He has a few other desktop motherboards for sale. His newest one is his cheapest. In the middle is a Pentium board for $100. I suppose he's hoping his auctions will be seen by one of those people that supposedly exist who absolutely have to have a specific platform for something to run on and will pay top dollar for said part. Really, do they exist?

I don't know. That's one of the nicest 486 board I have seen on ebay - but it is not worth that kind of money

hmm its a good board, VLB and PCI on same board are pretty uncommon (apart from the horrible PC CHIPS boards), coin cell battery (so it is far less likely to leak and destroy the board then the terrible barrel type), VRM for 3.3V CPU's and PS/2 keyboard and mouse...
but yeah, its definitely not worth what he's asking.

It looks awfully long. Do you suppose it was pulled from a proprietary Acer desktop? I guess maybe you could custom fit it in an ATX case, but I don't think standard AT would work because of the PS/2 ports?

I've got a Socket 4 mainboard with the PS/2 ports and they both fit through the AT keyboard hole in the case. Can be a tight squeeze but its doable.

if that board supported EDO ram and 1mb cache, i'd buy it at that price. Thankfully it doesn't and I don't have that kind of cash at the moment...

I would try a 3dfx on that 😜

I think the seller of that board would have a lot better luck selling it at that price if he shipped outside the U.S.

Looks like a nice proprietary board, but it is high risk. May not support Cyrix 5x86 enhancements, may require awkwardly slow cache/ram wait states to work, may have extremely limited BIOS tweak options.

On the upside, it will cache 64 MB of RAM w/512KB cache. This combination is the lowest usable limit for a high-end 486, in my opinion. It has a PS/2 mouse port. This is a must for any old computer array system on a KVM. The one VLB slot means you can use your graphics on the VLB, and have 3 PCI slots, for SCSI fixed disk host controller, a 10/100 network card, and a USB controller.

If the items of risk mentioned above turn up being false, I say he might be able to get $60 for it. It its current high risk state, I say he could get about half that.

I do like how the seller throws the jumper settings and such in your face so that the buyer doesn't need to hunt all around for them. I also like how he posts decent photographs. I am slightly offended by his nationalistic attitude to only sell to fellow Americans. It almost makes me not want to sell my merchandise to the U.S.

It's not nationalistic attitude. Shipping overseas is a bitch.

GXL750 wrote:

It's not nationalistic attitude. Shipping overseas is a bitch.

Shipping international is not that bad. US sellers are virtually the only ones having this attitude. Everyone else cannot afford the luxury ( laziness ) of not shipping international.

GXL750 wrote:

It's not nationalistic attitude. Shipping overseas is a bitch.

But if the buyer is willing to cover the costs of international shipping - which is exactly what you commit to when you bid - then why not ship overseas? I've bought a lot of items in the past from American sellers who do ship worldwide, and I don't recall any extraordinary problems.

and yeah, I know this has nothing to do with "nationalism" or whatever; just wondering what's the motivation behind reducing the number of your potential customers, if they're willing to pay for shipment. There are many sellers who ship exclusively to USA and Canada as well.

I have heard it suggested that packages, especially ones marked with a high value, have a nasty habit of vanishing in some European post offices. My ventures into international shipping have turned out okay so far, however.

(There was this one time I tried to trade games with some ... inexperienced fellow in Pakistan who decided it would be adequate to scotch-tape some CDs directly to newspaper and drop it in the mail, but that's a different issue.)

That board reminds me of my Acer 486:

Mau1wurf1977's first 486 PC - Lot's of pics - Tell me what I can do with it

Thing is I got the complete PC for 50 bucks...

Jorpho wrote:

(There was this one time I tried to trade games with some ... inexperienced fellow in Pakistan who decided it would be adequate to scotch-tape some CDs directly to newspaper and drop it in the mail, but that's a different issue.)

heh, I once had someone ship me a CD in a plain plastic bag inside a (bubble-wrap-less) paper envelope. The thing arrived in two pieces - split in half neatly down the middle.... luckily the guy was honest enough to refund me once I sent him some pics of the wreckage.

VileRancour wrote:

GXL750 wrote:

It's not nationalistic attitude. Shipping overseas is a bitch.

But if the buyer is willing to cover the costs of international shipping - which is exactly what you commit to when you bid - then why not ship overseas? I've bought a lot of items in the past from American sellers who do ship worldwide, and I don't recall any extraordinary problems.

and yeah, I know this has nothing to do with "nationalism" or whatever; just wondering what's the motivation behind reducing the number of your potential customers, if they're willing to pay for shipment. There are many sellers who ship exclusively to USA and Canada as well.

Because of the chance for fraud. There is no way for the seller to verify that the package actually arrived once it leaves the hands of his home post office or to track it once it leaves the country. I've tried sending things with signature return card required already and the cards never come back. Without them it's hard to prove to ebay/Paypal that you did ship the item and that the buyer received it. A dishonest buyer or a dishonest package handler somewhere in the delivery chain can end up costing the seller money when the buyer rightly or wrongly files a non-delivery complaint.

Well, in some cases I've offered to American sellers that I will personally take the loss for non-delivery and damaged goods. I will pay all international shipping expenses, will forgo all warranty, and will offer the Buy-it now price, and am still 99% of the time turned down. This is risky on my part, but I read the feedback carefully. There were the few one-off's who couldn't pass this deal up, but most let it slide. I have even offered to pay a fair rate for their time to the post office, waiting in line, extra paperwork, and was rejected. In the past few years eBay sellers have started to reject inquiries from non-American buyers, which makes negotiations even more difficult.

If there is something I absolutely must have, no holds barred, there are companies like Seawings express that are Canadian customs bonded who will accept your package at the US border and send it up north. This is more for non-eBay merchants who will not ship outside the US. The problem with eBay sellers is that they will only ship to your personal confirmed address, regardless of your assertions not to hold the seller responsible. So at this point, one must thicken their skin and get a US-based buddy to buy the item and send it out. Yes you pay double shipping, but the second, real shipping costs, are often less than half of the first one.

I often hop onto other country's eBay sites to see what I can find and if sellers are restricting sales out of their country. Rarely are there Canadian restrictions. So why the Americans?

feipoa wrote:

I often hop onto other country's eBay sites to see what I can find and if sellers are restricting sales out of their country. Rarely are there Canadian restrictions. So why the Americans?

I noticed the exact same thing. As i said earlier in the thread: Only americans can afford the luxury of not doing overseas, as they have a rather big local market. In some cases i would dare call it laziness. Sell with ebay from anywhere else in the world and you pretty much have to deal with international business or you simply fail. I am Canadian and occasionally sell stuff on ebay, did a dozen sales in the last two years maybe. I always sell to "worldwide" and use shipping calculator. Its not really hard, you basically input the package dimension/weight + handling fee and the calculator does everything automatically. Thats it... Done.

I can understand some arguments such as "oh this country has a very large amount of fraud and delivery is highly unreliable." But really, USA seller refusing to sell even to Canada, basically next door and same reliability... Its just laziness...

feipoa wrote:

The problem with eBay sellers is that they will only ship to your personal confirmed address, regardless of your assertions not to hold the seller responsible.

it's worse than that. eBay itself can flat-out block you from even bidding at all, if the address in your account's details doesn't match the seller's list of shipping destinations.

I've experienced this first hand - there was an auction I was interested in, where the only shipping option was US-only; I found a company with a US address that could ship to my location and everything, just for that specific item. Yet eBay simply refused my bid, because my listed address was not American. Luckily I was able to get a friend in the US to bid on (and win) the auction for me.

I should probably keep my mouth shut on this but since I'm such a troll I have to interject my opinion.
Firstly, as much as you Canadians may want to deny it, you are in fact Americans. Just not United States Americans (kind of a mixed blessing if you ask me).
Second, I love Canada! Lots of good people and stuff from there (I won't discuss music exports though 😉 ).
Third, I've done business overseas and, frankly, I perfer to do business with USA, Canada, UK over most other countries (no I don't think less of others, it's just that I've been screwed before and I tend to be cautious now).
That said, I agree with the basis of your message that it's unfair and frusterating to be blocked from bidding/buying because you live just over a border.