VTech Platinum SMP (dual-486DX2)

[Incrediblecheese]

Has anyone else seen these machines? I only found one relevant piece of information online about it, and I'm desperately searching for it's second processor card, or even any information on the machine besides what I've been able to scrounge up based on staring at the thing. It's a very odd machine, so here's some basic specs:

Drive interfaces: IDE, SCSI, Floppy

SCSI Controller: Adaptec AIC6360, AppleCD 600i connected just for laughs

RAM: Mine is 16MB, though I think it can support up to 32MB. No idea what type it is, all old RAM looks the same to me :-)

CPU: Intel 486DX2 66Mhz, Might try to find an AMD or Cyrix 486DX2 clone to replace it, assuming they exist.

Hard Disk: 500MB IDE

BIOS: Video Technologies MP (Multiprocessor) BIOS

Connectors: AT Keyboard (I have one of those fantastic clicky keyboards, VTech-branded), Parallel, 2x DB-9 Serial ports, 1 PS/2 port (Possibly?)

ISA Cards:

CS4231A Audio/Game port card w/ Mitsumi & Sony CD-ROM connectors (Mitsumi CD-ROM drive connected, but most OSes can't find the drive)

Diamond Stealth24 EISA display card

If anyone else has seen, heard of, or owns one of these machines, I'd love to contact you, this computer is really something else!

[mbbrutman]

Moved to PCs and clones, although this is borderline off topic .. it is a 486 after all, and we are really more interested in older machines, such as 8 bitters and early 16 bitters.

[Rubix]

It's dual CPU in a 486? Anyway, I really advise against replacing the Intel 486 with an AMD one. AMD 486's are significantly slower. I experienced this when running some heavier software on a 100MHz AMD and 100MHz Intel 486.

[mbbrutman]

I'm not sure if that is true across the board. AMD manufactured the 8088, 80286, 80386, and probably the 80486 under license from Intel, so for the chips covered by the license they are identical to the Intel chips.

When the license expired AMD had to come up with alternative designs to avoid infringing on the Intel designs. A lot of innovation occurred between AMD and Nexgen (whom AMD bought) during this period. And yes, the initial versions of the clone chips from AMD and Cyrix may have been challenged, but they were new designs, not licensed copies. (IBM also experimented with 486 derivatives during this time.)

As for the Vtech, I think he needs a daughterboard with the second processor, not just a second processor. An SMP 486 system is a very rare thing - the 486 was not designed to work in an SMP environment, so special glue logic was required to keep the caches across the two CPUs coherent. It also probably required a customer driver for NT to manage the special purpose hardware.

[Incrediblecheese]

Sorry, I thought it was "vintage"-like, since m68k Macs are sometimes newer and still considered "vintage".

As far as I know, the Dual-486 setup will work out-of-the-box with Windows NT, but like I said, the documentation on this system is slim to none.

[Rubix]

it is a 486 after all, and we are really more interested in older machines
Apparently people here are also interested in 15 yr. old 486's, otherwise this thread wouldn't be.

How is the dual CPU organized? With an extra board?

[mbbrutman]

Apparently people here are also interested in 15 yr. old 486's, otherwise this thread wouldn't be.


Let's all talk about fluffy bunnies and porn, because people like those too.

I pointed out that the owner of the forum has decreed such things off topic. I moved the thread to a slightly better place, and the thread remains, so yes, I acknowledge it has some interest even though it is off topic.

[Rubix]

Let's not talk about fluffy bunnies and porn, because those are not vintage computers.

The AMD DX2 gets a better score in this benchmark (http://new.haveland.com/povbench/graphsky.php). Though that indeed could depend on the system setup as a whole. Doom 2 for example preformed much slower though, really much slower than on the Intel, and that seems to me to be CPU-related.

[mbbrutman]

I think I made a mistake by moving this into PCs and clones, as this machine is not vintage by the definition of the forum. So I'm going to correct the mistake and move it to off-topic, where the bunnies get discussed too.

Vintage here does not cover 486 systems, even if they are cool.

[Incrediblecheese]

Apparently people here are also interested in 15 yr. old 486's, otherwise this thread wouldn't be.

How is the dual CPU organized? With an extra board?

Yeah. The expansion slots are 6 16-bit ISA slots, two of them have 32-bit EISA extensions, and one has another extension...The mainboard also has a NuBus slot on it, but I have no idea what that'd be used for on this board.

EDIT: The boldified part is wrong, now that I look it up...It's actually 6 16-bit ISA slots, two of which have VESA Local Buses, and one of them has some unknown mysterious add-on.

[Rubix]

You said NT works with it, but does it recognize the second CPU?

[Incrediblecheese]

It might work with the second CPU, if I had the second one.

[Rubix]

Sorry, I thought you had the second one. Do you have the support board? Acquiring a 486 CPU shouldn't be too hard.

[Incrediblecheese]

I completely lack the secondary CPU board, and I think it'll be damn near impossible to find it. I might look for a 486DX4 just to hike the speed up alittle in leau of the absence of the CPU card.

[Incrediblecheese]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1H4pYIjzE9c

Just for many laughs, I made this video of it booting into OS/2 2.11. It shows the weird VTech MP-specific BIOS and (real quickly) flashed the Adaptec AIC-6360's BIOS.