AMD Am386 released March 2, 1991 (dfarq.homeip.net)
83 points by jnord 10 hours ago
p0w3n3d 2 hours ago
My friend used to have amd ~586 I think. I remember that when playing Colonization on dos you were not allowed to move the mouse beyond the right edge of the screen or the graphics messed up... But pinball fantasies worked well!
burnt-resistor 4 hours ago
TI with the TMS9900 was in a similar position as IBM with the 386: both threatened their micro/minicomputer markets. This is why TI didn't release other TI-99-like machines. TI also expressed disdain towards hobbyists.
Edit: It might be cool to make a higher-spec TMS9900 home brew system.
KeyBoardG 3 hours ago
The TI-99/8 looks like it would have been awesome. It solved the issues of the 99/4a, had improved basic and pascal built in, all while being backward compatible.
Zardoz84 8 hours ago
> Technically, the Am386 could run Windows 95, but it wasn’t a great experience.
Technically not. It can run it. Was slow? Yes, but my Am386DX40 keep working fine from 1991 to 1996. Running DR-DOS 6, MS-DOS 6.11, Windows 3.1 and finally Windows 95. And, of course, I could play DooM 2 on it. At some point, I got a math copro. Finally, my father upgraded the machine with an AMD 486DX5 133MHz.
killerstorm 7 hours ago
My father got me a second-hand computer with Am386DX-40 somewhere around 1997, IIRC. An upgrade to older 286.
It was two generations old at that time but still a lot of fun: it could run a lot of games (incl. DOOM, of course), programming (largely Turbo Pascal 7), and some word processing under Windows 3.11.
I didn't bother with Win95, though.
I've been using it up until 1999, when I finally got a then-modern computer with Windows 98. But in some ways MS-DOS felt more capable - I really knew what each file is for, what computer is doing, etc. I.e. the entire machine is fully comprehensible. You really don't get it with Windows unless you're Russinovich or something.
So in a way 386 was a peak computer for me
snarfy 5 hours ago
Which math copro? If you had a 386DX then I believe you had the math copro? The 386SX did not have an FPU and needed the additional 387SX.
dragonwriter 4 hours ago
> If you had a 386DX then I believe you had the math copro? The 386SX did not have an FPU and needed the additional 387SX.
The 386DX/386SX distinction was the external databus (32-bit on the DX, 16-bit on the SX)
DX was “Double word eXternal", SX was “Single word eXternal”. Neither had an FPU builtin, and there were corresponding 387DX and 387SX coprocessors.
Then Intel used the same naming split (despite the abbreviations not applying) for high-end vs low-end of the 486 where the DX had a builtin FPU and the SX required a “487SX coprocessor” to get an FPU (which IIRC was internally just a 486DX processor which went into a separate “coprocessor slot” which just bypassed the “main” processor when populated.)
Zardoz84 41 minutes ago
snarfy 3 hours ago
to11mtm 5 hours ago
> If you had a 386DX then I believe you had the math copro? The 386SX did not have an FPU and needed the additional 387SX.
Neither had FPUs... Closest you can get is RapidCAD (which is really a 486DX adapted to 386 bus, IIRC it uses a 'jumper' for the 387 slot.)
For 386, the difference between SX and DX was whether it was a 16 or 32 bit data bus.
Where things can get more curious, is that some early 386 motherboards actually took a 287 instead of a 387...
iberator 8 hours ago
NETBSD still can run on it too :) Best and most portable os in the history
Zardoz84 36 minutes ago
I have a 486DX2 at 66 that I have as pet project to mess with Windows 95, MSDOS and S.u.S.E. Linux 5.3 . SuSE 5.3 was my first full distro (the whole pack of 6 cdroms), and I had good memories of how was easy to install stuff with YaST.
I could try to upgrade to the mighty Am486DX5 at 133. I managed to get one, but I need to mod the MBO to give the low voltage required by it. The MBO it's prepared to it, but don't have populated the regulator...
messe 8 hours ago
> most portable os
Eh... I think the Linux kernel + your choice of libc/userland has it beat these days.