Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!vax5.cit.cornell.edu!n65j
From: n65j@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Upgrading XT motherboard to AT motherboard alone
Message-ID: <1991May7.194855.4569@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>
Date: 7 May 91 23:48:55 GMT
References: <1991May6.130002.13774@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Distribution: comp
Organization: CIT, Cornell University
Lines: 48

In article <1991May6.130002.13774@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>,
byu@csri.toronto.edu (Benjamin Yu) writes: 
> Can anyone give a brief description of benefits (if any) in upgrading
> a 4 MHz XT motherboard to a 12 MHz AT motherboard without changing
> the 8 bit hard/floppy disk controller and hard/floppy disk?  What is
> the net effect, say in running Pagemaker under Windows 3.0, in terms
> of actual speedup (again if any)?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> -- 
> Benjamin Yu
> University of Toronto                CSNET, UUCP, BITNET: 
> Department of Computer Science         byu@csri.toronto.edu
> Toronto, Ontario   Canada M5S 1A4      byu@csri.utoronto.ca
> (o)(416)978 - 4299 (h)(416)470 - 8206  {uunet,watmath}!csri.utoronto.edu!byu

Have you ever tried to do anything in Windows 3.0 on an XT-class machine?
Even the simplest things were excruciatingly slow on the 8Mhz 8086 machine
I once tried this on (ATT 6300) and I would expect something like Pagemaker
to require an extreme amount of patience on such a platform, if indeed it
would run at all.

With the 286 board and, say, 4Mb of memory (mostly extended) you could run
in Win3's Standard mode and have a hope to use PageMaker and the like.
I would place high priority on memory if you intend to keep your
old hard drive; devote some of it to a cache and the slower drive will
have less impact.  Memory is now extremely cheap if your 286 motherboard has
the capacity.  Note that recent PageMakers specify a minimum 2M of memory
is needed. 

In the one 286 machine I run with an XT hard drive/controller, I don't
notice too much of a slowdown relative to another 286 machine
with an AT controller and an identical Seagate 225 drive.  I attribute
some of this to the 512K-1Mb caches (in EMS) in use on both machines.

Not sure that your old floppy controller would work.  The hard drive
controller should if it is a recent vintage; tell the AT motherboard that
there is no hard drive installed, and the beast will still boot from the
XT controller.

In short, the new motherboard with ample memory should make a significant
difference in your ability to run and live with Windows applications like 
Pagemaker.  The hard drive (assuming that you have the capacity to fit Windows
and applications this large) upgrade is a second step which may not be 
necessary to realize the most useful benefits.

-- Steve Pacenka, Cornell U.