Things we don't see any more:-

[Platte Computer Repair]

Um... It may not be listed but your processor has it in addition to 64-bit, MMX, SSE, SSE2, etc. etc. etc.

386's had a extra slot for a math coprocessor call the 80387.

The 386 came out in 1985.

64-bit cpu's for the desktop did not come out till 2005 or so.

MMX was introduced in 1996 with the Pentium family of CPU's.

SSE was introduced in 1999 with the Pentium III family.

sse2 was introduced in 2001 with the Pentium 4 family.

So how did 64-bit, MMX, SSE, SSE2, etc. etc. etc be part of the 386 family of cpu's?

 

[joydivision]

Because the basic architecture is the same, any machine code written for a 386 will run any of 32-bit x86 processor up to the last ones, e.g the P4 and Athlon XPs. In fact even the 64-bit chips still have the legacy architecture.

Of course there is little else in common to a 386 and a P4 HT.

 

[phaZed]

Because the basic architecture is the same, any machine code written for a 386 will run any of 32-bit x86 processor up to the last ones, e.g the P4 and Athlon XPs. In fact even the 64-bit chips still have the legacy architecture.

Of course there is little else in common to a 386 and a P4 HT.

Yes, I know the architecture is still "used".. but saying that is a bit different to having to purchase a separate chip to support hardware based floating point operations as opposed to running FP calculations via emulation on the main processor.

This is what I had:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KL_Intel_i80287XL_Big_Markings.jpg

 

[joydivision]

The old coprocessor. I did have a 386 with the slot, but I never actually had one.

I remember falling fowl of those cheap PC chips 486 boards with no cache too It had the memory chips on them but they are just a plastic box, and the BIOS was edited to report none existent cache memory.

The same thing goes on to day with power supplies telling blatant lies about their specs.

 

[andcorptech]

I have a client that runs 1/24th scale slot car tracks. The timing system runs on DOS 6.0. We recently "Upgraded" him to some older P3 machines he was given. The issue is, the timing system's card is ISA! Those beasts are getting hard to find...

I have a supplier who actually sells new LGA775 boards with ISA slots on them. Mainly for businesses with old systems but even at $800AU its sometimes cheaper than upgrading everything else .