# An easy yes or no question about 486's **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 19, 2001, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015 "2001-08-19T15:56:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2001, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015/21 "2001-08-22T12:48:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by astro \* > \*\*Email me with your address and I’ll let you know what shipping is. \*\* I e-mailed it to you yesterday. Did you get it? ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2001, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015/22 "2001-08-22T15:50:04Z")
If you need any parts, let me know Im about to clear out some. I have a couple SB 16 bit boards that go with a cdrom drive, 486 dx50 board, floppy drives, Etc…tons of memory chips. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2001, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015/23 "2001-08-22T23:38:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by handy \* > \*\*If you need any parts, let me know Im about to clear out some. I have a couple SB 16 bit boards that go with a cdrom drive, 486 dx50 board, floppy drives, Etc…tons of memory chips. \*\* This is what’s fun about owning a 486. Upgrading it is like a hobby for me. I’ll hardly mess around with my Pentium, but with the 486, if I ruin something, or want to upgrade, it’s cheap 🙂 . Anyway, I already have an SB 16, I don’t think I need any more floppy drives, but if you have 4 - 4 meg 30 pin sims I might be interested. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015/24 "2001-08-24T05:25:31Z")
I might also be interested in an IDE hard/floppy controller card because I e-mailed my address to Astro for a card he said he’d send me, and I haven’t heard back from him yet. Of course, come to think of it, I haven’t heard back from you either for a few days. I wonder if I’ll hear back from any one. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015/25 "2001-08-24T07:15:11Z")
Your card is being shipped tomorrow. I had to locate a site that had the DC 4030 VL2 drivers before I shipped it to you. I also put some 30 pin simms on it for you. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015/26 "2001-08-24T21:45:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by astro \* > \*\*Your card is being shipped tomorrow. I had to locate a site that had the DC 4030 VL2 drivers before I shipped it to you. I also put some 30 pin simms on it for you. \*\* Thanks. I appreciate it. Now as for shipping and handling payment. I could pay you buy using Paypal. According to the web site, you can send money to people even if they don’t have a Paypal account. How does that sound? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015/27 "2001-08-25T04:21:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Joel \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by astro \* > > \*\*Your card is being shipped tomorrow. I had to locate a site that had the DC 4030 VL2 drivers before I shipped it to you. I also put some 30 pin simms on it for you. \*\* > > Thanks. I appreciate it. Now as for shipping and handling payment. I could pay you buy using Paypal. According to the web site, you can send money to people even if they don’t have a Paypal account. How does that sound? \*\* Sounds fine let’s go to email and give the thread a rest. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Raven\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@The\_Raven\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Raven_1)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015/28 "2001-08-25T05:32:49Z")
Howyadoin, Correct me if I’m wrong, but VLB motherboards only had 1 VLB slot, right? If your existing video card is VLB, you’re SOL unless you have an ISA video card (which will have much poorer performance than a VLB video card… This all assumes no PCI/MCA/EISA slots exist… God, I love abbreviations. If it weren’t for computers, I’d have ended up in the military… -Rav ---
**Author:** ![KellyM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/57b2e6/32.png) [@KellyM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KellyM)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015/29 "2001-08-25T05:35:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Joel \* > \*\*Not to long ago I combined a 486 and 386 I own by putting the 486 motherboard into the 386 mini tower and kept both hard drives. The 486 had an internal cd rom drive, so I replaced the 5 1/4 floppy drive with the cd rom. The only problem is, the IDE floppy/hard drive controller only recognises 2 hard drive devices so I can either have the 2 hard drives hooked up, or one hard drive and the cd rom. I was wondering if buying a second IDE controller would eliminate that problem. \*\* Do you have a single-channel or two-channel controller? Virtually all IDE controllers have two channels, and each channel supports two drives. If there are two separate connectors on the controller/motherboard, there are two channels capable of supporting four drives between them. You’ll have to set one of the drives to “slave”, though. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015/30 "2001-08-25T23:48:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The\_Raven \* > \*\*Howyadoin, > > Correct me if I’m wrong, but VLB motherboards only had 1 VLB slot, right? If your existing video card is VLB, you’re SOL unless you have an ISA video card (which will have much poorer performance than a VLB video card… > > This all assumes no PCI/MCA/EISA slots exist… > > God, I love abbreviations. If it weren’t for computers, I’d have ended up in the military… > > -Rav \*\* I’m using an ISA video card and ide controller. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015/31 "2001-08-25T23:50:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by KellyM \* > Do you have a single-channel or two-channel controller? Virtually all IDE controllers have two channels, and each channel supports two drives. If there are two separate connectors on the controller/motherboard, there are two channels capable of supporting four drives between them. You’ll have to set one of the drives to “slave”, though. \*\* My card supports 2 hard drives and 2 floppy drives. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2001, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015/32 "2001-08-26T02:29:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Joel \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by KellyM \* > > Do you have a single-channel or two-channel controller? Virtually all IDE controllers have two channels, and each channel supports two drives. If there are two separate connectors on the controller/motherboard, there are two channels capable of supporting four drives between them. You’ll have to set one of the drives to “slave”, though. \*\* > > My card supports 2 hard drives and 2 floppy drives. \*\* Many early 486 MB’s did not integrate IDE-floppy IO on the MB but used adapter cards and often these cards had a single IDE and single floppy connector allowing for only two devices each. Remember, that this was very early 90’s and just prior to IDE CD’s becoming a popular mass market item. The two IDE connectors were mainly intended for two hard drives and who could want more than that? ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2001, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015/33 "2001-08-26T02:47:12Z")
True, true. Of course now with 15 gig hard drives and up, then at least for a home PC, who even needs 2 hard drives any more? ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2001, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015/34 "2001-08-26T04:10:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Joel \* > \*\*True, true. Of course now with 15 gig hard drives and up, then at least for a home PC, who even needs 2 hard drives any more? \*\* heh my dad had 4 hard drives hooked up on his 386 one for each member of the family and the kids of course once we see the advent of the one gig program well see 2 and 3 hard drives come back ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2001, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015/35 "2001-08-26T04:21:57Z")
Good point. ---
**Author:** ![sewalk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@sewalk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sewalk)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2001, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015/36 "2001-08-26T06:44:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The\_Raven \* > \*\*Howyadoin, > > Correct me if I’m wrong, but VLB motherboards only had 1 VLB slot, right? \*\* Nope, some had as many as three. My last 486 system had VLB video, multi I/O (Serial/parallel/game/fdd/ide), and SCSI cards installed. The multiI/O card also had only one IDE channel. Back then, two channel cards were pretty rare. They didn’t get common until PCI IDE appreared, followed by the second generation Intel Pentium chipsets. CD-ROM drives used either SCSI or a proprietary interface prior to about 1993 or 1994. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-easy-yes-or-no-question-about-486s/77015.md?page=1)