Chronology Of Personal Computers
That might be useful if you need or want to make "authentic" or "plausible" pcem configurations.
For the sake of reference
For the sake of reference
I'm not sure that pcem can make a direct 1:1 model, but this site has some good entries for figuring out what was high-end (and average?) for different years (90, 91, and 92 in particular):
Chronology Of Personal Computers
That might be useful if you need or want to make "authentic" or "plausible" pcem configurations.
Chronology Of Personal Computers
That might be useful if you need or want to make "authentic" or "plausible" pcem configurations.
Re: For the sake of reference
From TUHS.
Machines used to test 386BSD 0.0 (again, for making "plausible" pcem machines):
Machines used to test 386BSD 0.0 (again, for making "plausible" pcem machines):
Devices supported in this release
This release is intended to support a minimal 386/486
SX/DX ISA(ATBUS) system, with the traditional hard and
floppy disk controller (MFM,ESDI,IDE). Also, the usual dis-
play adapters (MDA/CGA/VGA/HGC) are supported, along with
the communications ports (COM). Ethernet controllers sup-
ported are Western Digital 8003EB, 8003EBT, 8003S,
WD8003SBT, 8013EBT, and Novell NE2000. Clones also appear to
work quite well. Tape drive support is available for QIC-02
controllers as well, allowing use of 3M cartridges of QIC-60
through QIC-150 format.
As configured on the binary distribution, the system
requires a floating point coprocessor (387 of any make),
hard disk and controller, floppy disk drive (either 5.25 or
3.5 high density only), and display adapter. If the serial
port or a Western Digital Ethernet card (port 0x280, IRQ 3,
iomem 0xd000) is present, the system can make use of it as
well.
It is recommended that the system have at least 2MB of
memory or more, but it will run on much smaller systems to a
limited degree by paging (the C++ compiler uses about 1 MB
of memory in operation). A 4 MB system with an 200 MB+ IDE
disk is a comfortable configuration, although by sharing the
sources via NFS, networked systems with 40 MB drives are
quite useful.
Machines Tested
At the moment, this software has only been tested on
the following configurations:
Toshiba laptop clone, 386SX/387SX, 3MB RAM, VGA LCD(Cirrus),
Megahertz T2LL Ethernet, Conners CP3100 IDE 100MB drive.
Compaq DeskPro, 386/387, 9MB RAM, Compaq VGA, ESDI Maxtor 8380 drive(type 38),
WD8003EBT Ethernet, Compaq QIC-150 cartridge drive.
Re: For the sake of reference
I usually get correct idea from PC magazines from the time.rliegh wrote:I'm not sure that pcem can make a direct 1:1 model, but this site has some good entries for figuring out what was high-end (and average?) for different years (90, 91, and 92 in particular):
Chronology Of Personal Computers
That might be useful if you need or want to make "authentic" or "plausible" pcem configurations.
Archive.org has many mags from that period (80s and 90s).
Re: For the sake of reference
What would probably help is to have a feature, like having (internal YYYYMMDD) dates of first availability for each pickable part which can determine the period of the emulated computer to the month and year as a vanity label in the Configure dialog, dated by the latest released hardware used
Not as a filter (that would hamper usability), but as a quasi-informative way to help the newbies realize their emulated systems.
Not as a filter (that would hamper usability), but as a quasi-informative way to help the newbies realize their emulated systems.
Re: For the sake of reference
The dates of first availability do not necessarily match the dates of common adoption, and those vary from market to market. For example, here in Slovenia, it was still common to see 386's in active use in the mid 90's, so pretty much anything higher than that was considered high end even if it wasn't, simply because few could afford newer machines. It wasn't until the 2000's that the average computer in use over here became relatively on par with Western Europe and North America.
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Re: For the sake of reference
That's not unique to Slovenia, it was common to see 386s and 486s still in use in the UK throughout the late 90s and into the early 2000s. I think that if you want a rough estimate of the 'era' of a component, date of first availability is about as good as you'll get, as anything else will be entirely subjective.
Re: For the sake of reference
I guess we're talking about different things here.
We have to establish what the reference, or even better, what would be the purpose of emulating certain processor. In my case (and I think most of us) is for gaming.
What I want to say is, sure, there were 386 in 1998, but I bet most of them were in bussiness or public offices. Mainstream gaming was at that time lower end Pentium
IIs or AMD K6s, plenty of Pentium I too, maybe some 486-100mhz or 5x86, but again, mainstream gaming was not on a 386.
So I would go on a list like this:
1982 to 1988 -- 8088 / 8086 4.77 to 10 MHZ -- 512 or 640 KB RAM / 360 KB floppy / 10 or 20 MB HDD or none at all
1989 to 1991 -- 286 -- 10 to 20 mhz (25 mhz was almost nonexistent) -- 1 MB RAM -- double density or 1.2 MB floppies / 20 to 60 MB HD
1992 to 1994/5 -- 386 20 mhz at first, 40 mhz late years // 4 to 8 MB RAM / high density 1.2 and, or 1.44 floppies / 120 MB HD // SB 16
1994 to 1996 -- 486 25 mhz to 100 mhz // 8 or 16 MB RAM // high density 1.2 and, or 1.44 floppies / 300 to 500 MB HD // SB 16
1996 to 1998 -- Pentium I (classic) 100 mhz to 233// 32 or 64 MB RAM // 1.44 floppy / 500 to 1 gb HDD / SB 16 or AWE 32 // Voodoo 1 for 166 or 233 models)
1998 to 2000 -- Pentium II / 64 to 256 MB RAM // 1.44 floppy / 3 to 5 Gb HDD // SB 16 or AWE 32 // Voodoo2 or Riva TNT/TNT2 / Voodoo3
Of course this is very subjective, this list was based on what I feel and lived in those years
We have to establish what the reference, or even better, what would be the purpose of emulating certain processor. In my case (and I think most of us) is for gaming.
What I want to say is, sure, there were 386 in 1998, but I bet most of them were in bussiness or public offices. Mainstream gaming was at that time lower end Pentium
IIs or AMD K6s, plenty of Pentium I too, maybe some 486-100mhz or 5x86, but again, mainstream gaming was not on a 386.
So I would go on a list like this:
1982 to 1988 -- 8088 / 8086 4.77 to 10 MHZ -- 512 or 640 KB RAM / 360 KB floppy / 10 or 20 MB HDD or none at all
1989 to 1991 -- 286 -- 10 to 20 mhz (25 mhz was almost nonexistent) -- 1 MB RAM -- double density or 1.2 MB floppies / 20 to 60 MB HD
1992 to 1994/5 -- 386 20 mhz at first, 40 mhz late years // 4 to 8 MB RAM / high density 1.2 and, or 1.44 floppies / 120 MB HD // SB 16
1994 to 1996 -- 486 25 mhz to 100 mhz // 8 or 16 MB RAM // high density 1.2 and, or 1.44 floppies / 300 to 500 MB HD // SB 16
1996 to 1998 -- Pentium I (classic) 100 mhz to 233// 32 or 64 MB RAM // 1.44 floppy / 500 to 1 gb HDD / SB 16 or AWE 32 // Voodoo 1 for 166 or 233 models)
1998 to 2000 -- Pentium II / 64 to 256 MB RAM // 1.44 floppy / 3 to 5 Gb HDD // SB 16 or AWE 32 // Voodoo2 or Riva TNT/TNT2 / Voodoo3
Of course this is very subjective, this list was based on what I feel and lived in those years
Re: For the sake of reference
And now from a relatively technologically-spoiled perspective!
In the late 90's US, the common lower class computers tend to be of the cacheless Pentium 75 sort, basically refurbished 1994 PCs for the bare minimum Windows 9X use. 386s were rare. TV shopping channels often had P2 celeron Gateways or eMachines (that probably had Rage Pro video chipsets onboard and 32MB PC100 ram). Budget-minded gaming enthusiasts built upon Cyrix 6x86 or AMD K6 processors, or the Celeron 300A (which overclocked greatly). P2/P3 were overmarketed luxuries. Older Pentium desktops (~133-200MHz) lined up aisles at CompUSA (some with Quake's demo cycle running - yes, 320x200 in 1999) whilst modern games had large monitors hung high. 3dfx was well known and even had mainstream TV spots
I think the last time I saw a 386 in the public was for a public library's textmode catalog system ~1996
anyway the basis of the feature I proposed is more on "this combination of hardware first sale existed in real-life on this date" rather than the common use of it at a later date. A too wide age range of hardware in use could probably mark the label red (like say, an XT with an AWE32). It would be chronologically informative purposes only (and not counting things like later bios revisions and hardware revisions).
In the late 90's US, the common lower class computers tend to be of the cacheless Pentium 75 sort, basically refurbished 1994 PCs for the bare minimum Windows 9X use. 386s were rare. TV shopping channels often had P2 celeron Gateways or eMachines (that probably had Rage Pro video chipsets onboard and 32MB PC100 ram). Budget-minded gaming enthusiasts built upon Cyrix 6x86 or AMD K6 processors, or the Celeron 300A (which overclocked greatly). P2/P3 were overmarketed luxuries. Older Pentium desktops (~133-200MHz) lined up aisles at CompUSA (some with Quake's demo cycle running - yes, 320x200 in 1999) whilst modern games had large monitors hung high. 3dfx was well known and even had mainstream TV spots
I think the last time I saw a 386 in the public was for a public library's textmode catalog system ~1996
anyway the basis of the feature I proposed is more on "this combination of hardware first sale existed in real-life on this date" rather than the common use of it at a later date. A too wide age range of hardware in use could probably mark the label red (like say, an XT with an AWE32). It would be chronologically informative purposes only (and not counting things like later bios revisions and hardware revisions).
Re: For the sake of reference
Well, the thing is, people would look at the date of a piece of software they are trying to run, then select what they think is matching hardware according to first availability dates, only to then risk finding out the software doesn't support that hardware at all because it was not yet widely adopted enough at its time to be supported by it, or maybe for other reasons. I personally think a good reference for which hardware combinations are better for which piece of software would be better (and also which OS is better for which non-OS piece of software). This would at least be useful for practical usage.
Re: For the sake of reference
I posted this in another thread recently (viewtopic.php?f=2&t=560), but google books is full of historical magazines with real PC configurations (from the US at least): https://books.google.com.au/books?id=w_ ... navlinks_s
is just one such example.
As an Australian we got everything a bit later, and a bit more expensive. But the following is a really good historical reference: http://redhill.net.au/ig.html
is just one such example.
As an Australian we got everything a bit later, and a bit more expensive. But the following is a really good historical reference: http://redhill.net.au/ig.html
Re: For the sake of reference
It was interesting in mid 90s move from Germany to USA and notice HUGE difference in computers. While Germany saw strong 486 at the end of 95, in USA you hardly could get any 486 already in 96. In Germany you could get Commodore Amiga (1200/600) at the time, while in USA you could not find any?!
For some reason technology changes here much faster.
For some reason technology changes here much faster.
Re: For the sake of reference
You also have to keep in mind that the Amigas were much more popular in Europe (Germany and UK in particular) than in the USSuperFrog wrote:It was interesting in mid 90s move from Germany to USA and notice HUGE difference in computers. While Germany saw strong 486 at the end of 95, in USA you hardly could get any 486 already in 96. In Germany you could get Commodore Amiga (1200/600) at the time, while in USA you could not find any?!
For some reason technology changes here much faster.
Re: For the sake of reference
Yes, we used to have Amiga and Commodore on the continent. My first PC was a 100 Mhz Pentium in 1995 with the famous Win95 on it.omarsis81 wrote: You also have to keep in mind that the Amigas were much more popular in Europe (Germany and UK in particular) than in the US
My "Documentation Project" has some information abeut the current emulated hardware.
