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Compaq Deskpro 386s20/n



 
 
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  #11  
Old March 5th 07, 06:25 AM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq
Ben Myers
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,432
Default Compaq Deskpro 386s20/n

Compaq had the QVision done, and then ATI had an EISA card for a while, but EISA
graphics were very quickly supplanted by first VL-bus then PCI. Few of the
graphics companies at the time wanted to deal with the added complexity of EISA
compared to ISA.

Yeah, the Adaptec 1740 is pretty good. I ran an EISA SCSI 486 system with a
Micronics motherboard as my main system for a while.

The 3c579 is 10mbit only, no 100mbit capability. About a year ago, my Compaq
EISA cards (convertible between Token Ring and Ethernet with a daughter card)
made their journey to the electronic board scrapper. Compaq made the TR card
and maybe one of the other companies specializing in TR did also. Like Proteon
and Madge. IBM did not.

EISA did outlive MicroChannel, which effectively bit the dust after 486s running
at 50 and 66MHz. I don't think there ever was a Pentium with MicroChannel, was
there? I don't think IBM ever did even a 100MHz 486 MCA system. EISA found
its way onto Pentium Pro and Pentium II server class boxes, and DEC Alpha
systems.

I have the old PC Magazine issue with the Bus Wars article here somewhere. I
saved many of the magazines with my articles in them. I also recall a trip
with PC Mag down to Boca, where I raised the hackles of the MicroChannel people
by telling them that the caching SCSI adapter controlled by an 80186 was
terribly mismatched with a 386, and that the adapter looked like it was designed
by accountants who found a lot of leftover 80186s and 30-pin SIMMs in a
warehouse somewhere.

Microchannel suffered from a lot of defects, but, along with EISA, paved the way
for the notion of embedding self-identification PALs in a device, so software
could easily tell what it was talking to. VL bus did not do this, and the
Intel PC guys picked right up on the idea when I suggested it to them. After
that, Plug and Play could become a reality. Of course, self-identification of
devices was not a new idea. It simply came from the mainframe world where some
of us worked in LARGE air-conditioned rooms with raised flooring.

To give perspective, PC Magazine back then ran maybe 500 or 600 pages every two
weeks, advertising computer boxes that cost thousands of dollars and monitors
costing up to a grand. Today, PC Magazine is a skinny publication, made so by
the internet ads and the lower prices of computers, incapable of sustaining the
expensive ad cost structure... Ben Myers

On Mon, 05 Mar 2007 04:49:56 GMT, "William R. Walsh"
m wrote:

Hi!

EISA adapters for what? EISA graphics cards were not even close to
being what they were cracked up to be.


Compaq's QVision seems to be pretty darn respectable. I've run one of these
in a 486DX2/66 EISA box and it was more than fast enough at the time. It
also had a VRAM upgrade fitted, so it could manage high color at up to
1024x768 resolution. This 386DX/33 box has the same adapter, and the VRAM
upgrade is present on it as well.

EISA SCSI adapters were pretty respectable.


I found a seemingly new in box Adaptec AHA-1740 adapter with all the docs
and diskettes. Another preservation effort...image the disks and scan the
docs...

EISA network cards offered no advantage over ISA ones.


Really? Oh well, the price was right right for the three 3C579-TPs I got
ahold of.

I do not think that there ever was an EISA 10/100 card, but 3COM produced

its
3C515 10/100 ISA NIC.


Hmmm...I don't know. Guess I'd be surprised if there wasn't, as EISA did
hold on for a lot longer in the x86 world than MCA. I've heard of Pentium II
machines that had EISA slots. I'd really like to find a real EISA Token Ring
card.

Wow, this takes me way back to the EISA versus MicroChannel article
I worked on for PC Magazine. The 386/33 was a much nicer box in
its time than IBM's ridiculously proprietary MicroChannel machines...


Funny you'd mention that (got a copy of the article? I'd love to read
it...wctatsignwalshcomptechdotcom) as I have quite the Microchannel
collection:

http://greyghost.dyndns.org/mcastuff/
http://www.walshcomptech.com/comp_coll.htm

I guess you could say that I think microchannel was "insufficiently
appreciated" in its day, although I can very easily see why that was. But
they are rock solid reliable boxen... Oh, by the way, there does exist a
100Mbit Ethernet card for MCA-bus systems. Too bad it's a loosely converted
ISA design and a joke from a reliability perspective...

William

  #12  
Old March 5th 07, 07:55 AM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq
William R. Walsh
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 930
Default Compaq Deskpro 386s20/n

Hi!

Compaq had the QVision done, and then ATI had an EISA card for a while


ATI GUP/Mach32? I have one in Microchannel and thought I saw one in EISA at
some time. I know PCI and VL-BUS versions also existed.

I haven't found the Microchannel one to be worth the expense of owning it.
The NT driver is marginal and the card itself is slooooow. IBM's own XGA-2
runs rings around it in high color modes, too bad Microsoft never saw fit to
write a driver that could fully exploit the card. (At least these woes were
resolved for Win9x users, thanks to the efforts of a third party with a
Win95 DDK.)

About a year ago, my Compaq EISA cards (convertible between Token Ring and
Ethernet with a daughter card) made their journey to the electronic board

scrapper.

Gaaaak! I'm astounded to learn that Compaq had anything to do with TR that
they actually made. However, I do have some TR PCI cards that are IBM made
and "Compaq" branded.

EISA did outlive MicroChannel, which effectively bit the dust after 486s
running at 50 and 66MHz. I don't think there ever was a Pentium with
MicroChannel, was there?


Officially there were the Server 95 systems that came in Pentium 60 and
66MHz versions. The PC Server 500 (using the same planar as the Server 95
but a different case) featured a processor complex using a 90MHz Pentium
CPU. The 90MHz processor complex has been pushed to 233MHz MMX with varying
results, although 200MHz is easily obtained and stable. The PC Servers 5xx
and 720 were Pentium based systems with an MCA bus. In the case of the 720,
the system was a combination PCI/MCA unit. There also exist MCA versions of
the PC Server 3xx series and some 688* desktops with "Select A Bus". The 720
was capable of six-way SMP at up to 200MHz per processor card.

I have a Server 95a (the last PS/2 model) with a 90MHz Pentium processor
complex that's been rewired to accept a Pentium Overdrive 200 (run at 180)
MMX CPU. This thing is every bit of seriously sweet to use.

There were some Pentium fired NCR MCA-based servers. Nobody's ever seen one
that I know of.

I don't think IBM ever did even a 100MHz 486 MCA system.


They sure did. Models 76 and 77, both built around the "Lacuna" board either
came with or had everything you needed to run a 3.3V 486 CPU. These (and the
NCR 3350, which I also have) will take a Pentium OverDrive 63/83 and have an
L2 cache slot. Other 486 systems (like the Server 85 "X" models) don't take
a POD but will stand a 486-compatible upgrade, including the 133MHz AMD 486
chips.

The 8570-Bxx series machines were available with a "486 Power Platform"
running at 25MHz. It's been said that these were the first 486 computers
ever marketed. They are rare to say the least. Reports say that with some
diddling around, an AMD 486/133 processor upgrade works on them as well.

There were other models, many of which I have. If you didn't look at my
computer collection, you might want to. It's somewhat outdated in parts, but
I'm working on redoing it to feature all of the stuff I have. When MCA had
died off in the x86 world, it continued for another little while in the
RS/6000 world. I don't have any of those.

where I raised the hackles of the MicroChannel people by telling them that
the caching SCSI adapter controlled by an 80186 was terribly mismatched
with a 386, and that the adapter looked like it was designed
by accountants who found a lot of leftover 80186s and 30-pin SIMMs in a
warehouse somewhere.


Interesting. I did find with some benchmarking experiments that the short
late uncached (and 80C32 based) IBM MCA SCSI adapter was much faster than
the 80188 based caching ones. I've never been sure why, perhaps it was
better code optimization for the 80C32 microcontroller. Still, 8X CD burning
is possible on a 486 with this SCSI subsystem running the hard disks and an
NCR 53C710 driving the burner. I'd have to say IBM did a good job with these
in some ways, because I have a 9585 "X" machine with onboard cached SCSI
that is happily driving a 50GB Seagate SCA disk in a 3510 enclosure under
Windows NT 4.0. The boot-BIOS seems to only go up to 8GB, but an OS with
drivers that take over will do fine.

The so-called fast/wide adapters lost the cache and went with an 80186
clocked at 20MHz. These things haul...burning a CD at 12X is easy to do as
long as the hard disk can keep up. I've clocked this doing 10.1MB/sec
transfer. A later version with wide SE on the inside and external HVD goes
even faster (14.1MB/sec!). That one is driven by a 40MHz (!!!) 80186. These
adapters have been used to drive 250GB hard disks without incident.

To give perspective, PC Magazine back then ran maybe 500 or 600 pages
every two weeks, advertising computer boxes that cost thousands of dollars
and monitors costing up to a grand.


I remember those days and loved PC Magazine at the time. I was almost too
late to that particular time frame, but I was there and reading the
magazine. Too bad it isn't that way any more, although I don't think it
would still be here without having slimmed down as it did. I also remember
the days when Computer Shopper was a huge thing that could probably have
been used to defend yourself if need be!

Gosh, did that sound like an IBM commercial of some sort? :-) Sorry for the
rambling!

William


  #13  
Old March 5th 07, 04:14 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq
Ben Myers
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,432
Default Compaq Deskpro 386s20/n

You got into MicroChannel a lot more than I did, and you have the real hardware
there to reinforce your memory. I forgot about the later hot-running Socket 4
Pentium boxes and the Pentium OverDrive. I may still have a Pentium OverDrive
kicking around here. For a while, I sold hand-assembled 486 upgrade kits built
around the AMD Am486-133 133MHz 486 workalike. Never got to try one in an IBM
box. It probably would not have worked.

It's possible someone else manufactured the Compaq EISA Ethernet/Token Ring card
for the Paq. It was certainly odd, with a little daughter card that attached
to give it one or the other network personality.

NCR was the other major player in MicroChannel, to the extent that NCR brand
systems were sold with MicroChannel boards inside. But NCR hedged its bets
with ISA and EISA systems, too. A lot of good that did them. One of my
ex-bosses from many years gone by was Pres of NCR for a while. He made his own
unique contribution to their demise as a computer name brand, and the NCR
product lines and product direction reflected his own chronic indecisiveness.

My benchmark tests (saturating the subsystem with I/O operations) showed that
the non-cached MCA SCSI adapter had more throughput than the 80188 cached one.
That's what led me to the assertion that really ****ed off the IBM MicroChannel
guys. The 80188 bandwidth was too narrow, and could not run fast enough to do
all the necessary management of cached blocks while still meeting the demand
requests of the software on the motherboard. Was the on-board 80188 a
screaming 12MHz? IBM apparently recovered from the experience with a faster
controller, comparable, in fact, to the SCSI HBA used by mainstream Adaptec, who
also did a 1640 MCA SCSI host adapter... Ben Myers

On Mon, 05 Mar 2007 06:55:40 GMT, "William R. Walsh"
m wrote:

Hi!

Compaq had the QVision done, and then ATI had an EISA card for a while


ATI GUP/Mach32? I have one in Microchannel and thought I saw one in EISA at
some time. I know PCI and VL-BUS versions also existed.

I haven't found the Microchannel one to be worth the expense of owning it.
The NT driver is marginal and the card itself is slooooow. IBM's own XGA-2
runs rings around it in high color modes, too bad Microsoft never saw fit to
write a driver that could fully exploit the card. (At least these woes were
resolved for Win9x users, thanks to the efforts of a third party with a
Win95 DDK.)

About a year ago, my Compaq EISA cards (convertible between Token Ring and
Ethernet with a daughter card) made their journey to the electronic board

scrapper.

Gaaaak! I'm astounded to learn that Compaq had anything to do with TR that
they actually made. However, I do have some TR PCI cards that are IBM made
and "Compaq" branded.

EISA did outlive MicroChannel, which effectively bit the dust after 486s
running at 50 and 66MHz. I don't think there ever was a Pentium with
MicroChannel, was there?


Officially there were the Server 95 systems that came in Pentium 60 and
66MHz versions. The PC Server 500 (using the same planar as the Server 95
but a different case) featured a processor complex using a 90MHz Pentium
CPU. The 90MHz processor complex has been pushed to 233MHz MMX with varying
results, although 200MHz is easily obtained and stable. The PC Servers 5xx
and 720 were Pentium based systems with an MCA bus. In the case of the 720,
the system was a combination PCI/MCA unit. There also exist MCA versions of
the PC Server 3xx series and some 688* desktops with "Select A Bus". The 720
was capable of six-way SMP at up to 200MHz per processor card.

I have a Server 95a (the last PS/2 model) with a 90MHz Pentium processor
complex that's been rewired to accept a Pentium Overdrive 200 (run at 180)
MMX CPU. This thing is every bit of seriously sweet to use.

There were some Pentium fired NCR MCA-based servers. Nobody's ever seen one
that I know of.

I don't think IBM ever did even a 100MHz 486 MCA system.


They sure did. Models 76 and 77, both built around the "Lacuna" board either
came with or had everything you needed to run a 3.3V 486 CPU. These (and the
NCR 3350, which I also have) will take a Pentium OverDrive 63/83 and have an
L2 cache slot. Other 486 systems (like the Server 85 "X" models) don't take
a POD but will stand a 486-compatible upgrade, including the 133MHz AMD 486
chips.

The 8570-Bxx series machines were available with a "486 Power Platform"
running at 25MHz. It's been said that these were the first 486 computers
ever marketed. They are rare to say the least. Reports say that with some
diddling around, an AMD 486/133 processor upgrade works on them as well.

There were other models, many of which I have. If you didn't look at my
computer collection, you might want to. It's somewhat outdated in parts, but
I'm working on redoing it to feature all of the stuff I have. When MCA had
died off in the x86 world, it continued for another little while in the
RS/6000 world. I don't have any of those.

where I raised the hackles of the MicroChannel people by telling them that
the caching SCSI adapter controlled by an 80186 was terribly mismatched
with a 386, and that the adapter looked like it was designed
by accountants who found a lot of leftover 80186s and 30-pin SIMMs in a
warehouse somewhere.


Interesting. I did find with some benchmarking experiments that the short
late uncached (and 80C32 based) IBM MCA SCSI adapter was much faster than
the 80188 based caching ones. I've never been sure why, perhaps it was
better code optimization for the 80C32 microcontroller. Still, 8X CD burning
is possible on a 486 with this SCSI subsystem running the hard disks and an
NCR 53C710 driving the burner. I'd have to say IBM did a good job with these
in some ways, because I have a 9585 "X" machine with onboard cached SCSI
that is happily driving a 50GB Seagate SCA disk in a 3510 enclosure under
Windows NT 4.0. The boot-BIOS seems to only go up to 8GB, but an OS with
drivers that take over will do fine.

The so-called fast/wide adapters lost the cache and went with an 80186
clocked at 20MHz. These things haul...burning a CD at 12X is easy to do as
long as the hard disk can keep up. I've clocked this doing 10.1MB/sec
transfer. A later version with wide SE on the inside and external HVD goes
even faster (14.1MB/sec!). That one is driven by a 40MHz (!!!) 80186. These
adapters have been used to drive 250GB hard disks without incident.

To give perspective, PC Magazine back then ran maybe 500 or 600 pages
every two weeks, advertising computer boxes that cost thousands of dollars
and monitors costing up to a grand.


I remember those days and loved PC Magazine at the time. I was almost too
late to that particular time frame, but I was there and reading the
magazine. Too bad it isn't that way any more, although I don't think it
would still be here without having slimmed down as it did. I also remember
the days when Computer Shopper was a huge thing that could probably have
been used to defend yourself if need be!

Gosh, did that sound like an IBM commercial of some sort? :-) Sorry for the
rambling!

William

  #14  
Old March 5th 07, 04:53 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 409
Default Compaq Deskpro 386s20/n

Hi!

You got into MicroChannel a lot more than I did, and
you have the real hardware there to reinforce your
memory.


Yeah...when in school, I saw and used Model 25s (286/XT) that remote-
booted from an Advanced Netware 286 (!!) server OS running on a Model
80. (Why they used the 286 version I can only guess...)

I liked the machines then, and wanted to have one. In 1997 I finally
got a Model 70 and nothing's been quite the same since. Of course,
when the school finally got done with all of this stuff in the early
2000s, they called me before taking it all away to be recycled. They
had one big pickup truck bed's worth before I got there.

When I got done, they had nothing to take. :-)

For a while, I sold hand-assembled 486 upgrade kits
built around the AMD Am486-133 133MHz 486 workalike.
Never got to try one in an IBM box. It probably
would not have worked.


Bah. :-) I've got some from Evergreen and Kingston. They all work
great. Some early processor complexes did have problems, though.

It was certainly odd, with a little daughter
card that attached to give it one or the
other network personality.


Now I'm going to have to look for one of those. :-) It'll go along
well with my 487SX and other "weird stuff".

(NCR stuff)


I've found the 3350 to be an interesting box. It's surprisingly
capable in some ways and lacking in others. The 77C22E video subsystem
is very capable per what spec sheets I've found...the drivers never
took advantage of all it could do.

The 80188 bandwidth was too narrow, and could
not run fast enough to do all the necessary
management of cached blocks while still meeting
the demand requests of the software on the
motherboard.


I've always wondered why the 80C32 cacheless controllers did so much
better on benchmarks. Thanks for that info.

The 80188 started running at 10MHz and later moved up to 16MHz on the
latest revision of the card. The Adaptec 1640--for having an annoying
1GB limit and only using a 16-bit slot--is definitely faster on just
about every hard disk benchmark I ever tried.

Hey, it's been great having this discussion, even if it's not strictly
Compaq related. If you should find those PC Magazine articles and
wouldn't mind passing a copy on, I'd love to see them.

William

 




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