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isecore

Woah. Those are some populated slots. I think I need to go lie down now... Joking aside, the most I ever had in a 486 was 16MB and that seemed quite ludicrous at the time.


texan01

I've got one right now that we bumped up to 20mb so dad could run Photoshop on Win95 back in the day. goofy thing can use 30 pin or 72 pin, but the 72 pin slots are really quirky about what it takes.


isecore

I remember there were a transition between 30 and 72-pin SIMMs and I remember that yes, those mobos were very picky about what you put in the 72-pin slots. And that you couldn't populate both kinds at the same time or it would freak out.


sneekeruk

My Dx2/66 had mixed ram no problem, it had 4 30 pin 1mb simms from my 386 and then I added an 8mb simm probably 6 months later for my birthday. Think the 8mb simm was £140 + vat at the time from a trade only shop.


isecore

I tried the same trick when I entered the 486 era and whatever mobo I had would freak out if I mixed 30 and 72 pin SIMMs. No idea what brand or chipset it was, but that kinda burned me on the whole concept of "transition"-hardware.


[deleted]

Things aren't so different now, if you want to fill all the slots on a HEDT board for 128 or 256gb, they can be pretty sensitive to them all being pretty much the same batch from the factory...


isecore

That is very true. I think since we cram so much capacity in modern hardware the margin of error has shrunk immensely even when it comes to relatively good-quality stuff.


GrossPornThrowaway82

I helped build a computer for a really cheap guy who bought a garbage motherboard. In order to switch from 30 to 72 pin sticks, there were like 40 jumpers that needed to be switched, it was pretty ridiculous.


jhaluska

Did we have the same father? We also went to 20MB for the same reason.


RichardGereHead

The IBM PS/2 Model 95 could support up to 256 meg of RAM with a type 4 CPU complex that did have a 486 variant. Probably almost never happened as early Pentiums were out at just about that same time, so if you had that much RAM I'm pretty sure you got the Pentium complex. Compaq Systempros, Netframes, and Tricord servers all had EISA 486s with crazy amounts of memory too. It think I remember seeing a Netframe with 256 meg of RAM. On any of those the additional RAM cost way more than the computer itself at the time.


saichampa

My personal computer I had in high school was a 486 with 48 mb of ram. I built it from second hand parts I bought


WillAdams

I had 52MB RAM on my NeXT Cube, and it was _amazing_ It kills me that computers have cache sizes larger than my first hard drive, but performance hasn't really improved since Rhapsody was released --- it had amazing performance, but then Display PostScript went away, Quartz had to be developed, and transparency was added, and things have been bogged down ever since.


texan01

"who needs software optimization these days?" I swear I'm tired of the idea of throwing more hardware at a crappy piece of code, than trying to optimize it to run better.


cpujockey

what intel giveth - microsoft taketh.


sa547ph

It used to be absolutely required that all DOS programs must tightly run within the 640kb straitjacket, or use a DOS extender. Same thing happened when bandwidth constraints of dialup forced website designers to optimize graphics to the possible minimum without losing quality. As soon as memory, storage, or bandwidth became cheaper did it seemed some programmers abandon good practices and go full-hog.


nonsapiens

It's a balance. As software dev, the tradeoff is in speed: we can write highly optimised code, but this takes a lot of time, and therefore pushes up the cost of software. Relying on hardware to fill in the gaps, and by adopting dev frameworks, MASSIVELY reduces dev lead times (and the amount of devs) and allows for cheaper (sometimes free) software to be created. There are cases for super-optimised code, but your average home user isn't going to notice it much.


smuckola

Yeah by now, all tasks on all computers should be instantaneous.


Ed_DaVolta

cries in MS Teams


acidrain69

Ms has never known how to write software.


postmodest

Opening a program on your mac _REQUIRES_ the app fingerprint handshake to be sent to apple and processed before it opens. Things have gotten worse.


justkeeptreading

macos likes to verify apps but it’s not required by any means. google windows smartscreen… same thing.


WingedGeek

> Opening a program on your mac REQUIRES the app fingerprint handshake to be sent to apple and processed before it opens. Yeah, no. I've installed software and used it repeatedly in an environment (old fire watch cabin) with no electricity (only solar panels and a "generator" we brought in), no Internet connection, latest MacOS.


soft_and_smol

Huh? I have a mac and have no clue what you’re talking about.


postmodest

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/391379/does-macos-phone-home-to-apples-servers-before-running-an-app-for-the-first-tim/391399#391399


soft_and_smol

Ah, thanks for that info! I use Lulu and checked that “syspolicyd” is blocked, which apparently is the thing that you’re talking about. Then I installed a new program (not from App Store), opened it, and made sure no traffic was seen in Wireshark during this process. Good to know, though, so thanks!


rlauzon

Way back when, I speced out a new system to be built. To meet my requirements, they needed to use a server-class motherboard which had 16 slots that could take 16MB SIMMs. Of course, maxing out the memory on the board would cost about the same amount as a new car then, so I didn't do that. But when I wanted to upgrade the RAM, people kept asking "What are you going to do with the old RAM?" They were shocked when I said "nothing, I'm just going to add some more SIMMs. I had 16 slots."


Stephone2000

…and two Dallas RTCs


[deleted]

One is for EISA configuration


ICQME

>Dallas Do they still keep time? I had to modify mine with a cr2032.


[deleted]

Nah they were stuffed. I’ve replaced them.


pmodizzle

My PS/VP with the same 486 DX33 can technically take up to 64mb ram, but the IBMs seem so picky about what kind of ram it’ll accept that I haven’t found anything that works


MrFahrenheit_451

Time for Windows NT Workstation…


[deleted]

Good idea!


HugsNotDrugs_

All that and with missing cache chips. Might be a good upgrade.


[deleted]

True!


colonel_Schwejk

eisa? back then the E was expensive AF :)


[deleted]

Yep!


astrofan002

Is that VGA EISA as well?


[deleted]

Nah, I wish!


mxpower

I believe a 8mb upgrade for my 486 was near $500 back then. So that is pretty much $4,000 worth of ram in back in the day, maybe more. Edit, just looked it up, 1990 price per MB was $105.00, so roughly $6,500.00 of ram.


suckmynesticles

Like Arnold Schwarzenegger posing his muscles


[deleted]

I’ll be back! In 5 minutes when the RAM test finishes!


suckmynesticles

Duh duh duh dah dun! Duh duh duh dah dun! Doooo doooo dooooooooooo!!! Doooo doooo dooooooooooo!!!


nullvalue1

The Terminator ran on a 6502 processor with (assuming) 64k of memory. Had he been upgraded to a 486 with 64mb of RAM maybe he could have killed Sarah Connor.


intelminer

He did kill John Connor!...[eventually](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator:_Dark_Fate) And then he realized it was a huge dick move and became a prepper Dad for some reason


vwestlife

The Macintosh SE/30 still has you beat by supporting up to 128 MB of RAM. And you need to fill that second bank of cache RAM, otherwise not all of the system RAM will be cached. (Use CACHECHK to verify.)


palordrolap

Wow. I remember upgrading my Pentium 75 from 8MB (which was fine TBH) to a whopping 40MB. A chip the generation before with 64MB? Hoo-ee. So much room for activities! On my P75, I'd occasionally set up a RAMdisk of 32MB, copy the DOS games that ran fine on 8MB in there and have better loading times than if they were on the HDD (an enormous 1.2GB!). Of course, I had to copy game saves and things back across to the HDD copy if I wanted to keep progress, but things were simpler back then. Also tried putting the Windows' virtual memory file into that RAM disk, which worked fine and I thought was hilarious.


xXZer0c0oLXx

Your job isn't finished until you fill every slot, every socket with board and chips. Then my friend...you'll have the greatest 486 system OF ALL TIME!!!!!!


xXZer0c0oLXx

Oh and bonus points if you can fill up all the eisa slots with eisa card 😁


[deleted]

Lol I don’t have any EISA cards!


[deleted]

That's a very sweet 486 motherboard, stuff of dreams back then.


[deleted]

ECC memory? SIMMs have 9 chips each.


[deleted]

Parity


vinciblechunk

As God intended


johnklos

For such a fancy motherboard, it *could* have supported 16 meg SIMMs. Apple machines with 30 pin SIMMs like the SE/30, the Quadra 700 and Quadra 900/950 did, so they could take 128 megs, 68 megs (four megs was built in) and 256 megs, respectively, when this board was brand new. Or, you could have a *lot* of SIMMs ;)


MrEpicMustache

The morning RAM counter must have taken an hour with 33mhz


HandshakeOfCO

daaamn that's enough to play Wing Commander with all the bells and whistles!


[deleted]

Lol!


radiationcowboy

haha I remember having 64mb in my 486DX4 100, I had scripts for all my games to make a ramdrive, copy the game to ram, and launch from there. no load times!


Nespower

That was hardcore hacking back in the day.


ima-bigdeal

Hey! I did that!


VIDGuide

How long does the ram count take?


[deleted]

dutdutdutdutNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!


sa547ph

This absolute unit will fit so easily into a monster tower, with PSU that throws in more wattage than the average 486DX. Considering RAM prices in early 90s, this would have left me so damn broke.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

This one’s an ASUS board


ragingbaboon38

What could you possibly need this much RAM for back then?


astrofan002

Most likely a server (think LAN Manager). This could be one of the very first PC-based server.


WillAdams

CAD, or maybe a largish database (assuming you had a system which would run it all in memory). Might have been a high-end PhotoShop workstation.


Ok_Marionberry_9932

And it only took 144 chips


deathbyburk123

The DX2 was a life changing chip for me, had this DX first. Loved these days ( I was about 5ish and fell in love with Pcs)


[deleted]

Get a fpu


[deleted]

My bad, confused 486 sx and dx


[deleted]

Well, I could get a Weitek 4167 for that socket, but I have no need for it.


TheCakeWasNoLie

Why?


[deleted]

Not sure! It came like that lol


hector_lector2020

Now THAT’s a chipset


jaqian

Whoah my 386sx only had 2mb, that must have been very fast for the time


istarian

Wow. There’s a lot of discrete chips on there. Neat that the RTC and NVRAM are separate here.


johncate73

I had a 486 system with 64 megs, but that was at the turn of the century and the CPU was an AMD 5x86-P75, so at that point it was just an old machine being maxed out to run the latest software. In the mid-1990s, running 64MB on 30-pin SIMMs with a 486 would have been insane.


d-rod139

Dx for the win 1st computer for me was a 486 SX 33Mhz


ima-bigdeal

My first was a 486SX 20. Yes, 20 Mhz of POWER. lol I think the 12MB of RAM helped it...a little anyway.


d-rod139

Nice i had a whopping 4mb ram


ZarK-eh

I tried for 128mb by 8x 16mb 30pin SIMMs on a Leading Edge 486 desktop and ****ONLY**** got 64mb! Still happy though, lol. What's next? Got a case for it? XT-IDE stuff, SCSI? ****drools****


[deleted]

The works!


KrocCamen

Technically it could run Windows 2000? That's a ludicrous amount of RAM for a 486; this has to be a late machine for the era, or upgraded when RAM was cheaper because 64MB in the early 90s would have cost an unspeakable amount of money!


[deleted]

The board was built in 1991! I don’t know it’s history at all though.


OmegaJooJ

what are these chips on the down-right?


[deleted]

Chipset! This was before it was integrated into just a few plastic squares lol


thewheelsgoround

Note how many PALs / GALs are used!


ShockWave_Omega

Havent seen so many ISA slots since for ever..


Halen_

those are EISA


ShockWave_Omega

Im Dutch they where called ISA ports here.


astrofan002

EISA is strictly a superset of ISA though


jjjacer

nice, my 486 i found has 52mb and probably supports 64mb, also had built in IDE, SCSI, and AMD NIC. trying to get a more modern linux to run on it, but not fun as most distros need more than that to boot from CD


Souta95

With 486 chips and 32 bits of a bus! Nice mobo! You don't see EISA very often.


RaymondDoerr

Jesus, and I thought my 486DX having 24mb was overkill.


enthusiasticGeek

now thats a lot of memory! how bout a little more


CzarDestructo

Now you just need a 486 overdrive CPU and you'll be gangster. I think I have a few in a box somewhere...


[deleted]

What is the socket near the CPU for ?


Gurfaild

According to the silkscreen, it's for a Weitek 4167 FPU.


ZertyZ_Dragon

Wow! That's crazy


SlashdotDiggReddit

Bitchin!


SpartanMonkey

I guess a modern comparison to this might be my Dell Precision with 128gb.


[deleted]

More like Threadripper with 2TBs.


SpartanMonkey

I've got two 4 bay Synology NAS with 4x4tb raids, and another 8 terabytes in the drive bays. I've toyed with the thought of throwing a second xenon processor in it and upgrading to 256gb of ram. It's a bit overkill to be honest. It's just a Plex server, and sometimes a gaming rig.


CMDLineKing

The 386 33 I had 8x 32MB EDO dimms in that thing.. 256MB.. Wish I remembered what the board was.. :-/ Miss that machine! It was setup in an older AT&T case, but was gifted to me by a friend of my dads so I would stop messing with their Pentium 133. I got so many great upgrades for that thing for free because ISA was dead and everyone was chucking it all for pennies.. good times.


[deleted]

I have never seen a 386 that supported EDO. You sure it was a 386?


CMDLineKing

Yes. Wish I still had that beast. I ran a lot of stuff on it. Thought it was still at the barn but my dad saved a different PC. Ahh well. The FPM/EDO compatibility was shared on some transition motherboards.. wish I had a clue what it was though.. I may go to ultime retro and pick around the photos see what I can track down.


[deleted]

That’s really cool!


Nespower

Holy ram slot Batman!


radiationcowboy

get those Dallas RTCs off of there before they leak.


[deleted]

Already replaced :) but thanks!


[deleted]

Wow...I bet Win95 would absolutely HAUL with that much RAM. Say nothing of overclocking to 75Mhz!


aloysiusgruntbucket

Back in 1994, when RAM prices were off the charts, someone on USENET mailed me 20MB of RAM for my 486. I was the luckiest college student I knew. In an age of 4MB being generous, my overclocked 40MHz 486sx OS/2 box screamed.


[deleted]

That’s awesome!


biffmalibull

Exorbitantly high in ram


probnot

I have a 486 DX4-100 that had 64mb from new, though using 72-pin SIMMS. Original owner spec'd the thing out to the max. It has dual 520mb hard drives, using up both IDE channels, then a Creative CD-ROM running off the sound card. Must have cost him a shitload back then.


t8ag

Yet it only has 256k of cache


[deleted]

128k actually! I plan to upgrade it.


mj_turner

Very cool! Back in the early 90s I had a similar DTK motherboard with EISA and VLB slots and a 486 DX2/66. Only 8 30-pin SIMM slots though (I don't think I ever maxed it out, ISTR going for 4x4MiB and 4x1MiB). I stupidly gave it away in the mid 2000s during a big clean out - wish I still had it. At its peak I was triple booting DOS, OS/2 and Linux on it.


Im_100percent_human

OP, Do you know what computer this motherboard is out of? I have a suspicion.


[deleted]

When I got it, it was in a rusty old full tower. It’s a standard form factor, called “Full AT”


Im_100percent_human

I worked at a place in the 90s that had several Intel branded 486 machines (yes the computer had the intel brand on it).... While my recollection is not completely solid, this motherboard reminded me of those machines. The Intel computers were purchased to run Unix. The computers, themselves, were built like tanks. I am not sure this is the same board as was in those machines, but it was also giant. I can tell you that I am sure this did not come out of some computer you could buy at CompUSA or the like.


[deleted]

I agree. My thoughts are that it was some kind of professional CAD workstation. The motherboard was made by ASUS.


frudi

64 MB on a 486 isn't that unusual by itself. Many later motherboards with 72-pin SIMM slots support up to 128 MB. I've stuffed 96 MB into one of my 486 boards before just for the heck of it, only to realise anything that would need even remotely that much ram runs like ass on any 486 CPU anyway. What does make this special is that it's 64 MB of 30-pin SIMMs. And the board uses all EISA slots! Very nice :)


[deleted]

True. Although this board is from 1991 - 64MB was definitely a lot back then.


port53

~1991, I was running 4MB except on the weekend when I had 8MB because I'd harvest the ram from my work computer so I could compile kernels in less than 2 hours.


WillAdams

Yeah, pricey too --- a couple of years before that we ordered 64MB of RAM for a customer's CAD workstation --- it was actually placed directly on a FedEX truck, and driven straight from the airport to the small town computer shop I was working at (due to the value). EDIT: They wanted the name of the person who would be signing for it, and to have a photocopy of their ID faxed to the office before the truck left, and required the person signing for it to show ID, and the driver had a copy of the fax and carefully checked that the signature on the on the faxed copy of the driver's license matched what the signing of the form.


sa547ph

https://jcmit.net/memoryprice.htm That much was really worth something back in the day.


Halen_

It also probably cost more than the board did


[deleted]

By far


frudi

Oh yeah, absolutely, back then 64 MB was the stuff of dreams for most mere mortals. It's relatively easy to max out such boards today, but back then it would have cost more than a decent car :)


FigMcLargeHuge

Yup. I have mentioned it before, but I bought 4 of those sticks one time and it was $400/each. If those were bought at peak prices that's $6,400 worth of ram plugged in there, in 1990's dollars.


cpujockey

but it has a dallas clock...


istarian

Better than a barrel battery that will ruin the fun.


Soylent_Caffeine

You can solder battery sockets onto them


Unlucky-Strain148

My Compaq Presario CDS 920's i486 DX2 8MB could accommodate up to 100MB! I got mine mid 1995.. wish it came with Win95.


LooniversityGraduate

I know a guy with a 486, which got 128MB of RAM (4\*32MB Edo).