[comp.sys.ibm.pc] Inboard 386 question

johnm@trsvax.UUCP (02/22/89)

If you have an Inboard 386 in a Tandy 1200 or IBM PC (or any machine of
the old 4.77Mhz family) you can answer me a question.  How much of a
speedup could I expect from installing one?  Obviously the hard disk will
still be the same old turtle but the cpu should scream.  Is it at least
a factor of 5 overall (say for a compile)?

John Munsch

barry@dgbt.uucp (Barry Mclarnon) (02/27/89)

From article <216100083@trsvax>, by johnm@trsvax.UUCP:
> 
> If you have an Inboard 386 in a Tandy 1200 or IBM PC (or any machine of
> the old 4.77Mhz family) you can answer me a question.  How much of a
> speedup could I expect from installing one?  Obviously the hard disk will
> still be the same old turtle but the cpu should scream.  Is it at least
> a factor of 5 overall (say for a compile)?
I don't have any benchmark results handy, but a factor of 5 improvement for
a compile should be a _very_ conservative expectation, and a factor of 10 is
probably closer to the mark.  Use of ramdisks, and/or the extended memory
cache software supplied with the board, will help a lot with those slow disk
accesses too.  For what it's worth, the Inboard gets a 16.6 computing index
from the Norton 4.0 SI.  And the best news of all is that the price of the
board and its piggyback memory boards has recently come down - you can now
pick up an Inboard for <$600, and the 2 Meg daughterboard populated to 1 Meg
for <$350.

-- 
Barry McLarnon    Communications Research Center    Ottawa, ON   Canada
UUCP: ...utzoo!bnr-vpa!bnr-rsc!dgbt!barry   INTERNET:  barry@dgbt.crc.dnd.ca
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allbery@ncoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery) (03/02/89)

As quoted from <216100083@trsvax> by johnm@trsvax.UUCP:
+---------------
| If you have an Inboard 386 in a Tandy 1200 or IBM PC (or any machine of
| the old 4.77Mhz family) you can answer me a question.  How much of a
| speedup could I expect from installing one?  Obviously the hard disk will
| still be the same old turtle but the cpu should scream.  Is it at least
| a factor of 5 overall (say for a compile)?
+---------------

Norton's SI jumped from 1.0 to 13.7 on my ITT XTRA.  I don't know about
overall performance, since I got the card for use with Windows, which throws
its own curves at the speed equation.  And I don't have a C compiler to test
with, anyway.

++Brandon
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery, moderator of comp.sources.misc	     allbery@ncoast.org
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phipps@garth.UUCP (Clay Phipps) (03/04/89)

In article <216100083@trsvax> johnm@trsvax.UUCP writes:
>
>If you have an Inboard 386 in an ... old 4.77Mhz ... IBM PC ...
>how much of a speedup could I expect from installing one?  
>Obviously the hard disk will still be the same old turtle 
>but the cpu should scream.  Is it at least a factor of 5 overall (...)?

I finally installed my long-neglected Inboard 386 in a 64 KB PC-1
(after retiring my AST ComboPlus board), 
and the Norton (version 4.5) "SysInfo" rating leaped from 1.0 to 16.5.

I admit that I haven't paid much attention to measurement of performance 
improvements in real applications; I've been busy *using* them
(toward a deadline that is about a week away). 
I am in the process of installing lots of new software and hardware,
such as a notorious 38 ms-access 40 MB-capacity 5_1/4 in. hard disk,
so as to overcome some severe limits on what I could do with the PC.

My previously sluggish but simple software seems almost instantaneous. 
I never had enough installed RAM until the Inboard 
for today's system resource hogs.  Your mileage will vary.
-- 
[The foregoing may or may not represent the position, if any, of my employer, ]
[ who is identified solely to allow the reader to account for personal biases.]
 
Clay Phipps                         {ingr,pyramid,sri-unix!hplabs}!garth!phipps
Intergraph APD, 2400#4 Geng Road, Palo Alto, CA 93403              415/494-8800

mvolo@ecsvax.UUCP (Michael R. Volow) (03/06/89)

[deleted stuff about Inboard 386/PC installed in old IBM PC]

How does the speed of the  IBM PC with the Inboard 386/PC compare
with a 80286 0 Wt State 8 Hz AT Clone?

Is the 1 meg of included memory enough for applications other than
[Dlarge spreadsheet/data base files, e.g. enough for applications such
as WordPerfect 5.0?

If you added memory, how much did you add?
What is the smallest amount of memory you can add with the daughter-
board?

M Volow, VA Medical Center, Durham, NC 27705    mvolo@ecsvax.UUCP

barry@dgbt.uucp (Barry Mclarnon) (03/08/89)

From article <6605@ecsvax.UUCP>, by mvolo@ecsvax.UUCP (Michael R. Volow):
> 
> How does the speed of the  IBM PC with the Inboard 386/PC compare
> with a 80286 0 Wt State 8 Hz AT Clone?

The Inboard runs at 16 MHz, but with 2 wait states (it uses 120 ns DRAMS).
It still should have a significant edge over the AT clone in benchmarks
that don't involve disk i/o though.

> 
> Is the 1 meg of included memory enough for applications other than
> [Dlarge spreadsheet/data base files, e.g. enough for applications such
> as WordPerfect 5.0?

Yes.  Of the 384K of "nonconventional" memory on the board, 128K is used
for ROM BIOS shadowing (optional) and internal uses, and is not otherwise
available.  The other 256K is available as extended memory, or it can be
converted to 192K of expanded memory.  The Inboard comes with custom
versions of the Super PC-Kwik cache software (uses extended memory) and
386-to-the-max (for memory mapping).

> 
> If you added memory, how much did you add?
> What is the smallest amount of memory you can add with the daughter-
> board?

You can add either 1, 2, or 4 Megs.  The first two options via the
daughterboard which takes 256K chips and is available half- or fully-
populated, and the second via the daughterboard which uses 1 Meg chips and
is only available fully stuffed.  Current prices are roughly $350, $700,
and $1200 respectively (e.g., $349 for the 1 Meg from PC Connection in NH).

> 
> M Volow, VA Medical Center, Durham, NC 27705    mvolo@ecsvax.UUCP

Barry McLarnon

-- 
Barry McLarnon    Communications Research Center    Ottawa, ON   Canada
UUCP: ...utzoo!bnr-vpa!bnr-rsc!dgbt!barry   INTERNET:  barry@dgbt.crc.dnd.ca
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