dirkmirk wrote:

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd361/dirkmirk/IMG_20180801_190031338_zpscnyvllei.jpg […]
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Boot from CD-ROM option for a 486 motherboard? How? I'd like to get my hands on a BIOS for my 486 to allow booting from a CD, but, sadly, there is no BIOS, and the PloP boot manager might be a good candidate, however, I'm not taking chances of destroying my files on the hard drive.

You can use PloP from floppy and boot from CD-ROM. No need to install it on HDD.

keropi wrote:

S2 worse than S1? it's the same chipset - the old S1 one was EOL and S2 uses it's replacement. Sure there is a slight audio difference but it's the same core/engine AFAIK just newer silicone

The 2695 (S2) and the 2195 (S1) are different, it's not the same chip. The 2695 got a shitload of additional features, like mic input, equalizer, etc. And somehow they managed to lower power consumption to 18 mA instead of 75 mA - so this indicates greater internal changes.

Could be that the difference in output is caused by the equalizer. But to be honest, I don't care where it is coming from. The distortion it causes on the instruments makes me prefer the S1. I'm not saying the S2 is bad - I have two currently in use - but the S1 is better by a small margin.

Picked up a few SBC's.. inspired by the Midget Riot thread. I have used plenty of these types of computers at work in various systems, but never really thought about making a retro gaming PC out of them.

Score 1: Acrosser AR-B8170 V1.01 (Vortex86DX 800MHz, 256MB DDR2 RAM, VGA, LAN, SD Card Slot) -- got this guy for $25, I was the only bidder. Brand new, unused in original box. Might resell this one, since they go for a lot of money usually, so I can fund some more retro builds.

Score 2: Advantech PCA-6751 Rev. B202-1 (233MHz Pentium MMX, 32MB PC-100 RAM, VGA, LAN, CF Card Slot) -- got it for $70, used, in good condition.

And of course, I have the Acrosser AR-IPC3SP 3-slot case on the way that I found for $40 used on Radwell's Ebay page. We actually have a platinum level contract with Radwell where I work, so I should probably just take advantage of our discount and order through work next time, 🤣.

Nabbed a Dell Dimension 8100 from a local CHKD for a little under 20 bucks. Had a nice surprise inside, a socket 423 Pentium 4 (1.5 GHz according to Google) and 256 MB of RDRAM, as well as a GeForce 4 AGP video card and an SB Live! sound card. It came with a Windows ME product key but the original hard drive is missing. Apart from that, it appears to be completely stock. Haven't had the opportunity to power it on or mess with it further yet but I will probably go with 2000 Professional since I don't have many 2000 boxes around.

bought this for 3 dollars. rendition verite v1000-e
no clue if it works but is ancient. one of the first 3d cards..like half a voodoo1?

cj_reha wrote:

Nabbed a Dell Dimension 8100 from a local CHKD for a little under 20 bucks. Had a nice surprise inside, a socket 423 Pentium 4 (1.5 GHz according to Google) and 256 MB of RDRAM, as well as a GeForce 4 AGP video card and an SB Live! sound card. It came with a Windows ME product key but the original hard drive is missing. Apart from that, it appears to be completely stock. Haven't had the opportunity to power it on or mess with it further yet but I will probably go with 2000 Professional since I don't have many 2000 boxes around.

What a cool system you got there, I seem to have a thing for older Dell computers. It should be an interesting system for playing with Windows 2000. In fact, you might be able to bring some life out of it with the use of the extended kernel hack, since that Pentium 4 is likely to have SSE2, you may be able to see how well it works with a modern internet browser. 😎

Pabloz wrote:

bought this for 3 dollars. rendition verite v1000-e
no clue if it works but is ancient. one of the first 3d cards..like half a voodoo1?

Nice find. The Verite 1000 was actually a fairly decent 3D accelerator and had its own APIs that a lot of games supported. SODA Offroad Racing was a pretty neat game and only supported Rendition hardware acceleration. The Voodoo was obviously a faster card and supported more games, but it required a separate 2D card. The Verite was much better than the other 2D\3D combo cards at that time. Sadly, their 2D performance can be pretty awful in some situations.

Recently sniped up a IBM 5150 PC (256k version) on eBay just after it got listed and got it for a great price. The best thing is that it appears to be in working condition and except for lots of dust it's really clean, no rust! Bonus: It had a real Hercules card installed, something I didn't expect at all, I assumed it had just the normal MDA stuff. (I've seen these go for more than I paid for the whole computer...)

Ok, it's Skeletor time again - today's favorite housing is an 21" IBM P260(aka Fony).

Besides a, solvable, brightness problem the screen is simply awesome and the DVI connector comes in hand.

The Verite is nice - see if you can get VQuake to run it. Michael Abrash himself worked on the port.

Wait: is that a CRT monitor? Wish I could get my hands on that thing for hooking up my 486 machine and main desktop to it.

Yes it is - my last purchase and the best. Exchanged it for some chocolate from a lady nearby... hoisting it around was not funny though.
In the end more than worth the struggle but one has to be aware of the brightness issues for which only a few options are available.

That's amazing picture quality for a high-end CRT. Is that from the early 2000's? I have a Medion MD 1998 OF 19" CRT from the late 1990's early 2000's that can output 1600x1200 at 120Hz maximum.

That is one beautiful CRT!

NewQ Gold graphic equalizer
IO DATA Sega Saturn controller DirectInput ISA card

Recent discussions about the Alpha architecture have revived my interest in that platform. I came out with the following:

1. DEC AlphaPC 164 motherboard (the original one, not the LX, SX etc). Comes complete with 500MHz 21164A CPU (EV56) which is the highest speed that this motherboard supports; original docs and startup discs for installing Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0. Also 16MB of RAM (4x4MB SIMMs) which is insufficient for any purposes. I have purchased separately some 64MB 72-pin FPM parity SIMMs, 4 pieces which would give me 256MB RAM. Later I may add another 4 for the maximum supported 512MB.

Pics:

Motherboard, CPU/HSF and memory

Goodies

Boot screen

Closeup

2. Compaq Powerstorm 300 video card; found the drivers for NT on vogonsdrivers, thank you GL1zdA for uploading them.

The plan for this is to make a dual-boot Windows NT (4.0 likely, or maybe W2k-RC) and Gentoo Linux. Looking for information about compatibility of SCSI cards and especially of network cards with the above, in particular for NT and W2k.

Acorp 5VX2 Motherboard with AMD K5 100mhz CPU. 16mb ram.
Award Bios.

bjwil1991 wrote:

That's amazing picture quality for a high-end CRT. Is that from the early 2000's? I have a Medion MD 1998 OF 19" CRT from the late 1990's early 2000's that can output 1600x1200 at 120Hz maximum.

It's from 2000 according to the menu's info. I never drive the CRTs that high as I'm only interested in 320x200 and maybe 640x480.

Nonetheless I tested the screen in Windows at 1280x1024 and it's looking pretty fine albeit I prefer 5:4 LCDs for high res/everyday stuff especially reading.

I googled your monitor and its very nice looking - the curved tube is, in my oppinion, more interesting. I also have an iyyama with a curved one and it beats all other monitors in perceived "image fidelity".

Btw, that Alpha board is a nice catch!

amadeus777999 wrote:

Yes it is - my last purchase and the best. Exchanged it for some chocolate from a lady nearby... hoisting it around was not funny though.
In the end more than worth the struggle but one has to be aware of the brightness issues for which only a few options are available.

I had the same in the past. It was brutal in the lanparties 😁 i became fitter.

amadeus777999 wrote:

Btw, that Alpha board is a nice catch!

Thank you. Like I said I've had an interest in Alpha for a while, and I reckon it was time I pulled the trigger before they're all gone to the big recycler up in the sky. 😀