Got this Yamaha MU80 locally for, what I would say, a fair price... about 65 Euros shipped.

I'm really happy I got it, because this was the 2nd listing in the last 2,5 - 3 years of a tone generator on the local classified sites. More then a year ago an SC-55 mkii slipped between my fingers, actually I spoked with the seller and agreed on the price(around 90 Euros) and delivery, but the next day he called me to say he changed his mind... 🙁
Buying one from Japan is not an option because of the high shipping costs, customs taxes and also VAT.

Now I need to see how I can change that dead battery, I guess it is some sort of cr2032... And also need to buy or make a midi to gameport cable.

Buy a proper midi to gameport cable.

brostenen wrote on 2022-01-12, 18:43:

Just paid for a tested Amiga500 in board revision 8a.1, for aprox 157/158 Euro. It is in a cosmetically really good shape (by the looks of the pictures and near no yellowing) with PSU yet no extras. The seller stated that it is tested, so I am keeping my hopes high.

I'm not familiar with the Amiga's different board revision. Is it only rare or does it have special features? From what I've found with a quick search is that those revisions might contain an Agnus that can handle more Chip RAM, correct?

HanSolo wrote on 2022-01-12, 20:26:

brostenen wrote on 2022-01-12, 18:43:

Just paid for a tested Amiga500 in board revision 8a.1, for aprox 157/158 Euro. It is in a cosmetically really good shape (by the looks of the pictures and near no yellowing) with PSU yet no extras. The seller stated that it is tested, so I am keeping my hopes high.

I'm not familiar with the Amiga's different board revision. Is it only rare or does it have special features? From what I've found with a quick search is that those revisions might contain an Agnus that can handle more Chip RAM, correct?

Depends on the settings of the onboard jumper pads.....

Basically speaking. The Plus came out, with full ECS chipset, however as the need for non-plus versions were still a thing, then Commodore released the last "normal" 500 that were based on the ECS/Plus machine. That means you have the ECS chipset, however in this configuration the trapdoor will be alocated as SlowRam. If you modify this board to Plus standard, the trapdoor will alocate the memory as ChipRam. Making it possible to have a 2mb ChipRam setup.

Now.... The downside.
A few games used eighter Slow of Fast Ram for stuff like samples. And because the 500 Plus (basically the same config as the A600) were not able to use the trapdoor-mem as SlowMem, then those samples would not be played. And the only way to get full use of the game, were to install a FastRam module in eighter the sidecard slot or sandwich between the CPU and Motherboard. Also, the Plus are unable to use any SlowRam at all. Any ram will be alocated as Chip, up to 1mb in the trapdoor, and everything above 1mb in the trapdoor will be ignored.

The rarity of this board is not in any way related to features and stuff like that. It is the production number that makes it rare. Also, it is not without compatibility issues, but in stick config, it is the best of a500 (OCS config) and a600 (ECS config) and it comes in the a500 form factor, making it possible to use sidecard expantions. Yes, sure there are no PCMCIA, but with the upgrade to Plus and an accelerator or Ram card, in the CPU slot, it is the best machine for golden-age Amiga gaming.

EDIT:
As far as I remember, the 8a.1 "normal" Amiga500, were only released in Europe. However one of the most rare Amiga's, were the Rev.7 board. There is only one post on the internet about this revision. As I understand it, then it was the last OCS. It is perhaps up there, with the Commodore branded Amiga4000-Tower (Aprox 200 build, only 100 sold. That globally)

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-01-12, 20:23:

Buy a proper midi to gameport cable.

Looking to some listings on amazon.de and I don't like what I see, about 35 euros for a better quality(??) cable 🙁 At least the shipping is free within the EU. It's more then half of what I paid for the MU80, but hey, if this is the price of not risking to burn the device with a crappy chinese cable, I'll pay 😀

Anyway, thanks for your tip!

Look for a gravis one as well. Those are good but don't show up a lot.

If you have a local music store nearby, they may have some laying around that you could get for cheap.

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-01-12, 22:51:

Look for a gravis one as well. Those are good but don't show up a lot.

If you have a local music store nearby, they may have some laying around that you could get for cheap.

Or the kind of pawn shop or used goods consignment store that has amps, keyboards and guitars in the window.

Picked up this Compaq Prolinea 5100e off eBay cheaply, working just fine and looking good after some contact cleaning and a good scrubbing. Just needs a hard drive!

Big Pink wrote on 2022-01-11, 01:30:

PC@LIVE wrote on 2022-01-10, 22:50:

A weird card with no expansion slot, it is barebones I guess and it is I think very integrated, the chipset looks intel and the socket looks like a 370, I don't know what card it is, if you have any idea what it is I would like to know.

That's an ECS BookPC BKi810. Most of the information online seems to be in Japanese. I've got one but haven't done anything with it yet because the wierd SFF form factor makes it a pain to put in any case other than the original one. Also the tiny 100W PSU had a non-standard 6-pin connector (I'm plan to use a PicoPSU, an ATX breakout board, and a cut PCIe 6-pin connector).

Hi, today the board arrived along with the other four, the board is in good condition, but it has suffered damage in some places.
I have some broken tracks that I think I can fix without too much difficulty, the biggest problem is the lack of some SMDs (about five), mostly they are blown out resistors, they are all near the edges.
I saw that the chipset is i810 (without E), so as a CPU I go max 100MHz of FSB, while the RAM will probably be 100 too.
If it is not a problem for you, I wanted to ask you for a hand, if I photograph the areas where the SMDs are missing, would you know and could you tell me the values ​​of the missing ones?
Thanks anyway, for the info you have already given me, if you want to place everything on the page where I usually write, it's here:
Re: Test and troubleshoot PC@LIVE motherboards

bearking wrote on 2022-01-12, 20:18:

Got this Yamaha MU80 locally for, what I would say, a fair price... about 65 Euros shipped. 20220112_214958.jpg I'm really happy […]
Show full quote

Got this Yamaha MU80 locally for, what I would say, a fair price... about 65 Euros shipped.
20220112_214958.jpg
I'm really happy I got it, because this was the 2nd listing in the last 2,5 - 3 years of a tone generator on the local classified sites. More then a year ago an SC-55 mkii slipped between my fingers, actually I spoked with the seller and agreed on the price(around 90 Euros) and delivery, but the next day he called me to say he changed his mind... 🙁
Buying one from Japan is not an option because of the high shipping costs, customs taxes and also VAT.

Now I need to see how I can change that dead battery, I guess it is some sort of cr2032... And also need to buy or make a midi to gameport cable.

Very nice. I have a Yamaha MU50. I bought it before two years for 70 euros. After some months the msg appeared regarding the low battery but i didn't want to risk it and i sent it to a yamaha service store in order to change it. I payed 45 euros as i remember.

EvieSigma wrote on 2022-01-13, 01:57:

Picked up this Compaq Prolinea 5100e off eBay cheaply, working just fine and looking good after some contact cleaning and a good scrubbing. Just needs a hard drive!

Cool! and it looks like new. Nice work!

My first company-issued PC was a Prolinea 575e. It had 48MB of RAM and a 640MB HDD. Later on, I actually bought a few for peanuts in 1999, but I don't remember how I got rid of them. I wish I still had them...

Dimitris1980 wrote on 2022-01-14, 16:10:

Very nice. I have a Yamaha MU50. I bought it before two years for 70 euros. After some months the msg appeared regarding the low battery but i didn't want to risk it and i sent it to a yamaha service store in order to change it. I payed 45 euros as i remember.

Wow, 45 euros is not cheap at all. I'll try to open it up to al least see what kind of battery is in there...

Adapted AHA-2940UW w/all paperwork and installation discs and diskettes.

Pentium III Katmai 600/100/512 w/ cooler

stamasd wrote on 2016-12-07, 00:32:

DTK PPM-1630C motherboard, 386SX-16 with Cyrix 83S87 FPU, 1MB on-board, slots for another 4MB:

http://www.arvutimuuseum.ee/th99/m/C-D/30050.htm

Hi, It's been a while since you posted this note about your DTK board. Do you still have it? I'm asking because I have the same board and I need to know the values of the capacitors marked as C22 and C23, they are behind the keyboard connector. Would you kindly measure them and let me know what the values are? Also, I need to know what the type of transistors are the ones marked as Q3 and Q4 if you don't mind. They have a code (numbers and letters) marked on top of them (it's very small though).
I'm attaching a picture where I circled the capacitors in red and the transistors in blue.
Thanks and sorry to bother you with this!

Meatball wrote on 2022-01-14, 16:36:

EvieSigma wrote on 2022-01-13, 01:57:

Picked up this Compaq Prolinea 5100e off eBay cheaply, working just fine and looking good after some contact cleaning and a good scrubbing. Just needs a hard drive!

Cool! and it looks like new. Nice work!

My first company-issued PC was a Prolinea 575e. It had 48MB of RAM and a 640MB HDD. Later on, I actually bought a few for peanuts in 1999, but I don't remember how I got rid of them. I wish I still had them...

Yeah, it still needs plenty of work though! The inside of the case is filthy, there's no hard drive, and for some bizarre reason the clamp that holds the heat sink to the CPU socket is just...missing.

So, I 'rescued 'this Gainward AGP 6800GT recently for 25 euros.
Fully boxed with all the trimmings. One of the very few orignal boxed graphics cards I currently own....

It does seemingly work just fine (at boot at least, not tested in Windows yet), BUT the 2 tiny fans sound like a broken meat grinder! 🤨
Have to fix that somehow, perhaps replace them with 'something' ?
Suggestions welcome.

I have an identical Gainward 6800 GT here and yes the fans are very irritating, thankfully I have three other 6800GT cards I can use that are far quieter, this one sits on teh display shelf ...because its odd seeing a pink GPU.

As for replacing them .. easier to replace the entire cooler, its not a very good stock cooler and just replacing the fans wont help it 🤣.

Heh, sure... but I kinda wanted to keep the original look (and parts) if possible.
Not often I get a retro card in full original box these days, so it would seem a sacriledge to chop it up.

Oh well, I could always macgyver on some better fans after removing the 'shroud' though.

bestemor wrote on 2022-01-15, 03:36:

Heh, sure... but I kinda wanted to keep the original look (and parts) if possible. Not often I get a retro card in full origin […]
Show full quote

Heh, sure... but I kinda wanted to keep the original look (and parts) if possible.
Not often I get a retro card in full original box these days, so it would seem a sacriledge to chop it up.

Oh well, I could always macgyver on some better fans after removing the 'shroud' though.

The fans are why it got put on the shelf 🤣, I had a look at trying to replace them myself and quickly decided that trying to MacGyver new ones on might do more hard than good, the GPU still works so I decided to retire it to a display piece rather than butcher it trying to replace the fans, its possible the originals can be rebuilt but I haven't looked into that yet.

One day Ill take another crack at it when I can find some suitable replacements that wont require me to MacGyver it or I can get a second card to butcher for parts.

If you can find some nice replacement fans for it that fit the card drop me a message, I would be interested in getting some myself 😁

Its such a nice looking card and the pink looks great on my shelf !

I managed to get an ASRock AM2CPU upgrade card recently for my 939Dual-VSTA.

Today I had chance to install, using a modified bios. The original motherboard CPU was a s939 Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (running at 2.2Ghz) with 2GB DDR 400, it’s now an AM2 Athlon 64 X2 6400+ (at 3.2Ghz) with 4GB Geil DDR2 800.

Crysis benchmark averaged 30fps at 1280x1024 High settings with previous cpu, it’s now 40fps 😁