Project Xiphod: Setting up a Physical 80386 System (targeting 1992)

Introduction

As a follow up to my 1983-1984 vintage IBM PC 5150 (here), I wanted to put together a modest 32-bit x86 system. One can easily put together a late 1990s ‘486 or Pentium based system (just due to them being so much more plentiful). But I wanted to replicate the 1989-1992 era of home computing: A time before Windows (or Linux) was a household name, before USB and “Plug and Play,” or before dial-up Internet was commonly available.

This was when Wing Commander and Ultima VI had just been released (1990). Specifically, I focused on 1992 because that was also the year that Wolfenstein 3D was released (followed later that year by the infamous Mortal Kombat on PC; King’s Quest VI was another notable 1992 release). This was also the year before Myst and the Second Reality PC demo were available on PC, two ground-breaking software titles that (for different reasons) pushed the limits of what a ‘386 could do. It was also the year before the Panasonic 3DO was released (that is, before the major push into Compact Disc and multimedia-oriented software) and also the year before the Amiga and Tandy Color Computer died (essentially all “boot to BASIC” systems were put to rest in 1993, as the industry had indeed grown past all that; even Apple discontinued the IIe series in 1993).

The 1970s Computer Lib movement asked “what would a home computer even be used for?” and the 1980s had shown the answer: social media (AOL, CompuServe), gaming, simulation (FlightSim), CAD, digital video editing/drawing, record keeping (accounting, ancestry, letter writing), computer aided astronomy tracking, and numerous other things – the mid-1990s was about now doing all those things at the same time, amplified by now solidifying multimedia standards (WAV, GIF/JPEG, MPEG VCDs, etc.).

And that’s the point of this ‘386 build: to replicate the user-experience in-between the older 8088-era and newer Pentium-era, a brief window between 1989 to 1992, and to show that gradual transition in computing capability. To verify and witness how those groundbreaking software titles were experienced by a typical home-user of their day. And to also experience a time when users still had to configure systems manually using jumpers, as well as master the art of dealing with the MS-DOS CONFIG.SYS file. This was also a time before the movie Hackers had come out (in 1995).

Some things an 80386-build is better suited for than an original 8088-based IBM PC 5150:

  • 3D Studio Max rendered animation software becomes viable
  • Autodesk Animator and Print Shop Pro become much more tolerable to use
  • SimCity / Lemmings will play smoothly (5150 can better handle these with 8Mhz / V30 upgrades)
  • Sierra KQ4 SCI starts to play smoothly (one of the first commercial titles with Adlib support)
  • DESQView/386 really starts to shine (multi-tasking MS-DOS)
  • OS/2 multi-tasking with Presentation Manager GUI becomes possible (using the OS/2 HPFS partition, you get long filenames years before Windows)
  • BBS’ing at 38400+ baud becomes more reliable (and while using more feature-capable terminal software, like QModem)
  • MS-DOS starts to include QBASIC (QuickBASIC)
  • Much improved editions of Flight Simulator

BELOW: A typical Gateway ad from January 1992 edition of InfoWorld (here), showing a mixed offering of 286, 386, and 486 systems offered at the same time. Notice these offerings include MS-DOS 5.0 and 14″ CRT color monitor. 4MB RAM does seem more typical by this time, with HDD capacity ranging from 40MB to 340MB.

I started with a modest build (386DX-20) of about 1989 (mainboard), which was a little beat up when I got it, had no expansion cards, and a very dead CMOS battery. After verifying that it would still boot at all and a little cleanup, I add a few upgrades that would correspond to a 1992-era system. It is fairly essential to use a board that you can obtain the manual for, since you’ll need to know various jumper settings to configure the system. In this case, I needed jumpers to disable the onboard VGA and adjust the parallel port IRQ (because I found that the onboard VGA conflicted with the SoundBlaster Pro, despite trying all various settings on the SBPro).

I liked that this was a “slimline” low profile case, using a “tree-style” expansion adapter so that the expansion cards mounted horizontally. This is reminiscent of more “classic” style of systems (which were a wide box to set your monitor on top of), a time before “tower cases” became more prominent. Keep in mind this is pre-ATX standards equipment, so just tossing a 386 board into “any ol’e case” isn’t a straightforward option (but I have run a 386 in the past literally in a cardboard box).

Another quaint thing about an early 386 is that it most likely still uses the 5-pin DIN “AT-style” keyboard connector (Type M keyboards!). IBM introduced PS/2 in 1987 (that is, their PS/2 line of desktop computers, which introduced both the VGA standard and the PS/2-style keyboard/mouse connector), but most 286/386 vendors continued to use that 5-pin DIN connector for keyboards (probably for the practical reason that the stock of those connectors and keyboards were still plentiful, while it took a few years for the newer/smaller PS/2 style to equally become plentiful worldwide).

NOTE: Mis-matched color disk drives was common in the late 1980s, because it was a transition time between 720KB to 1.44MB 3.5″ and 360KB to 1.22MB 5.25″ formats. So those who bought a system in 1987-1989, by 1990-1992 likely upgraded disk drives that didn’t have matching front plates. Which highlights the “modularity” of PC systems and selective over-time upgrades (which included subtle things like standardizing on the dimensions of screw-down holes for disk drives).

CPU: Intel 80386-201986
RAM: 2MB 30-pin SIMM (8x256KB)
Disk Drives
5.25″ 1.22MB
3.5″ 1.44MB		3.5″ 1.44Mb introduced by IBM PS/2 in 1987.
Audio: SoundBlaster Pro (CT1600)1992
Video: 1MB DiamondStealth VGA1992
OS: MS-DOS 5.0June 1991

In my IBM 5150 articles (here), I already talked about VGA upgrades, NIC, WiModem, and HxC disk drive emulation. All of that same setup still applies here on the 386. I’ve not had any change in how any of that is done here.

But to briefly cover one aspect: The only difference in the WiModem232 usage is that QModem terminal was sluggish on the 4.77 MHz 8088, but now runs great on a 386. This is appropriate because QModem 4.5 is a year 1992 released product, very appropriate for this build. QModem packs in a lot of features plus a slick interface. The prior IBM PC 5150 was better suited for earlier versions of Procomm.

The following is some additional x86-system setup aspects, not covered in the prior IBM PC 5150 articles:

Table of Contents (notes on Upgrades)

Other topics:

Other References to Remember…

Personal/Microcomputer Survey (1984)
Vol1_715.pdf (computerhistory.org)

Interesting collection of info/links on early 1990s video cards
Maximum PC mag back issues on google \ VOGONS

No love for the 286? Let me explain…
The prior 286-era (which did introduce protected-mode) was rather short lived (about 1984-1986), and frankly I don’t recall any specific “killer app” that the 286 introduced (maybe a somewhat better DESQView experience). And the 80186 was (basically) in parallel development with the 8088, for a niche market (though the Tandy 2000 was fielded with one). There was an article (that I can no longer find!) where Bill Gates was very vocal about the shortcomings about the 80286. In short, the industry acknowledged that the 286 was a 16-bit stop-gap towards what everyone was really waiting for: a consumer friendly 32-bit processor and moving way past the “1MB barrier” for RAM (within the domain of microcomputers).

I do have a 286 system, saved up for a day when I can fully take it out for a spin.

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