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Looking to build a 286 PC

Smack2k

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Jan 8, 2013
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Pittsburgh, PA
All,

Forgive my stupidity on this, but just getting started with this..

I want to build a 286 PC for home use (to just do it and also to play older games on and tinker with). Anyway, I was hoping you all could point me in the right direction or give your advice on your own preference for:

Motherboard
Processor (What speed of 286?)
RAM
Controller Card
Sound

I really appreciate the help and if I need to provide ANY other info, please let me know.

If I am missing something obvious, please let me know!

Also, does anyone know if the Aubrey Pilgrim books on 286 / 386 / 486 are any good or worth looking at?

Thanks!
 
All,
I want to build a 286 PC for home use (to just do it and also to play older games on and tinker with). Anyway, I was hoping you all could point me in the right direction or give your advice on your own preference for:

Motherboard
Processor (What speed of 286?)
RAM
Controller Card
Sound

I really appreciate the help and if I need to provide ANY other info, please let me know.

If I am missing something obvious, please let me know!

Also, does anyone know if the Aubrey Pilgrim books on 286 / 386 / 486 are any good or worth looking at?

Thanks!

Why 286? why not 386 (or at least 386SX)? It might be easier to get a 386 or 386SX motherboard, and also it will probably be faster (but still with playable speed with turbo off), and will support some software that 286 won't (e.g Windows 3.1 in enhanced mode).

As far as motherboard, in these dark times I don't think it was any good recommended MB. You can always get an original 5170 AT or PS/2 model 30-286. I think motherboards with Headland chipsets where OK (at least I remember so).

286 speed (frequency) - it will depend on the motherboard. 286 were made from 6 MHz (relatively rare on 3rd party MB) all the way to 20 MHz (or even 25 MHz?). In late 80's early 90's 20 MHz Harris chips were pretty popular...

RAM - again depends on the motherboard. If you get a later one with 30-pin SIMMs, you'll be more flexible with memory configuration. These boards usually have 4 SIMMs and support anything from 512 KiM (2 x 256 KiB SIMMs) to 16 MiB - (4 x 4 MiB SIMMs).

Controller Card - I assume you're talking about Multi/IO... Doesn't matter, they all about the same. I personally like Goldstar Prime 2C based cards, but the only reason is that relatively low chip count, so less things to break :)

Sound Card - SB16 (or some version of it).... Cheap, available, and that's what most games support anyway. There are more exotic choices, but support in games vary...

No good books... at least I was never able to find any useful general (non-programming related) information in the books... Internet is your friend.
 
Unless you already have some parts (e.g. an AT case) that you're looking to build around, it's probably better to track down a prebuilt computer than all the parts you want individually. It also helps if you have some idea what you're looking to run on it. Do you need Wolf3d to run well? Then you need 12mhz or better. etc.
 
Yeah Wolf 3D would be one to run well..

But really, my goal is to build it really just to do it. I have a 386 (Compaq Deskpro 386) / 486 (Self Built) and newer machines so I really just want this as a project to build and learn from as things were different back then in all aspects of the build.

So a 12 MHZ 286 is really what I am hoping to do.....

May seem strange or just un-necesary to do it, but its my side hobby to get as many different generations of PC's together and running. Also to play games on the systems they were made for! Honeslty I know I can emulate all this and once its done I will most likely move on to the next machine (8088, but I may just buy an old IBM PC 5150 / 60 / 70 for that) and tinker with that.

I love history in general as well as old technology. Learning about the things that came before I really got into computers in the Pentium era and forward is really exciting as I remember seeing old machines and playing games on them as a kid but not really knowing what I was dealing with (Apple IIE / C64 / 286-386 PC's). Working in IT today as a System Administrator with all these incredible current technologies, its good to have a full appreaciation of where it came from. Seeing that between work and my son I dont get a ton of free time, these projects take a while to do, so I do get to really get into each piece and not just throw it together, if that makes sense....

I think I am going to start searching for a Motherboard I can update to 4MB after the advice of a user on here. I hope to keep up with teh process on here as i know it will take a while and in the end have a full understanding of "whole enchalada".
 
FWIW, a 12mhz 286 board is relatively easy to find on eBay if you watch the auctions regularly, but you'll likely need a full AT case to house it, as was already mentioned. Also fwiw, Wolf3d runs quite well on a stock IBM PS/2 Model 30-186 (iirc, 8mhz) - you just have to lower the viewable window a few notches from max :)

Also bear in mind that for Wolf3D, a 286 was the lowest compatible system, but a 386/486 system was recommended!

When building your machine, I would suggest a small heatsink be placed on top of the CPU, as the 10mhz and higher 286 chips can run quite hot - might as well help them out as much as you can!

I would also suggest obtaining both a 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drive for the system. Just makes loading things easier... Of course you could go floppy-less and just do a network card and the FTP route, but what kind of fun is that?! :)
 
Also fwiw, Wolf3d runs quite well on a stock IBM PS/2 Model 30-186 (iirc, 8mhz) - you just have to lower the viewable window a few notches from max :)

Really? Maybe I'm spoiled as to what is playable, but my 8mhz 286 Tandy 1000TX just doesn't have what it takes for Wolf3d, even if I reduce the viewport. But according to Wikipedia, the Model 30 came with 8mhz 8086 or 10mhz 286 chips. Maybe yours was a 10mhz model?
 
The Model 30-286 was 10 MHz but more important it had reasonably fast VGA onboard. Played games a lot better than it should.
 
When building your machine, I would suggest a small heatsink be placed on top of the CPU, as the 10mhz and higher 286 chips can run quite hot - might as well help them out as much as you can!

Scavenged southbridge chipsets from modernish motherboards are good for this. I use Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive, which is like heatsink goop except it's also a 2-part epoxy. Be warned that it /really/ sticks the heatsink to ceramic packages and is considered a permanent, non-removable solution!
 
As a kid I used to play Wolf3D on a Model 30 286 - we'd set the screen size to 1 below max and it was all good.
Only reason I don't recommend them is that if anything in them stops working finding replacements can be a challenge.

Of all my 286's, the one that's been the easiest to toy with/maintain/upgrade, was a generic AT clone build. It's 8Mhz and runs well although I use it more for Commander Keen etc than Wolf3D (for me Wolf3D=386 Doom=486 generally).

Off topic but this thread reminded me of a book on my shelf - "How to Build an 80286 and Save a Bundle"
 
Hatta: How are you playing a VGA game on your Tandy 1000 TX?

I forgot about that part. It has an ATI VGA Wonder in it when I want to play VGA games on it. This is a 16 bit card that works in 8-bit too. Not sure if this is a fast card or not, it may actually be the bottleneck. I do agree with SpidersWeb generally, 386 for Wolf3d for best results.
 
Off topic but this thread reminded me of a book on my shelf - "How to Build an 80286 and Save a Bundle"

Blue book, about the size of a full 8.5x11" sheet of paper? If so, I've got that and the PC/XT version too. They're actually decent books for building a computer on a budget, for the time.
 
Blue book, about the size of a full 8.5x11" sheet of paper? If so, I've got that and the PC/XT version too. They're actually decent books for building a computer on a budget, for the time.

Yeah, there are apparently hardback versions I got for 1 dollar piece

286 book
386 book
486 book

Hell, it'll be a good read if anything else...

I'll let you know how much more is in the hardback if any!
 
For memory expansion, I'd go with a Bocaram AT card (daughtercard=memory chips galore), AST Rampage, or an Intel Aboveboard. Mainly a decision of availability and preference.
 
Yep I have the softback A4 size in blue.
But when I was younger I read the hard back copy as above - which I think might've been a brown with gold lettering??
I love the photo of the murdered hard drive.

If you're not running Windows 3.1, you don't really need memory beyond 640K for the most part, most games that run on a 286 will happily bob along with no EMS or XMS. But in saying that, those big AT RAM cards are awesome - one of mine has 108 RAM chips on it - crazy when you hold it up and tell people "3 megabytes".
 
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