A 486 DOS Gaming PC or the World's Fastest 386?: IBM's Blue Lightning!

Today I wanted to celebrate breaking 200 followers on Twitter and 75 subscribers here by assembling the "World's Fastest 386." Using an Alaris Cougar 486BL, we're going to build a PC that shows that you don't need a 486 to play mid-to-late DOS games, but that a 386 could do it too!
● World's Fastest 386 Specifications:
Alaris Cougar II Motherboard (Rev. B?)
(See UH19 for specs of the board: www.win3x.org/u...)
75MHz IBM 486BL3 "Blue Lightning"
(See Redhill's CPU Guide for more on the BL3: www.redhill.net...)
Cyrix Fasmath CX-83D87-33GP
32MB Fast Page Mode 72-pin SIMM RAM (2x16MB sticks)
32GB Compact Flash Card
Paradise Bali32 Vesa Local Bus (VLB) ARK1000VL-based Video Card w/ 2MB FPM RAM
Kingston NE2000-compatible Plug n' Play Ethernet Card
VLB Adaptec I/O Controller (integrated on-board)
Opti Mad16/929A-based Sound Card
Dreambaster S2 MIDI Daughterboard
Generic Baby AT Case
● Drivers for the Opti929A, as referenced, and DOS Benchmark Suite:
NOTE: The drivers for the Turtle Beach Montego Bay DO work for this card, despite having a different codec than the Analog Devices one present here.
www.philscompu...
www.philscompu...
● RetroTechBytes links:
/ retrotechbytes
#Retro​ #Computers #DOS #Vintage

[@RetroTechBytes]

This PC has since been updated! Check out the new build here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fpbGp5p4pt-Yq5Y

[@jikissgamer]

Amazing video man. This is my favorite era of computers. My 486 as a kid had VLB and it was awesome. I totally agree on the SB Pro 2.0, I have one in my 386 and it sounds absolutely beautiful. Best 386 card by far. This is the fastest 386 I've ever seen, Doom ran like a sideshow on my 386 at full screen! I love seeing the rare 386 + VLBus setup. That entire motherboard is just endlessly fascinating. Excellent video! This was super educational and something I would even show one of my friends or family members if I wanted to teach them about this stuff.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thank you so much for the kind words, my friend! I agree wholeheartedly. VLB is such a cool bus and nothing beats the feeling of that satisfying "clink" when those giant cards slot into place. The SB Pro 2.0 is definitely going to replace that OPTi card next. I agree with you--best 386 card by far and arguably even the best 486 card, maybe baring a GUS. I just need to figure out something to get the CD-ROM drive on the IDE instead of through the soundcard and seeing how it goes haha. It's kinda weird, isn't it? I never thought I'd see a 386 with 16kb of L1 cache, but I guess that and IBM's crazy engineers are magic. Doom on a DX-40 is very close to being playable, but I can't even get it close to this. And hey, I'm just so glad that you enjoyed! I always love sharing with everyone, especially passionate people like yourself who always have something fantastic and interesting to add and contribute! Thank you again, man, and this really means quite a lot, especially coming from you!

[@Optimus6128]

I didn't know this rare 386 exists. I max mine with AMD 386DX40mhz with 8MB, selecting the best bandwidth ISA Gfx Card Tseng Labs ET4000 (I don't have any better slot in the motherboard, the VLB were usually on 486 motherboards) and the Gravis Ultrasound. And have you tried FastDoom? A DOS port of Doom tried to make optimize to run faster on 386. This one starts being ok at least in halfres on my 386. I wonder what numbers it would make in your PC. doomwiki.org/wiki/FastDoom

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thank you for watching! I hope that you enjoyed! The 386DX-40 is an awesome machine and 8MB sounds like a fantastic and overkill match for it! The Tseng ET4000 is actually quite fantastic for any 386 and even quite good on 486s. It's basically the fastest ISA card you can get and honestly, not too far from some VLB cards. I bet that with the GUS, that thing is one awesome gaming powerhouse! I hope that you enjoy it, and happy gaming! As far as FastDoom, now that's really, really interesting. I actually don't know how it'd run on here, but I'll have to give it a shot and compare with Vanilla Doom. The 486BL3 isn't entirely a 386, being that it supports 486 instructions, but it might actually show demonstrable improvement given how much faster FastDoom is overall. Thank you for the fantastic idea!

[@SUCRA]

O yeah, the same case as the Rust Bucket! Luckily yours doesn't have any rust, haha! Nice video Will, it's lovely spending this time with you in this 386 journey. I'm genuinely impressed at how well this 386 runs Doom, Duke3d and Descent. One question, why did you have the smaller field of view on Wolfenstein? Oh and cool thing you ran Dark Forces! Isn't that game crazy well optimized?

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thank you so much for the kindness and support, my friend! I guess that means I've got the Rust Bucket's cousin here, eh? But I love the Rust Bucket and it has quite a lot of character! Talk about a survivor and a pure beast there haha! Thank you so much, and trust me when I say that I promise this is just the beginning! I left a lot on the table here and really want to explore what it's like to run the World's Fastest 386! I was blown away by Doom and Duke3D was absolutely nuts. Descent was another one that I did not in the least expect to work, and was totally shocked. It actually ran fine on the highest settings. I wonder if a mild overclock to 100MHz would get anywhere on making it a bit smoother? As for Wolf3D, now that's a funny one! When I was a kid, I ALWAYS played it on the smallest FOV. I'm very uncomfortable playing it beyond there for some reason. It could be just because I'm so used to it. I actually had a note to myself to try it at a higher FOV, but I genuinely forgot. Old habits die hard, am I right? And thank you! Dark Forces is one of my favorite DOS games of all time. I'm a huge Star Wars nerd and it's such a cool and unique game. The optimization is mind-boggling. Was it always known to be this well-optimized? I never played it much when I was younger, but remember thinking it looked so freaking awesome. Thanks again, my friend! Your support is greatly, greatly appreciated!

[@maxouteee0317]

By the way, in One Must Fall 2097, I think it will be very suitable, I myself unfortunately did not play it on the network, but it seems to be quite seriously done there.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thank you for watching, and thank you for the suggestion! Now this is a game that I didn't think of, but it definitely would be quite suitable! I'll give it a go, and see how it turns out! Thanks again, and I hope that you enjoyed!

[@RetroTinkerer]

Hello, I never had seen one of these before, where that motherboard came from an IBM machine? (Any clue from the original BIOS?)

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thanks for watching! I hope that you enjoyed! As far as what machine it came from--this is where the Cougar is really strange. It was IBM-produced, but meant entirely for system-builders. It is not actually an IBM board for a PS/2 or ValuePoint or the like. It was intended as a special, enthusiast thing and was mostly used in industrial applications because it's fully legacy-compatible, quite fast, and, for non-FPU intensive operations, it's probably a tad faster than even a DX2-66 honestly, especially with that 16kb of WB L1 cache. I'm not quite sure what the purpose of this board really was, but IBM contracted with Alaris only to build it! Alaris also built the Leopard and Leopard LX, which are IBM SLC2 machines. They also built the NexGen boards too! If you want some more info and to see some stuff on the BIOS, here's where I found the BIOS that's currently on there: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=59146&start=60. Here's a fantastic site with some more general info on the board too: www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/show/438.

[@modernandretrogaming]

Great video and wonderful build. I hope you will try also Windows NT 3.5 or even 95.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thank you so much, my friend, and thank you for all of your support! I really appreciate your kind words and I definitely plan to try out NT 3.5 or 95--perhaps even both, and maybe even NT4! I don't know what this machine's real limits are, but like you always do and like you always say--it's a great idea to benchmark hard and see where the limits are! I want to try and max this thing out. I might get slightly faster cache and try an overclock at 33x3, because apparently these chips were also sold in 100MHz variants, and none of the IBM SLC/BL chips are factory speed-graded. Supposedly, they're all the same! It's really weird to see VLB work well on a 386, but I guess that's IBM for us, right? Haha! Maybe that's worth testing too--seeing what the slowest/fastest cards there are and seeing where things go!

[@modernandretrogaming]

@@RetroTechBytes You can also put there Intel 486 and try to push him in software mode in Quake II or even try that mode in Unreal. Or even try DOSBox emulator at 98SE and try first Quake from there. That will be a way too hard but Intel claimed their cpu's are the best so they can receive best hardest tests. Or try to render something in 3D Studio at not so low resolution or try to apply some filters on old Photoshop on big image. There are many hard crazy options to try.

[@RetroTechBytes]

@@modernandretrogaming oh yeah, putting a 486 and pushing Quake II would be interesting. Maybe I can try a 486SX and FPU emulator just to really push it? But actually I may try with an Am5x86 or a Pentium Overdrive or something and see. Unreal would be interesting too. I doubt it’d hit double-digit FPS. Oh LORD hahahahaha now running Quake in DOSBOX on there would HURT, but you’re right! It’d be interesting to see if it even launched. Truthfully, I want to do some photoshop and see how it goes. I imagine it’d be okay, maybe a little slow, but it’s not so much FPU-based that it’d slow things down unbearably. I might do a 100MHz overclock and try Quake again, just to see, because if I can increase the FPS from 2.3 to maybe 5ish, that’d be an interesting leap. I doubt it’d get that far! Lots of benchmarks to do, that’s for sure! Thank you for all the wonderful ideas, my friend! :)

[@modernandretrogaming]

@@RetroTechBytes I hope you can use that FPU emulator with SX cpu. First Quake was too easy, even Unreal Tournament have software rendering option, or you can try Rune, that village at beginning of that game can push cpu very hard in software rendering.

[@RetroTechBytes]

@@modernandretrogaming oh jeez that FPU emulator would be hilariously strenuous. I can imagine the fan I’d have to install and it’s not pretty! You’re right about that-Quake I is too simple. We should definitely go for UT99 or Rune! Rune is another crazy one! Honestly, I think I may see what happens at 100MHz on this thing with a Pentium Overdrive! It might be able to (sorta) handle it!

[@StevesTechShed]

Hi from Twitter :) Nice video, but oh wow I hated the Opti sound cards. 929 and 931 if I remember rightly and I used to have real trouble with the plug n play on them

[@RetroTechBytes]

Hey, thanks for watching! I hope you enjoyed!! Yeah, I actually just switched to the CT1600 since I decided to skip the CD-ROM at the moment. I’ll get it going, but I need to get one of those CF rear brackets for the World’s Fastest 386 there. The 929A isn’t too awful, but it has its quirks. I agree on the plug n play issues. They’re very temperamental cards, but luckily the drivers from Phil’s Computer Lab are very solid. This particular card is just a clone card anyway, so it’s a halfway decent implementation. The 931 I’ve had issues with for sure though. I believe that eschews a real OPL-3 in favor of the integrated, awful clone and that’s just a yikes from me hahaha. Combined with bad PnP? Nope. Hard pass! Truthfully, nothing beats a YMF-71X or Creative SB Pro/SB16 or ESS Audiodrive for classic SB/OPL-3!

[@realbigtrees]

nice video! congrats on your milestones

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thank you so much! I hope that you enjoyed! I really do appreciate it and look forward to keep building and sharing, growing and learning, and, most of all, giving back to all of you in every way that I can! Knowledge and fun are two priceless things that come from this, with the third being community!

[@LuisGuzmanJr]

I would love to see you review and play some games with the Sound Blaster Pro 2.0! It’s one of my favorite sound cards. Awesome build and subsequent upgrade. Nicely done.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thank you for this idea! I really appreciate the kind words on this build too! The Alaris Cougar is probably my favorite motherboard of all time, so it was a treat!

[@BrassicGamer]

Nice to meet you at last! :) This was entertaining. If this was the only system I had that could run Duke 3D, I would play it at that speed. I fell like I would die too often in Descent, though. Nice choice of games! I like that you went into detail about things. I think the biggest benefit of ATX power was definitely to control on/off via software, but I don't think that feature is particularly relevant for home systems. It's certainly a crazy motherboard, and it can certainly hold its own against a 486. Does it also support lower voltage 486 models, or would it need an interposer with VRM? Thanks for the video!

[@RetroTechBytes]

Nice to meet you too! And thank you greatly for your continued support and for all of the kind words, my friend! I’m very glad to hear that this was entertaining! Duke3D was surprisingly playable and I found it quite interesting that, with shadows off and details on low, it ran okay. It probably ran about how a 486DX-33 ran the game, which is kinda crazy, given that this is a steroid-pumped 386! Descent was rough. I could’ve turned it down lower, but I wanted it to look halfway decent haha! It did feel slow! But hey, thank you! I want to rotate in a few more and I’m curious how something like SimCity 2000 would run on here. And thank you! I was in the mood to ramble a bit and figured I’d cover some of the things some of the people I know who are familiar primarily with ATX might find obscure! ATX soft off is definitely one of those things that I agree with you on relevancy. Truthfully, most people I know leave their PCs on or put them in sleep, which isn’t something that requires ATX per se. It definitely is wild to see a 386 go toe-to-toe with a 486 though. I certainly never thought I’d see the day! As far as the lower voltage models, Socket 2 is unfortunately 5V only. That being said, it is compatible with things like the Gainberry CPU Maximizer, Kingston Turbochip, PNY Quickchip, Pentium Overdrive, or the DX4 Overdrive, as well as standard 3.3/3.45V interposers with a VRM. In all honesty, I haven’t messed with a 486 on this board. It would be kind of interesting because the OPTi499 chipset is the top-of-the-line of the OPTi 4XX series chipsets, and those were decently fast for 486s. Either way, thank you for watching, for all of your kind words, and for your amazing support! I can’t wait to keep on sharing, all while learning from you and everyone else in the community the whole way!

[@DatBlueHusky]

I have my BL3 running at 100MHZ its fast as hell but the asus board im using is isa only, no vlb. If i find a vlb 386 board and run the BL3 cpu on it, it be a weapon.

[@ohsoretro5612]

1:42 dude! Snap! Same case as my pentium 1! kzbin.info/www/bejne/gIvapJmtgseLjc0 Still busy watching the video but looks like a really nice build! Im quite envious of your VLB card and that awesome motherboard :)

[@ohsoretro5612]

37:24 - wait whaaat? That is running seriously well for a 386! Even better than the P200 with the Verite :P Did I understand you correctly in that this is a 386 running at 72mhz?

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thank you so much for watching and for all of the support! I really appreciate the kind words! This is awesome, I gotta check your Pentium 1 out! Can’t beat a Socket 7 system, that’s for sure! Thank you though for the kind words, again! That VLB card was a LUCKY find years ago on Amazon. It was kinda strangely listed and I snagged it about 5 or so years ago. I didn’t realize just how fast it was until I was testing it and then ran across some Vogons threads on just how crazy the ARK1000VL/PV is in DOS! The board, though, well that’s another story! I’ve been hunting that white whale for YEARS and had to jump when I saw one! It’s technically not (but it is) a 386, even though it’s basically a 386DX with the 486SX instruction set. It’s running at 75MHz, with a bus speed of 25MHz! Apparently, because these chips were not speed-graded, they are 100MHz capable, and the IBM BL3 was the first CPU of the x86 variety to hit that mark! It’s very, very fast in integer math-very close to a DX2-66. But in FPU-intensive calculations, it struggles! I have a Cyrix 387 Fasmath in there, and kind of want to upgrade it to a grey-top model, as those are marginally faster. Kinda wild that this runs better than the P200 with the Verite! I wonder if that’s something with how the Verite is in DOS? It’s not the best DOS card from my experience haha. The ARK is not very good in anything not DOS honestly. But hey, thanks for watching and thank you for the kind words and interest!

[@nicwilson89]

11:30 Yea, we call them 'bodge wires' in electronics. Less common these days but you still get them, used to be fairly common to see if you were in electronics repair/technician fields or hardware design, electronics engineering etc with going through so many electronics internals constantly every day. Either that or quickly tacked in components that were clearly done by hand, random resistors or coupling/decoupling caps, maybe some zeners sometime haha. Shit like literally just having a coupling/decoupling cap bodged in by solder tacking the legs of a cap across the pins on a random microcontroller or whatever, like actually tacked straight onto the legs of the IC and then maybe just fold the cap over when you're done to move it out of the way or keep the board profile low to slide into an enclosure :D That's a fascinating motherboard. Very impressed with that Blue Lightning chip, too. Certainly has some punch for it's 'weight' :D Alright, the Duke 3D demo there was fucking impressive. Insane to think its running at all nevermind that well on a 386!

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thank you so much for the kind words! It's definitely a word of art to see bodge wires and handmade corrections. There's something about that level of precision that just clearly makes the assembly that much more impressive! I really found your short description here fascinating! I had no idea! That makes a lot of sense, and it's really cool how you could just tack on a component and move it out of the way, post-assembly! And hey, glad to hear you liked the board! That chip is something else. For a 386DX on steroids, it's kinda wild what IBM could accomplish! Duke3D on a 386 blew my mind too! Something about these chips really flexes that integer performance muscle! Thanks again for watching, and I'm glad you enjoyed!

[@nicwilson89]

​@@RetroTechBytes ​ Yea, it's usually when you come across something too close to the deadline to allow re-spinning new boards with the correction and what not, so you'd just do it by hand instead. It shows they at least cared enough to do possibly hundreds or thousands, maybe more, hand corrections rather than just ship a product that doesn't quite work and what not :) Oh yea, I *love* seeing the more obscure hardware like this from what I like to call 'the good old days' haha :D Look forward to future videos! But until then, I see there's a new upload just now, and so I shall go watch that :D Keep doing what yer doing, my man. Love the content :D

[@RetroTechBytes]

@@nicwilson89 That really makes a lot of sense! I think these Alaris boards were low-volume enough that it probably made sense to correct them. At least on this revision! I’ve seen one later revision (possibly Rev. C?) that seems to lack the bodge wire, but also seems somewhat different in implementation. I do think you’re right about it showing care, though, and that’s what makes it awesome to me! And hey, I’m so glad to hear it! I love this stuff and obscure hardware is kinda my game! I have always found anything “retro” to be fascinating, mostly since it’s what I remember growing up, but it’s also just that sense of “quick and dirty” solutions that makes it so dang cool! And hey, thanks! There’ll be plenty more! The last one was delayed a bit by some issues with the build, but I hope that you enjoy it and I am so thankful for your kind words and support!! Thank you again, and I hope that you enjoy the new vid!

[@oliver1224]

I had the IBM Blue Lightning in 1993... Mine ran at 67-69Mhz or that was what it was measured at... I regret giving it away. A great video, thanks.

[@mri]

Wow this machine is beautiful, and what nice hardware you found, amazing. May I ask you, how(where) did you find it in so clean and new state? The ones I find are all rusty and yellow :-) Great video! Thanks

[@marsupialpianist1450]

Does yours tolerate 100mh/z? Can confirm my Rev.3 board with factory bodge wire works fine at BL3/100, though a fan is required for the tiny heatsink. Good performance boost, no stability issues. Also tried a POD5V83 at 100mh/z but it's not 100% stable, benchmarks not much better than at 83 and occasionally crashes.

[@Volgasmetdietroep]

I ran doom on a 386DX 40Mhz... it wasnt perfect back than, but al least i COULD play it😁

[@MrDarchangelomni]

Well I dont wanna rain on parades but AMD still technically has the worlds fastest 386, the dx40 has a mainboard bus that is literally 1 to 1 with the processor, add cascade mode fp ram and change the crystal and caps to support .1 overvolt and .3 oc, you end up with a chip that runs 53mhz at the same speed as the motherboard which does magical things for memory timings... Ive seen oc dx40s put down everything but genuine dx2 chips still using the genuine 386 instruction set, the reason why is simple effectively the whole of system ram ram becomes l2 cache when the mainboard runs at same speed as the cpu. so 8kb cache chips just die when they cant keep their pipeline full.

[@primus711]

I put 1 on my vortex amiga bridge card And the blue lighting is a 486 You are using the 32bit version bl3 which there are 100mhz versions Many many accel card for pc98 etc computers used them I have a collection of them with extra cache etc on them You can still find them on Japanese auctions

[@spladam3845]

For a second I thought you were going to hose off that AT case lol! Fantastic parts list for this project and a great build, an interesting retro PC. Impressive performance, I've never seen Doom run that well on a 386.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Haha thank you! I probably should've, jokes aside, because that thing was gross! The camera made it look better, but years of gunk were on that thing. AT cases are tanks, though, so it'd probably have been fine to clean that way too haha! But yeah, it's crazy fast and I gotta hand it to IBM on this one! I love this machine and board, but the 387's slowness kills me. For FPU-related tasks, a true 486 is a better bet. But, for integer-heavy work and games like Doom? This thing takes the cake!

[@omarsis81]

What capture device did you use?

[@RetroTechBytes]

Hey, thanks for watching! As far as capture, I used an AverMedia C127 Game Broadcaster HD, with a couple of Extron boxes feeding the VGA signal and converting it to HDMI. I use an Extron P/2 DA2 PLUS to split the signal between the monitor and capture card and an Extron RGB-HDMI 300A as my VGA-HDMI scaler. The thing is that I lose 10fps, as everything is rendered at 60Hz, but that's fine for KZbin. That's pretty much it, and sound comes through the Line In on my desktop's DAC! Thanks again for checking out the channel! I hope that you enjoyed, and I hope that this helps!

[@偉旭自動化陳艷山]

I am very interested in your motherboard,Does he still exist?Could I buy it from you?I need this motherboard for my old machine.

[@clintthompson4100]

That is such a sweet 386 computer and seeing ROTT play that well on that system was a heck of a feat for that souped up 386. I remember playing alot of these games back in the early 90s like Return To Zork. You never forget your first time in the Great Underground Empire(GUE) or even Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade(Granted in 1989) but played great on a 386 system. It's a great build and video.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Hey, thanks for watching and and thanks a million for your kind words! ROTT really surprised me. I could not at ALL tell the difference between that and a 486DX2-66; in fact, I ran both simultaneously and still couldn't tell! Return to Zork is a great one and a classic! Funny thing about Zork--I still play the original from time to time and that game is just timeless! Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and the Great Underground Empire are pretty much 386 classics and they are really, really evocative of an era of when it all began as far as PC gaming goes! The music for Indy is fantastic, and I think AdLib tracks and a 386 is a match made in heaven! Thanks again for watching, and I'm so glad that you enjoyed the build!

[@clintthompson4100]

@@RetroTechBytes Your welcome. Its always great to see retro builds and retro games from that era. Glad you got to share this with everyone that grew up on this time and anyone from a new generation that wants to learn more about this time in computer history. Have a good one.

[@wishusknight3009]

Is it possible to pick a 2x multi and run a 40 mhz bus? That would be quite a boost to it.

[@wilsonnw]

Mine has the same bodge wire. Happy at BL3 100mhz but needs a fan nearby. On a never ending quest to beat real DX2/66's in Doom Timedemo.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Hey thanks for watching! Yeah, I love this board and machine, but I am constantly considering swapping it for a DX2-66 for the enhanced FPU performance. That 387 really holds things back, but in integer performance, the BL3 is a monster. It's a lot like an AMD K5 before the K5 happened! Gotta say, IBM really knew what they were doing with this one haha. Thanks for watching, again, and I hope that you enjoyed!

[@ducksonplays4190]

@@RetroTechBytes The 387 is slow.

[@primus711]

@@RetroTechBytes ibm licensed the 486 core from intel and added 16kb cache it was to extend the ps2 line and they were not allowed to sell separately but were in japan computer market The 16bit version is used on 386sx boards 32bit on dx boards

[@JustForFun-dn1gi]

VLB - Very Long Bus ? RLY ?

[@RetroTechBytes]

Yep haha! That's what I've always heard joked about it! VLB is definitely an impressive stopgap pre-PCI, and it's a ton of fun to mess with. It's a super neat bus, that's for sure!

[@jgordon7719]

there are pentiums that struggle with descent

[@BadManiac]

When I was building MY ultimate 486, on a VLB/PCI mobo with an am5x86 133Mhz, I was testing all my PCI and VLB graphics cards to find the fastest, and one VLB card suddenly just killed all the others, including my PCI Tseng ET6000 PCI!!! (crap PCI implementation on my mobo). Turns out this VLB card I've had sitting in a pile of stuff for years was an Ark 1000VL, the fastest VLB card ever made *lol* So now my Ultimate 486 really is ultimate :D

[@RetroTechBytes]

Dang, sorry to hear that the one VLB card killed the others! But hey, I'm super glad that you found the ARK1000VL! They're killer cards and really, really nice for DOS games! You can't beat them haha! Definitely sounds like an ultimate build to me!

[@MrDarchangelomni]

sound card options? or do u intend to use 2?

[@draganraxrax7497]

Man...you are rich. ;)

[@henkpasman1195]

You know about the 486.000? You can actually fit a quad core chip in the socket of a 486. It wil run single core but on a speed compatible with a pentium 5000.. next to that there are memory banks of 256mb that fit, those are very special but you could fit something like 768 mb .. the 486.000 pc

[@saldenhoven76]

Had a similar board with the bl3. I remember it also having the Adaptec ide controller on the vesa local bus that was really fast. With the special 32 bit driver installed windows 3.11 felt more reactive than a lot of other 486 DX2 systems. Had a mpeg decoder card in it so it could play cd video. I had a lot of friends that just couldn’t believe what they where seeing. Had no math coprocessor though, that really was a big miss at times. This video was so much fun to watch remembering that machine.

[@bunter6]

Great video, what an interesting board.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Thank you so much for the kind words and for your support! This really is a weird, weird board. And a unique one too. IBM really modeled this board in a way that just reflected their design philosophy. It was stable, decently fast (albeit not the fastest), and took an unconventional approach toward bridging the generational gap between the 386 and 486. Truthfully, for integer-based operations, I'd prefer this or something like a UMC U5SX over a standard Intel/AMD 486, as there's some advantages that are reflected by the simpler architecture. But, I can see where, when an FPU is involved, the answer is going to be a 486DX2-66. There's no doubt in my mind that this board was not in any sense of the word "normal," and I think that this build was way easier than I anticipated too. I thought that it would be difficult to mess with something as strange as this, but it turns out that this board was just designed with simplicity and ease.

[@vpfaustino]

Top 👏👏👏👏

[@mightwilder]

this is 486

[@zachz96]

Even ISA cards can be a bit tricky to install into slots between two populated slots.

[@RetroTechBytes]

Agreed big time, especially when it comes to longer cards. That's always the worst.

[@zachz96]

@@RetroTechBytes I guess the same applies to PCI, AGP, and PCI Express cards as well. Also, I like that most desktop and laptop computers today retain quit a lot in common with their ancestors that were made many decades ago. It is however much better to run MS-DOS and games on period-correct hardware to get the best experience.

[@RetroTechBytes]

@@zachz96 Absolutely. PCIe cards have gotten quite cumbersome. Installing my main GPU in my editing/gaming PC was not a fun task haha. I do think that you're right and it's quite cool to see how there's a lot of legacy-type similarities among the generations, but things definitely have gotten more convenient here and there. M.2 is an excellent form-factor and SATA is much easier to manage than PATA. To me, though, nothing beats the simplicity of Conventional PCI and 16-bit ISA, at least with shorter cards. PCIe x1 cards can be a pain too, but in x1 slots, they're acceptable