> if you had a 386SX you might as well have had a 286
Agreed. My family bought a 386sx/16 at my convincing, but based on the way we wound up using the machine, one of the contemporary 286/20's would have been a better choice. Not only was our 386sx relatively slow, the 386-specific features didn't really benefit our use case all that much and added additional overhead. (We bought it with the idea of running multiple DOS apps via DesqView/386, but never did... then Windows 3.0 breathed new life into 286 protected mode.)
> The CGA graphics options on the IBM really didn't do them any favors.
CGA was a terrible, terrible set of trade offs. The high resolution mode wasn't, and the color graphics mode was restricted to two fixed palettes of marginal utility. The Tandy 1000's 32K of video memory and 16 color 320x200 graphics were a huge improvement. (So was Hercules.)
Even worse were things like the Cyrix 486SLC(?), they were cheaply made systems and I think even some of them ran on 286 motherboards. A friend had one and it was every bit as slow as a 16MHz 386
Yeah... the thing I didn't mention about my family's old 386sx/16 was that it was similar to what you describe.
That machine was an ALR PowerFlex, which came out of the box as a 286/12. However, it also had a special CPU upgrade slot that allowed installation of higher end CPUs on daughterboards. Our machine had a 386sx/16 on a daughterboard, but ALR let you install CPU's as fast as a 486DX/25 into what was fundamentally a 286 box. If you didn't mind your state of the art 486 being limited to 5MB of 16-bit memory, it wasn't a bad choice. (This machine started my general thinking that upgradable hardware is overrated as a long term plan to keep equipment viable.)
Earlier than that, Cheetah made something reminiscent of this called the Adapter/386. It was a cheap way to install a 386 into a 286 machine. This gave you the ability to run 80386 specific software, but actually wound up making the machine a little slower. My guess is that they didn't sell many, and the primary takers were developers that wanted to get a cheap way to develop 80386-specific software without buying a new machine.
Agreed. My family bought a 386sx/16 at my convincing, but based on the way we wound up using the machine, one of the contemporary 286/20's would have been a better choice. Not only was our 386sx relatively slow, the 386-specific features didn't really benefit our use case all that much and added additional overhead. (We bought it with the idea of running multiple DOS apps via DesqView/386, but never did... then Windows 3.0 breathed new life into 286 protected mode.)
> The CGA graphics options on the IBM really didn't do them any favors.
CGA was a terrible, terrible set of trade offs. The high resolution mode wasn't, and the color graphics mode was restricted to two fixed palettes of marginal utility. The Tandy 1000's 32K of video memory and 16 color 320x200 graphics were a huge improvement. (So was Hercules.)