I am building a very similar system, 386SX-33, 8Mb ram, some soundblaster clone with midi, 5.25 and 3.5 floppy, cdrom, with the same goal, for some special games like WC, the early Testdrives, Indiana Jones games that run way to fast on my main DOS machine. On the subject of period correct, it is my opinion that everyone does what he/she likes to do. Yes, period correct is nice, but I am not using a spinning HDD, I am using a CF card, a multispeed cdrom (8x I think), a ET4000 (as this is what I have and know it works), a 15 inch CRT monitor. It's part of the fun to get this mix of new and old working!
Nice build. My first pc was a 386 sx 16 mhz. I like the games you test. I think Test Drive III runs a bit too fast (sx 16 mhz is the sweet spot). But the other games were cool. The game with the robot transforming in spaceship was fun. And I played a lot F-19 Stealth Fighter back in the day. Now I got it from gog but I dont have the pacience to finish a mission. The same with Wing Commander. On gog is the speed sensitive version, not the patched one from The Kilrathi Saga, but I dont have the patience to start missions. I recommend a Sound Blaster 16 for the speaker input internal connector, so you can record "pc speaker only" games. Anyway, very interesting video, man !!!
my first pc was a 386sx-33, 1mb video ram, 4mb ram, 120mb hdd, 1x 5.25 floppy, 1x 3.5 floppy and an ide cdrom drive (the kind where the whole bay slides out and then opens up). dos5.0 - spent a lot of time learning how to break and fix software on that rig. lifelong career in IT likely due to that machine.
If it helps to explain the 32bit/16bit nature of the 386SX vs DX: the 386SX is a fully 32bit microprocessor internally but uses a 16bit data bus. This means that to fill a 32bit CPU register, two bus cycles must occur, which seriously hampered the overall performance of the 386 chip. Also, the 386SX has the same 20bit address bus as the 286, meaning that the maximum amount of memory it can handle is 16MB of RAM. Fully 32bit 386DX chips can theoretically handle the full 4GB address space but were limited by the chipsets available at the time. To confuse matters, there was a bug in very early 386 designs that prevented them from running 32bit software. Intel had to test each CPU and those that had the bug were stamped with "16BIT SW ONLY" on the chip.
No 386 SX case badges kind of makes sense. If you were a system integrator back then, you'd want your customers to know that they're definitely getting a real 386. No need to complicate matters with extra letters. 😆 I remember basically everybody around here had the SX, except for a few CAD and business power users with elaborate DX setups. Only really changed when people started upgrading to 386 DX-40s, 486 DLC and the like, years later.
28:30 yeah in the 90s id get a new case and spray paint colors in wanted. Inclhding the drives. It took masking and time but it was a unique build. Besides the plastic of the drives will yellow over time unmodified.
Did a fully specced super deluxe 486 DX-2 66 build last year and am now in the process of collecting/buying parts, building and testing a Pentium 233 MMX with 3DFX Voodoo and all the bells and whistles. Maby next year I'll go further back in time to do a 386 or maby even a 286 build. We'll see 😅
Oh nice build!! And mix of parts...almost like it was a 286 that was just board swapped to 386 but left the expansion cards for cost savings. Ironically...I was about to start recording my 386sx build this week lol 😆
@@AncientElectronics thats about what I think mine will be... I think the board is from 92 but it's a super budget board with a 33sx so 88 or 89 ish build and parts. Assuming I have a working ide drive that's low capacity...if not I'll temp use my test cf card adapter until I order the right style I'll save the higher end et4000 and stuff for the dx40 build lol
I like it because in some ways its 16 bit so its in the same family as amiga and snes/megadrive and its interesting how each has its strength. The gameblaster sounds like its missing half the channels in the test near the end though.
Ah, I think you have the "Trang Bow/Trangg Bow 80386SX SCAMP". JP11 is 2-3 to run NPU sync to CPU speed, 1-2 to run it from OSC2 - and looks like the DIP sockets are for chip RAM and parity
every time you post a video I'm gonna leave a comment wishing you and the doggos well. Anyway a 386 huh? I guess it's kinda nice although perhaps a little slow for my personal desires. It'd be good for Wing Commander and Wolfenstein 3D. I'm sure plenty more but it's kinda a niche build in 2024. I guess the whole hobby revolves around nostalgia so build whatever makes you happy and takes you back to a better time.
@@aaldrich1982 indeed, in all honesty if I wanted I could probably whittle the collection down to 2 or 3 setups and still be able to cover most games. Still, as you said a lot of it is nostalgia and just fun. Thanks for the best wishes. Unfortunately one of the doggos is 17 and unfortunately he hasn't been doing well so I'm not sure how long he has left in him.
@@AncientElectronics I asked you recently and you said something similar. I'm sure you have given - and will continue - to give him the best life he can have and will equally make the right decision when the time comes. You'll know. Pets take a piece of our heart but leave a piece of theirs permanently in ours. You're right - it'd be very easy to have maybe 2 or 3 setups. I think maybe a high end XP machine, a Pentium 3 Win98 machine with a 3dfx card and a Pentium 75 DOS 6.22 machine would be my personal choices.
That board could probably take a DX 386, also you should have turned the board over to see if the empty sockets has traces that even go anywhere. I have a similar board with cache sockets that are not wired to anything. Fake cache so to say, hence 'Cheap'. I wonder if you have to have a separate oscillator for the FPU, I can't really remember right now, I plan to dig my board up as the last time I tested it was in 1998/1999. I am sure the sticker is still on it. I really need to start photographing my stuff, and upload them somewhere. Rather than having go and look for it. Nice job on this one, really entertaining.
The CPU is soldered on so any CPU change to a DX would require desoldering and soldering on the new CPU, or a socket. I always thought the SX boards themselves were also 16-bit so I'm not sure a DX would work or would it just function as an SX if it did work? I believe there is a second oscillator on the board.
I had a 386 sx 25 mhz amd cpu. Also it had the famous creative labs upgrade kit with cd rom 2 or 4x and sb16. 8 mb ram. It could run most fmv games at the time well but it irritated me trying to doom on it. No cigar.
oh and concerning (not undoable) modifications: yeah, i also don't find it pretty. but your example is of course rather tame. i'm almost up in tears whenever i hear those keyboard people horror stories, them ripping apart everything for their switches, including ancient super-rare systems. the tech time traveller has some heartbreaking stories.
Yea, I'm not a fan of more rare items getting dismantled for parts but were still in a time I can walk into a goodwill on almost any given day and still find an old PC CD drive so I wouldn't call them rare or expensive to aquire even in 2024. I'd also say there's a diffrence between a cosmetic modification that keeps the functionality in tact and tearing somthing apart for parts.
12:17 Smaller RAM sockets are for parity bit chip. 1 bit memory chip plus two 4 bits chips, and you get something simmilar to 30 pin SIMM. 50:27 Laser engraved SAA1099? Obvious fake. You need to look one with printed Philips logo.
I am building a very similar system, 386SX-33, 8Mb ram, some soundblaster clone with midi, 5.25 and 3.5 floppy, cdrom, with the same goal, for some special games like WC, the early Testdrives, Indiana Jones games that run way to fast on my main DOS machine.
On the subject of period correct, it is my opinion that everyone does what he/she likes to do.
Yes, period correct is nice, but I am not using a spinning HDD, I am using a CF card, a multispeed cdrom (8x I think), a ET4000 (as this is what I have and know it works), a 15 inch CRT monitor.
It's part of the fun to get this mix of new and old working!
Nice build. My first pc was a 386 sx 16 mhz. I like the games you test. I think Test Drive III runs a bit too fast (sx 16 mhz is the sweet spot). But the other games were cool. The game with the robot transforming in spaceship was fun. And I played a lot F-19 Stealth Fighter back in the day. Now I got it from gog but I dont have the pacience to finish a mission. The same with Wing Commander. On gog is the speed sensitive version, not the patched one from The Kilrathi Saga, but I dont have the patience to start missions. I recommend a Sound Blaster 16 for the speaker input internal connector, so you can record "pc speaker only" games. Anyway, very interesting video, man !!!
my first pc was a 386sx-33, 1mb video ram, 4mb ram, 120mb hdd, 1x 5.25 floppy, 1x 3.5 floppy and an ide cdrom drive (the kind where the whole bay slides out and then opens up). dos5.0 -
spent a lot of time learning how to break and fix software on that rig. lifelong career in IT likely due to that machine.
If it helps to explain the 32bit/16bit nature of the 386SX vs DX: the 386SX is a fully 32bit microprocessor internally but uses a 16bit data bus. This means that to fill a 32bit CPU register, two bus cycles must occur, which seriously hampered the overall performance of the 386 chip. Also, the 386SX has the same 20bit address bus as the 286, meaning that the maximum amount of memory it can handle is 16MB of RAM. Fully 32bit 386DX chips can theoretically handle the full 4GB address space but were limited by the chipsets available at the time.
To confuse matters, there was a bug in very early 386 designs that prevented them from running 32bit software. Intel had to test each CPU and those that had the bug were stamped with "16BIT SW ONLY" on the chip.
A 386 sx 12 was my first computer. It had Dos 6.22
Very nice build. I love your representation of all performance specs hardware.
No 386 SX case badges kind of makes sense. If you were a system integrator back then, you'd want your customers to know that they're definitely getting a real 386. No need to complicate matters with extra letters. 😆 I remember basically everybody around here had the SX, except for a few CAD and business power users with elaborate DX setups. Only really changed when people started upgrading to 386 DX-40s, 486 DLC and the like, years later.
28:30 yeah in the 90s id get a new case and spray paint colors in wanted. Inclhding the drives. It took masking and time but it was a unique build.
Besides the plastic of the drives will yellow over time unmodified.
Did a fully specced super deluxe 486 DX-2 66 build last year and am now in the process of collecting/buying parts, building and testing a Pentium 233 MMX with 3DFX Voodoo and all the bells and whistles. Maby next year I'll go further back in time to do a 386 or maby even a 286 build. We'll see 😅
The DIP sockets on your motherboard is most certainly for DRAM, probably 1MB in the form of 8x 44256s along with 4x 41256s for parity.
Oh nice build!! And mix of parts...almost like it was a 286 that was just board swapped to 386 but left the expansion cards for cost savings.
Ironically...I was about to start recording my 386sx build this week lol 😆
Thats more or less what I was going for. A 386 but with more of a late 80s 286 feel. Good luck with your SX build, looking forward to seeing it.
@@AncientElectronics thats about what I think mine will be...
I think the board is from 92 but it's a super budget board with a 33sx so 88 or 89 ish build and parts.
Assuming I have a working ide drive that's low capacity...if not I'll temp use my test cf card adapter until I order the right style
I'll save the higher end et4000 and stuff for the dx40 build lol
Kings quest had some amazing graphics at the time.
I like it because in some ways its 16 bit so its in the same family as amiga and snes/megadrive and its interesting how each has its strength.
The gameblaster sounds like its missing half the channels in the test near the end though.
Ah, I think you have the "Trang Bow/Trangg Bow
80386SX SCAMP". JP11 is 2-3 to run NPU sync to CPU speed, 1-2 to run it from OSC2 - and looks like the DIP sockets are for chip RAM and parity
@@matthewday7565 thanks for the info
Lovely PC case
every time you post a video I'm gonna leave a comment wishing you and the doggos well. Anyway a 386 huh? I guess it's kinda nice although perhaps a little slow for my personal desires. It'd be good for Wing Commander and Wolfenstein 3D. I'm sure plenty more but it's kinda a niche build in 2024. I guess the whole hobby revolves around nostalgia so build whatever makes you happy and takes you back to a better time.
@@aaldrich1982 indeed, in all honesty if I wanted I could probably whittle the collection down to 2 or 3 setups and still be able to cover most games. Still, as you said a lot of it is nostalgia and just fun. Thanks for the best wishes. Unfortunately one of the doggos is 17 and unfortunately he hasn't been doing well so I'm not sure how long he has left in him.
@@AncientElectronics I asked you recently and you said something similar. I'm sure you have given - and will continue - to give him the best life he can have and will equally make the right decision when the time comes. You'll know. Pets take a piece of our heart but leave a piece of theirs permanently in ours.
You're right - it'd be very easy to have maybe 2 or 3 setups. I think maybe a high end XP machine, a Pentium 3 Win98 machine with a 3dfx card and a Pentium 75 DOS 6.22 machine would be my personal choices.
I love the 386 sx ! great memory ! 😎
That board could probably take a DX 386, also you should have turned the board over to see if the empty sockets has traces that even go anywhere. I have a similar board with cache sockets that are not wired to anything. Fake cache so to say, hence 'Cheap'. I wonder if you have to have a separate oscillator for the FPU, I can't really remember right now, I plan to dig my board up as the last time I tested it was in 1998/1999. I am sure the sticker is still on it. I really need to start photographing my stuff, and upload them somewhere. Rather than having go and look for it.
Nice job on this one, really entertaining.
The CPU is soldered on so any CPU change to a DX would require desoldering and soldering on the new CPU, or a socket. I always thought the SX boards themselves were also 16-bit so I'm not sure a DX would work or would it just function as an SX if it did work? I believe there is a second oscillator on the board.
I had a 386 sx 25 mhz amd cpu. Also it had the famous creative labs upgrade kit with cd rom 2 or 4x and sb16. 8 mb ram. It could run most fmv games at the time well but it irritated me trying to doom on it. No cigar.
Great video
fyi necroware reverse engineered the cms chips so if you have some gal chips and programmer we can program them ourselves.
Awesome
He doesn't like empty sockets...
"without combo" probably means w/o integrated floppy / ide controller? btw. yes, dip, dual in-line package.
oh and concerning (not undoable) modifications: yeah, i also don't find it pretty. but your example is of course rather tame. i'm almost up in tears whenever i hear those keyboard people horror stories, them ripping apart everything for their switches, including ancient super-rare systems. the tech time traveller has some heartbreaking stories.
Yea, I'm not a fan of more rare items getting dismantled for parts but were still in a time I can walk into a goodwill on almost any given day and still find an old PC CD drive so I wouldn't call them rare or expensive to aquire even in 2024. I'd also say there's a diffrence between a cosmetic modification that keeps the functionality in tact and tearing somthing apart for parts.
12:17 Smaller RAM sockets are for parity bit chip. 1 bit memory chip plus two 4 bits chips, and you get something simmilar to 30 pin SIMM.
50:27 Laser engraved SAA1099? Obvious fake. You need to look one with printed Philips logo.