[incanus77]

Right, this was the first problem: “i386” distros actually pretty much all went 486+ some years back. So that severely limits the ecosystem. While you can always go back in the archive and get a bare kernel, I wanted a full system with init, package management, etc.

The card is (unsurprisingly) an ISA slot, an Intel EtherExpress 16. I forget exactly where I was with it when last I poked at this earlier this year, but the promising thing is I have it worked in MS-DOS 6.22 without issue. There are some utilities from Intel that I found that write EEPROM on the card to setup its IRQ and all of that, which is how I got it working in DOS.

Perhaps I’ll take another swing at it and document more precisely what the issues are and what I’ve tried so far. I wrote up the acquisition, repair, and resuscitation of the machine on a series of posts on my blog under “Project 386” beginning with https://justinmiller.io/posts/2020/04/26/project-386-part-1/ so I have intentions of adding some more posts.

[npongratz]

Just wanted to say that your Project 386 posts are fantastic! Thank you so much for writing them up! I really enjoyed reading them. I was so happy you got it running, and seriously impressed with your troubleshooting and analysis of all system components, and the eventual fix of the motherboard traces.

[incanus77]

Oh, thank you! They are so niche, but I really wanted to convey the sense of adventure and persistence that I was wrapped up in while trying to revive the thing. It has since led to a new hobby (I recently acquired a working 1986 Mac Plus) as well as a side business project that I hope to share more about soon.