The Cursed 386 - The Atronics International ATI-386/B2!

[@Metalliferous]

Very strange layout indeed, but to be fair, how often would a typical user change memory in the lifetime of their system? That XCMOS interface is a beast, imagine somebody going, "Hey developer we need a utility for the user, and you need to set these registers." "Sure here is exactly what you asked for.". Also shoutout to Halloween Harry, this game doesn't get a lot of love, although it deserves it.

[@randomexcessmemories4452]

If you manage to find the RAM expansion board, you should do a follow-up!

[@oldschooldude8370]

8mb of ram is rockstar status with this relic. Awesome build.

[@glitchwrks]

Great to see this crazy board running! That 8-bit EPROM socket is probably for an extension ROM, like ROM BASIC. You might be able to run an XT-IDE Universal BIOS image in it.

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks for watching! Great point, I didn’t think of that. Only one way to find out 😁

[@xero110]

You unlocked an old memory. I had this mobo back in the day, well much later as I got hand-me-downs from family and friends back then, about 92' or 93'. I used this mobo in an old metal case and my CGA monitor sat on top of it. I mostly used it for BBS and downloading MOD files to listen to.

[@jarinaumanen8447]

When Doom came out, I immediately went to the store to buy a new computer to replace my old 386 machine.

[@rodhester2166]

Nothing looks cooler than a crazy mobo fully populated. thanks for sharing.. cheers.

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks for watching! 🙂

[@julialongtin5743]

I owned one of these.. only it also supported a 286/287.

[@seank4148]

Wow. 15+ years doing retro stuff and this is the first time I've seen this board.

[@atheatos]

Totally crazy layout.

[@aaldrich1982]

Giving someone a 3dfx card in 2024 isn't just kind it's a gesture of true friendship

[@thisoldtech2]

I'll agree with that! hehe :D

[@vswitchzero]

Haha so true! 😁

[@CD3WD-Project]

Wow that's the craziest thing I have seen in a long time.

[@BrassicGamer]

Been looking forward to this one! Amazingly archaic BIOS - never seen one like that before. I'm glad this unique board has been saved and is working. Nice selection of games, too. I really like what you've done with the front panel components - would love to do something like that myself when I get back into the hobby. Thanks for sharing, Mike!

[@thisoldtech2]

I'm thinking of soldering up a set of 'testing' toys like that for my desk. I love the short stubby LEDs and buttons. Kinda jealous of those TBH

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks Andrew! Glad you enjoyed it 👍 .. I got those stubby front panel LEDs, switches and speaker from an old “Highspeed tech station” I had many years ago. They’ve come in handy many times. I should construct some more of them.

[@dominikschutz6300]

Interesting, didn't know halloween harry... Excellent restoration :)

[@trevorhanlin4247]

only a minute in and back in the 90s I had this board. I couldn't find a case for it, so it sat in discombobulated pieces. I loved to modify and overclock this guy.

[@Zerbey]

Loved Halloween Harry! I remember it eventually ended up on a magazine coverdisk in the mid 1990s.

[@PaulHindt]

Halloween Harry! Oh man, I almost completely forgot about that game. You don't really see people mention it or show it off on these kinds of videos. You typically see the same demos of Doom, Duke 2D/3D, Jazz Jackrabbit, etc.

[@spladam3845]

This was great Mike, very interesting board. You scored a nice piece of history here. Good to see Willy Besmish get some attention. I had been locked out of that whole class of Sierra game when I got my 386 running, as it had moved to all VGA about that time, and Willy was one of the first games I played on my new machine.

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks very much! Glad you enjoyed the video. When I get some time I’d love to do a play through of Willy Beamish. Been a long time and never did get very far 🙂

[@alvaroacwellan9051]

That layout is just nuts. Otherwise, I was curious how a SiS Rabbit based board performs (not having one myself), now I had a glimpse.

[@monad_tcp]

3:59 just like the mini-computers of the previous era, the memory was an extra card plugged into the "backplane" which is the motherboard.

[@catriona_drummond]

Love videos like this. They make me want to descend into my vault and build a PC.

[@vswitchzero]

Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching 👍

[@rinner2801]

I loved Willy Beamish!

[@ZaneBlade88]

That Doom demo made the SNES port look smooth. XD Interesting design. Hindsight says cursed but kinda clever for the chunky chip days.

[@felixokeefe]

Yes low detail and shrinking the display window does make Doom just about playable.

[@pinklightninggacha]

That is a genius setup

[@Txm_Dxr_Bxss]

This is actually a Motherboard I own. I have seen the 128 Byte cache option in the BIOS, I have always wondered if there was some obscure processor with 128Bytes of internal cache. The external cache is limited to 64K as far as I know.

[@vswitchzero]

Very cool to hear from someone else who had this board! Hoping to give the internal 128 byte cache a try sometime soon. I tried to enable it earlier but it just hung up the system. Thinking I may need to physically remove the SRAM for it to work properly.

[@lamune6809]

@@vswitchzero I think that setting would be for a Cyrix Cx486DLC CPU. They had a little bit of internal L1 cache

[@Ale.K7]

What a strange board. Would love to see a video testing the chipset's integrated cache!

[@ahabwolf7580]

Awesome video, thank you!

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks for watching! 😁

[@erinwiebe7026]

What a bizarre layout!

[@MatthewCimone]

Ahhh...that"s why they call them POST-its.

[@vswitchzero]

LOL - I see what you did there 😁

[@intel386DX]

Very unusual 😊. I imagine this with smaller board 😊

[@SidneyCritic]

I would just find or 3D print a "C" shaped clip to pull the RAM against the back post.

[@awilliams1701]

not just cursed, but fragile too.

[@sterlingphoenix]

Whaddaya mean "cursed"? It works, doesn't it? (:

[@LeinaDZiur]

Sometimes we gotta do stuff just because we think it will look cool

[@MonochromeWench]

An AMIbios straight out of the 80s. Other than XCMOS it looks unmodified from the AMIBios for AT Clones.

[@Raul_Gajadhar]

I like that board, but it needs a bios update. Good job.

[@retroboby007]

Interesting video and strange motherboard indeed. But what score do you get in 3dbech 1.0 ? I wonder if Test Drive 3 The Passion runs good (ingame clock per real clock) with turbo switched to low.

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks! I scored 13.1 in 3D Bench 1.0 (in the performance optimized config covered in the video).

[@Markworth]

I feel like it would have been obvious how bad an idea this was when it came time to layout the traces, but where there's a will, there's a way.

[@absalomdraconis]

Honestly, maybe not. As long as you were willing to run the memory at the same speed as ISA, you could probably rig up something surprisingly coherent, and even use the same data (and maybe address) lines.

[@juhani6307]

I'm not so sure if you should lay down the motherboard on an antistatic bag, because the outer layer of the bag is allegedly partially conductive. Maybe better lay it down on a foam or something?

[@Ironclad17]

I would just assume this causes problem with interference.

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks for the tip! I had never considered that the outside layer would be different. I noticed this board seems to introduce a lot of noise into the sound card (tried several). I will give it a try without the static bag and see if it changes things at all.

[@Zerbey]

@@vswitchzero Next time you get pizza ask for an unused box from the store, perfect for this kind of application!

[@esc2dos]

Nice work. Crazy layout, I've never seen a board like that (for good reason). You mentioned Mr. Bios, I have a board with a Phoenix Bios that refuses to accept anything but the original Harddrive, I found a list of the chipsets that Mr Bios worked with and mine fits, are the Bios Roms available online?

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks for watching! I believe there is a pretty large archive available on the Vogonsdrivers site. But I don’t think it’s complete. Would be great to see them all added to the retro web project at some point 👍

[@esc2dos]

@@vswitchzero Good to know, I'll have a look again at Vogons, thanks. I wonder if the Mr Bios material is considered abandonware or if it's being copyright protected still. Totally agree, would love to see it at the world's greatest web site, the Retro web :)

[@PROSTO4Tabal]

I enjoy your channel. Thanks for sharing

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks so much! 👍🙂

[@BlackEpyon]

I know the guy who sent it to you (we're in the same retro computer club). He told me about that board!

[@lorenzo.c]

What a bizarre layout. Such a bad idea 😆 Thanks for showing this oddity. Sorry to be picky: you said a few times "L2 cache" instead of simply cache but... there's no L1 cache in a 386!

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks for watching! You’re absolutely right.. force of habit from dealing with so many 486 and Pentium systems 🙂

[@remoschramm]

hey just stumbled across your video/channel nice content, but i have a small question what do you use to capture bios and dos i now try for over a year to find a suitable solution but allways have problems with capturing "textmode" vga

[@thisoldtech2]

Solid Q, I'd love to know that myself. He gets a really crisp/clear output on his.

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks for watching! I have two capture solutions that I use. The best is the Datapath Vision E1S - amazing quality and works with just about any VGA era signals including 70Hz. Not the most user friendly and sometimes needs some tweaking. The other is the Startech USB3HDCAP. Great all purpose device and easier to use with more inputs and audio-in. Works with *most* signals but not as good as the E1S. If you look up the Datapath Vision cards you’ll find some good resources. You can sometimes find them cheap on eBay. Hope this helps 👍

[@remoschramm]

@@vswitchzero okay a datapath, thats why the capture is so clear. but this is not cheap, they're traded in germany for over 1000,-€

[@David-h5r1x]

I used to play willy bemish all the time back in the day I was surprised to see it

[@AtreidaeChibiko]

I remember Willie Beamish.. forgetting to put antiseptic on your thumb when you cut it would hurt you during the Nintenjoy tournament... Or feeding your frog sugar causes it to fail drug testing in the race

[@vswitchzero]

Haha yes! I remember the thumb part well. I never did come close to completing the game. Need to give it a run through one of these days 👍

[@B24Fox]

You shouldn't use Anti Static/EMF protective plastic bags underneath a motherboard when powered on. Those black lines printed on the bag, are actually electrically conductive. They are what actually protect the product inside from electrostatic discharges. And with modern protective bags, it's even a bigger no-no; as the entirety of the bag is electrically conductive.

[@thisoldtech2]

I honestly didn't know that myself - I've done it a few times assuming it protected things, I've also used a cardboard base :P

[@absalomdraconis]

​@@thisoldtech2: Clean cardboard will usually be safe.

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks very much for the tip. I didn’t consider that but makes complete sense! I will be doing a follow up video on this board soon and will definitely mention this 👍

[@marcroulleau9510]

Hi, I have a lot of fun , I paused the video (when I realized where the memory slots were) , to wait until I stop laughing, and I have a smile all along the video ... Who did think it can be a good idea ? Thank You !!!

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks so much, glad you enjoyed it! :)

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

The wizard is here to use his voodoo magic to break the curse.

[@ccanaves]

4:03 it actually adds 4 banks (bank 0 to 3), 4 slots/bank, 16 slots total.

[@tspawn35]

I'm confused why they made a 386 motherboard in 1990 when the 486 was already on the market.

[@deneb_tm]

the PC space didn't move quite so fast before multimedia and the WWW came along; 386 machines were very common until 1993 or so. even Windows 95 only required a 386 to run (note: i wasn't personally around to witness this era of computing, i'm just going off of what I've heard / read)

[@Zerbey]

386 systems were still being sold well into the mid 1990s, and you also had quirky things like the 486SLC. I bought one of those brand new in 1993.

[@vswitchzero]

I think one of the main factors was cost. When the 486 first came out it cost a fortune and just wasn’t within reach for mainstream users until about 1992 or so I’d say. There was a similar story for the original Pentium CPUs. The cost was astronomical so there was a 486 overlap for quite a while until about 1995 or so.

[@Zerbey]

@@vswitchzero I put an AMD X5 system together in 1996, a Pentium system was still too expensive even then for a college student.

[@MSM5500]

This is a rich people's motherboard as RAM price/MB kept rock solid $40/MB practically till late 90's so in order to get its SIMMs fully packed would cost a fortune. I could barely afford to have 40MB in my 386 machine back in the day taking into account the fact that the US dollar had entirely different value at the time.

[@SockyNoob]

Love how they finally figured out how to have a full set of RAM slots in a normal-ish space in the next revision lol. Seems like they rushed this one out the door honestly.

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

8:46 I am thoroughly amused you are installing an ATI video card in a board named ATI by an unrelated company

[@vswitchzero]

LOL - seemed appropriate 😁

[@brandonupchurch7628]

On a 386 the external cache is level 1 since there is no internal cache.

[@vswitchzero]

You’re absolutely right.. force of habit from dealing with so many 486s and Pentiums 😁

[@bingusbongus9807]

why do the memory sticks have odd numbers of chips, looking at the 3 chip one they all looked like the same chip???? whats up with that?? what size are the chips???

[@R.Daneel]

13 instead of 3 isn't a 10-fold increase ;-) I'm sure you knew that and just mispoke. Though you do get it there with a bit of tweaking, I see.

[@vswitchzero]

Haha yep, that’s embarrassing! I must have had the reference number in my head when I said that 😁 .. thanks for watching and for the comment 👍

[@rsambrook]

Ten fold increase! 3 x 10 = ?? (Clue not 13) 😅

[@vswitchzero]

LOL yeah, very embarrassing- I don’t know what I was thinking when I recorded that. I must have been looking at the reference 386 score or something. At least I did get it to a tenfold increase after the tweaking was finished 😁 .. thanks for watching!

[@bingusbongus9807]

oh also what the heck was up with that date range?? 1901 to 2099?? not unix time yet still pointlessly limited???

[@lmarin263]

if this kind of motherboard were made with 2020 standards, most people would have to choose between a good graphics card or max amount of ram in their configuration ._.U

[@vswitchzero]

So true! 😁

[@RuruFIN]

Low-profile RAM and a watercooled GPU would be a solution for that. ;)

[@higamitakaro]

funny

[@IkanGelamaKuning]

Unconventional design for memory slot location. First one I see here.

[@gh975223]

DOOM needing a 486???? FFS it needed a Pentium to run! yeh early levels was ok but you definitely needed pentium for the last level!

[@senilyDeluxe]

maybe Atronics = Atrocious Electronics ?

[@fatguywitholdcomputers9351]

@17:08 hey! I have a name!

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks for watching, I'm really sorry for the name omission! I should have went back to check the thread. There is a link in the description to the vogons thread for anyone interested. Those were some really interesting and surprising results.

[@fatguywitholdcomputers9351]

@@vswitchzero oh, I'm just having some fun. I don't even remember why I tested out the theory about simcity and math co-pro. It's not a game I bring out often, as my go-to is SC2K if I want to scratch that itch.

[@Alex-xxxx]

Материнская плата курильщика )))

[@pointblank722]

Complete idiot design...