My last good finds included a lexmark model M keyboard in mint sgape for $2 and a brand new in box Soyo Dragon Platinum Ultra Kt400 motherboard. Got off work and went by my local Salvation Army and they had quite a few NiB gfx cards. All of these are sealed except the 6600gt which is open box but everything is included and has the gfx card still sealed in anti static envelope. Even came with Arx Fatalis!

retardware wrote:

Thanks for the info on the ESS card. So it is not the bottom quality class. 😀

It's a nicely compatible chip and the FM synth is probably one of those illegal 100% clones. It's at least worth testing to see if the audio quality is ok.

wiretap wrote:

One slightly bulging cap.. https://i.imgur.com/ExrTsc4h.jpg […]
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One slightly bulging cap..

Those caps are known to fail with no visual indication. Truly bottom of the barrel stuff.

Oh yes the fookyoo ones.... Replace!

keropi wrote:

Oh yes the fookyoo ones.... Replace!

With extreme prejudice.

Eleanor1967 wrote:

I've also got this board and used it for quite some time in my main 486. I think its rock solid and never gave me issues. The BIOS is a bit sparse but everything necessary is there. I always found it weird that they included an onboard IDE controller but no floppy controller so you have to use up an ISA slot for a multi IO card after all. Speedwise it is definitely up there with the best 486 PCI boards in my benchmarking. Good find!

Thanks. 😀
Well, I/O cards is not a problem for me, since i have some in my stock, so i definitely should check out performance in Win95 or DOS.
And what i also wanted to do - compare it to mine LS-486E mobo (that also have PCI, but it use SiS 496/497 chipset, and it looks much more smaller). That will be interesting indeed. 🤣

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Why would you want VLB slot if you have PCI ?
Unless you have a VLB video card you wanted to use.

That, or an expensive caching VLB IDE/SCSI controller. Plus that at the beginning of the VIP-IO period, it wasn't absolutely clear that PCI was going to take off. It was only when the Pentium started selling well (1995 onwards) that PCI became the de-facto standard. Before that PCI cards were exotic, rare and expensive and the risk was present that like with MCA and EISA before it, you could get stuck with a dead-end bus standard.

In retrospect it's obvious that VLB couldn't scale either in terms of numbers of devices or clock speeds to support what the second half of the 1990s needed, but at the time that wasn't so clear, so it made sense to hedge your bets with a board like this.

Okay, it's not retro hardware but that's all it's being used for. You know when you get something in the mail and it has bent pins on a chip? Yeah, this is for straightening those or replacing really small SMD parts and it was only $200. You see that stem on top? That's for a camera and ironically my Sony DKC-5000 camera which is designed for use on a microscope needs a $300 1/2" bayonet adapter, so it's actually cheaper to buy a completely new camera kit with a C-mount adapter and an HD resolution camera with HDMI out for $90.

dkarguth wrote:

Not necessarily 'bought', but I got this off the craigslist 'free stuff' section. […]
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Not necessarily 'bought', but I got this off the craigslist 'free stuff' section.

Digital VaxStation II/GPX
*img*
*img*

Damn! RX50 floppy, TK50 tape, RD32 hard disk, 8 serial consoles and DELQA networking. That is a VERY slick system if you excuse the missing front cover. Wasn't the GPX a graphics model? I don't see the framebuffer.

Be sure to secure the base of that thing to your workbench before mounting the camera, those can get quite top-heavy...although I suspect that most modern kits will be lighter than the old contraptions.

That base is a lump of cast iron. It has to way over 70lbs.

Keith1212 wrote:

My last good finds included a lexmark model M keyboard in mint sgape for $2 and a brand new in box Soyo Dragon Platinum Ultra Kt […]
Show full quote

My last good finds included a lexmark model M keyboard in mint sgape for $2 and a brand new in box Soyo Dragon Platinum Ultra Kt400 motherboard. Got off work and went by my local Salvation Army and they had quite a few NiB gfx cards. All of these are sealed except the 6600gt which is open box but everything is included and has the gfx card still sealed in anti static envelope. Even came with Arx Fatalis!

That is a REALLY nice bottle of Ice Melt. Great find!

No, seriously, you finding sealed gfx cards anything at Salvation Army is insane. I only find junk at local SAs I visit. I mean, they're not the fastest cards around, but I especially like the GeForce 2 box. The AOpen box, on the other hand, looks like cult members looking back at you. Join us!

CelGen wrote:

That base is a lump of cast iron. It has to way over 70lbs.

Amazing looking microscope. Great piece. Does it have a manufacture date on it by any chance?

liqmat wrote:

That is a REALLY nice bottle of Ice Melt. Great find! […]
Show full quote

Keith1212 wrote:

My last good finds included a lexmark model M keyboard in mint sgape for $2 and a brand new in box Soyo Dragon Platinum Ultra Kt […]
Show full quote

My last good finds included a lexmark model M keyboard in mint sgape for $2 and a brand new in box Soyo Dragon Platinum Ultra Kt400 motherboard. Got off work and went by my local Salvation Army and they had quite a few NiB gfx cards. All of these are sealed except the 6600gt which is open box but everything is included and has the gfx card still sealed in anti static envelope. Even came with Arx Fatalis!

That is a REALLY nice bottle of Ice Melt. Great find!

No, seriously, you finding sealed gfx cards anything at Salvation Army is insane. I only find junk at local SAs I visit. I mean, they're not the fastest cards around, but I especially like the GeForce 2 box. The AOpen box, on the other hand, looks like cult members looking back at you. Join us!

CelGen wrote:

That base is a lump of cast iron. It has to way over 70lbs.

Amazing looking microscope. Great piece. Does it have a manufacture date on it by any chance?

Yea not amazing cards but will be great shelf pieces I think. I was hoping the GT 520 would be faster than my GT 430 in my Windows Xp rig but specs say its not. That dual hdd enclosure on the top rights books for over $100 new and can house two 3 tb hdds for a total of 6tb. it can also do raid 0 and raid 1 as well as normal and big modes.

liqmat wrote:

Amazing looking microscope. Great piece. Does it have a manufacture date on it by any chance?

Olympus SZ-TR with the optional VS-V stand. There's no date stamped on this unit but the serial I think decodes to 1968. It looks like they built them in this style between '61 and '89.

Keith1212 wrote:

My last good finds included a lexmark model M keyboard in mint sgape for $2 and a brand new in box Soyo Dragon Platinum Ultra Kt […]
Show full quote

My last good finds included a lexmark model M keyboard in mint sgape for $2 and a brand new in box Soyo Dragon Platinum Ultra Kt400 motherboard. Got off work and went by my local Salvation Army and they had quite a few NiB gfx cards. All of these are sealed except the 6600gt which is open box but everything is included and has the gfx card still sealed in anti static envelope. Even came with Arx Fatalis!

I like how there's six generations & 7 years between the two later EVGA cards, but the boxes look exactly the same.

Also, the GF2 MX is apparently "PCI 4x/2x/1x." Maybe they should have paid more attention to box design over the years...

NVIDIA RIVA TNT2-PRO 22nm - Gigabyte GA-660 Plus Rev 1.4 32MB AGP (2000)

Media Vision Pro Audiospectrum (8-bit) (Blue Caps) ISA (1991)

3DFX Voodoo - Diamond Monster 3D 4MB PCI (US) (Boxed) (1997)

Epox EP-8K3A+ Rev 1.2 Socket 462 #4 (2002)

That PAS is a beast, look at those epic caps! I get confused about what the original PAS can do - I'm under the impression that the PAS16 isn't compatible with it? Great card to have in the collection.

badmojo wrote:

That PAS is a beast, look at those epic caps! I get confused about what the original PAS can do - I'm under the impression that the PAS16 isn't compatible with it? Great card to have in the collection.

Right?! They are monsters for sure - my other PAS 8-bit has two mega black caps vs the blue on this one. More info here on these: http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2017/01/a … n-pro.html#more

Deksor wrote:

It seems like every board with that UMC ISA/PCI chipset has that "problem". My ATC1415 has 2 ide but no floppy and same for my pcchips M915i which also uses the same chipset.

Are you referring to the UMC8881/8886? In that case I don't think so since for example the M919 or the HOT-433 use the same chipset and both feature onboard floppy controllers.

Benetton93 wrote:

Thanks. 😀
Well, I/O cards is not a problem for me, since i have some in my stock, so i definitely should check out performance in Win95 or DOS.
And what i also wanted to do - compare it to mine LS-486E mobo (that also have PCI, but it use SiS 496/497 chipset, and it looks much more smaller). That will be interesting indeed. 🤣

It only became a problem for me when I realized that only 2 16-bit ISA soundcards just doesn't cut it for me 😁

@Artex

Are those caps original ?
Those are beast.
I have a PAS16 with small blue caps it is a Gateway 2000 part number.

OK, havn't bought it today but over last 2-3 months, but the last one arrived last week.
I love ST157As. Best hard drives ever. :]
Three of them work as good as new. Last one has some issues though (I have to low-level format it from time to time - disobeying the label) otherwise it will have trouble reading files. Still no bad sectors on any of these drives.