Bigeye #8: Am5x86 - the 133MHz 486

Created on May 29, 2020
Indexed on August 28, 2022 at 11:26 PM

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If you've gone back to watch my videos from 2014, you might know about this gem... essentially, the Am5x86 is a 486 CPU which runs at twice the speed of a DX2. It compares itself against a 75MHz Pentium in integer operations.

One important aspect of the HOT-433 is that it has PCI slots, allowing for the installation of fast video cards that aren't as hard to find as those using the VLB bus. VLB was more of a 486 thing above all else.

I acquired the Shuttle HOT-433 and its CPU way back in 2012 as replacements for the Chicony CH-491F and 40MHz Am486. Seeing this old system run so much faster while still being rooted in the same architecture was such a cool experience.

But, as with many motherboards before the Slot 1 era, this thing uses a Dallas RTC, which combines the NVRAM and battery into a single DIP module. It sounds nice since these are far less prone to leaking, but the problem here is that many of them are directly soldered to the board.

By the time the RTC died in early 2017, this thing was basically unusable because it immediately forgot any CMOS settings I saved. It had to sit in a box for three years until I finally learned how to solder, and in turn give the RTC a DIP24 socket to go in.

Now, the Shuttle HOT-433 is alive once more, and putting up a fight with Quake as seen here.

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