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Got a fun little project to share here: the Monotech NuXT Turbo XT Clone.

It's a very professional-looking MicroATX motherboard featuring a 10MHz 8088 that switches between three clock frequencies on the fly, 640K RAM plus 192K UMB, XT-CF card and extra high density floppy interfaces, (S)VGA graphics up to 512K, four 8-bit ISA slots, an AT2XT converter for PS/2 keyboards, Sergey Kiselev's Micro 8088 BIOS, negative 5-volt rail handling so you can use modern ATX PSUs, and yeah man.

It's like a dream team of open source PC hobbyist hardware and software projects all rolled into one! Available in a kit or pre-assembled, it's a lot of fun to put together and benchmark the results. Hope you enjoy seeing the whole process!

Files

Building a MicroATX IBM Clone! The NuXT Turbo XT PC

Comments

Anonymous

Oh good gosh this looks fun. Looks even better than the RC2014 Z80 boards.

Anonymous

A brand new modern XT model! I don't know if I should watch that video, my wallet and I aren't on speaking terms lately...

Anonymous

That was pretty awesome...

Jeffrey

Would this board fit in an old IBM 5150 case?

Mark Balcerak

No IO shield is really bothering me, pretty friggin sweet otherwise.

avfusion

I'm a huge fan of Sergey's work, so I'm really proud to see his stuff being incorporated into cool stuff like this. Also I believe that startup beep noise is stock Sergey bios goodness.

Anonymous

What an awesome setup. Great video Clint.

Mukul Kewalramani

oof...looks like another project that I will have no space for. my family hates you, clint!

Anonymous

Nice! He offered to send me one of these. But I was hesitant because he said he was only going to make 100 of them. I was worried people would be breaking the door down wanting to buy them but then you’ll have to tell everyone they aren’t available.

Anonymous

I’m also surprised Planet X3 runs as well as it does in VGA mode. I tried it on a turbo XT with VGA and had to disable a few things to make it work at full speed.

Anonymous

Absolute great video. You got to care of that IO shield situation. Must get perfection 😁

Anonymous

Blooooh ahhh. Shiny.

Evan B

That's awesome.. Yeah, I quite like my mini ITX case.. has the same layout for motherboard sitting horizontally .. Really neat how they mixed the old and the new ..and I can certainly tell how excited you were to review it ^_^

Anonymous

Where did you get those awesome case badges? eBay?

LazyGameReviews

I was expecting to have to disable things as well, but that 10MHz V20 continued to impress! I've since tried a 10MHz AMD 8088 in this setup and the difference is notable with X3. Runs around 25% slower even with the exact same clock speed rating! Makes me wonder what NEC was doing to make this happen.

LazyGameReviews

Not without modifying the case, no. The rear I/O section on the IBM 5150/60/70 is quite different.

LazyGameReviews

It is a pretty naughty video by wallet standards, but just cover the wallet's eyes and watch anyway ;)

LazyGameReviews

Yeah this is my first case with a design like this, I honestly love it regardless what's inside! Gives me ideas for future editing rigs/capture machines.

moosemaimer

I used to hoard those Cisco flash cards at work. Whenever we decommissioned old or busted devices I would scavenge anything useful out of them, and Cisco had no qualms about releasing firmware revs too large to fit on the pack-in memory.

LazyGameReviews

Nice, they've certainly proved super handy for hobbyist projects in recent years. Snapped up a bunch of them in a surplus auction years back myself!

Anonymous

Nice review. It looks like a nice motherboard. I ordered one (my wallet isn't happy with you). It being Micro-ATX will save some space on the desk for retro computers in my basement. Clint, which sound card did you put in there?

Anonymous

It's hilarious - I just learned about this last night, then I wake up this morning and BOOM! You've put this rad video together on it. Really enjoyed the look at it, as after learning about it, I've certainly been pondering whether it was worth getting to have access to a PC setup of that vintage, and to see a modern bit of tech like this is a true joy for sure!

LazyGameReviews

Sweet, I hope you enjoy it! And that was an Adlib clone card. Standard YM3812 chip and all that, just with a custom PCB.

Anonymous

That was a lot of fun to watch. I'm 49 and suspect I'm at the older end of your regular viewers. About $500, which seems like a lot for a super old system, by the time you've added all the stuff you need. But you cannot measure the joy of anticipation and surprise you got from assembling your computer, by yourself, and being entirely surprised by the outcome. Windows 10 is so predicatable, it makes it less fun. I've built hundreds of computers by now, but I'll never forget my first system. A IBM Blue Lightening 66, integrated board (which meant the CPU was soldered. I added four, 1mb RAM chips, a Trident ISA video card, an external Intel Satisfaxtion modem, a LMSI 1x CDROM, Media Vision sound card, and a Lucky Goldstar (that's what LG used to be) super i/o. A Conner 80mb hard drive stored all my stuff, and a Mitsumi 1.44mb floppy drive put most of it in, The hours and hours of anticipation, then tweaking, was really great.

Anonymous

It's quite amazing to see how niche markets find a way with the internet to "scratch that itch" Well done!

Anonymous

Awesome build! I wasn't too sure about the case at first, but once you showed off the horizontal mainboard mounting I was convinced!

Anonymous

Daaang I want one now, and in kit form so I can build my own PC... not sure what I'd do with it though, would love if he'd make the same for a 386-486 era machine...

Anonymous

awesome stuff! I hope to god we get a 486 version I would be buying that immediatly! Take my money! So cool that things like this are being made with all the modern niceties :D

Anonymous

Excellent as usual. Curious, you mention horizontal vs vertical mounting and got me thinking. Is there any story behind why computers went from the "desktop" style to the more modern tower? i miss my old 486s and being able to put the monitor right on top.

Anonymous

This is awesome

Anonymous

Awesome piece of kit!

Anonymous

Awesome!

Anonymous

I got one of these and it arrived recently, but man that little NEC V20 gets hot... anyone have any heatsink suggestions?

Anonymous

Commander Keen is a awesome game of the era.

Anonymous

I'm not sure anyone will see this question but I might as well post this here. I notice that you were able to run Planet X3. I cannot get Planet X3 to run on my NuXT which has essentially the same configuration. I am attempting to use the Adlib that came with the computer although I also have a TexElec SAAYM and a HardMPU card installed too. I start Planet X3 and select the Adlib and then nothing happens. Are there configuration tweaks I need to make?