The 2.5" hard drives arrived from China and turns out I'd ordered 160GB drives:

What a perfectly stupid size for retro purposes! Oh well. 😭

I had a 44-pin to 40-pin adapter like one of these guys:

But there just wasn't enough clearance for the drive in Carmen's case, even in the the spot meant for SSDs. So, since learning to solder is a current project of mine, I decided to attempt swapping out the standard 40-pin header on the adapter with a right-angle one. Removing the existing header from the adapter proved much more challenging than I was expecting, and resulted in some mild mangling of the adapter. I soldiered on, and even did my first attempt at repairing a trace.

All in all, I learned a lot. Put the lil boot back on and it even looks half decent:

'Scuse me for patting myself on the back for accomplishing basic shit, but I'm starting from zero and it's fun. 😘

Anyway, it works!!!!

Since it's my thread and no one can stop me, here are some more pics. 😈

Absolutely keeping the SD card reader as a D: drive (and keeping USB!):

With the cards back in:

Things looks a little wobbly between the ISA riser and the HD but uhh, it's just the perspective. 🫣

From the side (oh yeah, I bumped the RAM up to 64MB):

And there we go:

Back to being a structurally unsound monitor stand, now with something inside! Some pretty decent somethings actually. Getting a real HD in there and some kind of front-facing removable storage was big. The last thing really holding this build back is the video card which just isn't suited to handling all those fun VESA modes. I'm thinking I'll just suck it up and pay eBay prices for a 4MB Diamond Steath PCI VGA card of some sort.

ubiq wrote on 2023-11-03, 21:31:

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2023-11-03, 12:41:

ubiq wrote on 2023-10-19, 19:30:

Ok, so here is Toby, the result of the glow-up I gave that beat-up beige mini-tower. IMG_5972.jpeg […]
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Ok, so here is Toby, the result of the glow-up I gave that beat-up beige mini-tower.
IMG_5972.jpeg

I replaced the broken, faceplate-missing floppy drive with a GoTek. I think they're going for a more Amiga grey/beige with these? Doesn't matter, impossible to match beiges anyway. Along the same lines, I was never going to find a replacement for the missing 3.5 bay cover, so I put some USB ports there.

Rear:
IMG_5973.jpeg

And inside:
IMG_5975.jpeg

Surprise, it's a Slot 1 build! Here's what I did:

Case: Generic crusty ole AT case
CPU: Pentium III 1.1GHz SL5QW
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-6BA (Intel 440BX, Slot 1)
Memory: 256 MB (2 * 128MB PC133 DIMMs)
Graphics: ASUS V8200T2 Pure GeForce3 AGP 64MB
Sound: Sound Blaster AWE64 (CT4520)
Storage: Promise FastTrak S150 TX4 (PCI SATA controller)
/w 2 * 2TB Seagate Baracuda SATA drives
Misc: USB 2.0 PCI card (NEC chipset)
Removable Media: MSI DVD-RW IDE
GoTek USB floppy emulator
Front Panel USB 2.0

So I kinda have a thing for Baby AT and mATX Slot 1 boards. 🤷‍♂️ Not a whole lot to say about this one. The ridiculous storage situation is a result of me seeing what the biggest drives it could take from my stack of retired NAS drives. And then I made a striped array with them. 😈 For the PSU, after blowing out half a pound of dust out of it, the original one seemed to be in decent enough shape, so I reused it.

No sneaky cable management shenanigans with this old case:
IMG_5978.jpeg

'nother inside angle:
IMG_5981.jpeg

I like this one for a solid, unassuming, utility/bench computer. Its jankiness reminds me of my old AT case that served me from 386SX through to P200 back in the day.

Hey now, did you steal my case! 😁

Seriously, I have exactly same case home! It's overall in nice condition, came with P200 and stuff, but didn't have use for it as it was. I recently installed Zida 4DPS, AMD 486-120 and some other stuff in it for high-end 486/DOS system. Haven't completed the software installation, though. Maybe something for next weekend, eh?

Neat! I suspect my case had some of the original hardware in it when I got it, a P200 on a MSI mobo, the ESS sound card, and.. not much else.

The ESS sound card has been a fantastic discovery. I think I've finally learned a hard lesson that it's just not worth it to try and find a good SB16 that isn't compromised in some way (hanging note bugs, etc).

Agree, ESS cards are simply great. Cards that I have are at least sound really clean and OPL emulation of ESS chip is really good. They sound slightly different, but the difference isn’t huge and all notes come out as they should. It is a shame that Creative couldn’t deliver the same with CQM.

Good bonus is that they are affordable cards compared to pretty much anything from Creative and with OPL.

ubiq wrote on 2023-11-03, 22:04:

Since it's my thread and no one can stop me, here are some more pics. 😈

In the words of emperor Palpatine ... "Unlimited POWER!!!" 🤣

I for one wouldn't have complained anyways, it's a super cool project! Kudos!

I've been posting about this in the usual threads, but this is my thread, so here we go!

A few weeks ago I happened on an eBay listing for a "ASUS A7V8X-MX SE, Socket A, AMD Motherboard Athlon XP 2600+ Barton 512M RAM" with zero bids, zero reserve, and two days left.

I threw $10 at it and ended up winning it! This is my first real eBay "score" so I'm feeling pretty chuffed about it. 😊 Sure, the shipping was 4x the amount but whatever, it actually showed up as listed, fully working:

It does have at least one bad cap that needs some attention, but that's not unexpected:

I wasn't particularly planning on building an Althon XP system, but it fits well with what I already have, as my current fastest retro PC is a Slot 1 P3-1100MHz (Toby). I also have the perfect case for it, the one I was originally using for Penny in this old pic:

(Hmm, that looked pretty good... no removable media really killed any Socket 7 build I tried in this case though)

As I posted here, this mobo is newer than what I usually mess with, so I was starting to think I didn't have an appropriate GPU for it - then I dug up this thing I scavenged locally a while back:

I didn't know what it was when I found it, only that it was huge and had an AGP connector. Not sure I even tried it out before now.

So I must have some sort of mental block, because I just don't remember this era of GPUs. Assuming the hideous HSF is aftermarket. Still, why is the card so weirdly huge yet sparse?

Yeah, It's a bridged PCI-E chip:

So I'm guessing this is just what late-era AGP cards looked like. Just kind of low effort design. It's also oddly wider than modern GPUs, extending past the end of the slot bracket like a card from the 80's.

Anyway, it works!

So we're in business. 😈

Since I'm using a silly-huge GPU, might as well dig out the similarly silly (periord correct!) Promise SATA controller I have:

Yeah, it has a standard-ass 168-pin DIMM socket with a PC133 256MB DIMM in it. 😅 Anyway, I'm booting and installing Windows XP off a USB 2.0 CDROM drive just because this mobo can and that's neat.

Now for the case... after digging it out, I remembered that the front panel ribbon cable was a mess. To fix it, I decided to frankenstein a HD Audio cable from another case to the mobo-header end of the ribbon cable.

As a total newb I had no idea what I was doing, did not look up any Youtubes for reference, and just made it up as I went. Had about 2" of too-big heat shrink that I made go the distance.

Heck yeah, heat shrink hides all crimes:

And it works!

Plop it all into the case and heck yeah, I think we're cookin with gas:

I was hoping something like OpenRGB would work in XP, but no go, so I'll stick with offloading RBG control to my Win 11 machine.

Early days playing with this build - yikes, it's more difficult than I expected to get games from the early 2000's working. And the ways they don't work are often not helpful - sometimes just exiting with no message. Memory management in DOS wasn't fun, but at least games told you what they needed!

Bit of a messy pic, on the left edge of the case I'm using one of my favourite lil guys, a USB 2.0 splitter:

One of these guys:

Honestly, they're one of my "secret weapons" - I've found them extremely versatile for retro stuff, especially connecting modern case's USB ports to PCI USB 2.o cards (that just have an internal USB jack, not a header). I think I use one in most of my builds. Here, since the mobo only has one USB header, I was using it to connect the case's ports and also the fan controller. Since no XP support for the latter, I just added a slot bracket breakout with a couple more ports.

Anyway, oooh shiny:

With the SSD put back and the side panel attached.

What a stupid idea to put all the "front panel" stuff on what is pretty much intended to be the wall-facing side of the case. Oh well, I'm the one that bought the case so who's stupid here...

Tidied up my desk, sorted the RGB and got it pushing some pixels:

PWM-dimmed LEDs always show up max bright in pics, but IRL it's a fraction as bright.

Liking this build so far - more appropriate platform for this case than a Socket 7 where I was always frustrated by no removable media. Honestly though... I have no real nostalgia for this era of computing. At least, not for any of the games. (Well, full disclosure I guess - in my gaming cred cv, there's a bit of a gap here that can be explained by "World of Warcraft was released November 23 2004")

Anyway, if nothing else, good use of a case I wasn't otherwise using, and it fills a gap in my ~retro collection~

ubiq wrote on 2023-11-03, 21:47:

The 2.5" hard drives arrived from China and turns out I'd ordered 160GB drives:

I have exactly same HM160HC drive with 3.5 interposer and used Seagate SeaTools (bootable dos version) to limit its reported capacity to 120gb. Worked like a charm with a fussy old bios.

ubiq wrote on 2023-11-12, 22:31:

Bit of a messy pic, on the left edge of the case I'm using one of my favourite lil guys, a USB 2.0 splitter: IMG_6296.jpeg One […]
Show full quote

Bit of a messy pic, on the left edge of the case I'm using one of my favourite lil guys, a USB 2.0 splitter:
IMG_6296.jpeg

One of these guys:
512EEDcrKEL._SL1500_.jpg

Honestly, they're one of my "secret weapons" - I've found them extremely versatile for retro stuff, especially connecting modern case's USB ports to PCI USB 2.o cards (that just have an internal USB jack, not a header). I think I use one in most of my builds. Here, since the mobo only has one USB header, I was using it to connect the case's ports and also the fan controller. Since no XP support for the latter, I just added a slot bracket breakout with a couple more ports.

Isn't it just a 4-port hub on a board? Very cool, nonetheless 😀

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-11-13, 05:02:

ubiq wrote on 2023-11-12, 22:31:

Bit of a messy pic, on the left edge of the case I'm using one of my favourite lil guys, a USB 2.0 splitter: IMG_6296.jpeg One […]
Show full quote

Bit of a messy pic, on the left edge of the case I'm using one of my favourite lil guys, a USB 2.0 splitter:
IMG_6296.jpeg

One of these guys:
512EEDcrKEL._SL1500_.jpg

Honestly, they're one of my "secret weapons" - I've found them extremely versatile for retro stuff, especially connecting modern case's USB ports to PCI USB 2.o cards (that just have an internal USB jack, not a header). I think I use one in most of my builds. Here, since the mobo only has one USB header, I was using it to connect the case's ports and also the fan controller. Since no XP support for the latter, I just added a slot bracket breakout with a couple more ports.

Isn't it just a 4-port hub on a board? Very cool, nonetheless 😀

I also like those internal USB hubs. They are a much better solutions for installing older boards in newer cases because extra PCI USB controllers not only can't emulate keyboard but do add driver overhead.
Also, for motherboards that have not a single internal USB header you can connect those hubs with a USB Type-A cable to the rear i/o section. As done here.

By the way, do you have a link for that USB "splitter"?

Bruno128 wrote on 2023-11-13, 08:54:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-11-13, 05:02:

ubiq wrote on 2023-11-12, 22:31:

Bit of a messy pic, on the left edge of the case I'm using one of my favourite lil guys, a USB 2.0 splitter: IMG_6296.jpeg One […]
Show full quote

Bit of a messy pic, on the left edge of the case I'm using one of my favourite lil guys, a USB 2.0 splitter:
IMG_6296.jpeg

One of these guys:
512EEDcrKEL._SL1500_.jpg

Honestly, they're one of my "secret weapons" - I've found them extremely versatile for retro stuff, especially connecting modern case's USB ports to PCI USB 2.o cards (that just have an internal USB jack, not a header). I think I use one in most of my builds. Here, since the mobo only has one USB header, I was using it to connect the case's ports and also the fan controller. Since no XP support for the latter, I just added a slot bracket breakout with a couple more ports.

Isn't it just a 4-port hub on a board? Very cool, nonetheless 😀

I also like those internal USB hubs. They are a much better solutions for installing older boards in newer cases because extra PCI USB controllers not only can't emulate keyboard but do add driver overhead.
Also, for motherboards that have not a single internal USB header you can connect those hubs with a USB Type-A cable to the rear i/o section. As done here.

Yup, it's just a little internal USB hub! So, "splitter" is arguably not the right word, but it's what Amazon lists them as. 🤷‍♂️

I'm using one as you describe in my "Toby" build (tucked into the right-hand corner):

It's plugged into the internal jack of the USB 2.0 card and connects the front panel USB 2.0 ports I added. 😊

Nice, thanks. One or 2 might come in handy 😀

Hooked Carmen up to my home theatre through a recently acquired OSSC:

Just a temporary thing, but I wanted to enjoy the novelty of hooking a real GUS-equipped system up in the living room. Fun!

The OSSC is not really the right tool for the job, but it works well enough. Unfortunately, DOS demos are constantly switching resolutions, which hitches up the OSSC each time (understandable) and also interrupts the audio, since the OSSC is feeding that into the HDMI signal it's producing.

Anyway this is kind like coming home, as this is case used to house my Gaming/HTPC. I could never resolve the significant heat issues I had though, since no matter what I did to the case, it didn't change the fact that it was suck in a tiny cubby with no airflow. I finally gave up and switched to a much bigger case with fans on the front to blow out.

I decided I just wasn't happy with my K6-2 "Penny" build. For one, it was always supposed to be a Classic "Pentium" build - but really the deal-breaker was it just wouldn't play nice with my MS Sidewinder 3d Pro. If any of my computers should work with this joystick, it should be my main Win98 computer!

So.. I went down a detour where I gutted my "Toby" build (440BX in a crusty old BabyAT case), and was playing around with a MSI MS-5129 (TR5), but... then I remembered my original idea for this build - Classic Pentium hardware, but in as modern-looking a case as I can manage. So, here's Penny Reborn! 😉

Case: Fractal Design Pop Air
CPU: Intel Pentium 233 MMX
Mobo: AOpen AX5T-2 (430TX)
Memory: 64MB (4 * 16MB)
Graphics: Matrox Millenium II 8MB
Voodoo Graphics 4MB
Sound: Orpheus II /w DreamBlaster X2GS
Storage: WD Caviar 40GB IDE
Removable Media: LG DVD-RW IDE
Sony 3.5" Floppy

I feel like, for the most part, there were no compromises with this one - super clean, modern case; 2 x removable media; full size HD, using the onboard IDE controller; an actual 430-based ATX board, etc. This is, believe it or not, actually a pretty period-correct system! By my figuring: CPU - Jun 97; Mobo - Mar 97; Video - May 97; Voodoo Oct 96. Soundcard... gets a cool-factor pass, I figure. I have a AWE64 Value I might put in there once I've upgraded its memory.

I got into "retro computing" as a thing I wanted to call a hobby about a year ago. So, I've got one year's worth of making mistakes and getting things not quite right that I had in mind when putting together this iteration of Penny. Really happy with this one. ☺️

A few more pics:

The motherboard is clearly a pretty early ATX board. And not just because of the flatty backplane layout. Notice the lil black wire sneaking in to the middle of the board? That's because they put the header for the power button in the middle of the board! Also, USB works! Just plugged the cases's top ports right into the mobo header, no worries.

Might swap the ram out for a DIMM, but not going above 64MB so don't see the point. I'm ok with the Matrox card for now, but I have an ATI 3D Rage II+ that I might swap in. Not as an upgrade obv but, you know...

Nice clean builds! Good job on the soldering. I'm still learning too. I was looking for a beige case for my new ppro build, but I may go with a modern one since yours look so good.

ubiq wrote on 2024-02-15, 01:03:

So, here's Penny Reborn! 😉

Nice. What do you intend to play on that? With 262MHz overclock maybe it can pull off Half-life?

Bruno128 wrote on 2024-02-15, 10:34:

ubiq wrote on 2024-02-15, 01:03:

So, here's Penny Reborn! 😉

Nice. What do you intend to play on that? With 262MHz overclock maybe it can pull off Half-life?

Late 90's PC magazine pack-in CDs of course!

Serious answer - while I had Descent 2 in mind when I was building it, I think I may have unintentionally made a killer Build engine machine. Gonna install Blood and see how it runs. 😈