CrFr wrote on 2024-03-29, 13:11:

Just picked up this Cube. Seems to be in really nice condition. Only minor scratches, that probably can be polished off. One USB port is missing the plastic part in the center. Looks like normal off-the-shelf part, so it might be possible to replace for cheap.

Bigger headache is the missing power adapter. It needs 28V/205W, and has some funky connector, so that's going to cost. Original PSUs are insanely priced, so those are not an option.

I never owned a Mac but I don't understand why there is so much hate for the G4 Cube. I find it to be an extremely attractive design; way better than the bright, gaudy colors of the earlier iMac and tower computers.

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-03-29, 13:42:

CrFr wrote on 2024-03-29, 13:11:

Just picked up this Cube. Seems to be in really nice condition. Only minor scratches, that probably can be polished off. One USB port is missing the plastic part in the center. Looks like normal off-the-shelf part, so it might be possible to replace for cheap.

Bigger headache is the missing power adapter. It needs 28V/205W, and has some funky connector, so that's going to cost. Original PSUs are insanely priced, so those are not an option.

I never owned a Mac but I don't understand why there is so much hate for the G4 Cube. I find it to be an extremely attractive design; way better than the bright, gaudy colors of the earlier iMac and tower computers.

The "extremely attractive design" was pretty much everything it had when compared to apples other offerings. If you wanted a serious machine you would get a properly up-gradable G4 tower for a little more and if you just needed an email machine you could get get an iMac for cheaper. There was just no reason for it to exist.

InTheStudy wrote on 2024-03-29, 13:26:

Are you on team "preserve originality at all costs", or team "preserve functionality over originality"? Because from five minute […]
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CrFr wrote on 2024-03-29, 13:11:

Bigger headache is the missing power adapter. It needs 28V/205W, and has some funky connector, so that's going to cost. Original PSUs are insanely priced, so those are not an option.

Are you on team "preserve originality at all costs", or team "preserve functionality over originality"? Because from five minutes of reading, you could power this from a 90W USB-C adapter (obviously by replacing the internal power conversion circuitry) without any issue - if you don't try to run passthrough power to an external display; which is what the extra 120 odd watts were for.

I did a little quick googling, and there were rumours of readily available generic PSU's with the right voltage and pinout, but I didn't verify the data so I'm not going to cite them. Easy enough to find if you wanted to read up and do the research yourself on whether it would work!

Have to confess - if I had a service manual for it. I'd probably be building a complete replacement PSU module for Popcorn (yes, I named my synth) . I might well ask the technician to identify the internal voltages while doing the repair, now that I'm thinking about it. Could be useful. Should be going to him next week.

I'd like to avoid modifying the machine, if possible. I'm going to use it with my 20" cinema display, so I guess it needs somewhat close to original power rating. I found a 28V/160W power brick for about 60 euros, and a suitable connector to splice in, so I think I will go with that.

I saw those TDK power supplies at Mouser, that are supposedly direct fit, but they cost over 200 euros at 165W capacity. I'm not going to spend that kind of money.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-28, 09:44:

I bough one of my Unicorn Motherboards today, a Epox EP-MVP3G5 Super 7 motherboard with a full fat 2Mb of L2 Cache . The board h […]
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I bough one of my Unicorn Motherboards today, a Epox EP-MVP3G5 Super 7 motherboard with a full fat 2Mb of L2 Cache . The board has been tested by the seller who is a retro collector themselves with some rather rare parts and I have bought parts from them before.

Been hunting for this board for a number of years now and this is the first I have seen for sale, I think it deserves to be paired up with a modded K6-2+ 570 to K6-3+ 600 I have and possibly a Voodoo4 4500 or 5500. (I might throw a non modded K6-2+ 570 in there at 600 and see which one performs better with the 2Mb L2)

About the only blemish I see is some socket discolouration, seller says its likely from Ozone being produced by the nearby VRM coil components browning the socket plastic and doesn't affect the board at all, I have no reason to doubt this as it seems plausible.

Epox EP-MVP3G5.jpg

Such a lovely rare board.

I have the one megabyte cache version of this board, and it has been the best Super 7 board I have ever used.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-03-23, 14:43:

Tempting, but I will resist the urge. This is basically fluff surrounding the video card. I wonder why this place doesn't sell on Ebay?

They have dropped the price to $150.00, so I'm being tempted anew. I actually briefly possessed a 5950 Ultra; when I upgraded my former employer's gaming PC from a K7N2 to a Core 2 Duo P5N-E, he gave me the old parts. I never even tried out the card, but ended up trading it to someone for some other computer parts.

CrFr wrote on 2024-03-29, 15:17:

InTheStudy wrote on 2024-03-29, 13:26:

Are you on team "preserve originality at all costs", or team "preserve functionality over originality"? Because from five minute […]
Show full quote

CrFr wrote on 2024-03-29, 13:11:

Bigger headache is the missing power adapter. It needs 28V/205W, and has some funky connector, so that's going to cost. Original PSUs are insanely priced, so those are not an option.

Are you on team "preserve originality at all costs", or team "preserve functionality over originality"? Because from five minutes of reading, you could power this from a 90W USB-C adapter (obviously by replacing the internal power conversion circuitry) without any issue - if you don't try to run passthrough power to an external display; which is what the extra 120 odd watts were for.

I did a little quick googling, and there were rumours of readily available generic PSU's with the right voltage and pinout, but I didn't verify the data so I'm not going to cite them. Easy enough to find if you wanted to read up and do the research yourself on whether it would work!

Have to confess - if I had a service manual for it. I'd probably be building a complete replacement PSU module for Popcorn (yes, I named my synth) . I might well ask the technician to identify the internal voltages while doing the repair, now that I'm thinking about it. Could be useful. Should be going to him next week.

I'd like to avoid modifying the machine, if possible. I'm going to use it with my 20" cinema display, so I guess it needs somewhat close to original power rating. I found a 28V/160W power brick for about 60 euros, and a suitable connector to splice in, so I think I will go with that.

I saw those TDK power supplies at Mouser, that are supposedly direct fit, but they cost over 200 euros at 165W capacity. I'm not going to spend that kind of money.

Did a little testing with a bench power supply to figure out what is the real power consumption, and it seems Cube and 20" Cinema Display only takes about 75 watts. Cube alone idling without monitor is only 25 watts. So something like 100W PSU should be well on the safe side.

Just received 3x QDI Socket 370 motherboards - appear to be unused 😀
Caps look good - really hoping they work!

Well that wasn’t a long wait to find a system to put between my Model F and my 5151 monitor.

I’ll be able to test it later after I’m done at work. I’m excited to experience the slowness, and my inability to put anything on it until I can get an XTIDE and or some other way to transfer files.

Ordered an old motherboard today, for Pentium 4, the card is an MSI 845 PRO, uses PC133 RAM (SDRAM), and the Socket is 423, it is probably the first model with that chipset, usually the 423s have RDRAM and i850 chipset, unfortunately there are none here!
However, beyond the MB, the CPU and RAM are included, I don't know the processor frequency, I hope it's an 1800, because I don't have either an 1800 or a 1900, but it could be anything like a 1500 or a 1700 , we'll see when it arrives.
The maximum installable RAM is 3 GB, but it is almost impossible to find 1 1 GB module, let alone three, for this reason, the maximum I can install is 1.5 GB.

BetaC for your XT, you could maybe null modem cable from your MMX rig, there's laplink and other transfer programs that have a bootstrap method to download a client. Parallel port mode isn't too bad on them, once you've got client loaded, it's almost as fast as the original HDDs 🤣

BetaC wrote on 2024-03-29, 19:07:

I’m excited to experience the slowness, and my inability to put anything on it

just the words are generating early PC nostalgia 😀

BetaC wrote on 2024-03-29, 19:07:

Well that wasn’t a long wait to find a system to put between my Model F and my 5151 monitor.
IMG_3190.jpeg
I’ll be able to test it later after I’m done at work. I’m excited to experience the slowness, and my inability to put anything on it until I can get an XTIDE and or some other way to transfer files.

My favorite way to put things on my 5150 is with a parallel port CF card reader. There are apparently some out there that are compatible with the 8088 alone, but the one I have requires at least a 286, so I have to enable the 286 upgrade card that is in my PC. If you can find one of the ones that will work on an 8088 they're amazing. It is actually significantly faster to load applications from the external CF reader using an ancient 32MB CF card than it is to use the internal 20MB MFM hard drive in my PC. 🤣

I received a 6800GT PCIe today... but artifacting.
I got refund and kept the card. The second I have which does not work...

I GOT A TERMINAL!

RCA Videotex data terminal VP3501 got it for $25 no idea if it works. i'll need to finger out the power and video cables.

The ZX81 of terminals.

A ZX-81 with an interface 1 is the ZX-81 of terminals 🤣

Finally got sick of seeing a Kingston Turbochip in my watchlist so I bought one. Hopefully it works in my crappy 486 machine with broken L2 cache.

BetaC wrote on 2024-03-29, 19:07:

Well that wasn’t a long wait to find a system to put between my Model F and my 5151 monitor.
IMG_3190.jpeg
I’ll be able to test it later after I’m done at work. I’m excited to experience the slowness, and my inability to put anything on it until I can get an XTIDE and or some other way to transfer files.

Looks like a nice 5160, congrats! I would go with the Xtide and CF. It’s sluggish doing a DIR read but with a small CF becomes bearable. In the meantime you can use your 486 5 1/4 to format and transfer files to the hard drive.
Great systems with such an amazing Desktop Presence when all set up.

The last of my "floppy" goodness arrived!

Alps Drive to go into my DOS 6.22/Win 3.1 machine alongside the GoTek.

Disks mainly for the DOS machine as well.

Sony 2X drive mainly for archival purposes.

Got this I/O ISA card for cheap. Anyone know what the data security port is for?