If you are someone who pays any attention to what I post here on Hive then you probably realize that old computers are a hobby of mine. I've loved computers since I was a kid. Growing up with movies like Tron, Wargames, and Cloak & Dagger no doubt contributed. Plus, when my parents moved into the home where I would spend the rest of my childhood when I was around 10 years old, our neighbors had a Commodore 64. This provided my first hands on experience with a computer of any kind.
I have an interest in a wide variety of machines but a few stand out as old machines from my youth that I would like to obtain or re-obtain (and in some cases, already have):
Then there are a few that college roommates had. One had a custom built 386 DX-40 but I know nothing else about it. Another had a custom built 486 DX-33 with 4 MB RAM, a Pro Audio Spectrum 16 sound card, and one of those nifty LED displays that you could set to show the speed. Finally, the one this post is primarily about, a Cyrix 166+ based machine.
This was a prebuilt system so in theory, if I could remember enough about it, I might be able to identify it and find one. Unfortunately, what I can remember is limited. I remember the CPU was a Cyrix 166+. I remember that it was a Christmas present that was most likely purchased in November 1996. It came in a complete set with monitor, mouse, keyboard and speakers. Finally, I'm pretty sure it was likely purchased at a big box store like Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. or possibly via mail order.
That's not really much to go on. I suppose the good news is that there weren't really all that many builders that were making computers based on Cyrix processors at the time. I found a few models that used later variations like the M2/MediaGX/686MMX variants. I tried searching old ads, asking Chat GPT, etc. without much luck. The only model I found that used an original (non-MMX) Cyrix 686 chip was the Aptiva E40 but I was reasonably certain it wasn't an IBM model I was looking for.
I had pretty much given up when I found an interesting file on an old ZIP disk. It was titled "CYRIX.WTX". It was a plain text file that appeared to have diagnostic data. Some key pieces of data:
...
Version 1.0 Build 43 March 25, 1997
...
Brand/Model=AST Cyrix166+
...
Operating system=Windows 95, 4.0.950
...
BIOS type=IBM 07/16/96
BIOS info=ZA S T BIOS Rel. 1.02
...
Tested on=1998/08/16 04:42:44
...
CPU type=Cyrix 6x86
Clock rate=133 MHz
...
Total space=2011 MB
...
Installed RAM=16 MB
...
Indeed, this is from a program called WinTune that was some kind of diagnostic program. Clearly, this was run on a Cyrix 166+ and is from a time when I would have had access to the machine I am talking about. You can see the entire file here.
There aren't many clues here as the stats are all typical for a machine of that time and there is no detailed information about the motherboard or anything obvious like a specific model number. However, it still gets me one giant step closer to figuring out what this machine was by identifying it as an AST. AST was a fairly popular system builder back in the day and they did in fact build machines with Cyrix processors.
In searching for AST machines with 686 processors, I think I've narrowed it down to only one real possibility. I think this machine must have been the AST Advantage! Adventure! Plus 5166. At least that's the only tower model I found from AST that uses this particular processor and all of the stats match that machine.
To be specific, it would be one of these specific models (list found on a wayback machine save from ari-service.com):
503241-001 ADV166P+/16M 2G 8X 336ACF HCNEMTCYX
503241-999 ADV166P+/16M 2G 8X 336ACF HCNEMTCYX
503241-IRT ADV166P+/16M 2G 8X 336ACF HCNEMTCYX
From the numbers, you can see these have 16M of RAM and a 2GB hard drive that matches what WinTune spit out. So unless there is some other AST tower that has a 166+ processor that I have not been able to find or there were other machines that used AST motherboards with Cyrix processors, I'm pretty sure this is the machine I'm looking for.
Included here is the only picture I have found of this model. I'll be keeping my eye out for one of these. While I suspect this specific model is probably relatively rare, it isn't otherwise special. The price shouldn't be obscene (well, if we are talking eBay it might be)...it's just finding one that will be difficult.
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Books I am reading or have recently read:
Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr by Nancy Isenberg
Tom Clancy's Op-Center: God of War by Jeff Rovin
Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch
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