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  • The XT that became a 486

    From hyjinx@21:1/126 to All on Sun Sep 7 21:54:00 2025
    Heyo folks,

    https://youtu.be/YI3yeY2sOo4

    Al's Geek Lab delivers you -- my IBM 5160, complete with original 256K motherboard still in play, delivers you a slice of DooM running at ~20FPS.

    Yes, it is running with an upgrade card - an Intel Inboard/386 PC
    Yes, I rodded the hell out of that too, with a ParrotyError 4MB ram expansion piggyback board and an IODATA PK486 Blue Lightning 3 (IBM/Cyrix) CPU which clocks in at 96MHz!

    It's wild!

    Lettuce know what you think!

    Cheers,
    Al


    hyjinx // Alistair Ross
    Author of 'Back to the BBS' Documentary: https://bit.ly/3tRINeL (YouTube) alsgeeklab.com

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2024/05/29 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Al's Geek Lab -=- bbs.alsgeeklab.com:2323 (21:1/126)
  • From Zip@21:1/202 to hyjinx on Sun Sep 7 14:00:13 2025
    Helo hyjinx!

    On 07 Sep 2025, hyjinx said the following...

    Al's Geek Lab delivers you -- my IBM 5160, complete with original 256K motherboard still in play, delivers you a slice of DooM running at
    ~20FPS.

    Really cool! Love the vids! And I recognize the sound of that IBM power switch from when I used to have a PC/XT/AT... =)

    Best regards
    Zip

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2024/05/29 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Star Collision BBS, Uppsala, Sweden (21:1/202)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to hyjinx on Sun Sep 7 08:53:56 2025
    hyjinx wrote to All <=-

    Heyo folks,

    https://youtu.be/YI3yeY2sOo4

    Yes, it is running with an upgrade card - an Intel Inboard/386 PC
    Yes, I rodded the hell out of that too, with a ParrotyError 4MB ram expansion piggyback board and an IODATA PK486 Blue Lightning 3
    (IBM/Cyrix) CPU which clocks in at 96MHz!

    Amazing to watch! I see sleeper builds with modern motherboards in old hardware, but seeing an upgraded IBM PC motherboard running is pretty
    amazing. I don't recall seeing the keyboard, but typing on one of those
    XT keyboards with the Fkeys on the left would be a walk down memory
    lane.





    --- MultiMail/Win v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From paulie420@21:2/150 to hyjinx on Sun Sep 7 16:00:59 2025
    https://youtu.be/YI3yeY2sOo4

    Al's Geek Lab delivers you -- my IBM 5160, complete with original 256K motherboard still in play, delivers you a slice of DooM running at
    ~20FPS.

    Dude - that computer is so sick... I've watched you morph it into the beast it is over several YT videos!!!! So cool.



    |07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
    |08.........

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2024/05/29 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)
  • From kirkspragg@21:2/150 to hyjinx on Fri Sep 12 17:41:32 2025
    Al's Geek Lab delivers you -- my IBM 5160, complete with original 256K motherboard still in play, delivers you a slice of DooM running at
    ~20FPS.

    Yes, it is running with an upgrade card - an Intel Inboard/386 PC
    Yes, I rodded the hell out of that too, with a ParrotyError 4MB ram expansion piggyback board and an IODATA PK486 Blue Lightning 3
    (IBM/Cyrix) CPU which clocks in at 96MHz!

    It's wild!
    Thats so cool, I wonder how much further you can push it!

    Is the processor on the piggyback board socketed or not? If it is I wonder what you could replace it with......


    Lettuce know what you think!
    You've turned that 5160 in a real Rocket ;)

    Also I wonder what performance would be like using a super XT motherboard that runs at a higher clock speed than the XT? Bumping the ISA bus speed up to 8 or 10Mhz would surely speed things up quite a bit!

    ... A toast -- To a kinder gentler echo

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2024/05/29 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to kirkspragg on Sun Sep 14 09:10:35 2025
    kirkspragg wrote to hyjinx <=-

    Also I wonder what performance would be like using a super XT
    motherboard that runs at a higher clock speed than the XT? Bumping the
    ISA bus speed up to 8 or 10Mhz would surely speed things up quite a
    bit!

    Timing on old ISA cards was tricky - I had an AT that I tried swapping
    crystals on. Tried going for 16 mhz, ended up having to settle for 12
    because of crashes. I remember reading that card timing was usually the problem.

    Amazing to think back then how we got around with so little. I had a 8
    mhz 286, clocked to 12, 2 MB of RAM on the motherboard, and had an AST AboveBoard with 8 MB extra on it, plus 2 socketed UART serial ports. One
    of them got a 16550 to run a modem, and the system was able to run
    Geoworks and Windows 3.0 (but just barely)

    Those were fun times.

    ... Adding on
    --- MultiMail/Win v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)