISA bus will limit things a bit tho  ki> it will still be miles faster than a 4.77 8088.
Yes it is massively faster. The claim on the Intel literature is 10x faster.

I benchmarked it side-by-side the following comparisons:
1) 8088 4.77MHz (well, actually a V20, but that's piddle all difference)
2) 80286 8MHz turbo card in the XT (so naturally an 8-bit card sitting in the socket for the 8088 on the mobo - an Orchid Tiny Turbo 286 card)
3) 80286 ~10-13MHz in an IBM 5162, so a true 16-bit ISA bus system.

You'll just have to watch the video to see how the 16MHz, 32bit CPU performed on an 8-bit bus! It's up on my Patreon and Substack now, and it will likely be up on YouTube this weekend if I get my A into G before I fly to AKL tomorrow.

ki> Have and IBM XT myself, though eventually got sick of the
4.77Mhz performa  ki> and memory limitations & upgraded to a 20Mhz 286 followed by a 386 dx40 by  ki> swapping out the motherboard - its much more usable and 386 memory managem  ki> even in plain DOS is much less of a pain with a 386 than 8088/80286.  ki> I believe a 286 with one of a very small number of special chipsets/memory  ki> expansion board can multitask in deskqview... but finding these working &   ki> sale (and then locating working EMS drivers) is soooo hard! 

Yes, I never managed to get it working very well myself. I think I did once upon-a-time with a Rampage/286 from AST, but the experience wasn't wonderful.

 ki> 
 ki> Makes sense packet driver can only be used by one program at a time. I ima
 ki> you would need to do something similar to use a DOS telnet client in Win 3
 ki> though I haven't tried.
PKTMUX actually includes a Windows version so you can mux the driver for that
too.
 ki> 
 ki> We look forward to updates when/if you have time! please keep us informed 
 ki> here :)
Will do!

From WLG to CHC, Chat soon!
-Al


hyjinx // Alistair Ross
Author of 'Back to the BBS' Documentary: https://bit.ly/3tRINeL (YouTube)
alsgeeklab.com

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