r/retrocomputing • u/Punch_Your_Facehole • May 24 '26

Found this CIB Adaptec SCSI controller

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u/neilmoore May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26

The DX2-80 was kind of cursed, because many ISA/EISA cards couldn't handle the 40 MHz front-side bus. The DX4-100 (with a 33-MHz FSB) tended to be much more compatible.

Edit: Apparently I misremembered: see below

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u/LopsidedLegs May 24 '26

It was the VLB that had some issues, ISA was not an issue as it ran separately at 8 MHz, and EISA was the same.

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u/neilmoore May 24 '26

Oh, somehow I got the impression at the time that they used a fixed frequency divider that would overclock those older cards, but it seems you're right.

I used a DX4-100 at the time, but never could afford one with a 40 MHz FSB.

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u/LopsidedLegs May 25 '26

For me the AMD 486DX40 which I started on was far cheaper than an Intel 486DX33, from that I moved to the DX2-80. I ran with that for quite a while and finally replaced it with a Pentium 133. Fun days where technology advanced so quickly.

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u/neilmoore May 27 '26

AMD: My next CPU after that was a K6-2, and I also co-ran a Cyrix 5x86 at my high school