[Coco] Coco Digest, Vol 131, Issue 34

[billg999 at cs.uofs.edu]

> Well - I actually have all of that covered; I have one working 386
> motherboard (an AMD DX40), several 486 motherboards (including my first
> 486 PC), and more than a few old Pentium 1 mobos (not to mention 3 or so
> AMD 586/133 boards - the best souped-up 486 there ever was!).

I had ab out a dozen old machines in storage at the house.  When I dug
one out to try to revive my old EPROM programmer it was DOA.  I went
thru pretty much all of them with the same result.  Could be bitrot in
the eproms of the NVRAM but whatever it was, just sitting in a good
environment doesn't guarantee usability at some point in the future.

>
> So - an ISA board should work ok (in an EISA slot - IIRC, you can use an
> ISA card in one), and speed shouldn't be an issue (unless even my 386
> would be too fast - even out of "turbo" mode).

Most of mine were.  Last machine it worked on was a Tandy 1000.  :-)

>                                                 I've got a ton of
> "slowdown" software for DOS as well, if that would help any in a pinch.

Not sure that would work, but you can always try.

>
> I just couldn't pass this box up, for a dollar. Heck, the four ZIF
> sockets are worth that much.

Sadly, the ZIF was all I kept from both of the old EPROM programmers
I used to use.  But, given the price and availability of USB EPROM
programmers today, I just didn't see the logic in spending time trying
to make some old, less functional at best, system work when I could be
spending that time having fun with my even older than PC systems.  :-)

bill