I've picked up quite a few S3 Trio/ViRGE cards for less than $5 USD each over the years, so that's a good possibility for a video card if you can find one. I've also seen quite a few under $10 USD ATI Rage cards from 1995-1997 on eBay before, so that's also a thing to look at. The Matrox cards sell for too much because they are probably being sold as spares for industrial PCs.

Hard Drive will be one of the most challenging I think, up there with the case. Finding an old one, that works, at a good price, and not have it damaged in shipping is a nightmare.

iirc, on one of Phil's latest videos he mentioned he had a 20% off coupon for Electromyne. You might be able to grab CPU, ISA sound card, possibly a video card and some RAM then combine postage and get it at a good price.

Keen to see how you go with that budget 😀

For me it's the shipping costs that kill it unfortunately. A motherboard bundle, like board, CPU, cooler, RAM and a GPU is a good start though.

Seeing you already got the board, if you can get a complete PC with all the other parts like case, a PCI graphics card, an ISA sound card, an IDE HDD and ODD, then this should be quite possible.

Wasn't the ViRGE the world's first "graphics decelerator"? It's probably fine if you don't need 3D performance, though.

If you don't want to have to deal with the nightmare of trying to get a working IDE drive, you can always get a SATA card. There are quite a few that should work just fine and are really cheap.

The Promise S150 TX2 or TX4 would be a good choice. Doesn't necessarily have to be sold by Promise, you just want one with the Promise S150 chipset.

As for building a system with parts off of eBay for $100 or less... might be doable, but will probably take a while to find parts cheap enough.

These exist, but I don't know if they work as well as the cheap CF card adapters.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/SD-To-3-5-40Pin-Male-I … EcAAOSwRLZT102D

Jade Falcon wrote:

Performance and nostalgia is not a goll here. The only goll is to build a fully working late dos early 9x system for less then a 100$ Useing parts from 97 and back. The case will be a b****.

There is a fundamental contradiction here. You cannot say that your "goll" does not include performance and nostalgia and then throw in an arbitrary restriction like "parts from 97 and back". Especially if you're concerned about the case.

You can probably build a "fully working late dos early 9x system" with largely arbitrary parts that will probably be entirely adequate for a large range of games without having to account for such concerns.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Keen to see how you go with that budget 😀

For me it's the shipping costs that kill it unfortunately. A motherboard bundle, like board, CPU, cooler, RAM and a GPU is a good start though.

Seeing you already got the board, if you can get a complete PC with all the other parts like case, a PCI graphics card, an ISA sound card, an IDE HDD and ODD, then this should be quite possible.

Honestly I'd like to stay away from items listed as lots. In other words I'd like to buy everything separate for a bigger challenge.

Jorpho wrote:

Jade Falcon wrote:

Performance and nostalgia is not a goll here. The only goll is to build a fully working late dos early 9x system for less then a 100$ Useing parts from 97 and back. The case will be a b****.

There is a fundamental contradiction here. You cannot say that your "goll" does not include performance and nostalgia and then throw in an arbitrary restriction like "parts from 97 and back". Especially if you're concerned about the case.

I don't Fallow you on bit. The 97 and back deal in there to make things harder. No modern hhd, cd drives CF cards and cases will make things far more challenging.

cyclone3d wrote:

If you don't want to have to deal with the nightmare of trying to get a working IDE drive, you can always get a SATA card. There are quite a few that should work just fine and are really cheap.

The Promise S150 TX2 or TX4 would be a good choice. Doesn't necessarily have to be sold by Promise, you just want one with the Promise S150 chipset.

My nightmare is a sata to pata card. I never had any good luck with them.
But who says I'll be useing ide? Maybe I'll use a ffd drive and a lady-120 or Zip disk drive? Or maybe scsi? No I'll probably use a ide drive if the budget allows.

Jade Falcon wrote:

I don't Fallow you on bit. The 97 and back deal in there to make things harder. No modern hhd, cd drives CF cards and cases will make things far more challenging.

Hmm... I think you're going to find it very difficult.

gdjacobs wrote:

Jade Falcon wrote:

I don't Fallow you on bit. The 97 and back deal in there to make things harder. No modern hhd, cd drives CF cards and cases will make things far more challenging.

Hmm... I think you're going to find it very difficult.

Indeed that's the point. I think I'll be fine until I get to the case. But who knows I may get lucky and find one cheap. The psu could be problematic too.

Jade Falcon wrote:

My nightmare is a sata to pata card. I never had any good luck with them.
But who says I'll be useing ide? Maybe I'll use a ffd drive and a lady-120 or Zip disk drive? Or maybe scsi? No I'll probably use a ide drive if the budget allows.

I am not suggesting a SATA to PATA adapter. It is a PCI SATA controller card.

Personally I cannot stand spinning rust for a boot drive anymore. Doesn't matter the system. I put SATA SSDs in all my old builds.

So, a 1997 system under 100$? Shouldn't be that hard. Hell, not going high end you can probably do it well under it.

Jade Falcon wrote:

Jorpho wrote:

There is a fundamental contradiction here. You cannot say that your "goll" does not include performance and nostalgia and then throw in an arbitrary restriction like "parts from 97 and back". Especially if you're concerned about the case.

I don't Fallow you on bit. The 97 and back deal in there to make things harder. No modern hhd, cd drives CF cards and cases will make things far more challenging.

So instead of aiming for "performance and nostalgia", you're just purposefully aiming to make things needlessly difficult..? Yes, I'm sure this will be a long project. Maybe you should also only bid on auctions starting on even-numbered days. 😜

I think it's a fun project. Looking at these recycling shops, it seems quite doable. An AT case might be a challenge, but ATX cases can be had for little money.

cyclone3d wrote:

Personally I cannot stand spinning rust for a boot drive anymore. Doesn't matter the system. I put SATA SSDs in all my old builds.

Nore do I, lucky most hard drives are not made of steel/iron but aluminum.

You could get lucky and get a complete build at a yard or estate sale for much less than 100. Just have to be diligent about trolling the neighborhood.

It's possible to find similar era complete systems around $50-80 shipped on eBay (I've done that numerous times).

Looks like your board is AT so finding an AT case would definitely be the most expensive part. Try finding that locally or ask around vcfed or Amibay. The rest should be fairly easy.

Here's an AT PSU
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Computer-Power-Supply … t-/361998184104

Drives should be around $8-12 each. Another $30 or so for sound and video, then tack on another $15 for RAM and CPU

clueless1 wrote:

You could get lucky and get a complete build at a yard or estate sale for much less than 100. Just have to be diligent about trolling the neighborhood.

Craiglist has an occasional hidden gem as well. I picked up a half-dozen 386/486/Pentium 1 systems, with two VGA monitors, keyboards, and assorted peripherals for less than $100...

Jade Falcon wrote:

cyclone3d wrote:

Personally I cannot stand spinning rust for a boot drive anymore. Doesn't matter the system. I put SATA SSDs in all my old builds.

Nore do I, lucky most hard drives are not made of steel/iron but aluminum.

"spinning rust" is just a nickname for hard drives. It isn't meant to mean it is made out of steel, iron, whatever.

Since you're sticking to ebay and avoiding lots, I'd say that it isn't because of the individual shipping costs. But I'm curious to see how it goes