Still in transit;

1) The Blasterboard from one of our fellow Vogoners (maybe I should type that as Vogon'ers)

2) Yamaha DB51XG daughterboard (finally found one for a 'decent' price)

appiah4 wrote:

I had never intended to collect any 286/386 era hardware but lately I've just been coming across these things and for good price […]
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I had never intended to collect any 286/386 era hardware but lately I've just been coming across these things and for good prices, usually below $20 per motherboard. This one here was on sale for $15 only. I grabbed it. Untested and has some battery damage but it should work I would think.

Unknown 286-10 01.JPG

Has an AMD 286-16 on it and a fixed amount of ram. I wonder how fast that is compared to the current 386SX-25 I am working on right now.. I can't wait to put this in a suitable case alongside my Adlib clone and MusicQuest clone to play some sweet Sierra games 😀

Unknown 286-10 02.JPG

Only question is, what is that unpopulated IC socket to the north of the CPU? Coprocessor? Hmm..

I have a number of 286 Headland based boards, looks like the FPU socket. Interesting to see multi IO on the board itself. You don't see that to often on 286 boards.

Hopefully that battery didn't do to much damage. Love to see a other photo of it once you've got it cleaned up!

Bought a Socket 5 system built by a fellow Vogon'er and is in transit via FedEx for $45 shipped and the GameBoy DMG-01 bundle I ordered is in transit... via FedEx (was advertised as USPS for shipping on shopgoodwill.com) for over $100 (yes, I know that's a bit pricey, but, it has a few accessories, like the 4-player adapter) and they need cleaning severely, which I'll be cleaning them before I use them (gloves, Isopropyl alcohol, and lots of sponges).

pan069 wrote:

I have a number of 286 Headland based boards, looks like the FPU socket. Interesting to see multi IO on the board itself. You don't see that to often on 286 boards.

Hopefully that battery didn't do to much damage. Love to see a other photo of it once you've got it cleaned up!

Yeah looks like an FPU socket indeed. Doing some research; seems a 286-16 with Headland chipset was a fairly common build in the early 386 years, kind of like the 386DX-40 during the early 486 years. Kind of musing about replacing my 386SX-25 MS-DOS 5.0 system with this now. Worth it? Good idea? I don't know.. Sounds like downgrading from a slow 386SX to a fast 286 has absolutely no benefits..

These two are waiting for transit:

External SCSI ZIP 250 drive

External USB ZIP 250 drive/PCMCIA card adapter/SmartMedia card reader, usable as stand-alone device for transferring photos and video from PCMCIA CF cards adapters and SmartMedia cards to ZIP disks and to/from cameras and S-VHS video recorders , or as an PC/Mac drive (I wonder what the functionality of the PCMCIA card adapter will be in that case...).

Both used and mostly complete. The combo drive was sold as untested, so we'll see.

appiah4 wrote:

Sounds like downgrading from a slow 386SX to a fast 286 has absolutely no benefits..

Well, a 386SX at 16mhz can still be faster than a 286 at 16mhz since the 386SX will still be a 32 bit CPU, i.e. they will be similar in speed but the 386SX will be more versatile in that it will be able to run software that requires a 32bit CPU (e.g. Windows 3.11). But yeah, the 16 bit bus is probably going to be the bottleneck. 😀

Well that's not what benchmarks seem to tell. It seems like the 286 is closer to a 386DX in terms of raw performance, as long as it runs a compatible software. But yeah the 386SX is way more versatile.

Picked up a new old stock Nvidia 7800GTX ($10, Dell logo on the fan shroud) for my Elitegroup KN1 Extreme / AMD FX60 build.

Deksor wrote:

Well that's not what benchmarks seem to tell. It seems like the 286 is closer to a 386DX in terms of raw performance

What benchmarks are those?

First a DELL version, now a Leadtek Winfast version with all the goodies(vga/dvi/tv).... GeForce2 Ultra 64mb AGP4x

Cool card, man. Word of caution: please oil the fan before powering it on and using the card.

That fan can just be replaced with a new one too. They are still made in that size/style. To keep the WinFast sticker, a new one can be printed with the same size and font on any InkJet or LaserJet printer with sticker paper. 😀

Edit.. here's the ones I use: Millennium Fan MFAN-1024-D 12VDC 0.06A 45mm x 45mm x10mm OL0379
Example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Millennium-Fan-MFAN- … GMAAOSwYhtc7qWe

I should get a new one for my GeForce4 Ti4400.

bjwil1991 wrote:

Cool card, man. Word of caution: please oil the fan before powering it on and using the card.

Thanks... but the first thing i usually do is run my videocards for a minute or two in the machine to see and hear the condition of the fan, reoil it if necessary, then i'll pull off the heatsink, clean off the old and reaply fresh thermal paste on the gpu, i always like to use artic silver ceramique2, its good stuff.

I use the Arctic Silver 5 compound for the northbridge, GPU, and CPU heatsinks and it does a lot better than the cheap thermal compound that computer companies use. I used it on my old Xbox 360 before the GPU failed and it ran a lot cooler than before and the fans were louder (might've installed the heatsinks backwards) and on my Xbox Original 1.6b that still runs without any issues.

pan069 wrote:

Deksor wrote:

Well that's not what benchmarks seem to tell. It seems like the 286 is closer to a 386DX in terms of raw performance

What benchmarks are those?

There are several threads on Vogons about this, but you can check this one for starters. In my experience if we're strictly speaking about games, a good 286-12 with 0 wait states will keep up with a 386sx16. And a 286-16 will usually outperform it.

MMaximus wrote:

In my experience if we're strictly speaking about games, a good 286-12 with 0 wait states will keep up with a 386sx16. And a 286-16 will usually outperform it.

Yes, it's a well-known fact.
386SX has a paging translation unit, ie. additional level of logic elements between the CPU core and memory, which inevitably introduces some delay.

Superflower case for $20.50 on Ebay. Removable motherboard tray ftw

Awww, Nice !
Hard to find. I want silver one.
Check out mine.
Ultimate Audio / Gaming build - Terratec/SB Audigy2zs

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Awww, Nice ! Hard to find. I want silver one. Check out mine. Ultimate Audio / Gaming build - Terratec/SB Audigy2zs […]
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Awww, Nice !
Hard to find. I want silver one.
Check out mine.
Ultimate Audio / Gaming build - Terratec/SB Audigy2zs

Nice, it looks awesome in black. 😎

This one that I just ordered, it was only me and 1 other bidder for the past 4 listings of it -- nothing went higher than $20, but the seller had a reserve price (unknown). He finally gave in at this last auction listing and gave me a Second Chance Offer. 🤣

I think I'll put a DMX6fire in mine too. I have one waiting to be installed in a silver case.