Bentley MicroStation 4.0 for DOS running on PCEM

Bentley MicroStation, or AutoCAD on steroids, was released in the early 90's. This was a very powerful 3D rendering program for DOS-based PC's. One needed a powerful computer to run it though. That 40MHz 386 with the VGA display wasn't going to cut it. By this point, the 486 processor was finding its way into more workstation configurations. The original 486 DX processor went up to clock-speeds of 50MHz, which is what this PCEM setup uses.

PCEM is emulating a workstation with a Intel 486 processor running at 50MHz, 8MB's of RAM, and a Trident TGUI9440 SVGA video adapter. Such a computer would have carried a astronomical price tag in 1992. However, MicroStation won't demand anything less as the program makes use of the high-res SVGA modes. MicroStation is running at 1024 by 768, 256 colors. This would have been unheard of in the PC world in the early 90's.

The only other computers accomplishing such feats were the 68030 Mac IIx and IIcx and the Commodore Amiga 4000. MicroStation for DOS used its own GUI that conformed to the look-and-feel of the Motif Window Manager used on high-end UNIX workstations made by SGI, IBM, HP, and Sun Microsystems. The 486 meant business as these processor would scream "POWER" at the top of there lungs, along with a 3D-rendering application to take advantage of that power.