Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!steinmetz!uunet!pilchuck!del
From: del@Data-IO.COM (Erik Lindberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: 40 MHZ 286?
Message-ID: <1015@pilchuck.Data-IO.COM>
Date: 20 Oct 88 00:28:22 GMT
References: <342@intek01.UUCP> <24728@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <3333@homxc.UUCP> <7761@bigtex.uucp> <670@hgcvax.uucp> <6959@dasys1.UUCP>
Reply-To: del@pilchuck.Data-IO.COM (Erik Lindberg)
Organization: Data I/O Corporation; Redmond, WA
Lines: 29

In article <6959@dasys1.UUCP> schuster@dasys1.UUCP (Michael Schuster) writes:
>In article <670@hgcvax.uucp> network@hgcvax.uucp (craig chaiken) writes:
>>     I read about the Tienwei 40-MHz Intel 80286 motherboard in John Dvorak's
>>Viewpoint column in the Sept. 27, 1988 issue of PC Magazine.  I was wondering
>>if anyone has read any articles that shed more light on this subject.
>
>It's a hoax.
>They slowed down the timers on a 10 mHz AT board to make it look as
>though it was running speed programs at quadruple speed. The
>current scuttlebut is that there is no "40 mHz Chang modification".
>You want gold from lead?
>

Interesting. That reminds me of a local company here in Seattle that, for
a while, was selling a machine called the "AT-Light" (sort of like a Miller
Lite?) which actually contained an 8088 CPU. Apart from the misleading
name, they claimed it had a "turbo mode" activated with the usual
<alt><gray-minus> where Norton SI would get 2.7 rating. When I got mine home,
it just didn't *seem* to go as fast as my other turbo-xt system. The stop
watch confirmed this, regardless of what every benchmark I had reported.
Opening the case revealed the machine ran at a standard 4.77 Mhz, and pressing
<alt><gray-minus> did nothing but re-initialize the system timer to give
false elapsed-time readings. I wanted to report them for blatant consumer
fraud, but can you imagine trying to explain such a technical fraud to
someone in the Att. Gen. office? (2 years ago besides!)

-- 
del (Erik Lindberg) 
uw-beaver!tikal!pilchuck!del