On Tue, 9 Mar 1999, Brent Reynolds wrote: > ............................... You could boost the speed of an XT > machine with that 8088 processor by replacing it with an NEC V-20 > microprocessor. You could get 20-50 percent more performance that way. The > v-20 came in 4.77-, and 7.16MHz clock speeds. NEC's replacement for the > 8086 processor was the 9.54MHz V-30 processor. Their replacement for, or > clone of the Intel 80186 processor was the V-40. ... Thank you for this bit of information; it helps me to categorize the CPU on my Sharp PC4500 `portable' computer (which I've kept in near-new condition these past ten years). The manual says it's an "80188 compatible with 7.16 MHz clock". Most likely, then, it fits your description above with the NEC V-20 set to the 7.16MHz clock speed. This "old friend" comes with two 720K floppy drives, no hard drive, and believe it or not, there's still a web site catering to peripherals for these honorable machines (Sharp refers its old customers to it). The only thing I had to replace on it was a large battery (weighs a few pounds!) that I didn't recharge enough to keep it alive. The replacement battery (perhaps three years ago?) was identical to the original! It would be fun to locate an internal modem for it (1200 baud) and run Net-Tamer XT on it... > ... by the fall of 1991, the 50MHz 80486-based machine was the > power-users' dream machine... I'm writing to you on one... that I bought last year (custom-built from next-to-new components). I wanted something that represented the state-of the-art of machines when DOS was at its height... > .................................................. Want an Intel 20- or > 25-MHz 80387 math coprocessor to go along with that comparable 80386DX CPU, > get out another $550 or so. Memory? Fifty dollars per megabyte was > cheap! > ... Been there, done that, too! :-) > .... It all still works, and it's hardware is all completely Y2K > compliant, as it always has been. For all I know, it might still work just > fine ten years from now, and I bet you won't be able to say that for many of > these cheap Pentium-based Chinese-made motherboard equipped systems that > people are dragging out of the computer stores this week. This beast would > laugh at things that might kill a lot of modern cheap systems. It's the > old, tough, slow, tortoise who can live 100 years as opposed to the fast, > brash rabbit that might not see more than a few short years and is easily > caught and killed. ... This is beginning to disturb me, too. Now that I've come to enjoy and appreciate the quality, durability and usefulness of these older machines, I'm no longer satisfied with the fluffed up junk on sale that has way more power than is sensible for reasonable use. I'm saving up now for the time when some of the major vendors (I hope!) will have *Linux designed* machines... ones that will have been developed with at least a few years of customer input, trial and error... We shall see! Jerry Internet Montana Red Hat Linux 5.0 / Pine 3.96 To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies.
