As the title says. I found an old datapoint pc clone.
It has a Intel 386SX processor and a 40 mb Conner harddrive that unfortunately is having trouble spinning up,
I could not find an actual model number of this PC.
There is a sticker on the back:
“DPC 386SX 16Mhz, 2MB, 3,5 FDD, Made in Norway”.
The mobo is made by Notodden Elektronikk A/S. And that company seem to have been acquired by another company called Westcontrol at some point.
Do you think it’s even worth restoring, or should try to sell the parts and maybe make a sleeper pc out of the case?
I think if you have some connection with that generation of PCs and some fondness, then it’s worth restoring. Otherwise, it might be worth selling for restoration, in preference to breaking it down. Presumably most likely to be of interest to an enthusiast in Norway.
I did once do the thing of holding a hard drive firmly and giving it a sharp twist, successfully unsticking the spindle.
Feel free to share some photos - and perhaps the serial number will give a clue as to how rare the machine is.
I find this computer a bit weird because it has everything on this single isa board with also does graphics whích i don’t know if it was typical for the time period. Maybe it was used some kind of pots system or industrial equipment controller. There are no other cards attached, but one slot was left open, which might mean that there might have been a card there before. Perhaps a modem that they wanted to keep or a network card.
Acording to youtube. Apparently manufactures made these SBCs with old components that were past their shelf life. And these computers were marketed towards industries that needed these systems for legacy support. My guess is that this was made in 1990, but it is hard to tell due to lack of dates. I assume you would not ship a bios with an expired copyright sticker?