The Philips drive is indeed fine. Needs just some retrobright and you're set

PD2JK wrote on 2024-04-04, 19:14:

Highscreen Kompakt III with an AMD 386SX-33 for not too much. Fortunately only discolored by the sun, not tar or nicotine. […]
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Highscreen Kompakt III with an AMD 386SX-33 for not too much. Fortunately only discolored by the sun, not tar or nicotine.

I might just win a 'who-got-the-yellowest' competition.
DSC_8645.JPG

There's a Philips LMS ( CM260 card + CM206 drive ) installed, never seen one in the flesh.
DSC_8649.JPG

I love the look of that desktop. Reminds me of 70s scifi where the technology usually has a really industrial, pragmatic look to it. I think the orange and black adds to that for some reason.

Nothing too exciting from me today, just this cute little Voodoo3 3000 AGP that arrived from a nice chap in Finland, that will be going into a Slot A Athlon build soon. I've never played with a Voodoo3 before and it joins my Banshee and Voodoo2 SLI 😀

GigAHerZ wrote on 2024-04-04, 18:21:

Please dump the rom! There are almost no 486-class MR BIOSes available. Share the love! :D […]
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ubiq wrote on 2024-04-04, 04:18:

Huh, you're not wrong... looks like the slots for the plastic spacers are slightly non-standard. Thankfully, there are also thre […]
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BitWrangler wrote on 2024-04-04, 03:57:

I am crossing my fingers for you, but somewhere around then Acer went to weird not quite standard stuff.

Huh, you're not wrong... looks like the slots for the plastic spacers are slightly non-standard. Thankfully, there are also threaded holes for metal standoffs, so looks like I might have dodged a bullet:
IMG_1005.jpeg

IMG_1006.jpeg

🙂👍

Please dump the rom!
There are almost no 486-class MR BIOSes available.
Share the love! 😁

Heh, that came up a month or so ago when I first got the board and it turned out that someone had already uploaded the this exact bios a few weeks earlier. I've verified it's the same date/revision (and disregard that the TRW pic shows an AMIBIOS chip)

I've never used a MR BIOS system before, so I'm interested to see what people get excited about.

PD2JK wrote on 2024-04-04, 19:14:

Highscreen Kompakt III with an AMD 386SX-33 for not too much. Fortunately only discolored by the sun, not tar or nicotine.

I might just win a 'who-got-the-yellowest' competition.

That's more like orange or brown (iodine leakage from UV exposure, I'm guessing). Have fun retrobrighting that, if it's not too brittle for the process

As a fiend for soundcards, I bought an Audigy Gamer edition from the Goodwill auction site that was supposedly sealed.

The card arrived today and I went to inspect it, noticing firstly that it obviously wasn't sealed. I opened the box to look at the contents and...

PLOT TWIST

Two friggin' Diamond voodoo2's with the sli cable!!!!

I've yet to test them but I couldn't stop talking to my wife about how great of a find it was. Best $35 I've spent in awhile.

Cypher321 wrote on 2024-04-05, 01:19:

As a fiend for soundcards, I bought an Audigy Gamer edition from the Goodwill auction site that was supposedly sealed. […]
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As a fiend for soundcards, I bought an Audigy Gamer edition from the Goodwill auction site that was supposedly sealed.

IMG_20240404_175953701_HDR.jpg

The card arrived today and I went to inspect it, noticing firstly that it obviously wasn't sealed. I opened the box to look at the contents and...

PLOT TWIST

IMG_20240404_180148668_HDR.jpg

Two friggin' Diamond voodoo2's with the sli cable!!!!

I've yet to test them but I couldn't stop talking to my wife about how great of a find it was. Best $35 I've spent in awhile.

Simply Great!! I love when it happens. You have to test them and tell us how well they perform.

Cypher321 wrote on 2024-04-05, 01:19:

As a fiend for soundcards, I bought an Audigy Gamer edition from the Goodwill auction site that was supposedly sealed. […]
Show full quote

As a fiend for soundcards, I bought an Audigy Gamer edition from the Goodwill auction site that was supposedly sealed.

IMG_20240404_175953701_HDR.jpg

The card arrived today and I went to inspect it, noticing firstly that it obviously wasn't sealed. I opened the box to look at the contents and...

PLOT TWIST

IMG_20240404_180148668_HDR.jpg

Two friggin' Diamond voodoo2's with the sli cable!!!!

I've yet to test them but I couldn't stop talking to my wife about how great of a find it was. Best $35 I've spent in awhile.

Amazing! They are worth about $500

Cypher321 wrote on 2024-04-05, 01:19:

As a fiend for soundcards, I bought an Audigy Gamer edition from the Goodwill auction site that was supposedly sealed. […]
Show full quote

As a fiend for soundcards, I bought an Audigy Gamer edition from the Goodwill auction site that was supposedly sealed.

IMG_20240404_175953701_HDR.jpg

The card arrived today and I went to inspect it, noticing firstly that it obviously wasn't sealed. I opened the box to look at the contents and...

PLOT TWIST

IMG_20240404_180148668_HDR.jpg

Two friggin' Diamond voodoo2's with the sli cable!!!!

I've yet to test them but I couldn't stop talking to my wife about how great of a find it was. Best $35 I've spent in awhile.

Lucky Duck ..you have now used up all your luck, that said go buy a lotto ticket ..just in case !

Noticed the right card has some damage to the Frame Gen IC (FBI) on one corner, fingers crossed it works ok.

Whats funny is that IC is called Chuck with the two TMUs being Bruce.

Let's hope this is just dirt and not a burn mark

zuldan wrote on 2024-04-05, 02:03:

Let's hope this is just dirt and not a burn mark

Voodo.png

There is similar looking gunk on the PCB too, perhaps something was spilled on the card.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-04-05, 01:32:

Lucky Duck ..you have now used up all your luck, that said go buy a lotto ticket ..just in case ! […]
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Cypher321 wrote on 2024-04-05, 01:19:

As a fiend for soundcards, I bought an Audigy Gamer edition from the Goodwill auction site that was supposedly sealed. […]
Show full quote

As a fiend for soundcards, I bought an Audigy Gamer edition from the Goodwill auction site that was supposedly sealed.

IMG_20240404_175953701_HDR.jpg

The card arrived today and I went to inspect it, noticing firstly that it obviously wasn't sealed. I opened the box to look at the contents and...

PLOT TWIST

IMG_20240404_180148668_HDR.jpg

Two friggin' Diamond voodoo2's with the sli cable!!!!

I've yet to test them but I couldn't stop talking to my wife about how great of a find it was. Best $35 I've spent in awhile.

Lucky Duck ..you have now used up all your luck, that said go buy a lotto ticket ..just in case !

Noticed the right card has some damage to the Frame Gen IC (FBI) on one corner, fingers crossed it works ok.

Whats funny is that IC is called Chuck with the two TMUs being Bruce.

Good eye! I took a look with my phone and it seems the legs are a bit bent but still whole. I'm going to plan to bring it into work tomorrow to take a look under a scope to get a better idea of what's going on. Have to say, those legs are tiny!

Also 2 resistors soldered a little up on the left on both cards.
Is that some overvolt? or maybe a post prod error?

zuldan wrote on 2024-04-05, 02:03:

Let's hope this is just dirt and not a burn mark

Voodo.png

Thankfully just some nastiness (jolt cola residue?). A q-tip and IPA cleaned it up nicely.

Nexxen wrote on 2024-04-05, 02:13:

Also 2 resistors soldered a little up on the left on both cards.
Is that some overvolt? or maybe a post prod error?

Perfectly normal for this revision, I have two identical Diamond Monster V2 cards with the very same resistor mod, it was done in factory after production.

Nexxen wrote on 2024-04-05, 02:13:

Also 2 resistors soldered a little up on the left on both cards.
Is that some overvolt? or maybe a post prod error?

Close up:

For reference, here's the same resistors on my Maxi 3D2 card:

Smells like a re-work to me... Maybe the operator grabbed the wrong resistor initially and this was the fix.

Cypher321 wrote on 2024-04-05, 02:44:

Close up: […]
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Nexxen wrote on 2024-04-05, 02:13:

Also 2 resistors soldered a little up on the left on both cards.
Is that some overvolt? or maybe a post prod error?

Close up:

IMG_20240404_193255971.jpg

For reference, here's the same resistors on my Maxi 3D2 card:

IMG_20240404_193316502.jpg

Smells like a re-work to me... Maybe the operator grabbed the wrong resistor initially and this was the fix.

Done in factory after prod, pretty sure every card from this particular revision of the V2 from Diamond has this mod .. I'm guessing they realised after the fact that they needed this resistor in place or perhaps it never made it onto the PCB designs and QA picked it up.

R153 has a different value.
This is when V2 pundits are required to intervene.

I so hope they work like if they were mine 😀

I bought 2 Panasonic JU-475-4 5.25” floppy drives. Hopefully one of them works or if not maybe I can make a working one from the parts. They were not cheap either.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to preserve my C64 disk collection, I’ve got a huge collection from childhood (hundreds) that I’ve always meant to preserve and decided now is the time. I’ve spent about $300 on various parts already trying to figure out how to image the damn things. Turns out I can do so with a grease weasel and the right floppy drives. Also ended up getting a Kryoflux before I realized it wouldn’t help with C64, and a zoomfloppy for good measure, but I really want to store the result as flux so I’ll probably stick to the weasel.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-04-05, 02:46:

Cypher321 wrote on 2024-04-05, 02:44:

Close up: […]
Show full quote

Nexxen wrote on 2024-04-05, 02:13:

Also 2 resistors soldered a little up on the left on both cards.
Is that some overvolt? or maybe a post prod error?

Close up:

IMG_20240404_193255971.jpg

For reference, here's the same resistors on my Maxi 3D2 card:

IMG_20240404_193316502.jpg

Smells like a re-work to me... Maybe the operator grabbed the wrong resistor initially and this was the fix.

Done in factory after prod, pretty sure every card from this particular revision of the V2 from Diamond has this mod .. I'm guessing they realised after the fact that they needed this resistor in place or perhaps it never made it onto the PCB designs and QA picked it up.

Yes, I have one like this too. Mine is complete in the retail box and when I received it from an online acquaintance 15+ years ago he told me it was given to him by someone that worked at Diamond and that it was (obviously) hand reworked. If I had to guess, it was probably because of some stability or heat issue that was caught after the PCBs were already made.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if there is any slight difference with this boxed card I have, considering the story that came along with it. I don't know if it was one that was returned to the manufacturer to have the repair done, or if it was all done in-house. I'm not sure if these have serial numbers, but I'll have to check some time. I believe I have at least one other loose card like it with the same mod I could compare it to.

Anyway... Yes, that resistor is normal for these. 😀