Wow. Is that an amplified Covox Speech Thing?

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-10-19, 15:38:

But I paid more than gas. […]
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Kahenraz wrote on 2022-10-19, 03:11:

That's a fair haul. The Voodoos, AWE32 (with genuine OPL), AWE64, and Aztech are all good finds. I don't have much opinion on the rest. You got your gas money covered, even at 100km.

But I paid more than gas.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-10-19, 06:24:

Wish I could find an AWE64 Gold in a pile of junk.

I didn't find it in a pile of junk. The seller however did. His grandpa did have a scrapyard. That's where he found all this stuff, when he was a kiddo. He was very aware of the value of the Voodoos and AWEs. Paid 350€ for all of it. Kinda: "Pay full price for the 4 cards and get everything else for free." He had plenty of offers already, but was too lazy to send parcels and glad to get rid of everything at once, even at a lower price.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-10-19, 02:57:

that ET4000 PCI though would be very hard to beat for a VLB card, might be one or two models that could get close or match it.

But the mainboard doesn't have PCI. Only VLB and ISA.
So the choice is between VLB ET4000 or the VLB from Cirrus.

I didn’t mean junk quite the way it came across,. The PCI Et4000 is based on the VLB version and there is very little performance difference between them, if you have the vlb version then that’s as good as it gets for that bus without getting expensive.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-10-19, 16:55:

The PCI Et4000 is based on the VLB version and there is very little performance difference between them, if you have the vlb version then that’s as good as it gets for that bus without getting expensive.

What would be better than an ET4000 on VLB? :>
I found the ET4000 in a literal junk pile and saved it from the scrappers. The card that grabbed my attention was a Voodoo, but I also spotted ET4000, ET3000 and an Adaptec SCSI controller for ISA. When the parcel arrived I also found a valuable Apple card and a super rare emulator card, which didn't even debut on Youtube yet. Best pile of junk ever. xD
Couldn't test the ET4000 yet, because I don't had a VLB board. So it's nice to have a board now. Definitely gonna keep it, so I can test other VLB cards I might find in junk piles.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-10-19, 16:50:

Wow. Is that an amplified Covox Speech Thing?

That is a much better device, it's Adlib and SB compatible (real mode) in DOS and windows.
Great find, especially for this price.

I paid $49.15 $44.65 after taxes and S&H.

Just got this from ebay 😀

Box has seen better days but it includes the driver CD and for £26 I can hardly complain 😁

Heh, must be the bridge chip that creates all the heat for that cooler being needed, my PCIe version is single slot with a much smaller one.

Radical Vision wrote on 2022-10-19, 10:58:

Got this SeaGate (not Barracuda or Medalist) 200MB, for cheap it works fine, no bad sectors..

20221018_144008(1).jpg
20221018_144020.jpg

That's a great old drive 😀 I have a fondness for this era of hard drive since our first 486 PC housed in an XT case had a very similar drive. The anti vibration mounting and the front LED connector disappeared on all later generation drives. This era of drive and the MFM drives like the HardCard are my favourite harddrive sounds.
Always worth saving one of these especially old drives, where the rubber dissolving hasn't killed the drive.
I've got two of those Seagate ~250mb drives, one works perfectly and the other stops working after a minute or two of operation even after trying to change capacitors and stuff. Most other desktop drives from this era that I've had, did not survive old age. I've got a few older drives in the sub 1GB capacity range, especially for laptops, but quite a few of them the rubber noise damper dissolving has made them so that they only start when I give them a hard knock to free up the arm, which kinda ruins the drives after not very long.

I got this Compaq Armada 7350MT for cheap as untested and it's a real fixer upper, I bought it mostly for the fact that I know it contains an ESS wavetable. But it's a mass of broken plastic so far I've had to rebuild one of the weak points with superglue and baking soda.

I did not realise just how hard it was to get a suitable caddy for this laptop though. No way I can find one for sale but huh, I happen to have the connector that fits it from my spare parts 'bin'. I wonder what the pinout for the 50 pin connector is? I'm planning to wire this connector up to a compact flash adapter. These things are rare enough that I'm not gonna bother trying this as a PCB project type, just wire it on direct to this weird connector:

it looks pretty good inside so I'll give it a test run tomorrow - someone removed the NIMH bios battery a while ago and it's not corroded in there, but I do think a drink like coffee got spilled on it.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-10-19, 21:55:

Heh, must be the bridge chip that creates all the heat for that cooler being needed, my PCIe version is single slot with a much smaller one.

IIRC the bridge chip is on the back and that cooler is mostly for silence.. I believe I own a 4650 AGP as well.

appiah4 wrote on 2022-10-19, 23:56:

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-10-19, 21:55:

Heh, must be the bridge chip that creates all the heat for that cooler being needed, my PCIe version is single slot with a much smaller one.

IIRC the bridge chip is on the back and that cooler is mostly for silence.. I believe I own a 4650 AGP as well.

Indeed the bridge chip is on the back with a piece of thermal pad on it, my AGP 3850 keeps crashing while running more intensive games and it's most likely due to that chip frying itself, I'll have to see if the 4670 fares any better in this regard

berenyi_kft wrote on 2022-10-20, 00:32:

appiah4 wrote on 2022-10-19, 23:56:

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-10-19, 21:55:

Heh, must be the bridge chip that creates all the heat for that cooler being needed, my PCIe version is single slot with a much smaller one.

IIRC the bridge chip is on the back and that cooler is mostly for silence.. I believe I own a 4650 AGP as well.

Indeed the bridge chip is on the back with a piece of thermal pad on it, my AGP 3850 keeps crashing while running more intensive games and it's most likely due to that chip frying itself, I'll have to see if the 4670 fares any better in this regard

Back when these cards were new a friend if mine was having that issue. So installed a small heatsink for ram chips and that card never acted up again. These heat sinks are cheap and it's a worthwhile mod.

berenyi_kft wrote on 2022-10-20, 00:32:

appiah4 wrote on 2022-10-19, 23:56:

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-10-19, 21:55:

Heh, must be the bridge chip that creates all the heat for that cooler being needed, my PCIe version is single slot with a much smaller one.

IIRC the bridge chip is on the back and that cooler is mostly for silence.. I believe I own a 4650 AGP as well.

Indeed the bridge chip is on the back with a piece of thermal pad on it, my AGP 3850 keeps crashing while running more intensive games and it's most likely due to that chip frying itself, I'll have to see if the 4670 fares any better in this regard

You can solve this by putting a heat sink on the bridge chip, it does require shaving down the thermal pad but adding a heatsink to the bridge chip is worth it, I have a 4650 AGP that I had to do this to.

I finally got hold of a ZX Spectrum in really good condition. It even has the original plastic protection on the keyboard. I may be peeling that off. It however doesn't have the original outer box. I'm usually not so fussed about original packaging but in this case i may consider reproducing it.

This keyboard and a serial mouse.

That is a Cherry D-91275 AT keyboard with italian layout. It's fantastic, just needs a bit of cleaning.

Nexxen wrote on 2022-10-18, 15:58:

Bought a socket 423 GA-8IDX3 (rev. 1.x) board. Seller said it has stability issues. I can count 4 of those issues :) if it the B […]
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Bought a socket 423 GA-8IDX3 (rev. 1.x) board.
Seller said it has stability issues. I can count 4 of those issues 😀 if it the BIOS I can desolder and flash + add a socket for future stuff. It has dual bios, really easy.
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-8IDX3-rev-1x/sp#sp

Seller's pic.

Replaced 4x 6.3V 3300µF
Socketed the PLCC32 BIOS chip.

Flashed latest bios version F4.
Board came with a custom version F3b with a pic for "Olidata" computers. But all else was just the same as new F4.
I'll benchmark at a later date. Happy to have a working board.
There is just the black goo on the cpu (original thermal compound) that I need to clean.

😀

Baleog wrote on 2022-10-20, 09:53:

I finally got hold of a ZX Spectrum in really good condition. It even has the original plastic protection on the keyboard. I may be peeling that off. It however doesn't have the original outer box. I'm usually not so fussed about original packaging but in this case i may consider reproducing it.

looks in really good condition, like we were in 1982/3 again 😀

This Philips sound card which uses a repainted CMI8738 chip. I'm curios if the drivers are better in DOS...

Edit: It looks like there are no official DOS drivers. I guess those from C-Media might work.

On the other hand, this card still has a valid page with drivers and everything: https://www.philips.co.uk/c-p/PSC604_00/-/support

Baleog wrote on 2022-10-20, 09:53:

I finally got hold of a ZX Spectrum in really good condition. It even has the original plastic protection on the keyboard. I may be peeling that off. It however doesn't have the original outer box. I'm usually not so fussed about original packaging but in this case i may consider reproducing it.

I never had one of these, but I know they were very popular. It absolutely amazes me how many new games are produced for the ZX Spectrum, every year, to this day. Nice find!

Baleog wrote on 2022-10-20, 09:53:

I finally got hold of a ZX Spectrum in really good condition. It even has the original plastic protection on the keyboard. I may be peeling that off. It however doesn't have the original outer box. I'm usually not so fussed about original packaging but in this case i may consider reproducing it.

a poormans amstrad cpc 😜

I have a couple of ZX81s. I don't care for the garish colors of the spectrum, so its precessor is interesting enough for me.