HighTreason wrote:

I quite like the idea of that: "Hmm, this is an interesting soldering iron tip, let's try it out..." - BANG! […]
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I quite like the idea of that:
"Hmm, this is an interesting soldering iron tip, let's try it out..."
- BANG!

At first I thought they were rivets, but no. Then I thought they were plasterboard screw plugs, but no. The metal looks too rough to be ammunition so... no idea.

Tips for a snap-on butane soldering iron.

Here we go:

From top to bottom and left from right:

- (in honor of the new X-Men movie) Matrox Mystique 220 2MB + 2MB expansion card
- Asus V6800 DDR GeForce256 64MB DDR
- Asus P3V4X (Via Apollo Pro 133A)
- Asus Radeon 9600XT 128MB
- my very first slocket (just started getting into Pentium III stuff lately)
- 3x 128MB + 1x 256MB DIMMs
- Intel Pentium III 700/100

Didn't realized I got all that Asus gear until I wrote the list just now.

Funny story about the 9600XT is that I actually bought it about 1 year ago, but at the time I thought it was dead because it wouldn't boot on the motherboard I tested with. However I recently discovered that said motherboard wasn't actually AGP 4X capable, it was only AGP 2X although it used a universal connector (those jokester motherboard manufacturers...) so it wasn't until I got the above motherboard that I finally tested the graphics card with a proper motherboard and luckily it survived all this time in the junk pile.

Bought a load of LS-120 disks to use in my machines and also a couple of interesting pickups

First off I bought my first boxed and sealed item, not as collectible as some but its a start 😀

More interestingly this Reelmagic board. It caught my eye because as well as having the usually missing cable it's also ISA whereas my other one is a newer pci version 😎

BSA Starfire wrote:

I sold 3 of my 4 3dfx Voodoo 3's, then decided I needed a spare, luckily just found this one for a VERY good price. Less than ha […]
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voodoo3 3000 AGP.JPG

I sold 3 of my 4 3dfx Voodoo 3's, then decided I needed a spare, luckily just found this one for a VERY good price. Less than half what I sold was other for a few months back, nice to know a few bargains still around.
Best,
Chris

I remember when I had one of these... I wish I knew what happened to it over the years. Anyway, one of the best things I ever did to it was add a fan. It isn't a night and day difference, but it does keep the card topped off as far as frames-per-second that you lose when it's at peak heat.

Matthew

Found a cheap(-ish) IBM PS/2 model 30 (8530) motherboard, with 286/10 CPU. Unfortunately it doesn't include anything else, especially not the ISA riser board. What are the odds that I'll find one of those somewhere? OTOH it has on-board MCGA video.

This is my first foray into non-PC x86 hardware. Should be fun.

Scored a cheap Diamond Viper 770 32mb for $5 shipped and two weeks ago I also gotten a Viper 550 pci, somewhat surprised that next to no attention at all has been payed to TNT era cards except for Phill's review.

I think most of us are are already stocked up with TNT cards 😊

They are still easy to find and affordable.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I think most of us are are already stocked up with TNT cards 😊

They are still easy to find and affordable.

Yep but newer people get turned off too quickly hearing horror stories about the M64 and the Vanta.

nforce4max wrote:

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I think most of us are are already stocked up with TNT cards 😊

They are still easy to find and affordable.

Yep but newer people get turned off too quickly hearing horror stories about the M64 and the Vanta.

I must be doing something wrong because all I end up when trying is the M64 or Vantas, I'm drowning in the things! 😀

Mr_ppp wrote:

I must be doing something wrong because all I end up when trying is the M64 or Vantas, I'm drowning in the things! 😀

A easy way to avoid them is some quick google searches for known 128 bit models 😉
Some of the M64 are hard to tell apart from the better 128bit models but there are some 128s that really stick out like the Viper 770. Most of the M64 have smaller coolers or none at all and many of the cards are smaller. The oem M64s (mostly Dell) can fool just about anyone.

Mr_ppp wrote:

I must be doing something wrong because all I end up when trying is the M64 or Vantas, I'm drowning in the things! 😀

Bugger you're right, I should have said TNT2 M64 😊

Mr_ppp wrote:

nforce4max wrote:

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I think most of us are are already stocked up with TNT cards 😊

They are still easy to find and affordable.

Yep but newer people get turned off too quickly hearing horror stories about the M64 and the Vanta.

I must be doing something wrong because all I end up when trying is the M64 or Vantas, I'm drowning in the things! 😀

I stopped picking up the M64 and Vantas, but do keep them if they happen to be in a lot with something that I actually want to pay for and I also keep all the ones I can get for free anyway.

I don't toss any either (unless unresurrectable), even the Vantas have their use. Their very low power consumption and reasonably good performance and compatibility that go along with it make it good candidates for motherboards with potential poor power delivery to its AGP slot (like very early Slot 1 boards or some ss7 boards), along with some 3DFX V1/V2/V2SLI magic 😀.

And if that won't do, they always make good test cards 😁

^^ Agreed 😀

Bought a bunch of random memory on 'Marktplaats', our local auction site. I was mainly interested in the cache modules.

Unfortunately, I got confronted with the same problem as others have recently: bad packaging 🙁

Good thing it was on not so interesting memory. Could probaby solder the components back on, but I don't know if it's worth the trouble, I'm drowning in SDRAM. Might be good practice in soldering 😀

Does anybody know what the module in the middle is? The shorter one? Looks a bit like notebook memory? I haven't got a better picture at the moment.

Well IDT's site has the datasheet for the 71256SA, which shows those as 15ns 32k x 8 SRAMs, so I'd guess a proprietary cache module of some sort.

Right who won the Voodoo II for 2 quid on ebay last night? Can't believe i forgot to raise my max bid!!!!

Thanks! I must admit I was a bit lazy and had not yet Googled myself 😀

Rawrl wrote:

Well IDT's site has the datasheet for the 71256SA, which shows those as 15ns 32k x 8 SRAMs, so I'd guess a proprietary cache module of some sort.

Finally got a A3D 2.0 card now. Used to have a MX300 when i used to play Clan League Half Life. Boxed unused Turtle Beach Montego II.

stamasd wrote:

Found a cheap(-ish) IBM PS/2 model 30 (8530) motherboard, with 286/10 CPU. Unfortunately it doesn't include anything else, especially not the ISA riser board. What are the odds that I'll find one of those somewhere? OTOH it has on-board MCGA video.

This is my first foray into non-PC x86 hardware. Should be fun.

The 286 version of Model 30 had full VGA on board!

One of these is headed my way shortly;

Should make a nice change from the AWE card, one of which died ages ago and I never got around to fixing or replacing it. I doubt the compatibility is as good, but that's no big deal. I suppose it will be interesting to try out sequencing in Cakewalk with that onboard Wavetable.

Edit: Hopefully anyway. ebay has been nuts lately, I just received the order confirmation e-mail three times over (umm...) and it still claims I didn't pay for something I definitely did pay for and the seller knows I paid for... Who knows, I'm not worried because as long as I've handed the money over there's not much of anything that can go wrong, surely? The My eBay page says everything is in check anyway and PayPal, plus my bank account, reflects this. I assume they're just dicking around with the backend or something and it's causing phantom alerts to go off.

Edit: On a last note, a camera fix is on the way too, but it may take a while to get here and it will probably take me a little while to get back into gear once it arrives... Plus, knowing my luck, I'll get it working only to have to move or some shit, things rarely work out as well as they could.