Reply 21340 of 39964, by Batyra
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Visit my website: http://www.collection.batyra.pl

wrote:@Predator99
Excluding the OPTi, the rest the sound cards in that lots are potentially good ones too, nice work!
I think the Crystal Semi card is maybe from Terratec, so PCM sound quality might be _really_ great.
All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder
Yes, maybe the other cards are also good soundcards, but I think they are nothing difficult to get and I would not have bought such lot for them.
Additionally, I am not really collecting these cards because they do not look "nice". I prefer larger cards with more ICs on it compared to these rather modern and highly integrated ones 😉
Terratec cards are often pretty difficult to get for a good price, if you have any you want to dispose of let me know 😵
Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.
wrote:I'm always on the lookout for a new sound card to play with - what's so good about these would you say? I seen an OPL3 on there and some mention of OPL4?
I don't see a wavetable header though.
There's the OPL3 version which has an OPL3 (obviously) and can be extended with an OPL4 wavetable. And there's a version that has the OPL4 already on-board. Why I like it? First, it just works. Drivers are nice and small. When the driver inits the card, a sample is played so you always know whether or not the card is working and your speakers are on. 😉 Then there are internal headers for all jacks, so you can do quite a few cool things with internal audio routing. The headers are auto-switching. Moreover, it has all important CD-ROM interfaces from that time. Important for me, as I'm collecting old CD drives and not always want to install the interface card for testing that came with a drive. And finally, the card just looks great. Nice and clean PCB layout.
Grabbed a couple SB Live! cards because they were listed as $3 a piece, so why not; they are always a good choice for Win9x/XP builds, especially with an ISA/PCI OPL3 card.
I also got this Coppermine 1000B for $5 because why not, it's basically the best CPU you can stick on a 440BX board. This one turned out to have some chipped sides and corners though, let's see if this one will actually work or not. I've seen worse banged up P3 cores soldier on, and less chipped cores crash and burn, so, we'll see..
Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.
wrote:Interesting. Can you tell a little more about it?
It's a variant of IBM M-Audio Capture and Playback Adapter (M-ACPA). Does 16-bit PCM sound and FM-like synthesis. It has DOS and Win 3.1 drivers, can play MIDI files. A video about MCA variant of the same card: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkk0YW_qd-Y
There are beta drivers for Win 3.1 that add SB compatibility.
We have started a thread about it: Tecmar ARPA sound card
Hardware comparisons and game system requirements: https://technical.city
wrote:Terratec cards are often pretty difficult to get for a good price, if you have any you want to dispose of let me know 😵
Looking a little deeper, I'm no longer thinking it's a Terratec board. Probably from these guys:
http://www.globalsources.com/si/AS/Techmakers … panyProfile.htm
Still, Crystal PCM audio chips usually sound nice and clean.
All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder
wrote:Bought a Compaq Deskpro today. Not sure which model, but it's a Pentium 2-based desktop.
Arrived today. 😀
wrote:My GUS lot... […]
My GUS lot...
...just arrived 😎 Its a 2.4 and looking quite good. Will test it tomorrow.
The other soundacrds are nothing special:
Then some graphics cards along with a Mach64 PCI, also nothing special...but have to check for the STB Horizon 64, never seen this card:
But I think for 50€ I made a very good deal for the GUS.
And no, I dont see what should have been unfair in this deal und I would do it again that way... 😈
Just tested the GUS....woking fine 😎 😎 😎
wrote:Looking a little deeper, I'm no longer thinking it's a Terratec board. Probably from these guys: http://www.globalsources.com/si […]
wrote:Terratec cards are often pretty difficult to get for a good price, if you have any you want to dispose of let me know 😵
Looking a little deeper, I'm no longer thinking it's a Terratec board. Probably from these guys:
http://www.globalsources.com/si/AS/Techmakers … panyProfile.htmStill, Crystal PCM audio chips usually sound nice and clean.
Yes, there is a label MF-4236PQ on it, so its this card
http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/sound-cards-multi … -mf-4236pw.html
Not of high value:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Scheda-audio-slot-IS … =p2047675.l2557
wrote:<snip> […]
<snip>
I also got this Coppermine 1000B for $5 because why not, it's basically the best CPU you can stick on a 440BX board. This one turned out to have some chipped sides and corners though, let's see if this one will actually work or not. I've seen worse banged up P3 cores soldier on, and less chipped cores crash and burn, so, we'll see..
PIII's are quite resilient to just chipped sides/corners, but you never know. Running it on a 440BX would be overclocking the AGP. You would need a non-B with 100MHz FSB.
1982 to 2001
Just got it. AFAIK the best and lates intel based Socket7 board from Gigabyte.
It gonna replace my GA-586ATX (but without 4 in the end, it lacks 75FSB and has botd simm and sdram).
Visit my website: http://www.collection.batyra.pl

Got this Intellistaion M Pro. Bit of a mystery machine! Will post when it arrives. https://www.ebay.com/itm/263339029458
HP Z420 Workstation Intel Xeon E5-1620, 32GB, RADEON HD7850 2GB, SSD + HD, XP/7

Hopefully it comes with drives
HP Z420 Workstation Intel Xeon E5-1620, 32GB, RADEON HD7850 2GB, SSD + HD, XP/7

wrote:Not of high value:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Scheda-audio-slot-IS … =p2047675.l2557
Well, how does it sound?
All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder
wrote:omg yes. where did you nab these from?
I got them seperately from different sources. To be honest I find it pretty challenging to track down the main office programs in their retail boxes in acceptable shape. They are not particularly expensive when they pop up but they are not plentiful. It seems people had no reason to buy Word, Excel or PowerPoint seperately when they could have gotten the Office suite for a comparable price back then.
I was gifted this 486/66 tower this week:
486/66 , 540MB HDD, 8MB RAM, some OPTI soundcard and a VLB Trident 9400cxi vga - pretty much the usual stuff one would buy here at the time 😀