Hello Mark - At 09:31 AM 11/25/02 +0500, you wrote:
> WEll I've still got my XT 8086/88 working and while I am not certain >regarding the answer to your memory question I've got a question of my own? > Is there a way to upgrade the processer in order to increase the speed >of this computer? I thought someone once indicated how that could be done >by replacing the chip but I don't recall if so or how that may be done? The 8088 was replaced by the NEC V20 and the 8086 could be replaced by the NEC V30. Not a spectacular increase but in those days anything was a novelty. I would be doubtful about the odds of finding the NEC chips now. You can alter the refresh rate of the memory chips with any number of utility programs and gain about 10% at no cost. :-) If you can find Spinrite and determine the _proper_ interleave for your hard drive and redo the LOW LEVEL format nondestructively this would improve speeds more than the NEC chip or altering the refresh rate. Few drives I checked were even _close_ to the proper interleave in the days of the XT. QCRT from the Xanadu utlities archive will speed up most displays (double or even triple). Keeping MFM and RLL drives defragged is a big deal. Not doing this on a regular basis will bog the system down quite a bit. There is even a utility to improve floppy drive access speeds called FLOP2. With all of these setup properly my old 8mhz 8086 machine was close to my 80286 machine in time of execution. btw: None of these will normally interfere in any way with other software. Charles Angelich The Ghost in the Machine! DOS and W31 Tech website: http://www.undercoverdesign.com/dosghost/ Stories, poems, MP3/MIDI music, and photos website: http://www.undercoverdesign.com/dosghost/faf/ 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. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
