29 Jun
1998
29 Jun
'98
1:53 p.m.
On Mon, 29 Jun 1998, Russ Blakeman wrote:
As usual, no docs. This is not a problem as most is
self explanatory.
There is one jumper on the mainboard though that goes in either 1-2 or
2-3 that's marked "Unix", nothing else. Anyone have any idea what this
would do? I've moved it but nothing,but I haven't loaded Unix on it
either.
For years, while Microsoft sat on their real-mode butts, Unix was the only
thing that would take advantage of 32-bit protected mode on the 386. So,
most PC manufacturers didn't even bother to test their designs in a 32-bit
environment. When somebody tried to run a 32-bit Unix on these boxes,
there was a fair chance it didn't work (either due to a buggy rev of the
386, or to some braindead address masking done on the mobo). So, I
suspect that the jumper disables some 86/286-style address masking to
enable full 32-bitness (for which Unix was the only known user at the
time).
If I wasn't out of space, I'd want one of those boxes just for that
interesting anachronism.
-- Doug