PeterLI wrote:

I find shopping in thrift stores to a big waste of time here in FL. Most square footage inside the stores is dedicated to clothing. The electronics racks are usually very small and have DVD/CD players plus kitchen equipment. Recently on a (rare) spare afternoon I dropped by 8 thrift / pawn stores and found 2 LaserDisc movies: that was all. 🤣

And I included Goodwill, Salvation Army and small / mid size pawn shops. Pawn shops are the biggest waste of time because they charge crazy amounts for generic junk like CD / DVD players.

It is the same way in Texas, the crap some of these stores collect is terrible.

PeterLI wrote:

I find shopping in thrift stores to a big waste of time here in FL. Most square footage inside the stores is dedicated to clothing. The electronics racks are usually very small and have DVD/CD players plus kitchen equipment. Recently on a (rare) spare afternoon I dropped by 8 thrift / pawn stores and found 2 LaserDisc movies: that was all. 🤣

And I included Goodwill, Salvation Army and small / mid size pawn shops. Pawn shops are the biggest waste of time because they charge crazy amounts for generic junk like CD / DVD players.

Yeah... That's kind of like the same here in my town.
All clothes, old gossip magazines, cup's, pots, pans, and old extremely low quality furniture's.
If one is lucky, a lamp can be found or a blender with old paint inside it. 🤣

Amazing when I kind of like think about it, as the town is +203.000 people in size. 😢

To be fair statistically the changes of finding vintage computer equipment, let stand Roland / Yamaha / GUS / IBM, are very small. The volume of clothing donated just in the S. FL area must be in the thousands of tons annually. Plus there is huge demand for it. So it makes perfect business sense to allocate the space to it. Sames goes for furniture and household items like CD / DVD players, TVs and kitchen equipment.

Supply and especially demand for vintage niche items like vintage computers, LaserDisc is obviously a completely different matter. And many thrift organizations have standardized / professionalized so when they have valuable items they list them on eBay / Shopgoodwill. Examples were 2 high end LaserDisc players at Salvation Army Miami that went for $100s on eBay.

LaserDiscs sometimes / usually get mistaken for LPs so they end up with LPs. Most thrift stores have a yard or two of LPs: simply because there are hundreds if not thousands donated annually and hipsters buy them. 🤣

Heatsink isnt designed to be removed. With a little bit of case air flow it should be plenty for most things.

firev12, judging by "Made in Taiwan R.O.C", I would say it was probably made by Acer. However, it lacks other distinct features of Acer boards. Btw, you don't really need the manual, all the jumper settings are silkscreened on the board!

PeterLI wrote:

To be fair statistically the changes of finding vintage computer equipment, let stand Roland / Yamaha / GUS / IBM, are very small. The volume of clothing donated just in the S. FL area must be in the thousands of tons annually. Plus there is huge demand for it. So it makes perfect business sense to allocate the space to it. Sames goes for furniture and household items like CD / DVD players, TVs and kitchen equipment.

Supply and especially demand for vintage niche items like vintage computers, LaserDisc is obviously a completely different matter. And many thrift organizations have standardized / professionalized so when they have valuable items they list them on eBay / Shopgoodwill. Examples were 2 high end LaserDisc players at Salvation Army Miami that went for $100s on eBay.

LaserDiscs sometimes / usually get mistaken for LPs so they end up with LPs. Most thrift stores have a yard or two of LPs: simply because there are hundreds if not thousands donated annually and hipsters buy them. 🤣

I'll find something worth picking up MAYBE 1 in 8 trips? Even then, that's console video games or jewel cased PC games, which I won't pick up anymore. I amassed hundreds of the things, but I sold them all off on ebay in a huge lot. Complete and boxed from now on or nothing at all.

Hardware-wise...South Florida is a wasteland. The place I found the G4 is a shithole in Hialeah, but they always have a few towers or so. I've found at least 3 machines there over the years, but most are way overpriced. The only place to find anything here in the wild are pawn shops, or trolling the Swap Shop on consecutive weekends with a huge wad of cash in pocket. Everyone seems to have finally decided that "Old = BIG MONEY" down here.

senrew wrote:

Everyone seems to have finally decided that "Old = BIG MONEY" down here.

I think that's a global problem 😉 I remember buying lots of old console videogames for cheap between 2007-2012 and now even the crappy common ones cost a lot. Same thing with old PC hardware. I think that big box PC games still aren't too ridiculously priced, at lest here in Europe, but I'm sure in 5 years they'll reach insane prices.

I can't really help you with the identification of the board. As others have said before me, this heatsink is not designed to be separated from the cpu. It is glued and the glue is very tough. If you would manage to remove it, it would be very hard to re-attach it properly. Leave it on!

I would recommend that you look into removing/replacing the blue barrel battery on the mainboard. If it is the original one, it will have leaked or will start to leak soon. The chemicals that leak from it will damage the board itself. Unfortunately, since there does not seem to be a battery header, this will involve some soldering. Search the forums/internet for more information.

Edit: this is a nice topic for reference on the battery: 486 Motherboard Shipment Arrived

firev12 wrote:

Hello, long time lurker. I am building a 486 (DX 40 MHz, like my 1st PC). I recently bought the m/b you see. Can anyone identify it? On the back side there is a "486IG-B-2-1" printed, along with "P103". Can't test it yet, no ISA VGA available. Another issue, I tried to pull the CPU (from the heatsink) but I can't remove it. Do I need any special tool?

devius wrote:

senrew wrote:

Everyone seems to have finally decided that "Old = BIG MONEY" down here.

I think that's a global problem 😉 I remember buying lots of old console videogames for cheap between 2007-2012 and now even the crappy common ones cost a lot. Same thing with old PC hardware. I think that big box PC games still aren't too ridiculously priced, at lest here in Europe, but I'm sure in 5 years they'll reach insane prices.

You see it on eBay as well. Some sellers think they can get $400 for a Toshiba Satellite 205CDS, which, although in good condition and complete, has a dual-scan screen and is thus basically useless. And it's not even been particularly specced up with RAM or extra goodies, plus they never bothered to check the hard drive capacity. Sheer stupidity.

Lukeno94 wrote:

devius wrote:

senrew wrote:

Everyone seems to have finally decided that "Old = BIG MONEY" down here.

I think that's a global problem 😉 I remember buying lots of old console videogames for cheap between 2007-2012 and now even the crappy common ones cost a lot. Same thing with old PC hardware. I think that big box PC games still aren't too ridiculously priced, at lest here in Europe, but I'm sure in 5 years they'll reach insane prices.

You see it on eBay as well. Some sellers think they can get $400 for a Toshiba Satellite 205CDS, which, although in good condition and complete, has a dual-scan screen and is thus basically useless. And it's not even been particularly specced up with RAM or extra goodies, plus they never bothered to check the hard drive capacity. Sheer stupidity.

Have seen an Compaq Prolinea at a price of 765 US Dollars here in Denmark. Wich by my calculations takes the price for most outragious pricing.
Shure it is a 66mhz 486 (not stated if SX or DX) and shure it has 73mb RAM. Yet the seller thinks that a cheap CF card adaptor and 4gb card, plus a standard non-OPL vibra SB16 card is what makes it worth that much. No optical drive and no special stuff like a GUS shure makes it sell for 765 US Dollars.

Makes me laugh.... 🤣 (seller has lowered the price with 152 dollars the last week.... Still!)

Yeah.... Some people do think that everything old = BIG MONEY.

Matrox G450

The whole price thing has been getting out of hand for a while. How much do YOU think this 'advanced' sound card is worth?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gallant-ISA-Sound-C … ycAAOSwhkRWgdwB

Wait just one minute before you answer. Wait until you see THIS Awe 64 and how it ventures into realms of silly prices.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Creative-Sound-Blas … ewAAOSw9~RXJSje

Having said that, UK listings often look like this and have for years;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Creative-Labs-Sound … q4AAOSw9KpW~pI1
So I suspect the international sellers are just catching up with them and cashing in on it.

Oh, and of course, the inflated postage trick regardless of where the listing is too;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Creative-CT1770-SB- … 4EAAOSwRH5XJxaW

I've since accepted that I'm priced out of the hobby anyway, so it doesn't matter so much to me by now. I've just got to fix what I've got and enjoy it while it lasts.

Hialeah is basically a no go area when you are not Hispanic. 😀

HighTreason wrote:

The whole price thing has been getting out of hand for a while. How much do YOU think this 'advanced' sound card is worth?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gallant-ISA-Sound-C … ycAAOSwhkRWgdwB

Well, at least the others are kind of popular (not that I would pay anywhere near half as much as what they go for in those cases), but this is just a plain ESS ES1869 card.... like million others like it that are still for sale at dirt cheap prices. I could get 5 cards like that here for like 1-2€ each.

Maybe we should start a new "Ridiculously over-priced hardware" thread.

HighTreason wrote:

The whole price thing has been getting out of hand for a while. How much do YOU think this 'advanced' sound card is worth? http: […]
Show full quote

The whole price thing has been getting out of hand for a while. How much do YOU think this 'advanced' sound card is worth?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gallant-ISA-Sound-C … ycAAOSwhkRWgdwB

Wait just one minute before you answer. Wait until you see THIS Awe 64 and how it ventures into realms of silly prices.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Creative-Sound-Blas … ewAAOSw9~RXJSje

Having said that, UK listings often look like this and have for years;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Creative-Labs-Sound … q4AAOSw9KpW~pI1
So I suspect the international sellers are just catching up with them and cashing in on it.

Oh, and of course, the inflated postage trick regardless of where the listing is too;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Creative-CT1770-SB- … 4EAAOSwRH5XJxaW

I've since accepted that I'm priced out of the hobby anyway, so it doesn't matter so much to me by now. I've just got to fix what I've got and enjoy it while it lasts.

People probably think that I am going to an extreme with my 3dfx being overpriced rants but this is where things are headed 😢
Greed in this economy wins and there is nothing that people can do about it especially when the pool of buyers so small the resellers can just crimp the supply despite having hoarded so much and charge whatever they want to the extreme. High prices are the sure thing that is going to keep new people from getting into Dos and Win9x retro to the point where it may as well be like trying to buy into Amiga is now.

Naaaa..... More like "hardware, only for Richie Rich" tread.

High prices are the sure thing that is going to keep new people from getting into Dos and Win9x retro to the point where it may as well be like trying to buy into Amiga is now.

This is what concerns me the most. Already a good chunk of this hobby is made up with elitist rich kids stroking each other's dicks, I don't like the idea of the rest of it eventually being like that and it would suck that newcomers wouldn't be able to learn about or experience the hardware for themselves.

Thats why you get your big ass off the chair and find the nearest junk yard! 🤣 Or start constructing replicas 😊

HighTreason wrote:

High prices are the sure thing that is going to keep new people from getting into Dos and Win9x retro to the point where it may as well be like trying to buy into Amiga is now.

This is what concerns me the most. Already a good chunk of this hobby is made up with elitist rich kids stroking each other's dicks, I don't like the idea of the rest of it eventually being like that and it would suck that newcomers wouldn't be able to learn about or experience the hardware for themselves.

I totally agree, being neither rich or young(closer to 50 than 40!), to me it seems prices have risen massively in the last 6 months or so, at least here in the UK, got to the point for me where it's a lucky find on amibay or at the car boot sale or forget it. I don't even bother to look on ebay or similar anymore. It's not even like I'm looking for really rare stuff, standard work-a-day stuff is getting silly now too.

I bought a Diamond Stealth Pro on ebay. I also bought a box for it with disks. I've been looking for this thing FOREVER for a good price.

I think I'm done collecting. I have WAY too much hardware as it is now, and I have all of my collection pieces I currently want.

Stojke wrote:

Thats why you get your big ass off the chair and find the nearest junk yard! 🤣 Or start constructing replicas 😊

Amen!