full load of 386 computers lots of pictures and questions

i got a whole van load of old 386 computers today now i am trying to figure out what to do with them. they were all outside for who knows how long and are very filthy and rusty so i am thinking the will mostly be scrap but i have not seen components like these before





Old hard drive do i sell them as is or cut the finers off or what? checked ebay dosent look like they are selling



The processors? i pulled out of the first computer below is a better picture of the silver one i found online. the smaller one i understand is a math processor it is a intel A80387DX-20 what do these get grouped as?



close up pictures of the processors on the 2nd computer



Some of the ram. Do these go with the rest of the gold finger ram?


"enhanced memory expansion" where would this go after the ram is pulled


expansion card not sure what function. finger card? or something else?


that is all i have gotten through for now as those we the computers that had no covers i wil grab a few more and take them apart

See if they boot, or at least post. You will make lots more cash that way.

those 3 were in pieces i was told the rest should work but i doubt they all will judging by the corosion on some of them i have a few inside i am gonna try to fire them up and hope i can remember back far enough to do something with them

just grabbed 3 out of the pile and got this on the screen



no idea what thats all about but i do find it kinda funnny using a lcd monitor with a 386

Originally Posted by Gravitar

#1: Either sell the hard drive whole or take it apart. You could probably sell the board as a finger card or just toss it with your HD Boards

Why would you sell a HDD board as a finger card?..

#2: You may be able to mix this in with your 386 processors. Ebay value perhaps?
#3: I don't know.
#4: Yes. Regular ram.
#5: Either finger card or a backplane would be my guess.
#6: Probably finger card.

"It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open ones mouth and remove all doubt" **- Mark Twain (attributed)

adter doing some home work i gues the 161 and 163 mean the machine is unconfigured likley due to a dead battery. if i made a disk i could probably reconfigure them but looking at a bunch of the floppy drives i dont have much faith in any of them working

now what to do with everything, i am still thinking scrap unless i could sell them whole rather quick, i think there is about 50 still in the van, dont know if i could ever sell that many whole as is without doing much testing

they were definatly outside for a little longer then the old boy i got them from thought they were. i wish i could get a good picture inside of one of the floppy drives. looks like parts i take off of cars that have been exposed to way to much road salt. i decided no more testing for the night the last one i plugged in started smoking from the power supply when i turned it on. i think if i try it with any more it will be outside with the hose handy

Were all of them IBM PS/2 machines? The cards are MCA (microchannel), the HD shown uses a proprietary edge connector IBM used for early PS/2 machines. The 161 and 163 errors are from a dead configuration battery, nothing special there (hope they didn't explode because the machines were left to the elements).

as far as i could tell they are all IBM model 50 and model 70 PS/2 computers but it was dark and about 10 degrees so i didnt check all of them

so does anyone know about the A80387DX-20 chips?

can you at least show me the whole van load so I can hate you more?

Good score, I had a guy sell me a 66mhz 486 2 weeks ago for $5 Im glad he didn't know what it was lol

Iwill take pictures as soon as I unload tonight I got home late and it was near 0 degrees so they are still loaded

Originally Posted by joef1812

so does anyone know about the A80387DX-20 chips?

The 80387 chips were Math Coprocessors. The DX version complemented the 80386DX CPU's which had 32Bit Bus whereas the SX Versions complemented the cheaper and slower 80386SX CPU's which ran on a 16Bit Bus.

I should know better about the electrical fire duh guess I wasn't thinking thanks for reminding me

when i've had em burn out it's usually just been the power supply blows a puff of smoke and that was it