[rescue] quad 486

[Kevin Loch]

Tim H. wrote:

> Part of the beauty of the 486 was that before the DX[24] they actually
> ran at FSB speed, in fact, if you could find cards that would run at the
> unsupported speed, the 486DX50 was a pretty quick chip, significantly
> quicker for many apps than the DX266 or even DX4100 (with 33MHz busses).

Yep, I ran 486-50 at 60MHz for many years with a 4 port
SIIG serial io card as an internet gateway (with dedicated SLIP
connection) and 3 dialin ports.  It could handle full 115200
line rate on all four modems, full duplex simultaneously
(I actually tested that) with no problems.  That same
machine is still running (minus serial cards) with
two ethernet cards as a cable modem firewall/nat box.
It's plenty fast for that too.

Wow, I just realized I've been using the same box
as an Internet router/firewall for 8 years.
It still has only 8 megs of ram but is
on it's 3rd IDE drive.

I got the case/power supply from a friend
in college in 1991.  Before that he used
it with a 386DX-20 and a 670 Meg ESDI drive
in his BBS.  I bought the 670Meg drive
from him too and it's still used with
an MD-21 in one of my Sun 3's.

They just don't build hardware like that
anymore.

KL