TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Damn you vogonites, I just realized in a little over a year I've posted here over 400 times. \
The addiction begins?

I don't know about that... I not been here long and look at my post count. I guess this is the only forum I'm on.
I need a life 😒

Jade Falcon wrote:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Damn you vogonites, I just realized in a little over a year I've posted here over 400 times. \
The addiction begins?

I don't know about that... I not been here long and look at my post count. I guess this is the only forum I'm on.
I need a life 😒

I see nothing wrong with your post count. You're in a community of real people with similar interests and you're communicating with them an average of 5 times per day. That sounds pretty normal to me. People put a lot of time into the things they enjoy the most, whether it's computers/IT/retro PCs, literature, movies, gardening, working out, etc. Don't buy into the world's "get a life" crap. If you're doing what you enjoy, then I don't see the problem.

Good point. I guess the way I look at it is that I'm on the computer/internet too much and should go out and do something.

I found this old joystick in the local recycling center. It seems to be in really good condition and it clearly has not been used much. There is no looseness in the handle.

Found this bad boy on the side of the road today. Only missing the hard drive, but seems to fully work otherwise. Didn't play much with it, don't have much use for it:

Dell XPS 420
Q6600 Quad Core CPU
4GB DDR2 667MHz RAM
9800GT GPU (I believe).

Has a mini screen on it that you can play solitare on.

Still has plastic all over it. 😎

The GPU serial number is hand written. 🤣

You guys have better dumpsters than me.

dexvx wrote:

You guys have better dumpsters than me.

I haven't found a computer in the trash in years around here, all the metal recyclers grab them before I can find em.

Well it's taken a year but my patience and persistence have paid off. I finally found the small locked room where all the 'old crap' is kept, somehow avoiding the WEEE waste collection. The full list is below but here are the highlights:

That's right:

- Apple II Plus
- Macintosh Portable in branded carry case
- Acorn RISC PC
- NEC ESDI hard disk (edit: actually it might be MFM as I first thought) (edit: it's a D5146H - somehow I was blind to the model number - which is 42MB MFM)
- Super Micro P6SLA
- Mac Classic & Mac Classic II

Plus:
- External floppy for my Toshiba 740CDT (almost a luckier find than the stuff above)
- PCI 3com NIC
- ISA SB 16 Vibra (crappy but hey, it's ISA)
- AGP ATi Charger
- Altec Lansing speakers (no sub, sadly)
- Audiophile USB MIDI interface
- A bunch of 5.25" floppies
- 2x SCA hard drives plus a 2GB IDE drive

Not a bad day at the office!

The Apple II Plus, to me is the real prize. Monitor? Floppy drive? Congrats!

clueless1 wrote:

The Apple II Plus, to me is the real prize. Monitor? Floppy drive? Congrats!

Neither sadly. Reckon I could find a compatible monitor and there must be a drive kicking about somewhere on campus. I want to get these up and running for a computer history museum I've been asked to be the curator for 😀

@brassicGamer, oh dang, that Acorn RISC PC made me go 😳, I really want one myself. They are cool machines. Any specs on it yet?

As for me, I picked this up: a PreSonus AudioBox 44VSL. Looks like it's in pristine condition, and seems to be working fine, though I've only tested the headphone output so far.
For those of you keeping track; yes this is the second PreSonus external soudcard I've found recently, and no I'm not making it up. 😀

The first one I found had FireWire - which is a bit of a pain in Linux - and a breakout connector (sans cable) for MIDI. This second one is USB Audio Class compliant, has MIDI connectors and two more microphone preamps. A nice upgrade.
(edit: correction to specs.)

Someone trashed this old Core 2 era computer without an HDD and the videocard dead (spotted bad caps around the card), system didn't POST at first, but i finally POST after replacing the videocard

Specs:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
3 GB DDR2 (512 + 2048 + 512 MB)
ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus with SupremeFX
Club 3D Geforce 8600 GT Passive (dead)
D-Link Gigabit PCI Ethernet

Got a couple of untested 486 motherboards from a friend today. One is dead (FIC 486-VIP-IO) - someone put a CPU in backwards and it scorched the VRM - the other is a SiS VLB board.

@x0zm_
Do all of the Dell XPS 420s come with a "mini screen"?

Arctic wrote:

@x0zm_
Do all of the Dell XPS 420s come with a "mini screen"?

Yes, it was for windows vista sideshow. Microsoft was really pushing it at the time.

Carlos S. M. wrote:

Someone trashed this old Core 2 era computer without an HDD and the videocard dead (spotted bad caps around the card), system di […]
Show full quote

Someone trashed this old Core 2 era computer without an HDD and the videocard dead (spotted bad caps around the card), system didn't POST at first, but i finally POST after replacing the videocard

Specs:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
3 GB DDR2 (512 + 2048 + 512 MB)
ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus with SupremeFX
Club 3D Geforce 8600 GT Passive (dead)
D-Link Gigabit PCI Ethernet

That's actually a really, really nice SLI system for 775. And one of the better overclocking motherboards for 775 as well. Crazy find. Those go for about $100 used on ebay bare motherboard these days if they work.

Full-Speed PCIE 2.0 16x-16x SLI support.

I would add two GTX 295s 😀

stoof wrote:

@brassicGamer, oh dang, that Acorn RISC PC made me go 😳, I really want one myself. They are cool machines. Any specs on it yet?

Not yet. Curiously there are 2 PC CPU boards with this specimen - need to remove the heatsinks and check them. I also don't yet know if this is a StrongARM model yet. I do love a good Acorn.

p.s. the Apple ][+ works but the Portable may never work again - once the lead-acid batteries fail there's not a great do you can do, it seems. 🙁

Edit: looks like it came with an ARM610 CPU originally clocked at 30MHz and was upgraded to a 200MHz StrongARM. And I wasn't expecting to find this under the heatsink on the PC board!

Oh, sweet! Acorns are weird, cool machines, and that one's got one of the cooler PC co-pro boards.

Does it run?

Carlos S. M. wrote:

Someone trashed this old Core 2 era computer without an HDD and the videocard dead (spotted bad caps around the card), system di […]
Show full quote

Someone trashed this old Core 2 era computer without an HDD and the videocard dead (spotted bad caps around the card), system didn't POST at first, but i finally POST after replacing the videocard

Specs:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
3 GB DDR2 (512 + 2048 + 512 MB)
ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus with SupremeFX
Club 3D Geforce 8600 GT Passive (dead)
D-Link Gigabit PCI Ethernet

Wow what a time machine. Always neat to see such old systems.