TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

That Electromyne shit worries the hell out of me. I'm afraid that's site is the beginning of commercialized overpriced retro computing. They want nearly £100 for $40 dollar cards like V3 3000s. The idea for a site like that (I thought) should be to have the lowest prices on the net for that stuff. There are a couple of vintage PC YouTubers advertising for there shitty overpriced European only service too.

I don't mind them for small things I can't easily get locally - RAM, decent old socket heatsinks, etc. Things that aren't "valuable" or collectible. Often for me it is cheaper to buy some things from them in bulk and wait a few weeks for it to arrive than to buy it locally. Australia doesn't have much retro stuff around unless you are spending all your free time looking for it. At the same time, a lot of their stuff is seriously overpriced. 300 EUR GF2 ultra? If that ever sells, I'm selling my collection and buying a GTX Titan card for my main PC 😉

Can't blame YouTubers for taking the sponsorship though. Quality videos take time to produce. Time is money, and getting advertising dollars or free stuff for their channel (or both) is always a good incentive to keep doing it.

But on topic, what I bought today:

Asus CUV4X-D - Dual socket 370 board. Comes with two 1GHz Coppermine which I'll probably upgrade to two modded 1.4GHz Tualatins in time. Bought it somewhat locally from a bulk classified listing for $20 AUD. Will be my new test bench retro motherboard, replacing my CUSL2 which has started acting up a lot lately. Might be an easy fix, but I have a feeling the NB is failing given the memory/PCI card issues - and I know its not the memory or cards I put in it.

No pictures yet as I'm not picking it up until the weekend as it is about 150KM away, but still a good purchase at a good price nonetheless. Will take some time to get there and back plus petrol costs. But most S370 non-OEM boards cost around $50+ here, and dual sockets even more.

If I don't end up using for test bench, I'll find some other project for it. Or at the very least a new home for it.

That Electromyne shit worries the hell out of me. I'm afraid that's site is the beginning of commercialized overpriced retro computing. They want nearly £100 for $40 dollar cards like V3 3000s. The idea for a site like that (I thought) should be to have the lowest prices on the net for that stuff. There are a couple of vintage PC YouTubers advertising for there shitty overpriced European only service too.

It's a german shop-site, so high prices are expected.

Got a nice haul of CPUs today — 13 units for 100 rub a piece (1,76USD). A lot of these were more of an impulse buy as I don't see any practical use for them in my builds — unless I'm missing something. So hurray for hoarding... I mean, collecting, of course!

- Intel Pentium Pro — a 200MHz/256KB version. I already have one in my working Pentium Pro build. But maybe one day I'll get my hands on a dual Socket 8 motherboard...
- Intel 386DX@33 + Intel i387. Can't say I ever saw a socketed 386 motherboard for sale in my town — an absolute majority seems to be later highly integrated cheap Am386DX40 boards with dead or leaking batteries. Still, I think that one day this could be a foundation for a great 386 build
- an Intel i386SX with an IIT FPU. The i386SX is a soldered unit and was literally cut from the motherboard along with some of the PCB, so I don't think I'll be able to use it. However, the FPU is socketed, which is why I got this combo in the first place
- an Intel 486SX@33 — because why not
- an Intel Overdrive DX20DPR66 — ditto. As far as I know, there is no motherboard that can take this chip but can't use a regular DX2@66, so this is not an "upgrade" Overdrive, but really a DX2 with a built-in heatsink. Still, this is my first ever Overdrive
- an Intel Pentium 75. Fun thing is, this unit has the original model name scratched off and was rebranded as a Pentium 100 — probably by some shady OEM
- ST 6x86@166MHz — AFAIK, a rebranded Cyrix
- AMD 5k86 P90 — I seem to like early Soc4/Soc5 lately for some reason
- 2xAMD 5x86@133
- Texas Instruments 486DX2@66 — I don't think there are any benefits to using this chip as opposed to a regular Intel/AMD DX2, but still, nice to have
- Cyrix M2@300 — again, don't think there is any point in using it as opposed to an AMD K6-3+ build I already have

Also got this boxed Powercolor Evilking 3 (Voodoo 3-3000@166MHz) for 9USD:

This is basically a PCI version of a card that I already have in my Super Socket 7 machine. I couldn't resist the box, really 😀 Otherwise, again, it's hard to imagine a use case for this, apart from a SIS-based Super Socket 7 motherboard (that doesn't have AGP) or a Voodoo3/TNT2 combo.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

That Electromyne shit worries the hell out of me. I'm afraid that's site is the beginning of commercialized overpriced retro computing. They want nearly £100 for $40 dollar cards like V3 3000s. The idea for a site like that (I thought) should be to have the lowest prices on the net for that stuff. There are a couple of vintage PC YouTubers advertising for there shitty overpriced European only service too.

You are right their prices are non-consistent to be honest. But for me, the price for my cpu was no-brainer. I was searching for non-prescott P4 for last few months and couldn't get any nearby. Even those chinese ebay sellers were not cheaper and I would have to wait for it another month or so. And electromyne was the only seller who distingusihes between various CPU revisions! Really not the case with chinese guys. But even then, Electromyne has some weird pricing - bought the newest cedar mill revision of P4 651 (D0 - 65W TDP) for 4.99 EUR, but the older 95W TDP B revision costs twice that much 9.99 EUR and I don't get why. Of course the 200MHz faster variant P4 661 cost 29.99 EUR which is a nonsense. And I've checked and ignored the other stuff like RAM or especially graphics cards, those are really overpriced, same on ebay.
And shipping? Well they are from Germany, about 250km far from me, so 2 EUR for shipping was okay. Paid on tuesday, delivered on friday and there were holidays on wednesday and thursday in our country, so it was basically delivered the next day 😉

mv_cz wrote:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

That Electromyne shit worries the hell out of me. I'm afraid that's site is the beginning of commercialized overpriced retro computing. They want nearly £100 for $40 dollar cards like V3 3000s. The idea for a site like that (I thought) should be to have the lowest prices on the net for that stuff. There are a couple of vintage PC YouTubers advertising for there shitty overpriced European only service too.

You are right their prices are non-consistent to be honest. But for me, the price for my cpu was no-brainer. I was searching for non-prescott P4 for last few months and couldn't get any nearby. Even those chinese ebay sellers were not cheaper and I would have to wait for it another month or so. And electromyne was the only seller who distingusihes between various CPU revisions! Really not the case with chinese guys. But even then, Electromyne has some weird pricing - bought the newest cedar mill revision of P4 651 (D0 - 65W TDP) for 4.99 EUR, but the older 95W TDP B revision costs twice that much 9.99 EUR and I don't get why. Of course the 200MHz faster variant P4 661 cost 29.99 EUR which is a nonsense. And I've checked and ignored the other stuff like RAM or especially graphics cards, those are really overpriced, same on ebay.
And shipping? Well they are from Germany, about 250km far from me, so 2 EUR for shipping was okay. Paid on tuesday, delivered on friday and there were holidays on wednesday and thursday in our country, so it was basically delivered the next day 😉

eBay is either really fair on prices or really insane. Dpeends on the time and your luck TBH.

Actually just bought 3 more AGP video cards:

ATI All in Wonder Radeon 32MB DDR AGP ($8)
NVIDIA GeForce 4MX 440SE 64MB SDR(?) AGP ($3.50)
SiS 3D Pro ?MB AGP ($6)

The SiS is probably the slowest AGP video card ever built. One third the performance of the RiVA 128. I think even NV1 was faster than 1/3rd of the RiVA. I literally bought it just to see if I had finally found a purpose 3D card SLOWER than the Virge/325. The Radeon I just want because I notice alot of games that were early adopters of HW TnL as a minimum requirement support GF256 but not Radeon for some reason even though there both forefather cards for the tech. The MX440SE is just for the hell of it because it's so cheap and how can I not get $3 worth of enjoyment out of it.

jheronimus wrote:

Got a nice haul of CPUs today — 13 units for 100 rub a piece (1,76USD). A lot of these were more of an impulse buy as I don't se […]
Show full quote

Got a nice haul of CPUs today — 13 units for 100 rub a piece (1,76USD). A lot of these were more of an impulse buy as I don't see any practical use for them in my builds — unless I'm missing something. So hurray for hoarding... I mean, collecting, of course!

2017-07-11 22.15.53.jpg

- Intel Pentium Pro — a 200MHz/256KB version. I already have one in my working Pentium Pro build. But maybe one day I'll get my hands on a dual Socket 8 motherboard...
- Intel 386DX@33 + Intel i387. Can't say I ever saw a socketed 386 motherboard for sale in my town — an absolute majority seems to be later highly integrated cheap Am386DX40 boards with dead or leaking batteries. Still, I think that one day this could be a foundation for a great 386 build
- an Intel i386SX with an IIT FPU. The i386SX is a soldered unit and was literally cut from the motherboard along with some of the PCB, so I don't think I'll be able to use it. However, the FPU is socketed, which is why I got this combo in the first place
- an Intel 486SX@33 — because why not
- an Intel Overdrive DX20DPR66 — ditto. As far as I know, there is no motherboard that can take this chip but can't use a regular DX2@66, so this is not an "upgrade" Overdrive, but really a DX2 with a built-in heatsink. Still, this is my first ever Overdrive
- an Intel Pentium 75. Fun thing is, this unit has the original model name scratched off and was rebranded as a Pentium 100 — probably by some shady OEM
- ST 6x86@166MHz — AFAIK, a rebranded Cyrix
- AMD 5k86 P90 — I seem to like early Soc4/Soc5 lately for some reason
- 2xAMD 5x86@133
- Texas Instruments 486DX2@66 — I don't think there are any benefits to using this chip as opposed to a regular Intel/AMD DX2, but still, nice to have
- Cyrix M2@300 — again, don't think there is any point in using it as opposed to an AMD K6-3+ build I already have

Also got this boxed Powercolor Evilking 3 (Voodoo 3-3000@166MHz) for 9USD:

2017-07-12 02.32.52.jpg

2017-07-12 02.33.22.jpg

This is basically a PCI version of a card that I already have in my Super Socket 7 machine. I couldn't resist the box, really 😀 Otherwise, again, it's hard to imagine a use case for this, apart from a SIS-based Super Socket 7 motherboard (that doesn't have AGP) or a Voodoo3/TNT2 combo.

That Voodoo 3 with box is epic!! adds 3X value and 10X nostalgic points! 😁

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

eBay is either really fair on prices or really insane. Dpeends on the time and your luck TBH. […]
Show full quote

eBay is either really fair on prices or really insane. Dpeends on the time and your luck TBH.

Actually just bought 3 more AGP video cards:

ATI All in Wonder Radeon 32MB DDR AGP ($8)
NVIDIA GeForce 4MX 440SE 64MB SDR(?) AGP ($3.50)
SiS 3D Pro ?MB AGP ($6)

The SiS is probably the slowest AGP video card ever built. One third the performance of the RiVA 128. I think even NV1 was faster than 1/3rd of the RiVA. I literally bought it just to see if I had finally found a purpose 3D card SLOWER than the Virge/325. The Radeon I just want because I notice alot of games that were early adopters of HW TnL as a minimum requirement support GF256 but not Radeon for some reason even though there both forefather cards for the tech. The MX440SE is just for the hell of it because it's so cheap and how can I not get $3 worth of enjoyment out of it.

It all depends on what you consider cheap. For example the SiS card (6326 i suppose, yes it is slow, but image quality would be far better than Virge) is really not worth $6 price, the same goes for GF4MX SE. Those are really cheap and basic AGP cards that were commonly used and go right into the dumpster, no one wants them here even for $1 or so even though local sellers are also trying to get on the retro hardware hype train. Maybe I'll pick up next month (when I'm around) a bunch of AGP cards (9250, 9550, 9200, 8500GT) as well as some socketA, sc478 boards, RAMs and CPUs for free. Seller want to dump them, because the winning bidder didn't pay for it, of course they are all untested and he plans to dump them. Voodoos are another story, but again, I'm not willing to pay ebay prices of $40 or more for voodoo2. That's why I got hold of PCI banshee for free and that's it. I like retro HW, it is an interesting hobby, but collecting only for "retro" prices as well.

mv_cz wrote:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

eBay is either really fair on prices or really insane. Dpeends on the time and your luck TBH. […]
Show full quote

eBay is either really fair on prices or really insane. Dpeends on the time and your luck TBH.

Actually just bought 3 more AGP video cards:

ATI All in Wonder Radeon 32MB DDR AGP ($8)
NVIDIA GeForce 4MX 440SE 64MB SDR(?) AGP ($3.50)
SiS 3D Pro ?MB AGP ($6)

The SiS is probably the slowest AGP video card ever built. One third the performance of the RiVA 128. I think even NV1 was faster than 1/3rd of the RiVA. I literally bought it just to see if I had finally found a purpose 3D card SLOWER than the Virge/325. The Radeon I just want because I notice alot of games that were early adopters of HW TnL as a minimum requirement support GF256 but not Radeon for some reason even though there both forefather cards for the tech. The MX440SE is just for the hell of it because it's so cheap and how can I not get $3 worth of enjoyment out of it.

It all depends on what you consider cheap. For example the SiS card (6326 i suppose, yes it is slow, but image quality would be far better than Virge) is really not worth $6 price, the same goes for GF4MX SE. Those are really cheap and basic AGP cards that were commonly used and go right into the dumpster, no one wants them here even for $1 or so even though local sellers are also trying to get on the retro hardware hype train. Maybe I'll pick up next month (when I'm around) a bunch of AGP cards (9250, 9550, 9200, 8500GT) as well as some socketA, sc478 boards, RAMs and CPUs for free. Seller want to dump them, because the winning bidder didn't pay for it, of course they are all untested and he plans to dump them. Voodoos are another story, but again, I'm not willing to pay ebay prices of $40 or more for voodoo2. That's why I got hold of PCI banshee for free and that's it. I like retro HW, it is an interesting hobby, but collecting only for "retro" prices as well.

Throwing PCs away is illegal in my worthless state (Thanks the State of Illinois) so I never find them. Instead there all sent to a regional recycler thats county controlled and the county forbids items from local reuse. I know a couple of private scrappers but they rarely have anything good. Every free PC I've gotten has been some bottom of the barrel configured OEM machine with IGP. I'm also rural which compounds the issue because tech moves a bit slow around here.

Not everybody lives in a third world country where vintage parts are abundant.

I'm not living in a third world country either 😀 But you're right, throwing away electronics is forbidden too. We have recycling centers for it, electronics shops are obliged to take old electronics from you, we even have special red containers to throw electro waste in, but besides fact they being "robbed" sometimes (like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIO_RbDkbI8 😀), it is not controlled or penalized in large way so many components find their way into normal dump.
On the other hand, people are not rich so something like lga775 setup is still being used and able to sold for good price. Normally you wouldn't find something like dualcore CPU or geforce8 card laying around.

mv_cz wrote:

I'm not living in a third world country either 😀 But you're right, throwing away electronics is forbidden too. We have recycling centers for it, electronics shops are obliged to take old electronics from you, we even have special red containers to throw electro waste in, but besides fact they being "robbed" sometimes (like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIO_RbDkbI8 😀), it is not controlled or penalized in large way so many components find their way into normal dump.
On the other hand, people are not rich so something like lga775 setup is still being used and able to sold for good price. Normally you wouldn't find something like dualcore CPU or geforce8 card laying around.

Shit, I think I confused Czech with one of its neighbors that's basically a modern day iron curtain. Maybe I'm thinking of one of the ex Soviet country's?

Ironically, the only not worthless PC I've ever found was a Inspiron 531S. It had an AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2GB of premium Corsair DDR2, and a less than 1 year old 500GB WD Black with under 20 power on hours (and the damn thing had never been used, it wasn't even Initialized). Why was it thrown out you may ask: Power Supply Failure. It took me all of two seconds to fix it. That hard drive is now my mains primary games drive.

The only retro PC I've ever found was my Pentium MMX system. A school had thrown it out and there method of disabling it consisted of the ever elaborate plan of unscrewing the hard drive, disconnecting the molex, and letting it float loose inside the case (which, in there diffence, probably would have done the damage had I not found it when I did)

That's pretty good find - both of systems I mean 😉 And yes, still few years after iron curtain fell in 1989 we were the place that western countries used for "recycling" PCs. I mean in 1996, when I was buying my first own PC as a student there were tons of refurbished IBM PS/2 systems that came from germany, UK and so on. And while most of developed countries were happily buying new pentium systems, the 486 was pretty high standard here. Few years later - between 1998 - 2000 were sweet spot for new hardware. Lot of people upgraded their aging 386/486 for something new and more capable with internet finally spreading, but more "newcomers" bought their first PC. That explains why so many components of that time is still available, but even so I wonder where all that socket7 Cyrix, Winchip or K5 processors ended - because of pricing the usual setup was anything but intel cpu 😉

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Shit, I think I confused Czech with one of its neighbors that's basically a modern day iron curtain. Maybe I'm thinking of one of the ex Soviet country's?

Mate your ignorance is only matched by your rudeness - think before you type.

mv_cz wrote:

That's pretty good find - both of systems I mean 😉 And yes, still few years after iron curtain fell in 1989 we were the place that western countries used for "recycling" PCs. I mean in 1996, when I was buying my first own PC as a student there were tons of refurbished IBM PS/2 systems that came from germany, UK and so on. And while most of developed countries were happily buying new pentium systems, the 486 was pretty high standard here. Few years later - between 1998 - 2000 were sweet spot for new hardware. Lot of people upgraded their aging 386/486 for something new and more capable with internet finally spreading, but more "newcomers" bought their first PC. That explains why so many components of that time is still available, but even so I wonder where all that socket7 Cyrix, Winchip or K5 processors ended - because of pricing the usual setup was anything but intel cpu 😉

Here in The Netherlands, most systems I found would have an Intel CPU (because at that time, Netherlands was doing really well economically so it seemed everyone had money to burn or something).
Many Cyrix's I found in OEM systems (mostly SiS chipsetted Compaqs or something) and only pre-Pentium had more CPUs of other brands.
But every time I found a Socket 7, 90% would have a slower Pentium in it (133MHz seemed to be quite popular here! But Socket 4 was pretty much non-existent).

badmojo wrote:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Shit, I think I confused Czech with one of its neighbors that's basically a modern day iron curtain. Maybe I'm thinking of one of the ex Soviet country's?

Mate your ignorance is only matched by your rudeness - think before you type.

Well, at least he is thinking, so I'd say cut him some slack 😜
Just explain to him if he doesn't understand, it's a (no offense) very small country which is doing relatively well for an old iron curtain country, so I can understand the mix-up.

I know someone who is a Czech, and speaks Czech.... I forget where it is they come from now though 🙁

spiroyster wrote:

I know someone who is a Czech, and speaks Czech.... I forget where it is they come from now though 🙁

might be worth checking into.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

That Electromyne shit worries the hell out of me. I'm afraid that's site is the beginning of commercialized overpriced retro computing. They want nearly £100 for $40 dollar cards like V3 3000s. The idea for a site like that (I thought) should be to have the lowest prices on the net for that stuff. There are a couple of vintage PC YouTubers advertising for there shitty overpriced European only service too.

Companies like Electromyne are cancer as they drive up the prices to where people are priced out of the market and everyone else is left with fewer options much like the housing bubble has done to Gen X and millennials.

My advice to people who have smaller collections or just getting started you better get at it quick before the prices sky rocket and you are priced out.

nforce4max wrote:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

That Electromyne shit worries the hell out of me. I'm afraid that's site is the beginning of commercialized overpriced retro computing. They want nearly £100 for $40 dollar cards like V3 3000s. The idea for a site like that (I thought) should be to have the lowest prices on the net for that stuff. There are a couple of vintage PC YouTubers advertising for there shitty overpriced European only service too.

Companies like Electromyne are cancer as they drive up the prices to where people are priced out of the market and everyone else is left with fewer options much like the housing bubble has done to Gen X and millennials.

My advice to people who have smaller collections or just getting started you better get at it quick before the prices sky rocket and you are priced out.

Good call. I'm in the market for a Voodoo 1 these days and I can't believe the prices they go for lately.

I sold a Voodoo 2 for 45 GBP this week and it made me feel dirty - but I can hardly replace it at that cost myself even if I tried to, so I don't know what to do either.

Do you undercut eBay/electromyne prices when selling?

Just received beautiful Roland bundle SCM-10AT with MPU-401 and SCB-7... brand new, cables are still sealed.
I also got a funny motherboards GA-586SGM super socket7 on SIS chipset...

appiah4 wrote:

Good call. I'm in the market for a Voodoo 1 these days and I can't believe the prices they go for lately.

I sold a Voodoo 2 for 45 GBP this week and it made me feel dirty - but I can hardly replace it at that cost myself even if I tried to, so I don't know what to do either.

Do you undercut eBay/electromyne prices when selling?

3dfx today is somewhat hype, especially with voodoo1/2 cards. Yes they were incredible for it's time, support glide ...... and few years back, their price was nearly zero (and still is, for people that don't use older hardware or simply don't understand this hype), they have been produced in mass numbers and that doesn't mean I'll buy voodoo1 for 30 EUR or something like that, which is higher price than in 1999 when I was selling my voodoo1 card 🤣
But what I really don't undestand are those online prices for Geforce256 or Geforce3. Those are standard nvidia cards that might were not so widely present (GF256), but they have not any special feature, what their successors lack. GF256 could be easily substituted with GF2MX which are normally free and instead of buying overpriced GF3 I've paid for my GF4Ti4800SE about 3 EUR. Same goes with first Radeon cards.

i understand people need to make a living, feed their kids, and what-not. doesnt mean i need to pay for a Lamborghini.