A couple of nice additions to the collection at the end of the week.

The first is a CT1320A with CMS chips. Works well in the 386SX-33. This is my only Sound Blaster with the CMS chips except for the Creative Music System card itself.

The next one is a Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 with PowerVR Kyro II. It was listed as an ATI X700 Pro because it was inside a retail box for that card. The original owner must have upgraded and put the Kyro II into the box of the new ATI card. I feel like I upgraded from the X700.

(After a bit of an issue with the courier) my Compaq QVision 1280/E finally showed up - from the box labelling, seems to have been an unused spare.

Is that an EISA video card? Very rare...

Yes. There's always a few on the Bay but prices are normally high as EISA VGA was probably the least used element of the bus. I got this privately as part of a bundle of PCI cards.

What do you do when you have too many motherboards already? Buy another of course.

I have a bit of a weird fetish for mATX s370 boards with ISA that I can use to build compact DOS/Win98 gaming machines with a Via C3 cpu. This one will be perfect for my pci Voodoo Banshee and maybe a SB live + Audiodrive.

PS: i just noticed this board has an unsoldered SBLink header as well.

PS2: It also comes with integrated "ESS Solo-1 PCI Audio controller" -- I wonder if that is connected internally to PC/PCI for DOS compatibility. Will be fun to try out. https://www.anandtech.com/show/286

A friend gave me his old GeForce 4 MX440 yesterday, and I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with this little card.

PROs:

• Passive cooling (I like my systems to be as quiet as possible)
• Performance on par with a GeForce 2 GTS, maybe even the Ultra
• Supports fog table and palletted textures (this matters for early Win9x games)
• Can be used with older nvidia driver versions like 40.72
• Using FASTVID, it can reach 70+ FPS in Quake 1 under pure DOS while running in software mode at 640x480
• Good DOS compatibility

CONs

• No DirectX 8.1 support (this doesn't matter for games released before 2001)
• A bit slow in higher resolutions like 1280x1024, but this depends on the game
  
  Overall, I think this is a pretty decent card for Win9x gaming. Despite being labeled as a GeForce 4, it's actually much closer to a GeForce 2 in terms of features, but with higher core and memory speeds for a bit of extra performance. It also seems to be a lot cheaper than a GeForce 2 GTS on eBay and such.

kolderman wrote on 2020-05-03, 07:57:

What do you do when you have too many motherboards already? Buy another of course.

I have a bit of a weird fetish for mATX s370 boards with ISA that I can use to build compact DOS/Win98 gaming machines with a Via C3 cpu. This one will be perfect for my pci Voodoo Banshee and maybe a SB live + Audiodrive.

that's the spirit!

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2020-05-03, 02:01:

(After a bit of an issue with the courier) my Compaq QVision 1280/E finally showed up - from the box labelling, seems to have been an unused spare.

QVision 1280E.JPG

oh, I think I have one of these, I got it rather cheap on ebay and only bought it cause... EISA VGA ^^

this is the card I got, it's slightly different.
is there an easy way to tell if this is EISA or OPTiLB since it was apparently available in both?
the pin arrangement seems to be the same as yours... so I guess EISA?
edit: mine seems to be a "Qvision 1024/E" I guess 4/8 is just the amount of memory chips? ^^
though if I look for "1024/E" those seem to have a different graphics chip... hard to find definitive info.

imi wrote on 2020-05-03, 16:01:

this is the card I got, it's slightly different. is there an easy way to tell if this is EISA or OPTiLB since it was apparently […]
Show full quote

this is the card I got, it's slightly different.
is there an easy way to tell if this is EISA or OPTiLB since it was apparently available in both?
the pin arrangement seems to be the same as yours... so I guess EISA?
edit: mine seems to be a "Qvision 1024/E" I guess 4/8 is just the amount of memory chips? ^^
though if I look for "1024/E" those seem to have a different graphics chip... hard to find definitive info.

hardware38_38.jpg

Yes, that's the 1024/E, I have the exact same card in my Prosignia Server. There seem to be 2 variants of the 1024/E
1280/E is close to impossible to find. I wonder if the the 1280 also has VRAM or is it just DRAM?

if I search for "Compaq 1024/E" I mainly find references to this card with a different graphics chip: http://vgamuseum.info/index.php/help-identify … 04-qvision-1024
while mine also has the Motorola SC02SH007DK04, they differ in amount of memory and different RAMDAC though.

e: yes, compared to the 1280

imi wrote on 2020-05-03, 17:05:

if I search for "Compaq 1024/E" I mainly find references to this card with a different graphics chip: http://vgamuseum.info/index.php/help-identify … 04-qvision-1024
while mine also has the Motorola SC02SH007DK04, they differ in amount of memory and different RAMDAC though.

They don't differ in amount of memory, all 1024/E have 1 MB VRAM as far as I know.

CoffeeOne wrote on 2020-05-03, 18:08:

imi wrote on 2020-05-03, 17:05:

if I search for "Compaq 1024/E" I mainly find references to this card with a different graphics chip: http://vgamuseum.info/index.php/help-identify … 04-qvision-1024
while mine also has the Motorola SC02SH007DK04, they differ in amount of memory and different RAMDAC though.

They don't differ in amount of memory, all 1024/E have 1 MB VRAM as far as I know.

Ah sorry, you compare the 1024 to the 1280 (?)

imi wrote on 2020-05-03, 17:05:

if I search for "Compaq 1024/E" I mainly find references to this card with a different graphics chip: http://vgamuseum.info/index.php/help-identify … 04-qvision-1024
while mine also has the Motorola SC02SH007DK04, they differ in amount of memory and different RAMDAC though.

Yours (002930-001) is the 1024/E with the 2nd generation V32 controller

Although mine came with an unopened pack of support disks, I'll hunt down the latest SoftPAQs online just in case.

* the 1280/E is 2MB

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2020-05-03, 18:21:

Yours (002930-001) is the 1024/E with the 2nd generation V32 controller […]
Show full quote

imi wrote on 2020-05-03, 17:05:

if I search for "Compaq 1024/E" I mainly find references to this card with a different graphics chip: http://vgamuseum.info/index.php/help-identify … 04-qvision-1024
while mine also has the Motorola SC02SH007DK04, they differ in amount of memory and different RAMDAC though.

Yours (002930-001) is the 1024/E with the 2nd generation V32 controller

Compaq VGA.jpg
QVision V32 ASIC.jpg

Although mine came with an unopened pack of support disks, I'll hunt down the latest SoftPAQs online just in case.

* the 1280/E is 2MB

Is the second generation 1024/E upgradable to 2 MB?
Do you know it?
I wonder for what these 4 connectors are(?)

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2020-05-03, 18:21:

Yours (002930-001) is the 1024/E with the 2nd generation V32 controller

ah! thank you :3

I certainly think it's upgradable, wouldn't know what else the connectors would be for, but good luck ever finding an upgrade module ^^

These suggest a 1024 with 2MB (so I assume by a 1MB upgrade module) but don't quote a part number

https://ulihansen.kicks-ass.net/aero/software … ers/display.txt

https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2008/reading … adoc/COMPAQ.TXT

The QVision/1024i controllers only included 512kb onboard with 512kb expansions... never seen a 2MB option for the onboard solutions. Ditto (not seeing a 2MB) option for 1024/e.

I have a computer with a QVision/1280i which has 1MB onboard but have not see the 1MB expansion. I’d love to have one. A QVision/1280e board is super cool!

got this one a few days ago, my third Dolch Pac computer :3
first one is a Dolch Pac 64 that is missing a few parts
second one basically just the shell of a Dolch Pac 586.

and now this nice Dolch Pac 61 which is still in good original condition :3 (apart from the one missing rubber foot on the keyboard)
and this one finally has an ISO DE keyboard ^^
I'm planning to build a nice portable retro gaming machine in the empty shell probaby since I don't want to tear the original ones apart.

I didn't wanna take it apart fully right now I just quickly opened it to see if it indeed has this really nice VLB/EISA combo motherboard inside (and no leaking battery), someone did a video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-tjq7WnFKs
and sure enough it does :3

imi wrote on 2020-05-03, 23:29:

got this one a few days ago, my third Dolch Pac computer :3 first one is a Dolch Pac 64 that is missing a few parts second one b […]
Show full quote

got this one a few days ago, my third Dolch Pac computer :3
first one is a Dolch Pac 64 that is missing a few parts
second one basically just the shell of a Dolch Pac 586.

and now this nice Dolch Pac 61 which is still in good original condition :3 (apart from the one missing rubber foot on the keyboard)
and this one finally has an ISO DE keyboard ^^
I'm planning to build a nice portable retro gaming machine in the empty shell probaby since I don't want to tear the original ones apart.

Nice looking portable ! Does it have the original 486DX2-66 ? Read that is what the PAC 61's came with.

Isn't that the semi-portable High Treason made a video about not long ago and absolutely shat on?