appiah4 wrote on 2022-04-11, 17:59:

bassix6 wrote on 2022-04-11, 14:54:

Picked up a Geforce 8800 GT for 15 euro's. Will use it in my still to build retro XP build 😁

Enjoy it while it lasts..

I still have sli with working ones, what do you mean?

Socket3 wrote on 2022-04-10, 21:59:

Got this little beauty today for about 40$ […]
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Got this little beauty today for about 40$

ibm.jpg
(seller's photo)

It's a 2.4Ghz socket 478 pentium 4. It came with 768MB of ram, a 17" IBM G78 CRT monitor and a black PS/2 IBM branded keyboard. No video card but it will take a full size AGP card. I'm planning on installing a Geforce 4 Ti4200 or Radeon 9700 in it and installing windows 98.

Nothing rare or fancy, but it looks great and gives some serious retro vibes.

Congrats! what a find, love that monitor.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-04-11, 11:22:

That's a beautiful motherboard. The layout is very tidy. I'm sure the engineer was very proud of his work.

Indeed. I have never seen a late 486 board with support for different CPUs and voltages with so few and such tidy jumpers. The IDE headers are in an unconventional place, but with HDD in the front of case it makes a lot of sense.

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-04-10, 07:16:

[...]

There something interesting about this card: It's the only one that's compatible to Disney Sound Source / Covox Speech Thing. Quite interesting addition for my collection.

Hardly the only one. Basically all Aztech cards with full 1st gen AZTSSPT0592-U01 chipset supported it.

The NXPro is the best known, but there are more, i.e. the MMSD801 "Sound Galaxy NX II", which is essentially the same as the NXPro just with less integrated logic - but also the MMSN803 "Sound Galaxy NX 16" and MMSN810 "Sound Galaxy Basic 16", which is a misnomer given they support more standards than just about any other card out there - it's basically NXPro with an added AD/Crystal codec for WSS. It also has a wavetable header, but it's not clear why as the chipset doesn't have MPU-401 UART MIDI support...

As for your NX Pro, beware is is a 'noisy' card, not so much due to self-noise but due to it picking up any mess in the case as EMI and anything on the ISA bus. Try and keep it away from electrically noisy situations.

sacri wrote on 2022-04-11, 18:25:

I still have sli with working ones, what do you mean?

Hardware from that era had something called "bumpgate" and because of this the solder joints weren't reliable and gets cracked when heated, leading to high failure rates after some years of use. Not just nVidia cards, ATi/AMD hardware also had this problems and the Xbox 360's RROD is related to this.

nVidia just got the brunt of it due to the large marketshare and the success of the GeForce 8800 which was revolutionary.

sacri wrote on 2022-04-11, 18:25:

appiah4 wrote on 2022-04-11, 17:59:

bassix6 wrote on 2022-04-11, 14:54:

Picked up a Geforce 8800 GT for 15 euro's. Will use it in my still to build retro XP build 😁

Enjoy it while it lasts..

I still have sli with working ones, what do you mean?

Google "8800 bumpgate"

The first ever AGP card I bought was a GeForce 2 Ti, so I decided to try and find one. I found a Quadro 2 Pro for a reasonable price, partly because it was missing the fan assembly. I had something on hand that worked, but it didn't look right. I saw a listing for a correct fan assembly, but they wanted $30.00, which was too high for me. Then I found an FX 5500 with bad caps that had just what I needed, and I got it for $8.56 shipped. At some point I'll try recapping it (I'm afraid to even try it as is), but for now I just needed the fan assembly.

I picked up a Sound Blaster 16 CT1770. DSP v4.05, so no hanging MIDI bug. I tested the crap out of it and never ran into trouble. The getting started manual & encyclopedia CD "pack-in" were missing, so I picked those up separately to complete the set. I also bought this Plextor SCSI CD to go with it.

Meatball wrote on 2022-04-11, 22:04:

I picked up a Sound Blaster 16 CT1770. DSP v4.05, so no hanging MIDI bug. I tested the crap out of it and never ran into trouble. The getting started manual & encyclopedia CD "pack-in" were missing, so I picked those up separately to complete the set. I also bought this Plextor SCSI CD to go with it.

Nice! It even has the CSP installed! 😁

Meatball wrote on 2022-04-11, 22:04:

I picked up a Sound Blaster 16 CT1770. DSP v4.05, so no hanging MIDI bug. I tested the crap out of it and never ran into trouble. The getting started manual & encyclopedia CD "pack-in" were missing, so I picked those up separately to complete the set. I also bought this Plextor SCSI CD to go with it.

I just remembered there was an SCSI SB16 on Sunday and now I know there's at least one of them left.
Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today
Neat!

I didn't buy this retro hardware today: I'd like to have one of these cases, but they aren't giving them away, and add on the cost of shipping and I find I can live without it. But - Richmond isn't that far away from me, and I could drive there and back for significantly less that the cost of shipping. I sent them a message asking if I could arrange local pickup, and I'd decided that if the answer was yes, I'd go ahead and drive down and buy one. But the answer was no, so I'd like to thank them for helping me to not spend money on something I can live without.

I have one, and it's a well built case. I need to finish a YouTube video about it.

However, air flow is POOR. You will need to modify the case if you put anything in it more powerful than a socket 5/7 machine.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-04-11, 22:41:

I didn't buy this retro hardware today: I'd like to have one of these cases, but they aren't giving them away, and add on the cost of shipping and I find I can live without it. But - Richmond isn't that far away from me, and I could drive there and back for significantly less that the cost of shipping. I sent them a message asking if I could arrange local pickup, and I'd decided that if the answer was yes, I'd go ahead and drive down and buy one. But the answer was no, so I'd like to thank them for helping me to not spend money on something I can live without.

Aren't those the same buggers who sell that case including a S7 system, by the dozen?

I know that's just a decent dinner in California money, but from my backwater dumpster diving perspective, if you were about to spend 90 bucks plus shipping on a AT case, maybe you needed help 😜

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-11, 23:25:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-04-11, 22:41:

I didn't buy this retro hardware today: I'd like to have one of these cases, but they aren't giving them away, and add on the cost of shipping and I find I can live without it. But - Richmond isn't that far away from me, and I could drive there and back for significantly less that the cost of shipping. I sent them a message asking if I could arrange local pickup, and I'd decided that if the answer was yes, I'd go ahead and drive down and buy one. But the answer was no, so I'd like to thank them for helping me to not spend money on something I can live without.

Aren't those the same buggers who sell that case including a S7 system, by the dozen?

I know that's just a decent dinner in California money, but from my backwater dumpster diving perspective, if you were about to spend 90 bucks plus shipping on a AT case, maybe you needed help 😜

I'd really like to have another AT case, and I've been keeping an eye out for them on Craigslist for the past couple of years - I've only ever seen two listed, and they were snapped up before I had a chance to get one.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-11, 13:52:

It's just that this board is ca. 1996 and PCI is actually from 1992 - meaning, that PCI logo, at least relative to the board's s […]
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TrashPanda wrote on 2022-04-11, 13:34:

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-11, 13:31:

I didn't know ALDI made Socket 3 motherboards :P Is it their own chipset, not just a relable? I guess the cache might bring some […]
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I didn't know ALDI made Socket 3 motherboards 😜
Is it their own chipset, not just a relable?
I guess the cache might bring some advantage but non that might not be compensated by an otherwise less-than-optimal chipset.

Not so sure by the looks of it, but it might even have PCI local bus, what do you think?

*pokes

Yes yes This is definitely sarcasm.

It's just that this board is ca. 1996 and PCI is actually from 1992 - meaning, that PCI logo, at least relative to the board's size, is the largest one ever screaming at me, but from a time when PCI was truly NTWHA. 😉

OK, in all seriousness, I've asked uncle google and answered my own question: There was indeed an outfit in Hongkong by the name of ALD who designed this thing, including the chipset:
https://www.aldtech.com/products/chips/93c488/c488spec.pdf

And, while it well might be a top notch 486, I'm pretty sure it was never even intended to be a top performer.
All about it, compact, highly integrated single chip design and Cyrix CPU, says "Pentium era budget system".
It probably was optimized for price and stability, but PB cache was merely readily available back then and two chips much cheaper to realize than eight dip SRAMs.

There was a famous PC which really was sold by ALDI, in 1996.
That used the FIC PIO2 motherboard with VIA chipset and Cyrix 5x86:
http://www.amoretro.de/wp-content/uploads/fic … motherboard.jpg
- not a top benchmark contender, but apparently very stable and affordable.

🤣

Was expecting you to have a chuckle at me poking fun at the obvious sarcasm 😁

Latest thrift store acquisitions.

1. BASF floppies - $2.99. Not much to be said.

2. Sidewinder 3D Pro - $3.99. Not as creaky as my other 3D Pro.

3. Toshiba Tecra 730XCDT - $18.99. Score! Working, good condition, all three batteries are holding a charge. It had SuSE 6.4 installed on an upgraded 6.5GB HDD. I erased that and tried dd'ing a Win95 image but it wouldn't boot, says no operating system found. Unfortunately I couldn't find the floppy drive and they're vital to these Tecras, for example many of the drivers from Dynabook come as floppy images. I went back every day looking for it, no dice.

BASF.

We don't make a lot of the products you buy, we make a lot of the products you buy, BETTER.

BASF.

That sure is deeply programmed...

maestro wrote on 2022-04-12, 01:55:

Latest thrift store acquisitions. […]
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Latest thrift store acquisitions.

730xcdt.jpg

1. BASF floppies - $2.99. Not much to be said.

2. Sidewinder 3D Pro - $3.99. Not as creaky as my other 3D Pro.

3. Toshiba Tecra 730XCDT - $18.99. Score! Working, good condition, all three batteries are holding a charge. It had SuSE 6.4 installed on an upgraded 6.5GB HDD. I erased that and tried dd'ing a Win95 image but it wouldn't boot, says no operating system found. Unfortunately I couldn't find the floppy drive and they're vital to these Tecras, for example many of the drivers from Dynabook come as floppy images. I went back every day looking for it, no dice.

All hail the Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik!

Notebooks are weird.
Can't you just install the OS on another system and then put the HDD back in? Or replace the CD-drive with a generic floppy, temporarily?
Never bothered much with laptops. Auntie promised me a prehistoric Dell, payable in help to tidy up the basement. Does that go here or in the "dumpster find" thread?

You guys are great. I should be able to copy an OS across, I just need to take more time with it.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-04-11, 21:04:

The first ever AGP card I bought was a GeForce 2 Ti, so I decided to try and find one. I found a Quadro 2 Pro for a reasonable price, partly because it was missing the fan assembly. I had something on hand that worked, but it didn't look right. I saw a listing for a correct fan assembly, but they wanted $30.00, which was too high for me. Then I found an FX 5500 with bad caps that had just what I needed, and I got it for $8.56 shipped. At some point I'll try recapping it (I'm afraid to even try it as is), but for now I just needed the fan assembly.

If you bought this from eBay, I'm pretty sure I was watching this same listing. I kept trying to lowball the seller but he wouldn't take the bait.