More about the Commodore 286

There is much more to tell about my Commodore 286. I think most of you would think that replacing a greyscale VGA monitor to color VGA is what the system needs most. Sure, I would have liked a color VGA but I really wanted sound card even more after hearing Sound Blaster on my friends 386sx.

Funny thing about PC speaker is that somehow it always felt that PCs are supposed to sound like that. Some friends had Commodore 64 or Amiga and sure, they sounded a lot better than PC. Even my NES sounded better than PC but I didn't know anyone who would have sound card until my friend got one. I knew what sound cards were because I had read about them from computer magazines but hearing Sound Blaster for very first time was something completely different.

Sound Blaster is huge improvement over PC speaker. So huge that nothing ever came close, except adding Gravis Ultrasound ACE next to Sound Blaster. PCI sound cards with environmental effects and 3D sounds are only minor upgrades by comparison. Roland MT-32/CM-32L/LAPC-I would have been far more greater upgrade than Sound Blaster but for me (and for most people) Roland was just a dream.

So I bought a Sound Blaster 2.0 to my Commodore 286 with greyscale VGA. Sound Blaster 2.0 was the best I could afford. It was in retail box and came with Lemmings and Indianapolis 500. I had both of them already (copies, naturally). I was able to install the card but never got sound from it. Don't laugh but I didn't know sound cards require external speakers. I just somehow assumed that external speakers were optional and internal speaker was used when there were no external speakers.

When I wrote about my first computer, I didn't mention that it broke at one time. Fortunately a television and electronics repairer lived nearby (he worked at home) and was able to fix my Trifunic. The same repairer fixed my IBM EGA 5154 monitor couple of years ago and other things over the years. He took a look at the sound card problem and told that external speakers were required when I couldn't get sound after getting the Commodore back (I didn't know external speakers were required so I never thought to mention I tried to get sound without speakers). We had some old Philips mono speaker and the repairer replaced the connector so I was able to use the speaker. Computer speakers at that time were very small but my mono speaker was quite big. I think the speaker element was perhaps 4 inch.

The repairer saw that I had greyscale monitor and told he had the same kind of color monitor. He didn't need it and he offered to replace it with my greyscale monitor. WOW! I didn't have to think too long about offer like that (thank you once again). So now I had color monitor and sound card.

The color monitor was IBM 8513, a 12” VGA monitor. Externally it looks just like the IBM greyscale VGA. You may think 12” is small but it is even smaller than you might think. Old IBM monitors had large black borders around the picture so the picture is perhaps only 10”. Even today I happen to have IBM 8513 (not the same unit) and I must say that it produces damn fine picture for gaming usage, especially the colors are very bright and there are no geometry flaws that later CRT monitors used to have.

I sold a 15” Forefront DH-1570 monitor three months ago (along with the 486 I was building). I've kept the monitor for many years because 15” is just about the perfect size for CRT (no scanlines with low res games and the monitor itself fits on a table nicely, unlike 17” or ever bigger CRTs). The Forefront also happens to be the first monitor I've ever bought new (in 1996) and it had less geometry flaws than any of the CRT monitors I bought after it (17” Sony and 19” Samsung).

As much as I liked about the Forefront I just had to accept that the 12” IBM produces much better picture. Bright colors makes a huge difference (and I'm the one who used to play with grayscale monitor). So I gave away the Forefront because we were moving. I hope to find 14” or 15” high end CRT monitor, perhaps Sony or multisync NEC. I'm definitely not going to give away the IBM.

But back to the Commodore 286. It never received new upgrades after color monitor and sound card so the specs were:

• 286 12 MHz
• 1 MiB RAM
• 40 MB Quantum ProDrive 40AT
• 3,5" and 5,25" HD Floppy Drives
• Sound Blaster 2.0
• Integrated Paradise VGA (PVGA1A)
• 12” IBM 8513 color VGA monitor

Those are good specs. In fact 286 is my favorite PC processor ever (more about it some other time). You might not believe but 12 MHz 286 is fast enough for just about all 16 bit DOS games. I remember that Larry 6 was very slow but playable. I don't remember any other game being slower than that. CPU does not deserve all the glory since Paradise was one of the better VGA chips. Having a Trident in place and gaming would have been certainly a less pleasant.

I really miss the Commodore 286. Perhaps even more than Trifunic and certainly a lot more than any of the clone systems that came after the Commodore.