> much about that. We're not doing any io other than talking to the qbus
> controller and the IDE controller(s) (i figure why not put 2 ide controllers
> on the thing? support 4 disks.. ) , and maybe some LED's or soemthing for
> some primitive diagnostics on board?

Yep, I thought about that, if not also a RS-232 to gen console/status messages for
debugging...

> but lets say we take an Intel chip. 44 bucks for a 386? i dont think so!
> 486 chips are available in unlimited quantity, for _free_. go to any
> junkyard or shop or the halls of a school and in a week im sure
> one can have accumulated at least one old 486 motherboard, being thrown out
> or already thrown out. the chips are good. test 'em to be certain.
> how many boards would be made? 50? 100? i doubt that wed ever be building
> enough that the availability of components is an issue, even if we rely on
> salvage for components. plus, theyre PGA, and the sockets can be found on the
> same boards they themselves just got scavenged from..

I too thought of that, but support circuitry tends to be a bit more complicated than the
Z380 or 386SX (which is cheep) -- but I could be mistaken, it's been a long time since I
looked at a 486 implementation.

At this point, in my mind, the 386SX and Z380 seem the best suited for cost, simplicity of
implementation.  The surface mount issue just keeps me away... I'm going to look at some
circuit design examples tonight for some help, perhaps something will surface that will
jump start me.

jam