Cool an ensoniq soundscape DB mith 2 MB Sound ROM.
i always asked myself if it is possible to use the EEPROM firmware of this board to run it on the aztech wavepower which has the very same chipsets and wavetable Rom. Unfortunately I do not have the firmware.

Got this in the mail today. It will do nice in my next 486 build. That will be a 486dx33 based build, with only ISA slots.
Now wait a minute some might say.... Active cooling on a dx33? Well yes. Even the 486dx33 runs hot.
Shure it does not require cooling at all. It's just me, who likes to add cooling when something becomes hot.
Better be on the safe side, with parts that are this old. I just like it to run as long time as possible.

Here's a small 486 haul. Grabbed these for $30, all of them sold as is, unconfirmed to work, so it will be fun to see if they all work.

Octek Hippo VL+ DCA Motherboard

This one had a leaking battery which I removed. The battery had caused a lot of surface corrosion, I rubbed most of that away with vinegar then soap, it doesn't look as good as new but it does look like it shouldn't have problems.

There was, however another issue. This board was probably not well stored, so when I checked the chipset ICs (a habit I have from checking 3dfx cards) I saw that some legs had been mashed together into contact. I carefully parted these with a sharp modelling knife, and it looks like they are still soldered to the PCB and unsevered.

The board came with this CPU:

Intel 486 DX2-66 Overdrive

As well as 8MB 30-pin RAM but I can not know whether it's EDRAM or just normal SIMMs, they are labelled ZMD MM 108-60 on the back, no referenca to EDRAM anywhere, so likely regular SIMMs.

I also bought this CPU because why not, I love UMC.

UMC U5S-SUPER33

And the seller was kind enough to add this to the lot:

AMD Am486 DX2-66

As well as a User's Manual for one Wearness BusinessStation 386/486 PC, which will be my toilet/bedtime reading for some time 😊

appiah4 wrote:

Here's a small 486 haul.

Your images not displayed, until I enable scripts from bolterandchainsword.com domain. (I use noscript plugin for firefox)

Sorry, time to find a new image host.

appiah4 wrote:

Sorry, time to find a new image host.

You can post the images directly on this forum.

Upload and then "place inline".

appiah4 wrote:

Sorry, time to find a new image host.

postimage.org works great! Direct image link and thumbnail support direct with BB code.

vetz wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

Sorry, time to find a new image host.

postimage.org works great! Direct image link and thumbnail support direct with BB code.

Updated with postimage, so now with even higher resolution photos. 😀

Oops.

Ah well, never had one of these before. 😜

Fairly standard 2+ with only a floppy controller and "language board" (aka 64k expansion) installed. Was really really hoping for a Mockingboard, but can't get lucky all the time. It doesn't work, but it really, really wants to; I'll post a fix-it thread over on VCF.

It also came with four 72-pin SIMMs in the bottom of the box, for some reason. The 11" Amdek green screen is pretty cute.

oshit. an actual apple ii+

those things fetch a pretty penny online! Like car payment level of money. I recently got Apple ii's myself. They are surprisingly fun machines.

xjas wrote:

Oops. […]
Show full quote

Oops.

CameraZOOM-20171212213427573.jpg

Ah well, never had one of these before. 😜

Fairly standard 2+ with only a floppy controller and "language board" (aka 64k expansion) installed. Was really really hoping for a Mockingboard, but can't get lucky all the time. It doesn't work, but it really, really wants to; I'll post a fix-it thread over on VCF.

It also came with four 72-pin SIMMs in the bottom of the box, for some reason. The 11" Amdek green screen is pretty cute.

Who's the DJ? I see that in the background. 😉

Second batch of the week came in, and with that I blew away the budget for December. (Who am I kidding?

Gigabyte GA-BX2000 This is supposed to be one of the best Slot 1 Coppermine boards IIRC? It has a few swollen caps that I will have replaced right away.

Intel PIII-550 Katmai This one came with the mainboard. I have more than too many Slot 1 CPUs but, oh well.

Inno3D Tornado TNT2 M64 The seller added this in as a bonus and I agreed since I previously had no TNT cards.

I love those Amdek monitors. I have the 310A amber phosphor TTL version of that still like-new in the box. I drag it out sometimes when I feel the need to tinker with some of my XT class machines.

xjas wrote:

Oops. […]
Show full quote

Oops.

CameraZOOM-20171212213427573.jpg

Ah well, never had one of these before. 😜

Fairly standard 2+ with only a floppy controller and "language board" (aka 64k expansion) installed. Was really really hoping for a Mockingboard, but can't get lucky all the time. It doesn't work, but it really, really wants to; I'll post a fix-it thread over on VCF.

It also came with four 72-pin SIMMs in the bottom of the box, for some reason. The 11" Amdek green screen is pretty cute.

I haven't found any way to work around the lack of support for serial mice in the safe mode of Windows XP. So, for the peace of mind and to avoid issues with potential future multiboots with other OSes, I decided to go the PS/2 route and bought this:

It's a Logitech Series/2 mouse, from 1987. Apparently it's the first aftermarket PS/2 mouse ever, at least according to Logitech, and it's not as yellow as it seems (just poor lighting). Aesthetic wise it's just a two buttoned C7 with the PS/2 protocol. It's untested so I'm not sure if it actually works, but if it does, I'll have much more compatibility than the serial mouse. It's a bit of a shame though, since PS/2 mice slightly slow the boot of XP down, although it's not that noticeable, but at least it will work in safe mode since you never know when you're going to need it.

I also bought a new 512MB PC133 module, since the 1GB ECC sticks aren't supported by my motherboard (each slot supports 512MB maximum of each ECC stick). You can't always win, they say.

Not hardware but related..I'm looking for a proper fabric mouse pad. In the meantime..

looking4awayout wrote:

I haven't found any way to work around the lack of support for serial mice in the safe mode of Windows XP. So, for the peace of […]
Show full quote

I haven't found any way to work around the lack of support for serial mice in the safe mode of Windows XP. So, for the peace of mind and to avoid issues with potential future multiboots with other OSes, I decided to go the PS/2 route and bought this:

It's a Logitech Series/2 mouse, from 1987. Apparently it's the first aftermarket PS/2 mouse ever, at least according to Logitech, and it's not as yellow as it seems (just poor lighting). Aesthetic wise it's just a two buttoned C7 with the PS/2 protocol. It's untested so I'm not sure if it actually works, but if it does, I'll have much more compatibility than the serial mouse. It's a bit of a shame though, since PS/2 mice slightly slow the boot of XP down, although it's not that noticeable, but at least it will work in safe mode since you never know when you're going to need it.

I also bought a new 512MB PC133 module, since the 1GB ECC sticks aren't supported by my motherboard (each slot supports 512MB maximum of each ECC stick). You can't always win, they say.

Speaking of motherboards that don't support memory modules higher than the specifications the board supports, I had a Compaq Presario 6300US desktop (ASUS board) that supported 2x 256MB PC-133 RAM, which sucked (Intel chip-sets).

Most likely it had the 440ZX chipset, that supports only Celerons. That one's the worst of the bunch, being aimed at the low end market. I have read that some motherboards at least with the VIA Apollo Pro 133A/T chipsets can support more than 1,5GB of RAM, but depends by the motherboard manufacturer. My QDI Advance 10T sadly, won't support more than 512MB per slot.

The Intel 440GX instead can support 1GB or even more, but so far I haven't found a GX motherboard anywhere.

derSammler wrote:

Just bought a lot of 90 ISA/PCI/AGP cards. 😲

Got them today. Now for the fun part. 😁

Ohh!! Give us the inventory! There must be some gems in there.

Already did a quick check and there are some very cool cards included. About 10 sound cards (SB Live!, Audigy2, ALS4000, Mozart OPL3, to name a few), also two Mystique cards, and some late, powerful AGP cards. Sadly, many cards have serve damage due to the completely inadequate shipping. Bend slot brackets and parted caps mostly, which can be fixed easily, however.