Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sjsca4!chomolungma!poffen
From: poffen@chomolungma (Russ Poffenberger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: 386SX replacements for 80286 machines
Keywords: whatever happened to them?
Message-ID: <1989Nov7.220644.4232@sj.ate.slb.com>
Date: 7 Nov 89 22:06:44 GMT
References: <786@awdprime.UUCP> <1989Nov2.080213.2989@ico.isc.com> <4001@peora.ccur.com> <89Nov2.162059est.18926@me.utoronto.ca> <19132@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger)
Organization: Schlumberger ATE, San Jose, CA
Lines: 36

In article <19132@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> hunt@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Jim Hunt) writes:
>In article <4001@peora.ccur.com> joel@peora.ccur.com (Joel Upchurch) writes:
>>
>>I suspect that there isn't much market for these modules. With the
>>new 386SX pricing it is easier to do a complete motherboard swap.
>
>Stop and consider here.  If the cost of a motherboard is the cost
>of manufacture, plus amortized development costs, then why are
>the SX boards so cheap?  Might it be that we are just getting 286
>boards with 386SX stuffed in?  I can't explain $400 motherboards
>any other way when all the DX boards are $1000 (other than charge
>what the market will bear).  So, if they can munge the design to
>take an SX, and sell us whole motherboards for $400, then how
>much could it cost for a tiny daughter board?
>
>Other answers:
>No, you can't put in an SX and jack up the speed, there are hard
>limits in the speed of a board due to the board itself.  The
>advantage you get from the SX is better Ucode and more
>instructions available.
>

I would be concerned about using the same 286 bios after replacing the CPU with
a 386SX. Especially when doing multitasking type operations ala Windows/386
or desqview.

Any comments?

Russ Poffenberger               DOMAIN: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com
Schlumberger Technologies       UUCP:   {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!poffen
1601 Technology Drive		CIS:	72401,276
San Jose, Ca. 95110
(408)437-5254
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