How to choose a new 386 UNIX PC...

[Stuart Lynne]

In article <124379 at sun.Eng.Sun.COM> plocher at sun.UUCP (John Plocher) writes:
>In article <21969 at cup.portal.com> cliffhanger at cup.portal.com (Cliff C Heyer) writes:
>bus speed
>	If it isn't 8MHZ (i.e., if it is 10 or 12) don't touch it!  Many cards
>	won't run faster than 8MHZ on the bus.

Argh!!!! That's right folks, spend $5000 on a brand new 386 box and then put
a governor on it so you can run that old $200 card you bought at the swap
meet last week.

Get the fastest bus you can, and buy peripherals to match. My bus run's at
12Mhz. If a card won't run in it, I will throw it out and get one that will.

Suprisingly there's quite a few that work just fine. I've run without *any*
problems:
	WD8003E ethernet
	WD1006SR2 hard disk
	IBM Monochrom (circa 1983, one of the originals)
	Quadram JTFax 9600
	ADT Smartfax 9600
	Bell Tech / Everex cartridge 
	Clone parallel, 2 serial, game port
	Clone parallel, 2 serial

One thing that you can do if you have a specific card that you absolutely
need to run is to ensure that you get a system that you can tailor the wait
states on. For a while I had a fax card that wouldn't run at 12Mhz at first
try. But by adding a wait state to 8bit I/O cycles it did. But 16 bit was
still full speed. (You want to have 16 bit full speed to optimize your disk
throughput.)

-- 
Stuart.Lynne at wimsey.bc.ca uunet!van-bc!sl 604-937-7532(voice) 604-939-4768(fax)