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From: dcling@athena.mit.edu (Douglas C Ling)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Non-cached motherboards
Message-ID: <1990Feb6.023214.16772@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 6 Feb 90 02:32:14 GMT
References: <4761@helios.ee.lbl.gov>
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Reply-To: dcling@athena.mit.edu (Douglas C Ling)
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Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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In article <4761@helios.ee.lbl.gov>, thomas@ux3.lbl.gov (Mark Thomas) writes:
> 
> 	I'm looking for advice concerning 386 (20-25 MHz) motherboards.  I
> want to purchase a reliable non-cached motherboard, but it appears that the
> big-name boards such as AMI and MYLEX aren't making them.  I've seen that
> MICRONICS makes one, but I've noticed a number of complaints about
> incompatabilities on the net.  
> 
> 	Also, some discussion concerning cached systems and multitasking
> might be interesting.  Saul Lubkin in the Computer Shopper has been
> professing that most cached systems don't work optimally under an
> intensive multitasking environment.  Anyone have any comments? or info?
In article <4761@helios.ee.lbl.gov>, thomas@ux3.lbl.gov (Mark Thomas) writes:
> 
> 	I'm looking for advice concerning 386 (20-25 MHz) motherboards.  I
> want to purchase a reliable non-cached motherboard, but it appears that the
> big-name boards such as AMI and MYLEX aren't making them.  I've seen that
> MICRONICS makes one, but I've noticed a number of complaints about
> incompatabilities on the net.  
> 
> 	Also, some discussion concerning cached systems and multitasking
> might be interesting.  Saul Lubkin in the Computer Shopper has been
> professing that most cached systems don't work optimally under an
> intensive multitasking environment.  Anyone have any comments? or info?
I am considering a 386-20 motherboard made by Novas/Computrade in
California. It uses C&T chip set and has 16Meg Simm 
capacity. Full size board cost about $615 (university pricing) with a
25Mhz version at $100 extra. From the brochures
it looks very neatly laid out with AMI(ooops!) Bios and multi-layer
construction. Of course I would few more confident
if someone will tell me that he/she had good experience with their
product! They will also come out with a 33Mhz-cache
board in about a month.
I don't have their address with me now but if someone is interested, let
me know.
With memory so cheap these days ($74 for 1 Meg of 80ns SIMM here in
Boston), I wonder if some of the caching advantage 
can not be realized by simple Ram-disking (I call it dumb-caching, as
opposed to 'intelligent' caching). The problem 
with Multi-tasking on some of the Cache-boards is that everytime a
different task is call to the foreground (or even
worse, just active), the cache is refreshed and Pop goes the data!
Anyway, someone can probably enlighten me on the technical details of
caching....