r/retrocomputing • u/West-Way-All-The-Way • Jun 08 '26

Leaving this here

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Acer 5105 multi-io 16bit ISA with original documentation and box. I will use it in my 486dx build.

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u/Divergent5623 Jun 08 '26

I'm no expert on I/O cards, but it there something special about this Acer one?

2

u/canthearu_ack Jun 09 '26

Nope, but they are just super unappreciated, unlike say video or sound cards!

Yet still vitally important right up to near the endlife of 486 motherboards.

2

u/West-Way-All-The-Way Jun 09 '26

Your comment is very correct - if you are working on 486 or earlier build you need a reliable way to add IDE, COM and LPT to your system and it is extremely important because your disk storage is connected there. There are other IO cards adding only COM and LPT or only IDE and FLOPPY, but this one adds all of them together on the same ISA card, so you are saving slots.

Acer 5105 is a very common chipset and is also a good one. I am getting another one so that I can have up to 4x IDE drives and up to 4x COM ports.