Rod, at 07:34 on Apr 23 1996, you wrote to Bill Grimsley...

BG> You'd be horrified to see all the jumpers I had to set
BG> before the board would recognise the chip as a quadrupler,
BG> and this was on a separate sheet, not in the printed manual.

RS> Yeah, thats the downside with those off the mainstream a bit, can be a bit
RS> of a problem with that stuff. Some are twitchy about the cache setting too.

No obvious quirks with this board so far, although a loose leaf in its
manual stated that with this particular BIOS, there was insufficient space
to retain the anti-virus stuff, so it's been left out (version 1.1).  Not
that I use it anyway, but if they pissed off that fucking stupid graphical
stuff and went back to plain text, like most decent BIOSes, they'd have had
stacks of room.

BG> This new board already auto-detects the CPU voltage, which I though
BG> was rather elegant.  Pity about the god-awful WinBIOS though.

RS> Dunno, they all have their downsides. Those fucking Awards which have
RS> the same version number, even right down to the trailing subversion
RS> letter letter, some with and some without LBA support are a total
RS> pain in the arse coz you cant be sure of LBA support from the version.

Dunno, my first _high-speed_ PC (386DX33 :-)) used an Award BIOS, and it
was fucking atrocious, but over the last 6 years, they've really lifted
their game.  I started using them again around the middle of last year, and
none of them had problems with LBA, so I presume that you mean those which
preceded this era.  

BG> although if you don't set up the IDE parameters in BIOS, this board
BG> will also auto-detect the drive size at boot-up, but it does tend
BG> to add a rather noticeable delay to the boot time, as you'd expect.

RS> Yeah, we really are seeing some decent progress on
RS> all that stuff now. No doubt there will be plenty
RS> of warts and fangs in the arse getting there tho.

Don't hold your breath waiting.  There are far too many different
manufacturers using 3 or 4 different mainstream BIOSes, and just as many
mainstream chipsets on their boards.  The current potential for warts is
phenomenal.

RS> Presumably they are just taking the easy way out, not attempting to keep
RS> up with the newer more exotic cpu variants and just decide its an oddy.

Which it is, when you think about it.  To date, it's the only quadrupler
CPU available, although I suspect that that may change shortly as well.

BG> Some of the fellows in the internet newsgroups have successfully
BG> run the DX5 with a 50MHz clock (200MHz internally) on PCI boards,

RS> I'm gunna report them to the RSPCC. You want to watch out, it is
RS> possible to kill a cpu if you get too carried away. Which can ruin
RS> the day rather more than somewhat with the more expensive cpus.

BG> So people keep telling me, but just like unapproved modems,
BG> nobody can actually name anybody to whom this has happened.

RS> Vernon Frazee in the International Tech echo has killed some.

He's been around for a few years now, and a lot of what he says is quite
weird, so I tend not to pay too much attention to him at all. 

RS> Its certainly very uncommon to do so tho.

I'm not suggesting that it can't be done, but the worst that I've heard of
locally is that if clocked too high, the CPU won't even fire up.

BG> but mine doesn't like that at all with VLB.

RS> Yeah, thats what you would expect. Do you even know that motherboard
RS> is happy with a 50MHz external speed, say with a 486DX50 ?

BG> I'd almost bet my house that it wouldn't work.  Maybe
BG> it would with all ISA, but not with my two VLB cards.

RS> There are some that will, but its not common at all.

Fairly irrelevant now anyway, as VLB has had its day.  Be interesting to
see how PCI progresses.  Seems pretty useful in theory, just a few warts to
iron out, that's all.  Nice to see that PCI cards are no dearer than VLB
now too.

BG> Still, it makes you wonder just how much more they can squeeze
BG> from 486 technology.  Seems it isn't totally obsolete yet.

RS> Yeah, interesting to watch, and interesting
RS> how cheap say the 486DX2/66s are too.

BTW, DX2s are no longer available new (old stock notwithstanding). 
DX4/100s are the slowest 486 CPUs you can currently buy these days. 
Amazing.

BG> I bought my original i486DX2/66 second-hand only ~2 years
BG> ago for $450, and you can now buy one new for just $65.

RS> Yeah, not sure its a good idea to do this sort of thing
RS> tho, one of these days I might cark it in apoplexy. 

True, a LOT of money has passed under the bridge...

RS> For some reason the price I paid for a 200MB drive, $1350, sticks
RS> in my mind. Shit, I could get around 5GB for that today.

Cruel, isn't it?  I'm still spewing about my 80Mb Maxtor which cost me $850
(trade price too) only 6 years ago.  What's even worse, I thought that its
capacity would be more than enough to last me several years...  :(

BG> Even the DX5/133 can be had for less than $120 these
BG> days.  Pity the Pentiums haven't yet followed suit.

RS> Its always like that, whatever Intel has a monopoly on, they
RS> gouge like mad to recover their R&D costs while they can.

I suspect that Intel have a major share-holding in USR as well.  :)

Regards, Bill

--- Msgedsq/2 3.20