Uncreative Labs

Joined: 30 Aug 2005 Posts: 20 Location: Gurnee, IL, USA

Well, I have a 8mhz V20 chip sitting here that I put in once, and it does work in my Portable (albeit at only 4.77mhz)...however, Ive heard that it is semi-incompatible. Does anyone here use a V20 in their 8088, and if so, what are your experiences with compatibility?

Guest

I put a V20 in my Tandy 1000HX in high school and i never had any problems. It has some compatibility issues, but they're so rare that for most people it's not an issue. I had crashes, but no more so than before I changed it.

Guest

I never saw any problem with the nec v-20
there is a speed-up program called fastv20 that gains a bit of speed.

there is a chip at the rear of the board 8424? that can be clocked faster but that messes up the real time clock.

one problenm is thay original 8088 system parts and boards sometimes cannot
be run faster and will conk out at any higher speeds.

'the fastv20 does not mess up the rtc.

it is said that the v20 has 8080 or some other code imbedded and this permits it to run some cp/m os and programs. not just the cpm-86 8088 compatible cp/m

Joined: 03 Oct 2004 Posts: 24 Location: Finland

Interesting. Does anyone know where I could get this fastv20 program? Smile

Guest

guess who has ALL THAT old stuff heh heh.
wdegroot-at-ptd dot net

Guest

what you do is run norton utils cpu tester ( don't recall the name of it)
ver 4,5 is good either with a 8088 or v-20
then you put in or manually run the program and run it again.

BTW if you REALKLY want to "supercharge" a pc or xt or similar system run spintest
( shareware) and do a low level format with the suggested interleave.
the dta may be only 30 ( like a drive fulkl of syrup- whatever kind you use there)
to a possible 130.

really there is not much else you can do to speed up a 8088 or v20 system.
a 28ms st 251-1 will also help ( model st251-1) but many were really st-251-0 ( 40 ms)

Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 3:48 pm

I can send you the V20 speedup program as well. Send me your e-mail address through the board's messaging system and I'll e-mail it to you.

The program makes a small but useful increase in speed. I have an XT clone with a 10 mhz. CPU. Using Norton Utilities 6.0, the CPU (not the overall computer speed) tested at 2.07 times the CPU speed of an 4.77 mhz. PC. When I replaced the 8088 with a V20, Norton reported the speed as 2.37x. When I used the V20 speedup program in addition, Norton reported the speed as 2.55x the CPU speed of a 4.77 mhz.

The reported speeds of the hard drive, the video card and the overall system speed went up slightly as well.

The V20 chip allows you to install and run Windows 3.0 on an XT with a VGA color card and monitor. I've read the V20 chip has some of the 286 real mode (video) instruction set in it, enough to fool Win 3.0 into thinking it's being installed on a 286.

With the original 8088 CPU, Windows 3.0 installation will abort if you have a VGA card installed.

On the negative side, I've read where there are a few games that won't run on the V20. One of them is supposedly Microsoft Flight Simulator (although I've never tested it to see if it is true.)

Joined: 03 Oct 2004 Posts: 24 Location: Finland

Thanks, but Google found it for me Wink

As always, should have done a google search before asking... even when it comes to old software Neutral

Guest

cannot say 100% but i know i usually bought a v20 and put it in every xt i had
i ran flight simulator
BYW the early fs snd jet will run on a herc or clone mono card]
fs/h or is it fs-h?
and jet with /h or -h forget
I am entitled.
neither is mucxh fun in yellow but works and is visable,

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 377 Location: Stuttgart, Germany

I have flightsim 4.0 ( the original 3.5" floppy ) and I ran is successfully on a 19" b/w monitor and a hercules card with a full-size daugtherboard ( that's the strangest thing I have enevr seen ). I even attached my 1998 joystick to it and used the internal pc speaker as a sound output. it was fun playing and it didn't even lag or anything Wink

That is so far the only game I seriously play on my 386-sx25 with the herc card.

Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 9:32 pm

Really? I've been playing Champions of Krynn on my Portable religiously for the last week...that game has a really good story!

Unfortunately, the v20 doesn't pass as a 286 for Norton Utilities 8.0, it still says I need a 286. Meh.

Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 9:36 pm

Oh...by the way, that fastv20 program REALLY should be posted under the Downloads section. I'll be sending in quite a few things I regularly run on my machine quite soon.

Joined: 03 Oct 2004 Posts: 24 Location: Finland

Ok this is off topic, but since you mentioned the downloads section I came to think about Cutemouse, a decent DOS mouse driver. Terrific for old computers since it only takes up 3.5k memory. Smile

Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2005 6:51 pm

If you have a file for the downloads section, email webmaster@uncreativelabs.net about it and if necessary send it as an attachment. Warn before you send!!!

You MUST verify the license allows for UCL to distribute the program. If it does not, we'll need permission. With all the gung-ho copyright lawyers out there, we don't need hassles from that.

Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 12:31 pm

Here is the Internet location for the fastV20.com file:

http://www.filelibrary.com/Contents/DOS/54/76.html

The file you want is named
speedv20.zip

Unzip the file and you'll find two files in the folder, "fastV20.com" which is the actual speedup program and a "read me" file about using BASIC to modify the file for your particular computer (but the speedup program works even if you don't do the BASIC modification).