[Battlezone missiles striking]
- Yeah!
It might not play Crysis
but it does play Battlezone, so I'm good.
Oh game over, what? Never mind.
[smooth jazz music]
Greetings and welcome to another LGR retro computer build!
And this time I've got something I've been excited
to put together since the moment I heard it existed.
We're gonna build the NuXT MicroATX Turbo,
an IBM XT-class computer system
that functionally wouldn't have been out of place in 1987,
but is an entirely new design
using modern hardware and components when possible.
No emulation, no FPGA recreations,
just a straight up IBM PC-compatible
with a mixture of brand new and new old stock parts.
And this is here courtesy of JD in New Zealand,
who runs an online shop there by the name Monotech PCs.
He sent along a whole bunch of awesome things actually,
all of which I'll be able to use on future projects,
so thank you very much sir!
But yeah, right now the star of the show
is the NuXT: a newly-designed open source motherboard
running an 8088 CPU.
It's based on a number of other open source projects,
with no shortage of them coming
from the venerable Sergey Kiselev,
and the result is a basis for a phenomenally capable PC XT.
Right off the bat there's the DIP-40 CPU socket,
accepting processors ranging
from a 4.77 megahertz Intel 8088
to a 10 megahertz NEC V20, with the ability to switch
between three different clock speeds on the fly.
The V20 is what JD chose to include here,
a nice choice and a popular upgrade
for IBM PCs in the 80s that'll run at either 4.77,
7.16, or 9.55 megahertz.
There's also a spot for an 8087 math coprocessor,
which is completely optional, but he sent one of those
as well, so I'm gonna go ahead and plop that in there.
As far as RAM, the NuXT includes 832 kilobytes
of onboard memory, with a maxed-out 640K conventional
and an additional 192K for upper memory blocks.
Another standout feature of the NuXT
is the integrated XT-CF card interface,
with an included 64 megabyte CompactFlash card,
completely eliminating the need for a controller card
or spinning hard disk.
There's also an onboard floppy controller
supporting the majority of 5.25-inch
and 3.5-inch disk drives, from single density
and double density, on up to high density
and even extra high density drives.
Video output is taken care of as well,
with an integrated Trident TVGA9000i SVGA chipset
from the mid-90s, one that's register-compatible
with VGA, EGA, CGA, and even MDA and Hercules.
It's configured with 256K VRAM by default,
with sockets allowing for a total of 512K,
though running higher-res 256-color graphics
on this system is gonna be sluggish.
Of course, integrated graphics means
you get a 15-pin VGA port for outputting
to your monitor of choice.
And yeah, this I/O section alone is a nice improvement
on the original XT, with a 9-pin serial connection
and a PS/2-compatible keyboard port.
Plus, the AT2XT-programmed microcontroller means
that you don't have to worry about converting AT keyboards
to XT scan codes, so no Soarer's Converter is required.
As for sound, well, it's an XT PC
so you've got the PC speaker, with pins included
to add an external speaker if ya like.
I'll be adding a sound card using one
of the four 8-bit ISA slots though.
And yes, it only has four
instead of the original XT's eight,
but it's a MicroATX board, so there's only so much room.
Besides, all those integrated components
means you don't need as many slots anyway.
Another nice addition are the ROM sockets,
with the 128K system ROM using flash memory
that saves even without power,
meaning there's no need for a CMOS battery
to save BIOS settings.
And above that is an Option ROM socket
presenting ROM upgrade opportunities,
also doubling as an EEPROM programmer
that can write to compatible chips.
Neat!
And lastly, the board generates
its own negative five-volt rail
and accepts a 20-pin ATX connection,
so you can use almost any modern power supply
without modifying it.
Yeah man, the NuXT really is a dream team
of retro and modern hardware,
making for a nearly all-encompassing PC XT solution
in a compact package.
But enough with the tantalizingly technical tomfoolery,
it's time to put this thing together
and play some classic DOS games!
Okay, so before we get everything all built,
let's make sure that it is functioning first of all,
and for that, I've got one of these
Focus power supplies by Seasonic.
It's a 450-watt, absolutely overkill for what we need.
The original XT only had, like, I think 130 watts,
but you know, it'll totally do the job
and it's one of these nice-looking semi-modular units,
so cool by me, let's get this thing plugged in
and you only need the first 20 pins on there,
the extra four for modern motherboards
will not be used here.
Just gonna grab a VGA monitor here.
This classic Packard Bell will do just fine.
Plug that in, plug the power in, and yeah,
let's turn it on for the first time
and see what happens. [XT beeps musically]
Huh, that custom startup beep sounds a little familiar.
[Intel sound plays]
Yeah, it's like a slowed-down,
slightly off-key Intel sound.
At least, that's what I'm hearing.
Wonder if there's any way to customize that,
but yeah, everything is looking good up to this point.
We get the Micro 8088 BIOS doing its thing
and checking everything out, and yeah,
everything is checking out.
Even got a little custom greetings here.
[chuckles] Nice touch!
-Nice.
Right, so for the case situation,
well, I considered a bunch of different things
but ended up deciding on this Apevia X-QPack3
Micro ATX Cube Case.
I considered using, like, an original IBM clone case
from back in the day, but I don't know.
The idea of using this in a modern case appealed to me
and this particular one appealed to me
for a multitude of reasons,
mostly just because I think it looks cool,
but it's also this white with blue accents
that really brings to mind kind of the IBM aesthetic.
It's not IBM beige, but blue is definitely their color,
so yeah, it looks clean and awesome to me,
and it's also got two drive bays up front.
Something you're seeing less and less on modern cases now,
but yeah, 5.25-inch and 3.5-inch,
I'm definitely gonna use that larger one there,
and yeah, I don't know, just something
about this overall design appealed to me like crazy,
from the blue-tinted windows to the form factor
and, I don't know, kind of looks like a mini fridge,
and yes, it does have a bunch of ports
that are gonna be completely redundant.
I mean, we can't use USB
or these audio plugins on this board,
but it does have LEDs and power and reset buttons
that are compatible with this board.
No turbo button, but that's okay
because this is a tri-mode turbo thing,
and that's controlled through software.
And here's another reason that I really was attracted
to this case, and check this out.
Look at the way the motherboard mounts in here.
Yeah, it goes in there horizontally, not vertically.
It's very much the way that the original IBM XT
horizontal desktop form factor computers were built as well,
so you have the cards going in vertically there,
kind of like a test bench as well.
It gives me a whole lot of room
to just plug and play with all sorts of different cards
and add-ons and whatever I wanna do in the future.
And yeah, let's go ahead and get the power supply
installed in there, and I'm gonna do my best
in terms of cable management.
Thankfully it looks like this case is pretty well-equipped
to get cables and stuff them out of the way,
and with that installed
underneath the motherboard area there,
we'll just get rid of a lot of these cables,
especially like the audio and USB headers.
We don't need those at all, so I'm just gonna, again,
tuck those completely out of sight.
And yes, every one of these front panel headers here
will have a spot to plug in on the motherboard.
Hard drive and power LEDs, reset and power switch,
and yeah, that's all that stuff taken care of.
Just gonna get the motherboard screwed into place here,
and now to make use of that 5.25-inch drive bay
on the front here, and I've got a new old stock,
IBM personal computer, 5.25-inch, 360K disk drive.
Something picked up from Computer Reset, yep.
Absolutely new that I wanted one of these,
so yeah, we're gonna use it, hope it works.
I also got a new old stock floppy disk drive cable here.
It is a wide ribbon cable, but, you know,
we'll get it out of the way as much as we can,
and the front of the case just pulls right off of there
and we can get the drive tucked into place,
for the most part.
See, this is actually configured for optical drives,
so it's got one of these toolless plastic locking mechanisms
that's supposed to make life easier,
but yeah, it doesn't actually do anything
for keeping our floppy disk in place,
so we will not be using that, but you know, whatever.
We'll get the front of the case back on here,
and just use some traditional screws.
Now, I might install a 3.5-inch disk drive later on,
but really, a 360K 5.25-inch is pretty much all
that I wanna use with an XT-class machine.
All right, ribbon cable power plugged in,
and that's that, looking good.
Ah, I was really hoping this would look
as awesome as it does. [laughs]
I think this looks awesome,
flat black and flat white, oh yes!
All right, well, let's go ahead
and get the sound card installed.
I'm gonna go with this
Lazy Game Reviews Edition AdLib clone card.
And yeah, here's another little weird quirk about this case,
it has this cover that goes over the screws
of the expansion cards.
Yeah, you have to unscrew this panel, pull that off,
then you can plug things in, screw the card into place,
and then, if you want, you can put that panel back,
and yeah, I'll put it back.
It kind of makes it look clean, I guess.
And really, that's about it.
I mean, with everything being all integrated
onto the motherboard, there's not much else
I wanna add right now.
Maybe something with a game port
and a parallel port down the line,
but yeah, that's about it.
Just get the disk drive protector out of there
and I've got another couple things
that I wanted to install on here.
I got these neat little custom case badges recently,
and I thought it would look awesome
on the front of this case with that black floppy drive
and white case design,
and something about the reflective silver
just appeals to me, and yeah, the brushed metal,
I don't know, it's got a retro look
while also still seeming to me to be a bit sleek and modern.
Just gonna put IBM and MS-DOS on here, and yeah!
Check that out.
Almost like an IBM XT-class machine
if it were from "2001: A Space Odyssey"
or "Star Wars" or something, I don't know, man,
but it's time to get the plastic off the sides.
[plastic film crinkling]
[continuous cellophane crinklage]
-I should've peeled it slower.
Yes you should've, but it's too late for that now.
Okay, time to get everything plugged in and turned on
and here's a slight nitpick I have
about the back of the case, there's no I/O panel.
The motherboard didn't come with one,
but it would be nice to have one of these made
as an option, I'd prefer it not to be all open like this,
but you know, it's fine.
Let's get it turned on and see what we get.
[XT beeps musically]
Ooh, oh yeah, it is alive.
It is looking good, and it's quite quiet.
I did actually plug in the front fan.
It doesn't need it, but I think it looks cool
and it'll keep it cool.
Now to get the floppy drive doing its thing,
and for that, we just press F1 to enter the BIOS setup,
and it is extremely simple on this Micro 88 BIOS here.
Very much like the original IBM XT startup,
but without the need for diagnostics,
setup disk or anything.
I tested it out really quick,
and it is indeed writing and reading just fine.
So let's get a mouse plugged in here,
and try out some games and software and stuff.
First up here, I'm gonna try the highly useful
old-school PC Benchmark, or TOPBENCH,
and yeah, as you can see here,
it's giving it a score of 11
and a few different computer models
that are close to it in performance,
and how we can use the keyboard combination
to change the clock speed on the fly.
So here it is on the medium speed,
that then takes it down to a score of eight,
close to a XT clone, which makes sense,
and then you take it down to the slowest one,
the 4.77 megahertz NEC V20, and that's a score of five,
which is very close to a Tandy 1000 EX or SX,
or a PCjr with an NEC V20, so again, makes a lot of sense.
And it's just cool to be able to switch between the three
using Control + Alt and either minus, plus,
or the asterisk on the numpad, it's that easy.
It is a V20, though, not an original Intel chip,
so as you can see from the 8088 Mile Per Hour demo here,
running in the slowest mode is still 9% faster.
Yeah, it's just something to keep in mind, and of course,
taking it to the maxed-out speed is 55% faster.
It's just something to keep in mind,
you know, the processor being quicker,
and also the video card being a bit newer
than what a lot of the XTs had back in the day,
so as you can see here, that same demo
is just not working properly.
This needs an original CGA card
and 4.77 megahertz Intel 8088,
so it's not gonna do what it needs to.
Completely expected in this case,
and presumably could be alleviated,
but yeah, let's move on to some games.
First up, we're gonna try Lemmings,
because it was pre-installed on the CF card.
["Let's Go!" by Tony Williams]
And I'm running the processor at full speed here
and the AdLib is doing just fine.
Ah, it's awesome, I mean, it's Lemmings.
Of course it's awesome, but yeah,
totally playable, much moreso than an original 8088.
That is for sure, not quite 286-level or anything,
but you know, a whole lot more tolerable nonetheless.
All right, another one to try here is 688 Attack Sub.
["688 Attack Sub" by Rob Hubbard]
Yeah, I just wanted to try this out,
not only because of that ominous AdLib music,
but also because it is a 256-color game.
Really showing off the VGA capabilities of this card.
Again, you can install more VRAM into this
and get SVGA and all that,
but [laughs] it's just not gonna run very well, so.
You know, I might do that anyway just because.
Here's an example of a nice game to play on here,
Sim City, the original.
Got this running in EGA mode here
and I'm gonna load up one of my saved cities
that I have from when I reviewed the game,
and yeah, as you can see, it's loading in here.
It's definitely quicker than an original PC XT,
but again, you can see just scrolling around the map here,
this is the full speed, and if I take you down
to one of the slower speeds, well, it's slower,
so yeah, it's making a difference.
That higher clock speed and V20-ness
certainly comes in handy.
Even on the slowest speed, it is still quicker
than an original 8088.
Okay, let's try something else here
because I was messing with it on a PCjr lately.
Codename: ICEMAN.
["ICEMAN Theme" by Mark Seibert]
Mm, more ominous AdLib music,
and some nice-looking 16-color graphics.
This game is from 1990, and it runs about how I expected
for one of this era of SCI Engine games from Sierra.
A whole lot quicker than the PCjr I was messing with,
for sure, but this is right on that edge
of not being something you'd wanna play
on a system this speed,
or maybe you just don't wanna play it anyway
'cause it's not a particularly great game, but that's okay.
Something that does run wonderfully on here
is David Murray's Planet X3.
Of course, though, I mean, he designed this to run
on an original PC for Tandy 1000s and stuff like that,
but I'm running the VGA mode here because we can.
["Fight for the Future" by Noah Aman]
And yeah, this is an absolute improvement
over what it would be running on an actual XT
with a VGA card, yeah, this is awesome.
Great example of a game to play on here
with AdLib and VGA, and it's got just enough speed
to be smooth and awesome and just an enjoyable game,
without needing to reduce the screen width
or turn off transparency or anything like that.
Now, for an example of something that isn't very great
to run on this speed of a system,
but is still technically possible,
we have Stunts, AKA 4D Sports Driving.
[FM synth motor idling, revving]
[chuckling] Yeah, okay, so this is just beyond the limits
of this machine, I mean, you know, it runs,
but you don't wanna play it like this.
Even doing things like reducing the graphics level
to the lowest and turning off the sound and everything,
you're still gonna get single-digit frame rates,
so yeah, something like Stunts, I mean [laughs]
obviously it's not gonna be great on an XT-class system.
Really needs a 386, but still kind of fun to push the limits
and see what it can and can't do.
Now, here's something that I wasn't sure
if it would run as well as it ended up running,
and yeah, it's Commander Keen episode four.
["Welcome to a Kick In Yore Pants In Good Ole Hillville!" by Bobby Prince]
Yeah, it sounds awesome,
and actually it runs relatively smooth
considering this is just an NEC V20,
but again, it's really not made for this slow a system
and the side-scrolling is obviously a little jittery.
It's skipping some frames,
and the loading takes absolutely forever,
even with that CompactFlash card.
But, you know what, I totally would've played this
if I had a computer of this speed back in the day, dude.
All right, we got another homebrew modern DOS game here
and this is Paku Paku by Jason Knight.
[Pac-Man sirens blaring]
I mean it's Pac-Man, it's gonna work,
but I just wanted to test this out
because it has this tweaked graphics mode here
that doesn't always work on everything,
but I mean, for the most part it does,
and looks great, sounds great, plays great.
It's just a well-optimized game,
so that makes sense, unlike something
from back in the day that used a tweaked graphics mode,
and this is a game called Round 42.
And yeah, you end up with this half-height screen
and parts of it are corrupt,
and of course it's just running too fast as well,
even if the CPU is turned all the way down.
This really is made for an original 8088 and CGA card,
and yeah, that's just how it goes, man.
These clone systems, this kind of stuff
was common back in the day.
There's always trade-offs, and same goes for a game
like Atarisoft's Defender from 1983 here.
[incredulous laughter] It's way too fast, as expected,
and yeah, even cranking the CPU
all the way down to that 4.77 megahertz
the V20 just runs it a bit faster than intended,
so this is the slowest that this computer can go,
and it's still running this too fast.
And things like this are precisely why
I keep all kinds of different DOS
and PC-compatible computers lying around.
There's always something that needs
a little something different,
and maybe I'll switch this out to a original 8088 later on
so I can have that extra bit of compatibility,
but yeah, for now, I am quite happy with this.
I'm also quite happy that you can boot from floppy disks.
You just press A during the startup of the system
and it'll boot up from any kind of bootable floppy,
including PC booter games
like Microsoft Flight Simulator 2.0 here.
Though it's made for older video cards,
so you get a similar problem with Round 42
in that it's horizontally weird
but again, this can be addressed.
There's a dip switch on the motherboard there
for different compatibility modes
for different video cards,
and you can just plop in another card
and disable the onboard one if you want.
Might make some changes later on,
but for now, the only one
that I want to immediately change is that PC speaker,
because that little piezo beeper in there is okay,
but I really like the sound of a cone speaker
like this one here.
I mentioned it earlier, but it does have the pins on there.
It's just a standard connection for this,
so you can just take out the jumper and plug this in,
and hear what it sounds like, like this.
[XT beeps sonorously]
Oh yeah!
It really does sound better.
Here's a comparison with California Games.
Listen how much more full the cone sounds
compared to the piezo beeper.
["California Games" music plays]
["California Games" music plays better]
Yeah, that just sounds so much more authentic to me,
especially if you get it in the right spot of the case,
then it reverberates off of the proper components,
and dude, this is just one of my favorite projects
in a long time now.
I absolutely love the new XT motherboard
just as something that's a little bit different
from all the other turbo XTs that I already have,
and as much as I like the options of FPGA machines
and emulation and all that kind of stuff,
there's something about original hardware
or even just modern modifications to original hardware
and homebrew systems like this that satisfy me
on a very nerdy, geeky level,
and that absolutely is what this is.
So if you're interested, do check out Monotech PCs.
He's selling them for around 300 bucks,
is where they start depending on if you want it assembled
or what components and all that,
and I'm not sponsored here.
I'm not getting any commission.
He just sent this to me
and wondered if I wanted to do a video, and I did.
And it's extremely well-made and professional-looking,
and it's absolutely my kind of project.
Perhaps it's not your cup of tea, or even if it is,
I really hope that you enjoyed seeing it all come together.
I certainly had fun making it.
But that's all for now.
There's new videos every week,
so stay tuned if you wanna see more stuff in the future.
And as always, thank you very much for watching!