ISA card with 8086, 8078 and 80286 for Olivetti M24, what the hell...

[1ST1]

... is that? Made by "SOTA".

https://www.ebay.de/itm/Olivetti-M24....c100042.m2062

Per il metodo di pagamento contattatemi.
Please contact me for payment method
Paypal accettato solo come invio denaro ad amici/ Paypal accepted only send money to friend






Rarissima scheda bi processore per M24 Olivetti.

Introvabile


Per chi è interessato posso fornire anche hard disk da 20 MB con controller e software già installato per ulteriori 100 euro ( questo prezzo solo per chi acquista la scheda)


Monta a bordo 2 processori, 8086 ed 80286 + lo slot per 8087.


Provata e funzionante.


Nessuna garanzia ne reso.

Translation to english:

[payment information removed]

Very rare bi-processor card for Olivetti M24.

Introvabile

For those interested I can also provide 20 MB hard disk with controller and software already installed for an additional 100 euros (this price only for those who buy the card)

It has 2 processors on board, 8086 and 80286 + the 8087 slot.

Tested and working.

s-l1600_.jpg

s-l1600.jpg

[Eudimorphodon]

It's just a SOTA 286i accelerator. It's not specifically for the M24, one of the advertised features of this card is it worked with both 8088 and 8086 PCs. It's not really a "Bi-Processor" card in any meaningful SMP-sort of sense; you run a cable to the motherboard's 808x socket and place the original CPU into the socket on the card so you retain the option of disabling the 286 for troublesome software.

286 accelerator cards like this weren't that rare back in the day. They were probably not really worth the money most of the time, but they're cool.

[1ST1]

So basically it's not much faster than replacing just the 8086 by a NEC V30...?

[Chuck(G)]

...and there were Olivetti PCs with passive backplanes that took CPU cards. I have one such 80286 card, but no machine.

[Eudimorphodon]

So basically it's not much faster than replacing just the 8086 by a NEC V30...?

The SOTA board ups the clock speed to 12mhz and comes with a cache so it's probably faster at least some of the time. But by how much is a fair question.

[Chuck(G)]

...and most significantly, other than speed, you realized none of the advantages (save for the instruction set additions) of a genuine 80286 system (e.g. protected mode with memory segmentation). Compatibility issues were legend.

[evildragon]

...and most significantly, other than speed, you realized none of the advantages (save for the instruction set additions) of a genuine 80286 system (e.g. protected mode with memory segmentation). Compatibility issues were legend.

This reminds me of the person here who managed to upgrade among upgrade to a 486 in a 5150, and get Doom to start, which runs in protected mode, not even sure how it worked.

[Eudimorphodon]

This reminds me of the person here who managed to upgrade among upgrade to a 486 in a 5150, and get Doom to start, which runs in protected mode, not even sure how it worked.

There were a *few* upgrade cards that supported protected mode software. I'm guessing they were using an Intel Inboard 386/PC upgraded via a socket adapter, I vaguely recall seeing some threads about that.

I don't know offhand if any 286 boards supported protected mode software, though; at minimum you'd realistically need a board that includes its own private RAM (which the Inboard does) to support Extended memory.

[resman]

This looks similar to the Orchid Tiny Turbo 286 I have in my Compaq Portable. It provides a nice boost of performance for all the programs I've run on it (mostly development tools).

[Trixter]

The SOTA board ups the clock speed to 12mhz and comes with a cache so it's probably faster at least some of the time.

Yes, it's actually pretty snappy. It won't give you magical 286 powers as Chuck mentioned, but it's a noticably faster feel than just an NEC V30 upgrade.

I see the CPU cable in the background of one of the auction pictures. Even with the cable, I think 210 euros is quite overpriced.