My 386 PC dream machine build
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- Опубліковано 15 лют 2019
- I've always wanted to build my dream 386 system. However, parts were difficult to find.
When I finally had a 386 motherboard I didn't really have any decent peripherals like sound / cdrom / ......
However, during a major retro haul where I got a whole bunch of components for free, I was finally up for the task.
My dream PC needed to have :
* Create Soudblaster Pro 2
* 3COM networking card
* Mitsumi single speed CDROM player
* 5.25 inch floppy drive
* Mini AT tower case with a speed indicator and turbo button
And finally it all came together and I was able to perform this build. I admit it is only a 386 SX and not a DX, and it isn't the most advanced motherboard out there, but it will be interesting to see how it holds up to a 386 DX 40 powerhouse should I ever obtain one.
Enjoy.... - Наука та технологія
13:30 Hey man, didn't you want to fill out your registration card and send it to Microsoft? They'll keep you up to date on the latest product improvements! 😂
I never get tired of hearing those old hard drives whirring & grinding away!
This was a very popular case back in the days, I believe I still have a couple of them. Thanks for your very thorough detailed steps in how to bring these ancient well built sturdy systems back to life. Now, I can get some of my treasured PC's going again with all the parts and cases I have collected over the years. Keep up the upgrades and keep them out of the scrapyards and landfills.
I encourage anyone wanting to test mobo's, to use the open bench method. It will save you some potential headaches.
Great choice of game to roadtest the little beasty! Great system you have there, and great attention to detail. We need more people taking care of these old computers. They will never come again.
Such a high level of integration for a 386 motherboard. Really late era board. Looks very clean and neat. And that case is a real beauty :)
Aside from the case and the USB floppy, I have owned all those components at some point in the past including that strange CD drive. Quite a blast from the past.
Glad you enjoyed it !
Very enjoyable watch; some fantastic old hardware. Love this content; you're doing an excellent job!
Thx a lot ! Glad you enjoyed it !
the initial 40 second intro is damn tempting .. i love ALL of those things.. cant wait to watch this delicious looking video!!
hehe ..... I sincerely hope you enjoyed ... make sure to checkout the other content and consider subscribing ... lots more where that came from.
I would like to eat this video
I know right?? "This is going to be for somebody who likes..." and then a list of all the things I like about vintage computing.
#BeigeLife
Black on black to avoid weird things... Only real pros know this... I'm proud to be part of the generation that build up a PC WITH NO INTERNET!
A beautiful system. Let's hope it will keep working for many years to come. :)
I particularly like how this is basically a hall of fame of the era. All classic parts, from the Trident and SB Pro to the trusty old Seagate, and topping it off with the legendary Teac 5.25" (arguably the finest disk drive ever made). And you even have a Mitsumi 1X drive! My hat is off to you.
Thanks.... In my latest video I installed Linux Slackware 1.1.2 on it from 1994. Everything was pretty much supported out of the box ... premium hardware :)
Is it just me or old computer cases like this look more satisfying? More industrial and business like, simple and clean.
Definitely. Those cheap AT cases just look like a proper computer, up on a desk with a CRT and crappy plastic speakers. The way it should be. :-)
@@nickwallette6201
Other than the crappy speakers I agree. LOL
I had these external 10 watt Radioshack speakers that were awesome for my Soundblaster.
The Apple logo on this PC is like when I put a Pentium 4 sticker on an iMac G4
Lot of people did that back then, I do not know why
The Apple logo made the computer cost a $1000 more.
@@fulkthered hahahaha
My socket 7 build (case used to house my childhood 486 back in the day) has an Apple Macintosh Quadra 650 emblem on the front of the case and ye olde toggle power switch. Just need an AT PSU or get the same case again and place my childhood 486 build in there again just like old times.
HAHAHAHAHA
Love your videos. Grew up with a 386 and my first own computer was a 486 DX2 66mhz. Would love to have a retro battlestation in 2019. Keep up the great work and your channel will grow.
Even if I match again this video, I think it s the most epic intro ever on this beautiful channel. Happy new year!
haha .... thanks a lot ... I really put a lot of effort in that intro and never been able to match it in latest videos :) Not really sure I should be proud of that :)
I had exactly the same computer, without the Network card though... It was buyed by my parents around 1992 and it was my first PC. I am amazed to see it again, it was a travel to the past, to the times when you had to fight to get the last bit of memory to make games work. Awesome experience and great video. Greetings from mexico
i remember it well trying to move everything into upper memory so you could free up the base memory. and then the games! oh my civ 2(wich i still play lol)
Oh wow, I've never seen a clamshell-like ODD for front-loading bays like this before! That's a piece of work! I thought that drawer-loading, or at least caddy/slot drives were already around by then. I wonder why this one is like this.
That case cleaned up quite nice!!!
Whow that is same computer case that I had back in 90s with our family 486, I thought that I will never see it again, thank you !
Excellent video! Thank you very much for making it.
Excellent video! It brought back many beautiful memories.
Thank you!
Really glad you enjoyed it... lots of other material on the channel from that era.
...as you were cleaning up the front panel with the towel... i was screaming in my mind: *_"...GET A BRUSH(!) ... GET A BRUSH(!!)"_* Then you got the brush... it was such a releasing moment - it was a very pleasant and fulfilling feeling :-)
Classic setup. Super cool. Thanks!
The game experience at the end seems to be so calm. Almost magical.
Love you content. Keep up the good job!
oh man, this video puts me back when i was a kid and i had my first pc. 80386/SX25 - good old days, thanks for this video and the memories :-D incredible what changed in 30 years :-)
Glad you enjoyed it ... things sure have changed a lot indeed :)
I had the exact same case for my 486. The power button was so pleasing!
Yeah it is a really nice case. You don’t see them all that often.
I had the exact same addressing problem (300H) with my SCSI and soudcard setup when I was doing my DX/40 build. Experience and memory served to fix it, but it just goes to show that defaults are not always a good... default ;)
Soooo cool... wish it was mine❤
Still remember my first system:
A 386sx 33Mhz, 3,25inch 1.44mb floppydrive, 2mb ram, 512kb trident videoadapter and a 40mb conner harddisk. After 6 months we upgraded it with a SVGA monitor, put 8mb ram in it, a double speed cd-rom player, a 560mb seagate harddisk, a soundblaster pro soundcard and installed windows 3.11 (later windows 95) Windows.3.11 was on 7 floppy disks, and windows 95 was my first cd-rom! (I still remember the videos on windows 95: Weezer - buddy holly and edie brickell - good times. Resolution 320x200) It was mindblowing that you could watch a videoclip on your pc...but i always changed win.ini and system.ini, and putted norton commander in the last line in autoexec.bat so it wouldt not start in windows.... what a great time!
Still remember we we have to putt all the drivers in "devicehigh" in config.sys to make more conventional memory, otherwise wolfenstein would not start 😆😆😆
At school they were still using Atari ST1040's (also cool)
Congratulations friend for the restoration it was very good I wanted to have one of these or even a PC XT remembers a big hug from Brazil there to you
This was a very nice video.. it took me back many years. Wow.
Thx a lot. Really glad you enjoyed. Please consider subscribing if you like this kind of stuff.
i love the sentiment of using a period correct drive but damn there's no way i could move away from compact flash or sd card. nice vid btw!
Hehe .. for some strange reason I am a sucker for old hard drives. Also have had a lot of issues with cf cards and corrupt filesystems with cf cards on my retro machines. Need to spend some time on it. But it is indeed very convenient to just insert a pre-filled cf card with all the software you’ll ever need.
@@RetroSpector78 Try a Disk On Module or DOM, they are used with industrial computers
@@RetroSpector78 I prefer using SD cards instead of CF cards on my retro PCs. They have pretty much never given me a problem!
TheFiend never really worked much with cf or sd in AT based systems. Have this ide 2 compact flash adapter but it’s always giving me trouble (read write errors, files / partitions disappearing / ....). Need to look into that.
RetroSpector78 its important to use CF cards that are industrial grade, they don’t have the removable bit. On eBay you get them from China for 5$. Works for me quite well on Pentium and 486.
Very nice. You pretty much recreated the computer I used in the mid nineties, including the CD-ROM drive. Mine was a 486 though. ;-)
Great presentation. So much nostalgia .
This is the best channel for learning English!
I imagine having a very similar case for my 486DX2 back in the day.
Button and LCD placement was pretty much identical but it used to be a big tower.
Maybe my memories are also just playing jokes on me but that's how I remember my first x86 computer.
It was a 486DX2 with turbo button, 66MHz, 3.5" as well as 5.25" floppy drives and 2X Speed CD-ROM drives.
The harddrive had 200MB and came with Windows 3.11 for Workgroups on it.
My first PC experience was a 8086 Nixdorf Siemens portable back on 1988, my second was a 286 notebook Nixdorf Siemens again and on the eve of 1993 a 386DX25 (Tulip AT) with 4 MB RAM, Cyrix Math and SVGA color monitor arrived... I expanded it on 1994 with CD-ROM and a SB PRO2 clone and replace it on the summer of 1998 a Pentium MMx. The last decade I've always wanted to build a 386DX machine for pure hardware experience. During summer 2017 I created a 386DX40 with 16 MB RAM, IDT Math, CL5422 16bit ISA 1MB SVGA, ESS1688F 16bit ISA SBPRO2 clone, CD-RW drive (very reliable for old machines), 1.44 Sony FDD build on 2004. I also created a 486DX4 machine, a Pentium MMx both for DOS and Windows 95C experience and Voodoo 3 machine with a K6-3...
Mikoyan Gurevic nice... seems like you covered the entire spectrum. Planning to do lots more builds here. Have a wide range of xt / 286 / 386 / 486 / pentium to cover, both desktops and laptops. Feel free to subscribe and let me know what you like to see more of here.
OMG that CD-ROM drive brings back memories.
A PC I salvaged had a case like this, and a guy on a retro computers forum was looking for one. And another pc which I opened recently on video had an am386 sx on it integrated just like that, and a third one had the SB Pro2. Lucky you, yours did not have the battery destroyed the board yet.
i remember this days. when with friends we spend a lot of time to play on this vintage PC :) that was a really nice time and lot of fun.
Any way this PC will never die (compare to this PC what we have now :) )
Nice video! Awesome machine :) Subbed.
Right back at ya ... gonna be checking out your stuff too. Thx for the comment and sub.
Nice 386. Very nice. My first 386 was in a computer lab. I believe it had word perfect on it and an educational game (which was odd it had any games being in High School). My first 286 was in the accounting rooms next door which was so much faster than the adding machine.
Ohhhh... I sure remember that 1x Mitsumi drive. The drive latch is so iconic.
I bought one in 1992, it did service until 2006. After I upgraded to something a bit less pedestrian, I gave it to my mate who had started a small business and it served for 12 years in one of his servers. Bless the sturdy little thing. 😁
@@dschoene57 I got my mitsumi in 1993. I used it untill I sold it and bought a Conner 256mb QIC-80 tape streamer in 1995.
Very nice video, Sir! Really brings back memories! Ah... and yes, IRQ conflicts, those were not uncommon during those days :) As for the SBPro, I am not sure if it actually supported software configuration. I seem to remember having to set jumpers on that thing.
as always, thank you for posting. i wonder if a pink pencil eraser would have done at least as well w/ that shallow batt corrosion. i like your vinegar/qtip technique. take care & stay safe.
Nice find. My first PC build was an AMD 386 DX40.
The apple sticker on the case makes my brain itchy...lol
It was on the computer when I bought it.... the guy said he had an apple computer :)
@@RetroSpector78 I was only kidding. Glad you cleaned it up and made it look new again. Great video. Brings back lots of good memories and makes me wish I had some old hardware to play around with again. Miss those days some times. Cheers.
cleaning up apple was part of the cleaning process.
Awesome PC. I love that CD drive!
We had a 386SX-16 which was painfully slow in most of the games I tried to play on it. It's the one PC I ever had where I desperately wanted to pop out the CPU and upgrade it, but it's also the only PC I ever had where this wasn't possible because the chip was permanently soldered. I hated that.
In desperation I got my dad to install a math coprocessor but of course it did nothing at all for games. The CPU situation on that machine was such a frustrating dead end.
I didn't know they made a 40MHz version of the SX, I thought those higher clocks were only offered for the DX.
I hope the battery fluid was chemically neutralized - it can wick through the copper traces and continue causing corrosion in the board that you can't see.
I have a 486 board I got a few years ago that had the same battery leakage problem, but it was a lot worse than this. It seems to be totally beyond repair, it had fluid emerging at the RAM slots and some other spots around the board.
I have that same board but with an AMD 386SX 33MHz in it! I'm going to build a 386 system and been waiting for the parts to arrive. The most expensive part was the case, but I'm glad I found a proper desktop one with an LED display and turbo button. I'm not going to install a CD-ROM drive though (too much hustle to find a proper one with a controller), but I'm open for a 5.25inch floppy in the future.
I had one of those cd roms that had the system where you put cds in special cases and the entire case was inserted into the drive, like a 3.5" floppy works, but this pop out drive is even cooler. :)
I really love how you don't just put a CF-card and a Gotec in it (at least for the final product).
That's the way I do it too.
(Yes that makes it a whole lot more difficult)
Some of these old hard drives are frustrating as hell to run for long periods of time. I've had more than a handful crap out on me. However, you can get the best of both worlds as it were by using a modern hard drive with Seatools for DOS to trick the system into thinking it's a smaller capacity. New hard drive, compatible, everyone's happy.
Trident 8900 Svga card with 1024Kb of memory. Lucky you, most of them just had 512Kb! The 9000 series typically had 1024Kb. Too bad it isn’t a 386DX, then most boards had 8 simm sockets to upgrade the RAM.
Man, just took me back in time, assembling a pc involved loads of sleepless nights, and when 250mb of harddrive was an overkill.
I wish to have such retro PC 😊
very neat, the drive that uses floppy interface to use usb flash sticks instead. ive never seen that before
Nice 386 i love retro computer
Me too :)
I'm building a very similar system, also an amd386SX-40, and after watching your video I was wondering how you managed to keep the BIOS settings saved, since you removed the original battery. I'm planning on adding a 3xAAA holder to it for that purpose.
The push mechanism for the cd rom drive appears to be exactly the same as the one used in my storm primax easyphoto drive, which is a photo scanner in a 5.25 expansion bay
very nice retro 386 dos computer
Impressive mechine.
You should check out my 386 6 part build - Everything from hammers to grinders to forklifts are used to create an SCSI 386 DX-40.
Good to see there are others who still do this.
Also, parts are not too hard to find in Eastern Europe ;)
The Kombinator cool ... will definitely take a look and subscribe !
3:13 sounds pretty realistic for what it is. Love that race V8 sound.
You mean the Stunts gameplay ? It's a really great game ... spent hours with it as a kid.
@@RetroSpector78 Although I'm from another era(Need For Speed II and III Hot Pursuit) that game looks fun.
@@RetroSpector78 this without tell that the game works on a 286 machine 12 Mhz but if it's 25 MHz harris 286 better than better.
Fibre glass pens are best used to remove the solder mask on broken tracks so that the break can be bridged. Solvents are best for cleaning contaminents like battery leaks.
I think we are near the point of no return with old computers. I'm talking about battery leakage. Even it was later installation (486 Gen), without service on it back in time , all the old batteries have started to corrod dramatically our puppies.
Well, retrospector videos are more relaxing than '' ten hours of Niagara falls sound with relaxing music''. Thanks a lot, Take care
OMG Stunts!! I've played that game sooo many times back in the day😁 Do you know that the game has a bug that, in some cases, when jumping off a ramp, the car would rocket to the sky, then turn down and crash into the ground? Because of that, I usually called it "the game of the fliying car"😂
The rocket bounce :) This to me is one of the all time greats when it comes to early 90's msdos gaming. The thing had everything. Played so much of it back in the day.
Nice rig.
This is the tower case of my childhood , i am looking for one the last 10 years :(
Found one
loved that i have the same mother board and case great to see im not the only one thanks love your old stuff and it definitely wasen't a Apple computer hahaha
Ace video....👍👍👍
This motherboard is a beaty. My second time watching this amazing build.
My lord. My third time.
another diamond! i had a 286 16MHZ back at 1991
I like that the videos are long. So I can drink a coke with some chips and indulge in some retro fun :-)
28:33 - does those power button cables from power supply have live voltage, even when power supply has on/off switch at back, and it's turned off?
Damn that's one beautiful 386 board :) Mine is probably 3 times larger lol, and those ram clips. On my computer their plastic and broken (before I got it)
wow, that's the exact same as my first computer, same motherboard and case
Oh god i had the same exact case for my first pc. Do you maybe know what brand it is?
Gebruik jij ook de Nederlandstalige versie van de oudere Windows versies?
Coolest case
a zip drive would be good for the spare 3.5" bay. zip came out a little later than 386, but im sure it was added to a lot of 386s later in their original useful lives
Could you use a gigabyte to 4 gb hd so you can install all the old 16 bit games? Or just use an ssd?
i wonder if the ide card for the cdrom would also suffice for the hard disk.
In the late 80s when this computer would have been killer, the card mentioned below would have been the best graphics you could hope for on a PC! The original ATI Mach cards were game changers for hardware acceleration.
Even with turbo on, it still shows 40MHz CPU on the bios, is that right?
Hi! how are you? Could you tell me which exact gotek model you used? Thank you!
Great work!
29:24 "Scrubbing Thing" ???
Hehe, a "Wurzelbürste" = a root brush.
Hello.
Great retrocomputer video. Some memories came back during PC setup and Stunts gameplay.
Did you try CDROM games on this machine ?
Thanks a lot.
edit : typo
Great video. Congrats on your new retro rig. I am happy for you.
If I may, I've been considering buying one of the floppy emulators your used to install DOS, but I don't quite understand its use. Should my USB sticks be partitioned in only 1.44 MB? Because, I remember you mentioning that the 386 would boot as if it had MSDOS disk 1 in its drive. How does it work?
20:15 I have the same drive, without cover, too.
And an old Mitsumi 360k drive, is has no cover as well.
Seems to be more common than we thought :)
I used to sell a lot of machines like those, when i whas at school, i got really close with the Dutch language teacher, he whas a nice guy also interested in computers like me, and i had a pentium 2 laptop for doing my schoolwork, i got that one from my dad, and he liked my laptop, so we started talking, just in class, and he said he had a room full of vintage computers from the school, and he must get rid of 'em, and he must look for a dumpster and such, so we started sorting pc's out, pc's that wher just trash, we threw them out, and most machines wher 386 and 486 era pc's, most with IDE, but some did had MFM hard drives, i started to repair them, refurbish them, put windows 95 or 98 on 'em, and start selling those machines, our plan whas to buy enough tickets for a trip to a amusement parc, and we did raise enough money and 25 people could have a nice day off at the end of my year there, it whas my last year, so it felt great leaving my school with such nice memories! Thanks for taking me back into time man, i really miss those days!
@RetroSpector78 Those TEAC 5.25" drives actually come without any sort of cover, like most 5.25" drives...I happen to have the exact same model here. I even had a very similar PC case like yours. ^.^ Also I had one of those weird 1x CDROM drives and the same soundblaster as yours. It's a bit crazy...
23:20 A bit of a correction tho: Those early CDROM drives, if they weren't SCSI, used a proprietary standard. They weren't IDE but used the same cables. Some later soundcards had three 40-pin CDROM connectors on them. Panasonic, Mitsumi and one other. IDE only came up after that for CDROMs, around the year 2000.
What about reading compatibility of these very old cd-rom drives? I remember that these drives support only original CD-ROM's and also only 650MB ones.
Haven't tested it yet with this one, but I'm 90% sure it will be limited to original 650MB discs and audio cd's. But will get back to you on that. Planning to do a more in depth-part on this PC where I go over the time period correct components, and also the ones that aren't (like for example the networking card)
What? lol... Of course it only supports normal CD-ROMs...
I still have a 486DX66 dual booting Windows from Workgroups 3.11 and OS/2 Warp, To be honest I have no space for it, so it is in a cabinet. The last time I tried it was in 2014. But as a kind of compensation I run Windows for Workgroups 3.11 in a Virtualbox VM.
Stunts!!! Very nice game!
ALOT of those older machines what we did was remove the battery and put in one of those AA battery packs. This being rechargable is use rechargable batteries instead of alkalines like can be used in the 8088 ibm xt/pc. Thats the bitch. If you use alkaline in place of a rechargable theyd blow up in the holder. Makes battery replacement a cinch and no worries with corrosion. But yeah id not be running it without a cmos battery.
Where can I get that driver/diagnostic disk for the 3Com Etherlink III card? I have a 386SX Tandy, and the same ethernet card - but I don't have that driver package, and the 3C5X9CFG.exe file...
It's been a long time, but I believe the 3Com Etherlink cards were ne2000 compatible and ne2000 drivers would be easier to find.
I love your enthusiasm, and how you clearly appreciate all the unique components for their place in history. :-)
I'm also curious about how you pronounce 3Com as "Tri-Com". Was that a localized variant of their name in your neck of the woods? Kinda catchy!
hehe ..... in my neck of the woods we need to take some English classes :) No idea why I said it like but in my head it always sounded like that :) But then again, "3" also sounds like "Tree" in my head and it also comes out of my mouth like that, like many people already noticed ... so still working on that :)
I to am trying to do a vintage build and the only thing I am missing is a AT style case as they are getting more and more rare due to most being scrapped. Any Ideas where would be a good place to try to still find one where I am not paying out the wazoo for.
I usually find them by sheer luck.... I find them in local online selling places. This one I got for free when I purchased an old commodore PC from the seller. She had this in her garage and I was welcome to it. People that know that I'm into this type of stuff sometimes provide me with interesting computers / components. I tend to stay away from ebay because it is just too pricey. I've learned to have some patience now :) And the fact that I have a huge backlog of devices that I still need to test / review / film also helps :)
I'm envious. Your rig is 7 MHz faster than mine 386sx I'm currently restoring to its former glory. Too bad you sacrificed 3,5" floppy for your own comfort during installation process - IMHO it is a part od the fun. And - as far as my BIOS won't get pass disk over 504 MB (CHS issue) I use EZ Drive to get it going. And you're lucky tht the battery did not leak much (I replaced mine with a GP phone battery - works!)
As a child I had the same computer case for my 2nd computer. - I must have been 10yo or something and the computer is long gone.
So, I don't remember what it was. But I would love to identify it.
Is this case typical for a 386 machine ? What does this case tell about the computer ?
Nice video :-)
Thx !