High-end '286 available for ELKS testing/development

High-end '286 available for ELKS testing/development

[Jim Winchester]

I'd really like to make a contribution to ELKS, since I first got
started on Minix many years ago.

Since I did some translator tool development back in the 80's with
several companies in New Jersey (compilers, librarians, run-time
libraries), I've always maintained a pair of each major class of PC.
Naturally, to keep them tolerable, I've kept all of them on a pretty
mean upgrade path, to the end that they're still pretty fast, even by
modern standards.

The '286 twins, in particular, should be good testing platforms: both
have the rare Harris 25Mhz chip and the 20Mhz IIT co-processor, 16Mb of
SIMM motherboard RAM (maximum theoretical amount), and 32Mb EMS 4.0
(also maximum theoritical amount), multiple video cards (3), multiple
disk interfaces (3: primary IDE or ESDI, plus secondary & tertiary SCSI,
all fully loaded), one floppy of each major type (I skipped 720kb 3.5"),
etc.

More important than the H/W laundry list, they also run other
protected-mode O/Ss: OS/2 in several flavors, AT&T System V/AT, and
SCO Xenix for '286, and I'm sure others.  It also runs Windows 3.1,
naturally, but runs the starfield screen saver fast enough so that none
of my buddies have ever guessed it's only a '286 (until I tell them).

I am concerned that none of the news I've read lately concerns itself
with support of EMS or extended memory or protected mode operation.
This kind of really matters on the '286, as it's the way you tap the
real power of the machine.  OS/2 does a good job at both, and I'm sure
you want to best them.  Can I help?

 Sincerely,

Jim Winchester
CEO, Serious Software Corporation
(732)928-0117 (USA)
jim_winchester@excite.com