I just purchased a batch of ISA and PCI cards, among the ISA ones there is a video CL5401, I already have one, it should have 1MB of memory, beyond that there are two ISA sound cards, one is SB CT4170 and the other has a trapezoidal shape, they were normally used on HP PCs.
The other cards are LAN and modem, I don't see particularly interesting models of these, but they can still be useful, in those old AT PCs, for data transfer, via crossed cable (LAN).

Bought this Conner internal tape backup system. It doesn't seem very used. I don't recall seeing this units in retro computers very often. Maybe the ZIP drives were more popular or CD-roms were on their march.

Turbo -> wrote on 2024-05-05, 13:19:

Bought this Conner internal tape backup system. It doesn't seem very used. I don't recall seeing this units in retro computers very often. Maybe the ZIP drives were more popular or CD-roms were on their march.

Tape is really only useful as long term backup data store it doesn't really provide a random access storage that is required for normal everyday use, its also very slow by comparison. CD's and Zip drives being random access are farm more useful to the average user even if they dont quite have the long term storage capability as tape, that said this one is pretty small at 250Mb and I doubt the tapes are as cheap as Zip disks or CD RWs.

Still as a 5.25 drive space filler it does look cool.

As a side note there are random access tape drives but they are far from cheap and the media is also just as expensive. IIRC DEC had a system for it but it had to keep the tapes short to reduce latency for seek times.

https://community.ibm.com/community/user/stor … lerates-data-re

IBM has such a system called RAO but ...its not even remotely applicable to home users.

Saw this card in a flea market. My brain just went "it's an ISA card, must buy". It looked like a serial port interface, and the fact that it has a Z80 CPU made it interesting. Paid 1€ for it

Upon closer inspection... I don't know what it is. It only uses 7 contacts of the ISA slot (haven't yet checked what those contacts are). The silkscreen seems to indicate it was made in late '98 ("9851" in the silkscreen next to CTR7), seems too late for ISA, but maybe it is some kind of industrial thing? It says "LAN CARD" on the part of the card obscured by the chip at the top-left. The internet seems to know nothing about a "CTR7" card or a "LNC945". I checked the chip below the Z80 and it is a serial interface chip, need to check the others.

carlitosbala wrote on 2024-05-06, 06:47:

Saw this card in a flea market. My brain just went "it's an ISA card, must buy". It looked like a serial port interface, and the fact that it has a Z80 CPU made it interesting. Paid 1€ for it

Upon closer inspection... I don't know what it is. It only uses 7 contacts of the ISA slot (haven't yet checked what those contacts are). The silkscreen seems to indicate it was made in late '98 ("9851" in the silkscreen next to CTR7), seems too late for ISA, but maybe it is some kind of industrial thing? It says "LAN CARD" on the part of the card obscured by the chip at the top-left. The internet seems to know nothing about a "CTR7" card or a "LNC945". I checked the chip below the Z80 and it is a serial interface chip, need to check the others.

I typed 'trend lan card isa' into a google search and got lots of results for similar or identical cards. LNC seems to be "Lancard Node Controller" and this is just a very old obsolete model.

Probably a network interface card for industrial or HVAC equipment... beyond that I can't say for sure because most of the terms used to explain the devices it is used in are foreign to me.

carlitosbala wrote on 2024-05-06, 06:47:

Saw this card in a flea market. My brain just went "it's an ISA card, must buy". It looked like a serial port interface, and the fact that it has a Z80 CPU made it interesting. Paid 1€ for it

Upon closer inspection... I don't know what it is. It only uses 7 contacts of the ISA slot (haven't yet checked what those contacts are). The silkscreen seems to indicate it was made in late '98 ("9851" in the silkscreen next to CTR7), seems too late for ISA, but maybe it is some kind of industrial thing? It says "LAN CARD" on the part of the card obscured by the chip at the top-left. The internet seems to know nothing about a "CTR7" card or a "LNC945". I checked the chip below the Z80 and it is a serial interface chip, need to check the others.

FYI,
GND, +5v +12v & -12v
that's it.

weedeewee wrote on 2024-05-06, 11:42:

FYI, GND, +5v +12v & -12v that's it. […]
Show full quote

carlitosbala wrote on 2024-05-06, 06:47:

Saw this card in a flea market. My brain just went "it's an ISA card, must buy". It looked like a serial port interface, and the fact that it has a Z80 CPU made it interesting. Paid 1€ for it

Upon closer inspection... I don't know what it is. It only uses 7 contacts of the ISA slot (haven't yet checked what those contacts are). The silkscreen seems to indicate it was made in late '98 ("9851" in the silkscreen next to CTR7), seems too late for ISA, but maybe it is some kind of industrial thing? It says "LAN CARD" on the part of the card obscured by the chip at the top-left. The internet seems to know nothing about a "CTR7" card or a "LNC945". I checked the chip below the Z80 and it is a serial interface chip, need to check the others.

FYI,
GND, +5v +12v & -12v
that's it.

I found a datasheet describing a more recent but similar card. (https://partners.trendcontrols.com/trendprodu … 1-uk0yr0608.pdf)
Page 2 seems to explain that the card is indeed managed through serial and is only using the ISA bus for power. (this more recent card is PCI based)

Okay, PCIe might not feel retro but this sound card is 15 years old and according to the box also supposedly works in Win2k. It's an ESI Prodigy X-Fi NRG. It's more importantly cream colored.
I have never seen this model before and when a local company had a clearance for some old stock I snagged it. But it seems to have the not so desirable (for gaming purposes) chipset CA0110 from the Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio SB1040, this with high quality caps, AKM AK4358 DAC and with a socketed opamp. The AUDIOTRAK Prodigy 7.1e looks to be essentially the same card and Auzentech has the Bravura with the same chipset. Just for fun i'm using it in my modern Win10 PC and it works perfectly.

https://www.esi-audio.com/products/prodigyxfinrg/

acl wrote on 2024-05-06, 12:13:

I found a datasheet describing a more recent but similar card. (https://partners.trendcontrols.com/trendprodu … 1-uk0yr0608.pdf)
Page 2 seems to explain that the card is indeed managed through serial and is only using the ISA bus for power. (this more recent card is PCI based)

Screenshot from 2024-05-06 14-12-54.png

Nice find. Industrial cards are always so bizarre.

Yesterday i bought a lot of four cards.
I hesitated a bit before buying. The price was not insane, but still high in my budget.

• A Britek - ViewTop 3D Vulcan B3D FXG2 (Voodoo 1 with 6MB)
  • Interesting because it's a 6MB version but unlike some others cards it does not require a proprietary passthrough cable (like Miro HISCORE 3D)
• A Macronix Voodoo Rush
  • Less common than the AT3D. Not sure about the capacity of the socketed ram (Used for the 2D / D3D chip ?)
• A regular Voodoo 1
• ViRGE/DX 4Mb

I never had a Rush, never used a 6MB V1 and i was looking to get an early PCI Virge (i only have the latest one, GX2, in AGP)
So happy to find a lot ticking all the boxes.

The package is on its way. Normally everything is tested.

Not sure if it qualifies as retro, but I just placed my order on a supposedly JTAG-able Xbox 360, the type without HDMI (aka Xenon revision). Low price (250RON, about $54 or so.), comes with 2 wired controllers and no HDD. It's also very clean on the outside, from what I could tell, needing

These "blades dash" units seem to go for insane prices no matter what board revision they are. This one seems to have that one as well, although in a state of "disrepair", as it has a botched update.

Thankfully I have a Raspberry Pi to read the NAND and try to rebuild the dash, before doing JTAG on it (well, technically I still have to half-JTAG it to get the CPU and DVD keys in order to rebuild the NAND.)

Baleog wrote on 2024-05-06, 14:26:

Okay, PCIe might not feel retro but this sound card is 15 years old and according to the box also supposedly works in Win2k. It's an ESI Prodigy X-Fi NRG. It's more importantly cream colored.
I have never seen this model before and when a local company had a clearance for some old stock I snagged it. But it seems to have the not so desirable (for gaming purposes) chipset CA0110 from the Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio SB1040, this with high quality caps, AKM AK4358 DAC and with a socketed opamp. The AUDIOTRAK Prodigy 7.1e looks to be essentially the same card and Auzentech has the Bravura with the same chipset. Just for fun i'm using it in my modern Win10 PC and it works perfectly.

https://www.esi-audio.com/products/prodigyxfinrg/

looks pretty good to me, i suppose the test, if any, is what it does and sounds like in comparison with onboard sound. this one looks pretty flexible, like it would suit some home theatre type machine too

Baleog wrote on 2024-05-06, 14:26:

Okay, PCIe might not feel retro but this sound card is 15 years old and according to the box also supposedly works in Win2k. It's an ESI Prodigy X-Fi NRG. It's more importantly cream colored.
I have never seen this model before and when a local company had a clearance for some old stock I snagged it. But it seems to have the not so desirable (for gaming purposes) chipset CA0110 from the Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio SB1040, this with high quality caps, AKM AK4358 DAC and with a socketed opamp. The AUDIOTRAK Prodigy 7.1e looks to be essentially the same card and Auzentech has the Bravura with the same chipset. Just for fun i'm using it in my modern Win10 PC and it works perfectly.

https://www.esi-audio.com/products/prodigyxfinrg/

Funny thing, I still use an Asus Xonar DX I bought in 2009 in my main PC alongside a 5800X3D, 64GB of RAM and a 3080. I tried going with onboard sound a while back and the drivers just wouldn't cooperate so I threw the Xonar back in and it just works. I just use it to output stereo via toslink to a desktop DAC so it isn't super important what card I use. It's possible the Realtek drivers would work fine if I just tried it again, but at the time I spent a couple hours on it and I couldn't get it to just do what I'd be doing with my Xonar for years... simply output sound through the optical interface without problems. I was flabbergasted...

... also, I love that my Xonar has relays that click on when the card is initialized. I would probably miss that sound if I didn't have it... yes I'm weird. 🤣

carlitosbala wrote on 2024-05-06, 06:47:

Saw this card in a flea market. My brain just went "it's an ISA card, must buy". It looked like a serial port interface, and the fact that it has a Z80 CPU made it interesting. Paid 1€ for it

Upon closer inspection... I don't know what it is. It only uses 7 contacts of the ISA slot (haven't yet checked what those contacts are). The silkscreen seems to indicate it was made in late '98 ("9851" in the silkscreen next to CTR7), seems too late for ISA, but maybe it is some kind of industrial thing? It says "LAN CARD" on the part of the card obscured by the chip at the top-left. The internet seems to know nothing about a "CTR7" card or a "LNC945". I checked the chip below the Z80 and it is a serial interface chip, need to check the others.

I'd be curious whether you can Telnet/ssh/hyperterm into it.
Reminds me of those old wyse terminals at old libraries in the 80s. They used 25pin serial to connect.
Now I'm thinking about it, I wonder if the 9pin is ega or something. The only thing missing is a keyboard. If it had that, it could potentially BE the entire terminal.

Found some: https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/com … uter_terminals/

carlitosbala wrote on 2024-05-06, 06:47:

Saw this card in a flea market. My brain just went "it's an ISA card, must buy". It looked like a serial port interface, and the fact that it has a Z80 CPU made it interesting. Paid 1€ for it

Upon closer inspection... I don't know what it is. It only uses 7 contacts of the ISA slot (haven't yet checked what those contacts are). The silkscreen seems to indicate it was made in late '98 ("9851" in the silkscreen next to CTR7), seems too late for ISA, but maybe it is some kind of industrial thing? It says "LAN CARD" on the part of the card obscured by the chip at the top-left. The internet seems to know nothing about a "CTR7" card or a "LNC945". I checked the chip below the Z80 and it is a serial interface chip, need to check the others.

I'd be curious whether you can Telnet/ssh/hyperterm into it.
Reminds me of those old wyse terminals at old libraries in the 80s. They used 25pin serial to connect.
Now I'm thinking about it, I wonder if the 9pin is ega or something. The only thing missing is a keyboard. If it had that, it could potentially BE the entire terminal.

Found some: https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/com … uter_terminals/

gerry wrote on 2024-05-06, 16:09:

looks pretty good to me, i suppose the test, if any, is what it does and sounds like in comparison with onboard sound. this one looks pretty flexible, like it would suit some home theatre type machine too

I do have some semi professional audio interfaces but I doubt that I would be able to identify them in a blind test. However that doesn't stop me from buying even better equipment on a regular basis 😀

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-05-06, 19:55:

Funny thing, I still use an Asus Xonar DX I bought in 2009 in my main PC alongside a 5800X3D, 64GB of RAM and a 3080. I tried going with onboard sound a while back and the drivers just wouldn't cooperate so I threw the Xonar back in and it just works. I just use it to output stereo via toslink to a desktop DAC so it isn't super important what card I use. It's possible the Realtek drivers would work fine if I just tried it again, but at the time I spent a couple hours on it and I couldn't get it to just do what I'd be doing with my Xonar for years... simply output sound through the optical interface without problems. I was flabbergasted...

... also, I love that my Xonar has relays that click on when the card is initialized. I would probably miss that sound if I didn't have it... yes I'm weird. 🤣

Yeah i got a Xonar ST in a box around here. I really love that one but I had a lot of issues with the drivers at the time. If I find a STX I for cheap I might give it a try again.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-05-06, 07:19:

I typed 'trend lan card isa' into a google search and got lots of results for similar or identical cards. LNC seems to be "Lancard Node Controller" and this is just a very old obsolete model.

Probably a network interface card for industrial or HVAC equipment... beyond that I can't say for sure because most of the terms used to explain the devices it is used in are foreign to me.

Yeah, my search skills failed miserably, didn't think of searching by "trend". Thanks for the hints, I've been able to find a few more things about it, there are even a few units being sold on eBay.

weedeewee wrote on 2024-05-06, 11:42:

FYI,
GND, +5v +12v & -12v
that's it.

Thank you 😀

acl wrote on 2024-05-06, 12:13:

I found a datasheet describing a more recent but similar card. (https://partners.trendcontrols.com/trendprodu … 1-uk0yr0608.pdf)
Page 2 seems to explain that the card is indeed managed through serial and is only using the ISA bus for power. (this more recent card is PCI based)

Screenshot from 2024-05-06 14-12-54.png

Interesting. It seems the card is not useful to me in the slightest (except to eventually harvest some components), but still, interesting to get a glance of hardware and systems I'd otherwise not know even exists.

myne wrote on 2024-05-07, 03:30:

I'd be curious whether you can Telnet/ssh/hyperterm into it. Reminds me of those old wyse terminals at old libraries in the 80s […]
Show full quote

I'd be curious whether you can Telnet/ssh/hyperterm into it.
Reminds me of those old wyse terminals at old libraries in the 80s. They used 25pin serial to connect.
Now I'm thinking about it, I wonder if the 9pin is ega or something. The only thing missing is a keyboard. If it had that, it could potentially BE the entire terminal.

Found some: https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/com … uter_terminals/

I don't have the required hardware with me at the moment, or the space to set up a test bench. But soon enough I'll bring my stuff home and be able to run some experiments. Not only with this one, but also with the DIMM PC I got a year ago and still have 😀 Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Not bought "Yet" but this card is in a lot im looking at, best I can figure its some kind of CRT controller card due to the SY6845E CRT IC, does anyone here have some clue what its actually for ?

carlitosbala wrote on 2024-05-07, 06:52:

acl wrote on 2024-05-06, 12:13:

I found a datasheet describing a more recent but similar card. (https://partners.trendcontrols.com/trendprodu … 1-uk0yr0608.pdf)
Page 2 seems to explain that the card is indeed managed through serial and is only using the ISA bus for power. (this more recent card is PCI based)

Screenshot from 2024-05-06 14-12-54.png

Interesting. It seems the card is not useful to me in the slightest (except to eventually harvest some components), but still, interesting to get a glance of hardware and systems I'd otherwise not know even exists.

If you're able to swap the ROM, it is still a Z80 + ROM + a serial interface.
Swapping the ROM for a custom made one should be possible.

You probably won't be able to run CP/M but there might be some possible usage (even more if you can slightly modify the card adding some IO bedside the RS232)
A Z80 is a really simple CPU to deal with. You can do a lot of thing by adding a bunch of 7400 series IC and / or shift registers.

Ideas :
- Adding IO pins to the Z80 and wiring them to the Motherboard. You could programmatically control some features (Jumper settings, turbo)
- Emulating any serial device (modem, mouse, sound ?)
- Adapt some of the RC2014 module to the card (https://rc2014.co.uk/)

Edit : added RC2014 link

acl wrote on 2024-05-07, 07:30:

If you're able to swap the ROM, it is still a Z80 + ROM + a serial interface. Swapping the ROM for a custom made one should be p […]
Show full quote

carlitosbala wrote on 2024-05-07, 06:52:

acl wrote on 2024-05-06, 12:13:

I found a datasheet describing a more recent but similar card. (https://partners.trendcontrols.com/trendprodu … 1-uk0yr0608.pdf)
Page 2 seems to explain that the card is indeed managed through serial and is only using the ISA bus for power. (this more recent card is PCI based)

Screenshot from 2024-05-06 14-12-54.png

Interesting. It seems the card is not useful to me in the slightest (except to eventually harvest some components), but still, interesting to get a glance of hardware and systems I'd otherwise not know even exists.

If you're able to swap the ROM, it is still a Z80 + ROM + a serial interface.
Swapping the ROM for a custom made one should be possible.

You probably won't be able to run CP/M but there might be some possible usage (even more if you can slightly modify the card adding some IO bedside the RS232)
A Z80 is a really simple CPU to deal with. You can do a lot of thing by adding a bunch of 7400 series IC and / or shift registers.

Ideas :
- Adding IO pins to the Z80 and wiring them to the Motherboard. You could programmatically control some features (Jumper settings, turbo)
- Emulating any serial device (modem, mouse, sound ?)
- Adapt some of the RC2014 module to the card

I would be keeping that card set aside, like you said you can hack the heck out of it and expand its capabilities.