386 motherboard with discrete logic chips only?

From: Paul Berger <sanepsycho_at_globaldialog.com>
Date: Fri Apr 30 07:44:51 2004

On Fri, 2004-04-30 at 05:15, SHAUN RIPLEY wrote:
> I talked with my friend the other day and he claimed
> that 386 motherboards all used this or that chip sets;
> But I vaguely remember I might once have such a 386.
> It had a 287 math coprocessor and some memory chips on
> board. What I can remember is that it had many logic
> chips on board but I can't recall whether it had chip
> sets or not. Unluckly I dumped it years ago... Could
> somebody give me an answer?

Yes, some early 386 motherboards did allow using a 287 FPU unit in them
... mainly because when the 386 was initially released the 387 chip was
not available IIRC. I also remember several motherboards that had slots
for a non-intel memory mapped FPU unit that used addresses above the
16MB mark to tell it what operation to perform.

I think we had a Compaq Deskpro 386 that had a 287 in it.

Regards,
Paul
Received on Fri Apr 30 2004 - 07:44:51 BST