BX98 (VIA Apollo Pro chipset) - MAME machine

Motherboard published 28 years ago:

BX98 © 1998 ZIDA.

The BX98-3D is famous in the retro community for providing modern Socket 370 (or Slot 1, depending on the specific revision) capabilities in the aging Baby-AT form factor. While the name suggests a "BX" chipset (Intel 440BX), most variants of this board actually utilized the VIA Apollo Pro chipset, which allowed for better compatibility with a wider range of CPU voltages and bus speeds that the strict Intel 440BX chipset sometimes struggled with in non-standard AT configurations.

TECHNICAL
CPU Support: Socket 370 (or Slot 1) for Intel Celeron and Pentium III processors (Mendocino and, in later revisions, Coppermine core support).

Chipset: VIA VT82C691 (Apollo Pro).

Expansion: 4x PCI, 2x ISA, and 1x AGP 2x slot.

Memory: 3x DIMM slots supporting up to 768MB (or sometimes 1GB) of SDRAM.

Form Factor: Baby-AT (this was its "killer feature" for many builders at the time).

I/O: Integrated dual-channel UltraDMA/33 IDE and floppy controller.

TRIVIA
"Tomato" Branding: The "Tomato Board" nickname comes from the Zida brand's distinct red/pinkish PCB color and their aggressive "Tomato" branding on the box and manual. It was a budget-friendly brand that offered surprisingly high-end features like jumper-configurable CPU multipliers.

The "BX" Confusion: Many users mistakenly bought the BX98 thinking it was an Intel 440BX board because of the naming convention. However, the use of the VIA Apollo Pro chipset actually turned out to be a benefit, as it often offered better stability for the "power-hungry" early Socket 370 Celeron processors than the standard Intel BX chipset of the time.

The 3D Suffix: The "3D" in the model name was a marketing term common in the late 90s, intended to emphasize the board’s compatibility with the burgeoning 3D graphics card market via its AGP 2x slot.

CONTRIBUTE
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