wow....

IMO it wasn't worth the price. Unless you want a DosBOX really fast without having to build it yourself.

It's a very well preserved machine I think. Looks brand new.

...And I threw away my 486DX2 VLB board - when the battery collapsed! Aaargh! A battery that's no worth more than 5€!
That's 196€ I've lost!

I bought a very well preserved (no scratches, no ugly colors on the chasis) Highscreen 386 with all preinstalled software a while ago for something like 15 euro. I think its easier to get an 486 than a nice 386.

I've got two Fujitsu-Siemens. One is a 486/66 PCI machine, with a Tseng graphic board, and an AWE64 sound board. The other is a Pentium 166MMX, with a S3 and another AWE64.

I was thinking about selling these computers starting at 50€ plus postage...

Yeah - but 200€? Okay, to be earnest: it might not be easy to find a well preserved machine nowadays.
On the other hand thats the fun: search it, find it and get it for a reasonable price. Or assemble it from components you find in the basement or friends give you that are relieved to get rid of them.
But paying over 200€ just to have it "ready made"? Mhm.... looking around in my room it seems like a new business area for me.... 😀

Heck, if I went through dumpsters here. I believe I could find (and of course clean it).
The best computer (also when it comes to dos machines). And that would be cheaper, perhaps a bit more time consuming. But I would have a better and cheaper dos machine to that. That is just ludicrous. Paying so much for a ready to go DOS machine.

I don't see it as insane. It all depends on how you value your own time. For me, with a somewhat skimpy knowledge of old hardware, paying someone else to put together a machine that works out of the box, will be more effective than me spending 3-4 weekends collecting and assembling the box.

MiniMax wrote:

I don't see it as insane. It all depends on how you value your own time. For me, with a somewhat skimpy knowledge of old hardware, paying someone else to put together a machine that works out of the box, will be more effective than me spending 3-4 weekends collecting and assembling the box.

But sir, spending 2000 kroner or 200 £ are not pennies to all . So well, I think even you could find a better deal by some of your friends. Go do the math, and you will see it is not the sweetest price. Not even 1496.55 kroner would I spend on something I could do over a period of four weekends or so. It is pretty much insane. The currency rate can always be discussed at some other time, please do the math. Speding 201 Euros or for that matter 200 £ on an old PC you could find and make would still be a lot cheaper. Heck even the cleaning of the parts would work better, and the whole thing would be cheaper, colour me crazy. But I hope it makes sense.

I'd be happy just to find a nice small AT mini-tower like that. Getting all the other parts seems easier.

This is what I bought 3 months ago for about 15 euro (including shipping):

Vobis Highscreen Kompakt Serie III 386-SX
- Octec Panther II mainboard (@Stason)
- AMD Am386 SX-25
- 4 MB RAM
- 256 kB Oak VGA
- SB Pro 2.0
- Quantum LP52A 50 MB HDD
- I/O, HDD controller.

Although it's a typical budget configuration from 91', I wouldn't even consider exchanging it for this 200 euro 486. I bought it, because I liked the chasis and wanted to use it for a more powerful 386 or 486, but after I saw it came with software and configured like it was bought yesterday I decided to not touch it 😀. The ISA VGA rescued my Iwill mainboard after a a failed BIOS update, allowing me to do an emergency flash.

Some photos:

* Really nice desktop chasis, almost without scratches and in nice grey colour.

* Clean and well-organized interior:

* On-line with and without turbo:

* Booting, ver:

* Basic BIOS settings:

* C: contents, C:\GAMES\ contents, doublespace drives:

The prices of old hardware are getting a bit ridiculous these days, I agree. However, I can understand why the system mentioned by Amigaz was selling for so much: It's all about the mainboard.

The VL/I-486SV2G looks like a really nice 486 board - it has support for 3.3V CPUs with write-back cache, L2 cache up to 1 MB, official 50 MHz bus, a PS/2 mouse connector, and an external CMOS battery connector. You don't find a board with this feature list every day, and let's not forget it's a brand name board with documentation still available.
With the right components this one could run circles around the 486 PCI boards.

5u3 wrote:

The prices of old hardware are getting a bit ridiculous these days, I agree. However, I can understand why the system mentioned by Amigaz was selling for so much: It's all about the mainboard.

The VL/I-486SV2G looks like a really nice 486 board - it has support for 3.3V CPUs with write-back cache, L2 cache up to 1 MB, official 50 MHz bus, a PS/2 mouse connector, and an external CMOS battery connector. You don't find a board with this feature list every day, and let's not forget it's a brand name board with documentation still available.
With the right components this one could run circles around the 486 PCI boards.

Yeah, and the bits of pieces except the motherboard don't seem to shabby either.
The hard part imho is to find pieces that workds together and a good motherboard..I've lrearnt that the hard way after building around 10 socket 3 systems the past 2 years
The socket 3 period is horrible imho....the quality control wasn't high it seem aong the manafacturers 😵
imho finding the case it the easiest part...then to find a good motherboard can take ages..even on Ebay where it's mostly crap motherboard models sold all of the time
This case is pretty good too..happen to own one myself but it's very yellowed

GL1zdA wrote:

This is what I bought 3 months ago for about 15 euro (including shipping): […]
Show full quote

This is what I bought 3 months ago for about 15 euro (including shipping):

Vobis Highscreen Kompakt Serie III 386-SX
- Octec Panther II mainboard (@Stason)
- AMD Am386 SX-25
- 4 MB RAM
- 256 kB Oak VGA
- SB Pro 2.0
- Quantum LP52A 50 MB HDD
- I/O, HDD controller.

Although it's a typical budget configuration from 91', I wouldn't even consider exchanging it for this 200 euro 486. I bought it, because I liked the chasis and wanted to use it for a more powerful 386 or 486, but after I saw it came with software and configured like it was bought yesterday I decided to not touch it 😀. The ISA VGA rescued my Iwill mainboard after a a failed BIOS update, allowing me to do an emergency flash.

Some photos:

* Really nice desktop chasis, almost without scratches and in nice grey colour.

* Clean and well-organized interior:

* On-line with and without turbo:

* Booting, ver:

* Basic BIOS settings:

* C: contents, C:\GAMES\ contents, doublespace drives:

ohh..I like these highscreen cases...they made good cases imho

Here my highscreen Eisa "monster" system 😉

I don't understand how some people can get such high prices for old hardware? I regularly buy old hardware off my local craigslist for dirt cheap. One guy even gave me a whole laundry basket of stuff for free! It had several hard drives (including a 30 gb Fireball), some cd drives, a dvd drive, two 12 mb Voodoo 2's with the SLI cable and some misc. cables. I guess every market is different.

olemogamer wrote:

I don't understand how some people can get such high prices for old hardware? I regularly buy old hardware off my local craigslist for dirt cheap. One guy even gave me a whole laundry basket of stuff for free! It had several hard drives (including a 30 gb Fireball), some cd drives, a dvd drive, two 12 mb Voodoo 2's with the SLI cable and some misc. cables. I guess every market is different.

We're talking early 90's hardware here...socket 7 hardware and later is easy to find and quite cheap

Amigaz wrote:

olemogamer wrote:

I don't understand how some people can get such high prices for old hardware? I regularly buy old hardware off my local craigslist for dirt cheap. One guy even gave me a whole laundry basket of stuff for free! It had several hard drives (including a 30 gb Fireball), some cd drives, a dvd drive, two 12 mb Voodoo 2's with the SLI cable and some misc. cables. I guess every market is different.

We're talking early 90's hardware here...socket 7 hardware and later is easy to find and quite cheap

Ok, I got it. 😊

olemogamer wrote:

I don't understand how some people can get such high prices for old hardware? I regularly buy old hardware off my local craigslist for dirt cheap. One guy even gave me a whole laundry basket of stuff for free! It had several hard drives (including a 30 gb Fireball), some cd drives, a dvd drive, two 12 mb Voodoo 2's with the SLI cable and some misc. cables. I guess every market is different.

I think it's the rarity now, not the performance. Try looking up some Roland midi cards these days or other such daughterboards. 😳