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From: svirsky@ttidca.TTI.COM (Bill Svirsky)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Upgrading XT with Tiger AT motherboard
Message-ID: <3961@ttidca.TTI.COM>
Date: 27 Feb 89 20:35:53 GMT
Reply-To: svirsky@ttidca.tti.com (Bill Svirsky)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Citicorp/TTI, Santa Monica
Lines: 27

The motherboard in my XT clone is acting flakey.  I've tried to find the
problem and can't.  So I'm using this as my excuse to upgrade to an AT.
My main priorities are price, reliability, and compatibility.  If I
can't do it for $200-$250 for everything, I can't do it.  However, I've
got to be able to use all of my old hardware and software.  I currently
have an XT clone with 256K (64K chips, 150ns) on the motherboard, AST
6-pack plus with 384K (64K chips, 150ns), 2400 baud internal modem,
floppy controller card, Western Digital hard disk controller, Paradise
VGA+ card, a game port, and a 150W power supply.

The motherboard I'm thinking of getting is the Tiger 286-8.  I've been
told it's about as fast as an 8MHz IBM AT.  It comes with the Award
BIOS.  The best news is that it supposed to be *100%* software and
hardware compatible with the XT.  I can use all of my existing cards and
my 64K 150ns memory.  The bad news is that it achieves this 100%
compatibility by using 8 8-bit slots and no 16-bit slots.  I'm not too
concerned about the decrease in I/O performance due to the lack of a
16-bit bus.  What I am concerned about is future expansion and any
unspoken gotchas.  Are there any cards being manufactured today for the
AT (ie.  16-bit) for which there are no XT equivalents? Can anyone see
any other problems with this architecture? Anyone have any experience
with this board? I'll summarize if I get enough response.  Thanks. 

-- 
Bill Svirsky, Citicorp+TTI, 3100 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Work phone: 213-450-9111 x2597
svirsky@ttidca.tti.com | ...!{csun,psivax,rdlvax,retix}!ttidca!svirsky