Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!amlovell
From: amlovell@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Anthony M Lovell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Speeding up old PC's
Summary: Go INBOARDPC
Keywords: CPU clock speed, V20
Message-ID: <3815@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 30 Sep 88 16:35:51 GMT
References: <3009@dalcs.UUCP>
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 34

In article <3009@dalcs.UUCP>, lane@dalcs.UUCP (John Wright/Dr. Pat Lane) writes:
> I have two old 4.77 MHz PCs...they're true blue IBM's...one is a "5150" which
> is, I believe, a PC-2 and the other a "5160", an XT.
> I'm wondering what I can do to jazz them up, particularly with regard to CPU
> speed.  Could I replace the CPU with an 8MHz 8088 or V20?  Would I have to
> change the crystal?  how about the RAM memory? 
> Any suggestions on other things I could with these old clunkers (besides boat
> anchors :-)

I have 2 suggestions.  I performed these upgrades on my machine at my
old job and the results were SO impressive, I now have a machine with
the same toys.

1st - Get yourself an Intel INBOARDPC/386 card.  It gives you 1 MEG ram
and a 16 MHz 386.  Also neat is a VERY GOOD disk cache program thrown in
for nuthin.  The machine FLIES.  Probably the 8,10 or 12 MHz 286 boards
are good if you want to save a few dollars, but these boards are pretty
cheap (depending on memory prices).  We got the 1st one 7 months ago for
a paltry $650!  We got to pull ALL RAM off the PC mother board (save
256K), so that's "free" too.  Put it in another machine if you'd like.

2nd- I have not seen many hard drives which compare to the
speed/capacity per dollar as the FlashCard49 from CompuAdd.  ~$550 for a
disk on a card with 49 Mbytes of 28 msec disk access.  Combined with the
disk caching software in the Intel bundle, you have a power-user machine
from your old clunker for under $1500.

Look around.  If you can get the Intel device at any price NEAR this, do
it.  You'll leave the others in the dust without taking a soaking on the
sale of your still viable PC boxes.


-- 
amlovell@phoenix.princeton.edu     ...since 1963.