It is IBM's clone of the PC/AT with a few exceptions.
Hmm, I'm sure you don't mean "IBM's clone of the PC/AT", since IBM could
hardly clone their own product. The XT-286 is actually a warmed-over PC-XT
motherboard design, adapted to use the 80286 CPU. It was a product
positioned in between the XT and the AT in IBM's lineup.
3. Some AT boards will not fit into it.
Actually, no AT boards will fit into it. Although it used the AT's 286 CPU,
it retained the XT's 8-bit bus, and was limited to 640K RAM (no 16-bit RAM
expansion available). In a sense, you can almost think of it as a "286SX",
since it is largely analogous to the 386SX in that it had a bus half the
width of the CPU internal core (although I'm not sure whether the
motherboard RAM was 8- or 16-bit). The XT-286 failed, not just because of
its limited expansion versus the AT, but due to competition from the Turbo
XT (8-10MHz 8088/NECV20) market, which had similar performance.
Kai
-----Original Message-----
From: Gene Ehrich [mailto:g_at_ehrich.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 1998 6:23 PM
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
Subject: RE: IBM XT286
>Alas the only information I have on the XT-286 is the circuit diagrams.
>It's pretty much an electronic 'clone' of the PC/AT in a different case.
>I also seem to remember that the ROM BIOS is almost identical to the
>later AT BIOS.
I have an XT/286 in a box and used it for many years.
It is IBM's clone of the PC/AT with a few exceptions.
1. It uses an XT case
2 It is 6mhz with 0 (zero) wait states.
3. Some AT boards will not fit into it.
Due to the zero wait states it is faster than other 6mhz AT's that do
have wait states.
gene_at_ehrich
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Computer & Video Game Garage Sale
Received on Thu Oct 01 1998 - 00:50:22 BST