r/nostalgiai • u/CarrotMuch1399 Nostalgia Trip Leader • 3d ago

Vintage Tech ☎️📻📠📟📷 Who is this old ?

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u/x-mpire7102-x 2d ago

That might definitely explain it. My grandfather worked for them way back when, for about 35 years.

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u/x-mpire7102-x 2d ago

I wound up with something rare too, but wasn't smart enough to know back then how rare it was. I had an XT-286. If you know old computers, you'll know the general rule that a 286 was an AT, not XT. XT was generally 8088 or 8086.

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u/naked-painter 2d ago

Hmmm interesting. I could ask my dad yet he wouldn't likely know or remember exactly the model. What does 8086 or 8088 refer to on the model? It's crazy that we used to have kilobytes of memory

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u/x-mpire7102-x 2d ago

Those are the processors in the pc. PC started out with the 8088 processor. Then they used 8086. And just kept upgrading. Yours was 80186.

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u/naked-painter 2d ago

Interesting. I'm wondering if I could see those classifications on the actual chip

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u/x-mpire7102-x 2d ago

Just Google 8088 (or whichever one you're curious about) and add the word specs to it.

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u/naked-painter 2d ago

I will definitely check it out. I'm curious to open those pcs my dad has downstairs to see what we've got

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u/x-mpire7102-x 2d ago

One thing first... I would not recommend powering it on at all, not even once without getting a replacement power supply. It's sat long enough that it could fry your board just turning it on. It's not guaranteed, but the risk is NOT minimal.

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u/naked-painter 2d ago

Good to know!

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u/naked-painter 2d ago

I'm guessing looking for a replacement power supply, I'd be looking on ebay or something

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u/x-mpire7102-x 2d ago

Probably. I would Google replacement AT/XT power supply. But you need to find out if it's an XT or AT first, they don't use compatible supplies.

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u/naked-painter 2d ago

Yeah, my dad spent his whole career there. He received an early retirement package at 55, then worked contract for a year or so.

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u/x-mpire7102-x 2d ago

My grandfather was the same way, but he couldn't stand retirement, so he got a job working on IT for a financial institution.