4 ms·

A 286 with VGA graphics...? Seems like a bit of an anachronism.

tyingq 4y ago
I recall a fair amount of ATI VGA Wonder cards in 286 machines.
bombcar 4y ago
VGA was introduced with the PS/2 and they came with a 286 when equipped with VGA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PS/2_Model_25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PS/2_Model_25
ols 4y ago
My first PC was a 286 with a SVGA.
DWakefield 4y ago
I had an 8086 (compatible) Epson Equity II+ w/ SVGA back in the day. Was a bit odd, but it worked!
- MisterTea 4y ago
  Was it VGA or EGA? I had a cannon 8086 with a color monitor but it used a 9pin DE9 plug AND had NTSC out via an RCA jack. Think it was EGA, I still have the card somewhere.
uKVZe85V 4y ago
286 with VGA? I guess no problem because I've seen a 8086 machine with VGA. Around 1994, I've seen and played a game on a 8086 machine with a VGA card and full-screen perfectly smooth scrolling. I don't remember the name but it was a 2D-from-above toy-car racing game where each level/race had a different theme.
- reassembled 4y ago
  One of my fondest memories is when my dad had the neighbor up the road from us upgrade his 286 work PC from 1MB to 4MB of RAM and replace the EGA card with an Orchid VGA card so we could play Wolf3D in a postage stamp sized window. I spent weeks playing Wolfenstein and mashing the “MIL” cheat code on the keyboard as fast as I could to get it to register. The machine was so slow that it would often not process the multiple keystrokes fast enough to enable max ammo and all guns, without multiple attempts.
iso1631 4y ago
I certainly had a 286 with VGA back in the early 90s. From memory starting civilisation was 5-1-2, 5 for VGA graphics, 1 for no sound, 2 for keyboard+mouse. It also had a CD Rom drive
Eleison23 4y ago
Once the VGA standard was introduced, there was a proliferation of 16-bit ISA cards that support VGA along with the previous EGA, CGA standards. There also seemed to be few obstacles to supporting VGA in an 8-bit card, and if we can believe a few eBay searches, these can still be obtained. So any pre-16-bit XT-bus PC was a candidate for a VGA upgrade. That's how we rolled in those days and that's why building PCs is known as "LEGO for Adults".
SighMagi 4y ago
There were 8088/8086 machines that had VGA as well
pan69 4y ago
I had an Olivetti 286 PC in 1989 with VGA on the motherboard.
lproven 4y ago
No, not even slightly. In fact the historical link between the 286 and VGA are significant and represent one of the most important events in the history of x86 computers. The VGA standard, along with PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports, 1.4MB 3.5" floppies, and even 72-pin SIMMs, was introduced with IBM's PS/2 range of computers in 1987. The original PS/2 range included: • Model 50 -- desktop 286. • Model 60 -- tower 286. • Model 70 -- desktop 386DX. • Model 80 -- tower 386DX. (I still have one. One of the best-built PCs ever made.) All had the Microchannel (MCA) expansion bus, and VGA as standard. Note, I am not including the Model 30, as it wasn't a true PS/2: no MCA, and no VGA, just MCGA. IBM promised buyers that they would be able to run the new OS/2 operating system it was working on with Microsoft at the time. This is the reason why IBM insisted OS/2 must run on the 286: to provide it to the many tens of thousands of customers it had sold 286 PS/2 machines to. Microsoft wanted to make OS/2 specific to the newer 32-bit 386 chip. This had hardware-assisted multitasking of 8086 VMs, meaning the new OS would be able to multitask DOS apps with excellent compatibility. But IBM had promised customers OS/2 and IBM is the sort of company that takes such promises seriously. So, OS/2 1.x was a 286 OS, not a 386 OS. That meant it could only run a single DOS session and compatibility wasn't great. This is why OS/2 flopped. That in turn is why MS developed Windows 3, which could multitask DOS apps, and was a big hit. That is why MS had the money to headhunt the MICA team from DEC, headed by Dave Cutler, and give them Portable OS/2 to finish. That became OS/2 NT (because it was developed on Intel's i860 RISC chip, codenamed N-Ten.) That became Windows NT. That is why Windows ended up dominating the PC industry, not OS/2 (or DESQview/X or any of the other would-be DOS enhancements or replacements). Arguably, although I admit this is reaching a bit, that's what led to the 386SX, and later to VESA local bus computers, and Win95 and a market of VGA-equipped PCI machines: the fertile ground in which Linux took root and flourished. PCs got multitasking combined with a GUI because of Windows 3 and its successors. (It's important to note that there were lots of text-only multitasking OSes for PCs: DR's Concurrent DOS, SCO Xenix, QNX, Coherent, TSX-32, PC-MOS, etc.) The killer feature was combining DOS, a GUI, and multitasking of DOS apps. That needed a 386SX or DX. These things only happened because OS/2 failed, and OS/2 failed because there were lots of 286-based PS/2 machines and IBM promised OS/2 on them. The 286 and VGA went closely together, and indeed, IBM later made the ISA-bus "PS/2" Model 30-286 in response to the relatively failure of MCA. It was a pivotal range of computers and it sealed the future of the PC industry long after PS/2s themselves largely disappeared. They were a hugely important range of computers, and they introduced the standards that dominated the PC world throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s: PS/2 ports, VGA sockets, 72-pin RAM, 1.4MB floppies etc. Only the expansion bus and the planned native OS failed. All the external ports, connectors, media and so on became the new industry standards.
stuaxo 4y ago
Nope, it was standard. 086 (and if you were unlucky enough to use an RM Nimbus, 186), was more EGA land.
lproven 4y ago
FWIW, I copied my comment into a blog post, and it's now spawned a discussion of its own: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33019019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33019019 Thanks for the hook. :-)

I recall a fair amount of ATI VGA Wonder cards in 286 machines.

VGA was introduced with the PS/2 and they came with a 286 when equipped with VGA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PS/2_Model_25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PS/2_Model_25

ols 4y ago

My first PC was a 286 with a SVGA.

DWakefield 4y ago

I had an 8086 (compatible) Epson Equity II+ w/ SVGA back in the day. Was a bit odd, but it worked!

MisterTea 4y ago
Was it VGA or EGA? I had a cannon 8086 with a color monitor but it used a 9pin DE9 plug AND had NTSC out via an RCA jack. Think it was EGA, I still have the card somewhere.

uKVZe85V 4y ago

286 with VGA? I guess no problem because I've seen a 8086 machine with VGA. Around 1994, I've seen and played a game on a 8086 machine with a VGA card and full-screen perfectly smooth scrolling. I don't remember the name but it was a 2D-from-above toy-car racing game where each level/race had a different theme.

reassembled 4y ago
One of my fondest memories is when my dad had the neighbor up the road from us upgrade his 286 work PC from 1MB to 4MB of RAM and replace the EGA card with an Orchid VGA card so we could play Wolf3D in a postage stamp sized window. I spent weeks playing Wolfenstein and mashing the “MIL” cheat code on the keyboard as fast as I could to get it to register. The machine was so slow that it would often not process the multiple keystrokes fast enough to enable max ammo and all guns, without multiple attempts.

iso1631 4y ago

I certainly had a 286 with VGA back in the early 90s. From memory starting civilisation was 5-1-2, 5 for VGA graphics, 1 for no sound, 2 for keyboard+mouse. It also had a CD Rom drive

Eleison23 4y ago

Once the VGA standard was introduced, there was a proliferation of 16-bit ISA cards that support VGA along with the previous EGA, CGA standards. There also seemed to be few obstacles to supporting VGA in an 8-bit card, and if we can believe a few eBay searches, these can still be obtained. So any pre-16-bit XT-bus PC was a candidate for a VGA upgrade. That's how we rolled in those days and that's why building PCs is known as "LEGO for Adults".

SighMagi 4y ago

There were 8088/8086 machines that had VGA as well

pan69 4y ago

I had an Olivetti 286 PC in 1989 with VGA on the motherboard.

lproven 4y ago

No, not even slightly. In fact the historical link between the 286 and VGA are significant and represent one of the most important events in the history of x86 computers. The VGA standard, along with PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports, 1.4MB 3.5" floppies, and even 72-pin SIMMs, was introduced with IBM's PS/2 range of computers in 1987. The original PS/2 range included: • Model 50 -- desktop 286. • Model 60 -- tower 286. • Model 70 -- desktop 386DX. • Model 80 -- tower 386DX. (I still have one. One of the best-built PCs ever made.) All had the Microchannel (MCA) expansion bus, and VGA as standard. Note, I am not including the Model 30, as it wasn't a true PS/2: no MCA, and no VGA, just MCGA. IBM promised buyers that they would be able to run the new OS/2 operating system it was working on with Microsoft at the time. This is the reason why IBM insisted OS/2 must run on the 286: to provide it to the many tens of thousands of customers it had sold 286 PS/2 machines to. Microsoft wanted to make OS/2 specific to the newer 32-bit 386 chip. This had hardware-assisted multitasking of 8086 VMs, meaning the new OS would be able to multitask DOS apps with excellent compatibility. But IBM had promised customers OS/2 and IBM is the sort of company that takes such promises seriously. So, OS/2 1.x was a 286 OS, not a 386 OS. That meant it could only run a single DOS session and compatibility wasn't great. This is why OS/2 flopped. That in turn is why MS developed Windows 3, which could multitask DOS apps, and was a big hit. That is why MS had the money to headhunt the MICA team from DEC, headed by Dave Cutler, and give them Portable OS/2 to finish. That became OS/2 NT (because it was developed on Intel's i860 RISC chip, codenamed N-Ten.) That became Windows NT. That is why Windows ended up dominating the PC industry, not OS/2 (or DESQview/X or any of the other would-be DOS enhancements or replacements). Arguably, although I admit this is reaching a bit, that's what led to the 386SX, and later to VESA local bus computers, and Win95 and a market of VGA-equipped PCI machines: the fertile ground in which Linux took root and flourished. PCs got multitasking combined with a GUI because of Windows 3 and its successors. (It's important to note that there were lots of text-only multitasking OSes for PCs: DR's Concurrent DOS, SCO Xenix, QNX, Coherent, TSX-32, PC-MOS, etc.) The killer feature was combining DOS, a GUI, and multitasking of DOS apps. That needed a 386SX or DX. These things only happened because OS/2 failed, and OS/2 failed because there were lots of 286-based PS/2 machines and IBM promised OS/2 on them. The 286 and VGA went closely together, and indeed, IBM later made the ISA-bus "PS/2" Model 30-286 in response to the relatively failure of MCA. It was a pivotal range of computers and it sealed the future of the PC industry long after PS/2s themselves largely disappeared. They were a hugely important range of computers, and they introduced the standards that dominated the PC world throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s: PS/2 ports, VGA sockets, 72-pin RAM, 1.4MB floppies etc. Only the expansion bus and the planned native OS failed. All the external ports, connectors, media and so on became the new industry standards.

stuaxo 4y ago

Nope, it was standard. 086 (and if you were unlucky enough to use an RM Nimbus, 186), was more EGA land.

lproven 4y ago

FWIW, I copied my comment into a blog post, and it's now spawned a discussion of its own: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33019019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33019019 Thanks for the hook. :-)