Xicor wrote on 2020-12-29, 16:46:

Found this BTC sound card @21€.

BTC_ESS1688F.jpg

Does anyone knows why it has a 27c256 OTP eprom ? Is it possible to find an ES689F or is it unobtainium ?

That one time EPROM is likely a lookup or program table for the 3d effects processor on the ES968F. Programmed at the factory.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-12-29, 22:13:

Not hardware but if your foot it will definitely be painful. OS/2 2.1 UNLEASHED by SAMS Publishing from 1993. Over a thousand pages of OS/2 sweetness. The book is in excellent condition for it's age.

It will come in handy for my up coming OS/2 v2.1 installation on my MITEK 386DX25 system using scsi....

Snap 😀 - still have my original bookstore-bought copy from back then. Does yours still have the shareware disk at the back? - if not and you want a copy I can run you off an image.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2020-12-30, 06:39:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-12-29, 22:13:

Not hardware but if your foot it will definitely be painful. OS/2 2.1 UNLEASHED by SAMS Publishing from 1993. Over a thousand pages of OS/2 sweetness. The book is in excellent condition for it's age.

It will come in handy for my up coming OS/2 v2.1 installation on my MITEK 386DX25 system using scsi....

Snap 😀 - still have my original bookstore-bought copy from back then. Does yours still have the shareware disk at the back? - if not and you want a copy I can run you off an image.

No the disk is long gone. which is ok. I a have Walnut Creek Hobbes OS/2 Archive CD but an image of the original disk would be great thanks.

I would greatly enjoy a copy of both that disk and the Hobbes CD 😀 I am in the process of building an IBM 5x86 OS/2 Warp Connect workstation 😀

appiah4 wrote on 2020-12-30, 07:42:

I would greatly enjoy a copy of both that disk and the Hobbes CD 😀 I am in the process of building an IBM 5x86 OS/2 Warp Connect workstation 😀

Cool. The CD is v2.1 and lower though. The Hobbes OS/2 internet archive is still up https://hobbes.nmsu.edu/
A ton of newer stuff is there like the SciTech display drivers for newer video cards. Think you need the last Fix Pack for Warp v3 and v3 Connect to install it. I know it works on Warp v4 with FP14.

These fixpacks are in the Internet Hobbes Arhive.

Hobbes is still up? I thought it had been taken down at some point. Time to download it all tonight.

Artex wrote on 2020-12-29, 23:49:

Sadly, I do not... 😜

shocking! 😮
I was also secretly hoping we would have a look on that special breakout cable that is needed 😁

appiah4 wrote on 2020-12-30, 07:42:

I would greatly enjoy a copy of both that disk and the Hobbes CD 😀 I am in the process of building an IBM 5x86 OS/2 Warp Connect workstation 😀

Sadly, only a floppies-worth in my case but still happy to image for you

I would appreciate your effort. Cheers!

Hakeshu wrote on 2020-12-29, 20:52:

canthearu wrote on 2020-12-29, 02:30:

Hakeshu wrote on 2020-12-28, 22:08:

This beauty arrived today. Will make some tests on my Pentium 200 (atm with a Trident 3D 9750).

Have my fingers crossed for you. Some S3 Virge cards have OK display output, others are totally blurry and crap.

Ouch, really?? I'm hoping for a good display. Since I'm out of Blank CD and floppy disks, I cant' install it properly atm due lack of drivers. I bought a Gotek Floppy driver, once it arrives, I'll rejoice thinkering with old tech.

I think the issue with some S3 cards is not blurriness, but poor black levels.

clueless1 wrote on 2020-12-30, 11:03:

Hakeshu wrote on 2020-12-29, 20:52:

canthearu wrote on 2020-12-29, 02:30:

Have my fingers crossed for you. Some S3 Virge cards have OK display output, others are totally blurry and crap.

Ouch, really?? I'm hoping for a good display. Since I'm out of Blank CD and floppy disks, I cant' install it properly atm due lack of drivers. I bought a Gotek Floppy driver, once it arrives, I'll rejoice thinkering with old tech.

I think the issue with some S3 cards is not blurriness, but poor black levels.

They both are. Black levels are due to the famous BIOS bugs, blurry output is because most S3 cards were cheap designs that had a mediocre output to begin with, which was then further crippled by the output filtering needed for EMC compliance.
If you remove these filters you can get a reasonable quality picture out of most of them.

Got this boxed Ultrasound PnP.
It comes with 2MB SIMM RAM and is in very good condition (except it is missing part of plastic cover of audio connector).

It works, but setting this thing up, is a real pain int the butt.

Last gift of 2020.

Mobo PC Chips M530
64MB EDO RAM
Pentium 133 - A80502133 (not MMX but, it was bought as a kit for my 200 MMX)

When my retro PC spark was ignited this was the first thing that I bought. Decent price for a working board with 64MB, processor was a bonus since my goal was a MMX 200-233.

The seller also send me a S3 Trio64V+ as a gift.

Nice to finish this year with style.

I was looking for a Voodoo 1 for more then a year, for a decent price. Last week an ad popped up on a local site with the title "3defix video card"... It was a Miro Hiscore 3D!
Grabbed it for 50 euros incl. shipping bundled with an AZZA PT-5VML rev 2.0, an AMD K6-2/300 and 2 sticks of 128 MB PC133 SDRAM.
Can't say it was cheap, but it's a 6 MB Voodoo!
Still need to make a cable for it, but the card works great. Also the mainboard.
It's a good way to end this crazy year!

PS: added a heatsink to the TMU, just to be on the safe side...

Couldn't believe I found Yamaha TG100 for sale on a local marketplace less than an hour from me. MIDI gear is extremely rare in my part of the country. The only other sound module I've found within reasonable driving distance was a Roland MT200 about 175 miles (3 1/2 hours) back in 2016... and that was a stretch, even if I made another stop half way there.

Anyway, this thing was a bit smokey, but cleaned up nicely after an hour or so of detailing. I tested it out with the built in demo track and it sounds really nice!

Came with a pile of unrelated cables (was hoping for the serial cable), the original Yamaha PA-1505 power brick and to my surprise, the original books! I didn't know I was getting those. 😀

Got a very good price on it as well, even with shipping (COVID19 and crummy weather made this preferable).

I'm looking forward to comparing it to my other modules. I'm especially interested in seeing how the CM64 emulation sounds in a side by side comparison with the CM64 I picked up earlier this year.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2020-12-29, 06:39:

Wow, never seen anything like that. Looks like CL GD5428 graphics onboard, with room for memory expansion? I wonder if it's 1MB or 2MB max. And what's with the memory chips near the RAM slots? It looks like it says OB MEM ENABLE... OnBoard memory? As system RAM, or as an IDE cache? All very strange.

Biggest concern though: That battery. What a bad location. Battery corrosion is undesirable in the usual location near the keyboard port, but it tends to be much more sparsely populated with traces. Up near the CPU, jumpers and VLB slots you could have all sorts of odd problems. I'd definitely ask for some closeup pics of the front and back of that area.

He answered the better picture question with: "you can zoom in on the Ebay pictures", I asked back if he could take one of the Varta barrel battery area to make sure it has not leaked or corroded.
Will wait and see if he sends me a better picture...

Bought a boxed 56x IDE CDrom, i3-2100 and heatsink (for my spare Q77 board) all for less than $20.
Seller offered me a used but boxed Giga B75M board for cheap but inspecting the socket revealed many bent pins from some dumb ass who did not protect it properly when no cpu was installed.
I keep a few of those plastic socket covers just for that purpose, when board is in storage, even a small piece of cardboard taped over the socket is better than nothing.....

It's old Pentium motherboard day today 😀

Four beautiful boards, three working perfectly and the other is starting POST, so still hope there too.

First off one I received a few weeks ago but hadn't gotten round to doing anything with (busy November/December...):

Mitac PB5400D

UMC UM889x chipset So5. Years back I tested two boards with this chipset and they were the slowest Pentium boards I ever handled. However others have had different experiences. Time for a re-trial (once I add some cache).

Then the mystery board:

PIP56-0. Only found chemical resistant gloves so far searching for that...

ALi M1451 chipset So4. Starts POST, but hangs at 13 (with an AMI PENTIUM PCI ISA BIOS), which sounds like low-level chipset stuff.

Finally the real catch:

Spring Circle SF586

Forex FRX58C601A chipset, PCI, ISA and VLB So5. Very unusual board - most VLB Pentium boards are OPTi-based, I hadn't even heard of any Forex Pentium chipsets until fellow Vogon Nvm1 posted in this topic with this board almost 2 years back. Now, thanks to sf78, who also has one, I have not one but two. And they are both in excellent working condition. I'll open a topic on them, as apart from a BIOS online there's no info on jumper settings that I've been able to find. Fortunately I have been able to work some things out already (all eight FSB speeds from 16.7-80MHz for one), so we can share there. But first that barrel battery needs to go.

Thanks serdaco!

dionb wrote on 2020-12-31, 00:01:

It's old Pentium motherboard day today :) Four beautiful boards, three working perfectly and the other is starting POST, so stil […]
Show full quote

It's old Pentium motherboard day today 😀
Four beautiful boards, three working perfectly and the other is starting POST, so still hope there too.

First off one I received a few weeks ago but hadn't gotten round to doing anything with (busy November/December...):
Mitac PB5400D
16093722566580.jpg
UMC UM889x chipset So5. Years back I tested two boards with this chipset and they were the slowest Pentium boards I ever handled. However others have had different experiences. Time for a re-trial (once I add some cache).

Then the mystery board:
PIP56-0. Only found chemical resistant gloves so far searching for that...
16093722960421.jpg
ALi M1451 chipset So4. Starts POST, but hangs at 13 (with an AMI PENTIUM PCI ISA BIOS), which sounds like low-level chipset stuff.

Finally the real catch:
Spring Circle SF586
16093723438450.jpg
Forex FRX58C601A chipset, PCI, ISA and VLB So5. Very unusual board - most VLB Pentium boards are OPTi-based, I hadn't even heard of any Forex Pentium chipsets until fellow Vogon Nvm1 posted in this topic with this board almost 2 years back. Now, thanks to sf78, who also has one, I have not one but two. And they are both in excellent working condition. I'll open a topic on them, as apart from a BIOS online there's no info on jumper settings that I've been able to find. Fortunately I have been able to work some things out already (all eight FSB speeds from 16.7-80MHz for one), so we can share there. But first that barrel battery needs to go.

Nice bunch of boards ! If you post the BIOS of the PIP56-0 would be happy to do some searching to figure out a bit more. It reminds me of a Biostar/Biotech board from long ago.