Well there's tons of new stuff for the Amiga aficionados.
Tho that's mostly because the "real" old upgrade hardware is so expensive almost no one can afford it.

On the other hand there's tons of old PC gear floating around (unless you wanna tinker with really "weird" stuff).
Also if you want more performance in your retro PC, just get some newer and faster gear =)

bofh.fromhell wrote on 2021-01-19, 18:50:

Well there's tons of new stuff for the Amiga aficionados. Tho that's mostly because the "real" old upgrade hardware is so expens […]
Show full quote

Well there's tons of new stuff for the Amiga aficionados.
Tho that's mostly because the "real" old upgrade hardware is so expensive almost no one can afford it.

On the other hand there's tons of old PC gear floating around (unless you wanna tinker with really "weird" stuff).
Also if you want more performance in your retro PC, just get some newer and faster gear =)

Many of us ride a thin line between nostalgically using old gear and trying to make it faster. It doesn’t make sense cause we can do most of what we do on a virtual machine on modern hardware but you understand how it’s just not the same.

If it was the nintento nes throwback would be king and no one would still buy old nes units.

Are you aware of anything that’s been hacked for socket 7 that’s faster than a k63+?

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-19, 19:37:

Are you aware of anything that’s been hacked for socket 7 that’s faster than a k63+?

The thing is with PC stuff you don't have to stick to a certain HW spec.
If you desire something faster then a K6-3 you can get a P3 system.
Or whatever else fits your needs.

I don't deny that it would be cool with some ASIC drop in for Socket 7 thats 10x faster then original hardware.
But then again why would you use such a thing when you at best gets a system that can match 2-3 years newer hardware.

Our entire hobby doesn’t make a whole lot of sense haha. Just roll with it.

I’m still wondering about the post I found where a guy said he stuck a k6 into a socket 370 motherboard after clipping off a pin and said it worked but ran hot until he fried the mobo with a screw driver accidentally a few weeks later.

A downgrade for sure but interesting notion none the less. I’m 50/50 on the fence that he may have been trolling but I know that if the pin functiona lined up enough, his claim may be plausible.

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-19, 20:46:

I’m still wondering about the post I found where a guy said he stuck a k6 into a socket 370 motherboard after clipping off a pin and said it worked but ran hot until he fried the mobo with a screw driver accidentally a few weeks later.

That post was completely false, to put it mildly . Do not believe everything you read in a forum post on the Internet. 😉

You do not need to believe me either. Just compare the pinout (pin assignment in datasheets)of a socket 370 CPU and that of a socket 7, like the K6 and you will see they are completely different.

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-19, 20:46:

Our entire hobby doesn’t make a whole lot of sense haha. Just roll with it.

I’m still wondering about the post I found where a guy said he stuck a k6 into a socket 370 motherboard after clipping off a pin and said it worked but ran hot until he fried the mobo with a screw driver accidentally a few weeks later.

A downgrade for sure but interesting notion none the less. I’m 50/50 on the fence that he may have been trolling but I know that if the pin functiona lined up enough, his claim may be plausible.

Think it takes more then clipping a pin.
It's 370 pins vs 321.

And yes, this hobby doesn't make much sense.
Which i believe is almost a requirement for a hobby! =)

bofh.fromhell wrote on 2021-01-19, 20:56:

Think it takes more then clipping a pin. It's 370 pins vs 321. […]
Show full quote

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-19, 20:46:

Our entire hobby doesn’t make a whole lot of sense haha. Just roll with it.

I’m still wondering about the post I found where a guy said he stuck a k6 into a socket 370 motherboard after clipping off a pin and said it worked but ran hot until he fried the mobo with a screw driver accidentally a few weeks later.

A downgrade for sure but interesting notion none the less. I’m 50/50 on the fence that he may have been trolling but I know that if the pin functiona lined up enough, his claim may be plausible.

Think it takes more then clipping a pin.
It's 370 pins vs 321.

And yes, this hobby doesn't make much sense.
Which i believe is almost a requirement for a hobby! =)

IMHO, this is the.main reason rational that the retro hardware hobby is a thing :

PC emulation is far from perfect. DOSBox and others are great and getting better, but accurately emulating specialized hardware beyond the 486 era is complicated and resource intensive. The day (if it ever arrives) that most vintage PC hardware is replicated cycle accuarately, perspectives may change .

Beyond that, there are other, less objectively practical reasons like
- nostalgia
- the quest for authenticity
- interest in history and learning things were done(some people still make pottery, forge metal, weave fabric, re-enact battles, restore cars or furniture, etc)

darry wrote on 2021-01-19, 20:54:

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-19, 20:46:

I’m still wondering about the post I found where a guy said he stuck a k6 into a socket 370 motherboard after clipping off a pin and said it worked but ran hot until he fried the mobo with a screw driver accidentally a few weeks later.

That post was completely false, to put it mildly . Do not believe everything you read in a forum post on the Internet. 😉

You do not need to believe me either. Just compare the pinout (pin assignment in datasheets)of a socket 370 CPU and that of a socket 7, like the K6 and you will see they are completely different.

I hadn’t gotten around to comparing the pinouts. But as stated before I was cautiously skeptical though not entirely convinced of it’s impossibility. Have you yourself compared the two pinouts? I have not. Since I don’t have any socket 370 stuff and no desire to try it. I haven’t taken the time to do it yet 🤣.

Good to hear from someone who has checked the pinouts. That puts that rumor to bed then I guess 😀

Thumbs up to closest above reply

Actually, physically, I think the only thing preventing insertion of a k6 into a 370 socket is one corner pin? That of course makes no assumption for electrical compatibility.

A faster P3 compatible CPU would be cool so you could have a faster system with an isa bus (barring some exotic p4 boards), but the tualatin is already strangled by the low memory bandwidth of the P3 bus so there's little point. Another approach would be a motherboard that somehow offers retro peripherals and buses for a modern CPU.

Oetker wrote on 2021-01-19, 22:10:

A faster P3 compatible CPU would be cool so you could have a faster system with an isa bus (barring some exotic p4 boards), but the tualatin is already strangled by the low memory bandwidth of the P3 bus so there's little point. Another approach would be a motherboard that somehow offers retro peripherals and buses for a modern CPU.

That pretty much all goes out the window with 64 bit stuff right? Like all the old stuff starts really not working with those processors. So the fastest we can really hope for is p4 with isa?

A socket 370 to 478 interposer would be pretty cool. Somehow make it all work?!

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-19, 20:46:

I’m still wondering about the post I found where a guy said he stuck a k6 into a socket 370 motherboard after clipping off a pin and said it worked but ran hot until he fried the mobo with a screw driver accidentally a few weeks later.

Were it possible, you'd expect someone to have made a slocket-like adapter by now. Socket 370 is Slot 1 in socket form, and Slot 1 was intended to be a definitive break from the open Socket 7 platform. This is way more thought than necessary and I'm not an expert at this level of detail, just someone who can read Wikipedia: Intel started using AGTL+ as the FSB signal protocol with the P6 architecture... which implies whatever was being used on Socket 7 would be incompatible after Intel pulled up the draw-bridge behind them.

Big Pink wrote on 2021-01-21, 16:45:

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-19, 20:46:

I’m still wondering about the post I found where a guy said he stuck a k6 into a socket 370 motherboard after clipping off a pin and said it worked but ran hot until he fried the mobo with a screw driver accidentally a few weeks later.

Were it possible, you'd expect someone to have made a slocket-like adapter by now. Socket 370 is Slot 1 in socket form, and Slot 1 was intended to be a definitive break from the open Socket 7 platform. This is way more thought than necessary and I'm not an expert at this level of detail, just someone who can read Wikipedia: Intel started using AGTL+ as the FSB signal protocol with the P6 architecture... which implies whatever was being used on Socket 7 would be incompatible after Intel pulled up the draw-bridge behind them.

Good answer 😀

Big Pink wrote on 2021-01-21, 16:45:

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-19, 20:46:

I’m still wondering about the post I found where a guy said he stuck a k6 into a socket 370 motherboard after clipping off a pin and said it worked but ran hot until he fried the mobo with a screw driver accidentally a few weeks later.

Were it possible, you'd expect someone to have made a slocket-like adapter by now.

386->486 transputers existed (but that’s it)

A trans puter so you could mount a k6-2 into a socket 370 would be fun but it would be similar to PCI to ISA bridge, in effect an entire chipsets worth of goodies to translate between the 2.

That said my electronics design teacher said that he could easily make a single chipset that would be signal compatible with all 486/Pentium/Celeron CPU architectures

He also showed how you could easily latch cpu socket pins so you could use one breadboard like socket for all cpu generations switching pinout son the fly

He did it mainly as a thought experiment but stated cost would be minimal as it would only take about 10% more silicon and his idea involved the chipset being soldered directly to the cpu socket to reduce board space and improve signal quality

Too bad we only briefly saw his idea on some obscure hybrid 386/486 boards (not the auto configured Omni socket)

Could have crapped on the dedicated brand motherboard idea.

If you want fast processors and a fully working ISA bus, just keep an eye out for all the industrial boards that were produced. You can have working ISA and DMA all the way up to Core 2/Quad if you look hard enough.

I picked up a 845 chipset board with P4EE support and fully working ISA several years ago. Dos sound just works normal.

No need to invent anything, there were plenty of them made, just they may not be as cheap as a mass produced low end consumer board.

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-19, 22:45:

A socket 370 to 478 interposer would be pretty cool. Somehow make it all work?!

That would be nice. I know this isn't what you meant - but if you consider the Celeron 400 series super-Tualatins, the ASRock 775i65G motherboard gives you DDR SDRAM and AGP 8x without having to suffer the guilt of hastening the heat death of the universe by running a P4. In the other direction, there's the ASRock P4i945GC which brings PCIe to PGA478.

With sufficient resources it seems you can kludge different CPUs and chipsets together. I don't know whether that's too much to be within the grasp of hobbyists at this point in time.

rmay635703 wrote on 2021-01-21, 18:25:

386->486 transputers existed (but that’s it) […]
Show full quote

Big Pink wrote on 2021-01-21, 16:45:

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-19, 20:46:

I’m still wondering about the post I found where a guy said he stuck a k6 into a socket 370 motherboard after clipping off a pin and said it worked but ran hot until he fried the mobo with a screw driver accidentally a few weeks later.

Were it possible, you'd expect someone to have made a slocket-like adapter by now.

386->486 transputers existed (but that’s it)

A trans puter so you could mount a k6-2 into a socket 370 would be fun but it would be similar to PCI to ISA bridge, in effect an entire chipsets worth of goodies to translate between the 2.

That said my electronics design teacher said that he could easily make a single chipset that would be signal compatible with all 486/Pentium/Celeron CPU architectures

He also showed how you could easily latch cpu socket pins so you could use one breadboard like socket for all cpu generations switching pinout son the fly

He did it mainly as a thought experiment but stated cost would be minimal as it would only take about 10% more silicon and his idea involved the chipset being soldered directly to the cpu socket to reduce board space and improve signal quality

Too bad we only briefly saw his idea on some obscure hybrid 386/486 boards (not the auto configured Omni socket)

Could have crapped on the dedicated brand motherboard idea.

get that guy on this forum 🤣! we need his help!

megatron-uk wrote on 2021-01-21, 18:36:

If you want fast processors and a fully working ISA bus, just keep an eye out for all the industrial boards that were produced. You can have working ISA and DMA all the way up to Core 2/Quad if you look hard enough.

I picked up a 845 chipset board with P4EE support and fully working ISA several years ago. Dos sound just works normal.

No need to invent anything, there were plenty of them made, just they may not be as cheap as a mass produced low end consumer board.

in my case I want to stick with a actual socket 7 board and max it out even more particular my old motherboard specifically. our hoby doesn't make sense sooner you accept it the better haha

"the guilt of hastening the heat death of the universe" hahahah nice science reference

darry wrote on 2021-01-19, 21:15:

IMHO, this is the.main reason rational that the retro hardware hobby is a thing :

PC emulation is far from perfect. DOSBox and others are great and getting better, but accurately emulating specialized hardware beyond the 486 era is complicated and resource intensive. The day (if it ever arrives) that most vintage PC hardware is replicated cycle accuarately, perspectives may change .

I sometimes wonder about the carbon footprint of PC emulation 😁 Let's say you want to accurately emulate 1999 gaming machine. How much power will the real machine consume VS the modern PC running PCem, and what is better for environment 😀

adalbert wrote on 2021-01-21, 22:14:

darry wrote on 2021-01-19, 21:15:

IMHO, this is the.main reason rational that the retro hardware hobby is a thing :

PC emulation is far from perfect. DOSBox and others are great and getting better, but accurately emulating specialized hardware beyond the 486 era is complicated and resource intensive. The day (if it ever arrives) that most vintage PC hardware is replicated cycle accuarately, perspectives may change .

I sometimes wonder about the carbon footprint of PC emulation 😁 Let's say you want to accurately emulate 1999 gaming machine. How much power will the real machine consume VS the modern PC running PCem, and what is better for environment 😀

I run all my comuters on solar/battery 😀

In fact the whole house 🤣 even the oven dryer well and bbq

Too bad there was never a Socket 462 to Socket 7 adapter. And I will always wonder if AMD ever had any engineering samples of Socket 7 CPUs using Athlon tech.