All my content and ptohos
In the history of Polish computers, Optimus company is definitely worth describing. I described the story briefly in Optimus 286 page. Optimus was a company which was importing parts and made computers. They popularized computers and they were one of the largest PC import/assemble company in Poland.
This 486 has average components for its time - ordinary ISA Trident graphics board, IDE Plus controller, 256kB of cache and 8MB of RAM. It's not a 66MHz or 75MHz processor, which in 1995 was stille xpensive (Pentiums were reserver for high-performance workstations). It's a good 50MHz 486DX. Back in early 1995 it was totally enough to start with computing and do office work under Windows 3.x, play some games. A very average PC with not-so-perfect quality of mainboard.
| Manufacturer | Optimus |
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| Origin | Taiwan / Poland (assembly) | |
| Year of unit | 1995 (early) | |
| Year of introduction | 1995 | |
| Class | AT | |
| CPU | Intel 486DX | |
| Speed | 50MHz | |
| RAM | 8MB (8x1MB 30-pin SIMMs) | |
| ROM | AMI BIOS GUI Setup |
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| Graphics | Trident TVGA9000i | |
| Sound | PC Speaker | |
| System expansion bus | ISA 16-bit (6 slots), 2 VLB
slots ISA 8-bit (1 slot) |
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| Floppy/removable media drives | 1x 1.44MB 3.5" drive | |
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| Hard disk: |
IDE 170MB Quantum ProDrive ELS 170AT (TH99)
C/H/S: 1011/15/22 |
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Peripherals in collection: |
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| Other boards:
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IDE Plus V5L multi-I/O controller. | |
| Non-standard expansions: | None | |
| Operating system(s): | MS-DOS 6.22/Win3.11 |
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My unit is in fully working condition under Windows 3.11. It came without hard disk, I inserted 500MB Seagate one. This computer has "Optimus S.A." logo. They
started to use "S.A." logo probably around 1994/1995, earlier
there was no "S.A.", like in the photo on the right. Note that
although the case is tower, it has the same style as my one. |
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| Contents: | Starting, usage | Configuration |
Starting
The machine boots to typical AMI BIOS. Press DEL to enter Setup. In some revisions F2 may be needed, yet it's rare. Also some BIOSes for this mainboard have "green" options like APM, some don't. My one doesn't have such options, but they are present in manual.
For Trident TVGA9000 you need a driver:
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Trident TVGA9000 (DOS/Win3.x) |
Mainboard is Soyo SY-025D2, similar to SY-025A2 shown in TH99. However, I recommend to look at information in official manual (look in "More files" for it, page 107 onwards). However, it may be wrong - Optimus had poor translators these days and many things are inherited from previous mainboards (e.g. alignment of Power LED/Turbo/Reset switches on page 116).