Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!acorn!moncam!emmo
From: emmo@moncam.co.uk (Dave Emmerson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: XT --> 386SX
Summary: Sure you can!
Message-ID: <299@marvin.moncam.co.uk>
Date: 1 Dec 89 16:27:10 GMT
References: <6400@shlump.nac.dec.com>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Monotype ADG, Cambridge, UK
Lines: 22

In article <6400@shlump.nac.dec.com>, nadkarni@ashok.dec.com writes:
> In article <9361@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, prove@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Roger Ove) writes...
> >I have an old XT clone and I'm tempted by some of the cheap 386SX
> >motherboards.  It would be nice to be able to salvage some of the old
> >stuff, particularly the drives (ST225's).  Most of these boards have a
> >couple of 8 bit slots, but I assume you can't just plug in an XT drive
> >controller (for bus timing and port assignment reasons).  Is there a way
> 
> Please post this information as I'm interested too. I'm told that on some
> 286 motherboards you can use an XT HD controller by telling setup that there
> is no hard disk. How about the floppy controller and I/O ports ?
> 

My 286 AMI NEAT combination does just that. You set the appropriate bus
waitstates for the selected bus clock (in CMOS non-volatile memory), and
-with my old ST11 controller- set the hard drive to type 15 (0 Mb), NOT
non-existent. No problem, nice easy bit-by-bit upgrade path, go for it!

- NB this is a ROM boot-up routine, there's no Catch-22 with having to
have a drive working to load a program to configure the drives.

Dave E.