December Days 2021 #6: The Only Computer With A Physical Turbo Button

[Welcome to December Days, where I natter on about things organized around a theme (sometimes very loosely), one a day, for 31 days. This year, we're taking a look back at some touchpoints along the way of my journey with computing and computing devices.]

• CPU: Intel 80286 or compatible chip, with the ability to toggle between speeds of 8 MHz and 16 MHz through the combination of Ctrl-Alt-Minus(-) and Ctrl-Alt-Plus(+) or the use of a Turbo button on the case.


• Memory: Up to 4MB of RAM


• Graphics: Color Graphics Adapter (CGA), 4 colors, 320x200, Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA), 16 colors, 320x200, Video Graphics Array (VGA), 256 colors, 320x200 or 16 colors, 640x480


• Sound: A SoundBlaster (or, more likely, a SoundBlaster compatible audio card), with an RCA mini jack connected to speakers, but also, the internal speaker of the motherboard itself


• Inputs/Outputs: Keyboards (AT or PS/2), Mouse (DE-9 serial or PS/2), Joysticks and gamepads (DE-9 serial), Printers (parallel), basically anything that will fit an ISA 8-bit or 16-bit slot and provides an appropriate port and cable.


• Storage: This machine had to have a hard drive on it, but it couldn't have been more than 100 MB. It also game with both a 3.5" disk drive and a 5.25" disk drive, for all your floppy needs.


• OS: MS-DOS (likely 5.0 for this system)

( A 286, as we called it )