Welcome to my Laser 386 PC, a PC that I received from one of my subscribers who was collecting a specific type of computer case that was featured in one of my earlier video’s.

Just look at her. All complete with (semi) matching keyboard / mouse / speakers and monitor.

This wasn’t the original monitor and keyboard that came with this computer but it is close enough for me 🙂

So we decided to trade systems. And the system that I traded in to get this computer was my 486 DX4 100Mhz featured here:

The most beautiful AMD in the world

Now don’t get me wrong … I absolutely loved this 486 dx4 100Mhz CPU. I love the AMD CPU clocked at 100Mhz. I loved the mainboard, the Westen Digital Caviar 420MB hard drive and the VLB videocard. It reminded me a lot of what I had as a first computer (486 DX2-66Mhz)

But what caught most people’s eye was the fact that it was enclosed in one of the most beautiful cases out there. But … as much as i loved this computer, I came to realise that someone else would be more appreciative of it 🙂 Someone who already had a couple of cases like that one and really wanted to add this one to his collection.

The AMD 486DX4, last time at my house

It didn’t take me long to decide that it would be better for me to part ways with the 486 and give it to him. We would sort out the details later. When collecting retro computers, sometimes people tend to search for something very specific, and when that happens I am more than happy to share / trade or help out. I tend to think / hope / know that good stuff will happen to me also when I am looking for something in particular.

In fact, a similar thing happened to me recently where I was able to trade my IBM 5155 for a gorgeous IBM 5154 EGA monitor, something that I consider a unicorn in retro computer land. But that’s for another story….

Because just look at what I got in return for the AMD ….Isn’t this a great looking machine ? I’ve always had a thing for these complete sets, not always easy to find, so I consider my self really lucky to have found this one.

Laser 386/3 desktop PC and keyboard. Windows keys on a 386 ? Don’t think so 🙂

Just look at the keyboard and mouse. These systems are difficult enough to find, and more often than not you might be able to find the computer, but it will lack the peripherals, and these will be next to impossible to find. But I lucked out with this one

And it even came with all the manuals and original (720kb) disks :

MS-DOS 5.0

Windows 3.0

Laser utilities and driver disks

The speakers are also kinda special. They are similar to the popular Juster 85 speakers (or lookalikes) you see a lot, only these are just a tad smaller.

After opening her up I noticed there were 2 expansion cards. A generic 16 bit ISA sound card and a special 16 bit ISA videocard

And here we have a nice view of the mainboard. It’s a pretty big 386 mainboard with room for 16 sim sockets (with a total memory capacity of 16 MB). It doesn’t have a co-processor, but that’s not really needed unless you want to run some very specific software on it.

The sound card is a pretty generic CMI 8328 soundcard, nothing special. I already ran into issues installing it.

The driver disk is 800+ kb

The disk drive in the Laser 386 is only a 720kb drive

The driver can only be installed from the A drive

So I already had to resort to my Gotek to install the thing.

The videocard however was a very nice Tseng Labs ET4000. One of the superstars of the early nineties when it comes to video cards and it fits this 386 perfectly.

Featuring a 386 DX33 machine, this machine is going to be a lot of fun. I kinda like these 386 systems …. more powerful than a 286 so lots of early nineties games that will run fine on this system.

The Intel 386DX33 CPU

The PC came with 4MB of RAM, 4 “topless” branded chips , 1 MB each, and 12 free slots to get the memory up to 16 MB.

Topless memory sticks

There are a number of jumpers on the board that I haven’t identified yet, most likely to configure the cpu speed





The mainboard also features a standard AT power connector, with the power connector coming out of the PSU being 1 single connector instead of the usual 2.

This is one of those boards that will only fit in this particular case obviously, as the parallel port and 2 serial ports are firmly embedded on the outer edge of the mainboard. So this mainboard cannot be used in a standard AT case, but that is usually the case with these kind of mainboards that come from branded desktops.

I/O ports on the mainboard

The Intel 386dx33 features 8kb of Level 1 Write-Through cache and the mainboard came with 256kb of level 2 cache.

L2 cache

The PC came with a Dallas RTC chip that I had to replace … although the PC was able to boot and I was able to get into the BIOS, it wasn’t able to retain any settings, not even when doing a normal reboot (without shutdown).

It also wasn’t able to boot off the hard drive for some reason, despite the fact that the hard drive was working and it was properly configured in the BIOS.

Dallas RTC chip

Luckily the Dallas chip was socketed so it was very easy to replace it with a new one.

Riser card with 6 16 bit ISA slots

The mainboard has a riser card giving you 6 16 bit ISA slots and also has an integrated floppy and hard drive controller.

The desktop contains 4 5.25 drive bays and originally was ment to be used with some kind of rail system. However, it seems to previous owner tried to use standard screws to hold the hard drive and floppy drive in place.

Not really sure how he managed to screw in this particular screw, as it obviously isn’t meant to be used like this.

To my surprise the PC’s harddrive was packed with software and games, many of them a perfect fit for this time-period.











As I was testing the PC I had all of the components out of the case and was delighted to start some of these games …. but had to get back to business an re-assemble everything ASAP.

But after having assembled everything, the PC is ready for use and now its time for me to play some games.

So all in all everything worked out great. I got to make somebody happy and have him add an important piece to his collection, and I got to receive this Laser computer.

I’ll feature this system on the channel as soon as possible, so please stay tuned for that.

So stay tuned, and please check out my channel and consider subscribing. Lots of cool content planned in the upcoming weeks / months …. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAfYntJkyJdnYbzDsOGu0qQ