BridgeBoard .. Questions to any users.

[spirantho]

The A2286 is a nice card - though mine's not being used at the moment (unlike the GoldenGate 486 I have in my A1500!) - it's not hard to set up really. I configured my 286 with as much RAM as I could find - I think I got it up to 16MB. It took an age to do the memory test! It also had a Tseng ET3000 SVGA card for graphics, running Win3.1.

They're actually quite fun to tinker with, and if you need more speed you can switch the crystal and CPU quite easily, there's a guide on the Aminet I think.

It is very recommended you get an ISA SVGA card though, and a monitor switcher... CGA is really poor, but a VGA 286 can run Ultima VI!

[spirantho]

Pretty sure.. hang on...  hmm... can't see anything off hand. However, I clearly remember there being something somewhere for it.  I suspect it may be as simple as just switching the crystal and CPU, but I'm not sure.. that should stick it up to 14MHz though I think.

The best thing you can get for a bridgeboard like you have is a multi-purpose card - they do exist, with serial (you need this if you want the best mouse handling - don't need a mouse card), parallel, VGA, sound (I think), floppy, hard disk.. you name it.  They're pretty scarce though from what I recall, but dead useful for saving on ISA/Zorro slots! I suspect if you're short of anything, eBay is your friend!

Be warned, though, the 286 has no concept whatsoever of 'plug-n-play' so be prepared for some fun IRQ/base address handling!