I only use SCSI in older computers I value as part of my collection. the cards, cables and drives are dirt cheap and I have hundreds upon hundreds of each with access to even more. they were designed for server use and if they have low hours, will last decades more. they perform well, give you the sound and feel of spinning disks, and are fun to set up and optimize for. they have great driver support in legacy OSes. try CD booting a pentium 1 PC off an IDE CD-ROM sometime, too.

CF IDEs have their place, mostly in laptops for me as IDE laptop drives are generally slow and unreliable IME. but for desktop I just go all SCSI and never look back.

CFs give better access performance for small files, but get blown out by SCSI when transferring large files or doing multi-sector transfers or trying to do disk to disk transfers, I find. PIO IDE is almost unusable to me and even ATA33/66 stuff is generally too slow and poor in performance for my taste. the biggest advantage of SCSI is having its own controller chip with mature drivers that can do ISA or PCI bus mastering. CF's big advantage is being cooler, easier to set up and giving better performance random reading small chunks of data.

libby wrote on 2022-04-28, 10:01:

I only use SCSI in older computers I value as part of my collection. the cards, cables and drives are dirt cheap and I have hundreds upon hundreds of each with access to even more. they were designed for server use and if they have low hours, will last decades more. they perform well, give you the sound and feel of spinning disks, and are fun to set up and optimize for. they have great driver support in legacy OSes. try CD booting a pentium 1 PC off an IDE CD-ROM sometime, too.

CF IDEs have their place, mostly in laptops for me as IDE laptop drives are generally slow and unreliable IME. but for desktop I just go all SCSI and never look back.

CFs give better access performance for small files, but get blown out by SCSI when transferring large files or doing multi-sector transfers or trying to do disk to disk transfers, I find. PIO IDE is almost unusable to me and even ATA33/66 stuff is generally too slow and poor in performance for my taste. the biggest advantage of SCSI is having its own controller chip with mature drivers that can do ISA or PCI bus mastering. CF's big advantage is being cooler, easier to set up and giving better performance random reading small chunks of data.

For me, the supposed "superiority" sheen of SCSI devices has worn off over the years. They don't seem to be any more well built or more reliable than IDE desktop drives.

In terms of retro systems, IDE hard drives are "fast enough" for what I need retro systems to do. They are also cheap and common, whereas, I rarely see any SCSI drives (because apple/amiga retro users have hovered them all up, and the rest of them were in servers that get shredded on disposal)

And if I have a task that is actually I/O dependent, there is almost no reason not to do it on my modern rig with NVMe equipped.

Random note, a mid 90s PCI graphics card with a daughterboard, providing a second VGA might be pretty exotic?

It sure caught my attention, but I wasn't going to pay anything near 50 € for it:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/Retro-Vintage-Twin-Mi … n-/203923698083

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-01, 18:53:

Random note, a mid 90s PCI graphics card with a daughterboard, providing a second VGA might be pretty exotic?

It sure caught my attention, but I wasn't going to pay anything near 50 € for it:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/Retro-Vintage-Twin-Mi … n-/203923698083

These are useful for dual monitor setups on early computers.

I have seen a Cirrus Logic GD-5480 PCI card with similar capacity without requiring a daughterboard at $45 (around 42.68€) without shipping.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/294916526633?hash=it … vIAAOSwDGZiUxCi

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-05-01, 20:30:

These are useful for dual monitor setups on early computers. […]
Show full quote

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-01, 18:53:

Random note, a mid 90s PCI graphics card with a daughterboard, providing a second VGA might be pretty exotic?

It sure caught my attention, but I wasn't going to pay anything near 50 € for it:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/Retro-Vintage-Twin-Mi … n-/203923698083

These are useful for dual monitor setups on early computers.

I have seen a Cirrus Logic GD-5480 PCI card with similar capacity without requiring a daughterboard at $45 (around 42.68€) without shipping.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/294916526633?hash=it … vIAAOSwDGZiUxCi

That CL card sure is neat, but I looked it up and turns out, that twin Miro was released as a VLB card, that was really far out in 1994:
https://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/f-naq/it … l-20sd-twin-vlb
So far I thought twin monitors went mainstream in the late 90s with Matrox cards.

I mean, no experience here, what OS does even support that? Does Win98, consistently? NT4?
Maybe dedicated drivers for DOS based CAD software, back then. Definitely not a Word & Excel thing.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-01, 20:52:

I mean, no experience here, what OS does even support that? Does Win98, consistently? NT4?
Maybe dedicated drivers for DOS based CAD software, back then. Definitely not a Word & Excel thing.

Back then these kind of setup were indeed aimed at CAD software and would have required specific drivers no matter which OS (or software in case of DOS) was being used.

I have no experience either with these cards, but have an idea how they could work.

Also, I think I just found out that someone whom I gave a surplus Elsa Gloria II pro (gf256 DDR-quadro) some years ago just sold that on the bay as BIN for 130 €.
Which is fine with me, I wanted him to have it and I still have that Voodoo3 3000 a friend gave me.
It just means that by now I'm definitely a rich fucker, since I still have several of those cards on the heap... 😜

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-02, 00:50:

Also, I think I just found out that someone whom I gave a surplus Elsa Gloria II pro (gf256 DDR-quadro) some years ago just sold that on the bay as BIN for 130 €.
Which is fine with me, I wanted him to have it and I still have that Voodoo3 3000 a friend gave me.
It just means that by now I'm definitely a rich fucker, since I still have several of those cards on the heap... 😜

I'm probably the one who bought it then; 129.99 €

Meatball wrote on 2022-05-02, 01:46:

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-02, 00:50:

Also, I think I just found out that someone whom I gave a surplus Elsa Gloria II pro (gf256 DDR-quadro) some years ago just sold that on the bay as BIN for 130 €.
Which is fine with me, I wanted him to have it and I still have that Voodoo3 3000 a friend gave me.
It just means that by now I'm definitely a rich fucker, since I still have several of those cards on the heap... 😜

I'm probably the one who bought it then; 129.99 €

eff me, what are the odds?
I'm pretty sure that's the card from my basement that Fabian made roughly 129,99 € profit on. Good for him.
(In absolute margin, I've made a bolder BIN ebay sale once, on a mpu-401 compatible card. But only once.)
That ELSA, I had bought something else from him and gave him that card just as a curiosity and as a thanks for his website that proved to be a great resource time and again.

I shall make it a point to not disclose here what I paid for ten of them in, well, almost to the day five years ago, my mailbox tells me. They were declared "leftovers from a dissolved workshop" and NOS.
This might explain why you deemed that card very clean.
*rofl*
Never had tested that one. Glad it actually works. Enjoy!

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-02, 02:18:

eff me, what are the odds? I'm pretty sure that's the card from my basement that Fabian made roughly 129,99 € profit on. Good fo […]
Show full quote

Meatball wrote on 2022-05-02, 01:46:

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-02, 00:50:

Also, I think I just found out that someone whom I gave a surplus Elsa Gloria II pro (gf256 DDR-quadro) some years ago just sold that on the bay as BIN for 130 €.
Which is fine with me, I wanted him to have it and I still have that Voodoo3 3000 a friend gave me.
It just means that by now I'm definitely a rich fucker, since I still have several of those cards on the heap... 😜

I'm probably the one who bought it then; 129.99 €

eff me, what are the odds?
I'm pretty sure that's the card from my basement that Fabian made roughly 129,99 € profit on. Good for him.
(In absolute margin, I've made a bolder BIN ebay sale once, on a mpu-401 compatible card. But only once.)
That ELSA, I had bought something else from him and gave him that card just as a curiosity and as a thanks for his website that proved to be a great resource time and again.

I shall make it a point to not disclose here what I paid for ten of them in, well, almost to the day five years ago, my mailbox tells me. They were declared "leftovers from a dissolved workshop" and NOS.
This might explain why you deemed that card very clean.
*rofl*
Never had tested that one. Glad it actually works. Enjoy!

I'm guessing you paid nothing for them, if not, only the cost of shipping or something token. Between you and your friend keeping the card in 'like new' shape - it was no risk on my end - your friend tested it and included a return policy. Everyone profited from this sale - I spent all of 2 minutes looking for the card (which I can't use in the Quake 3 contest! - still it's a great card with an even better name...), and you guys got to cash in on inventory, which no one else could sell. It's a good thing I don't need a bunch more of these, or I might have bought your BIN when you put the lot up for sale in the future!

canthearu wrote on 2022-05-01, 03:02:

For me, the supposed "superiority" sheen of SCSI devices has worn off over the years. They don't seem to be any more well built or more reliable than IDE desktop drives.

In terms of retro systems, IDE hard drives are "fast enough" for what I need retro systems to do. They are also cheap and common, whereas, I rarely see any SCSI drives (because apple/amiga retro users have hovered them all up, and the rest of them were in servers that get shredded on disposal)

And if I have a task that is actually I/O dependent, there is almost no reason not to do it on my modern rig with NVMe equipped.

Obviously modern tasks are for modern hardware.

However, back in the day when I had my win98 system, it was a SCSI based system and it screamed compared to IDE systems of the time period. The system was snappier, games loaded more quickly, I could swap in and out from games or burn a CD at the same time as other stuff.

I recently went through and surface tested all of my SCSI drives to weed out anything faulty, and only a handful were bad. Comparatively, far more of the SATA and IDE drives have been coming out with bad sectors or critical SMART errors.

Obviously if you go back far enough like back to 80s-early 90s drives, everything starts failing from bearing wear or faulty rubber and silicone seals regardless of the bus tech. But there was always a reason that UNIX systems were all-SCSI. When I build retro PCs, I build them as workstations, as workstations were always what I used and aspired to use even if they cost far more than consumer grade gear. Nowadays with all of this equipment being obsolete, there's little extra cost involved in decking a system out to workstation specs, so I do so.

QUANTUM 3D Obsidian 2 X-24 SLI2 3Dfx Voodoo 2 SLI
https://www.ebay.com/itm/275296657446

Sold for: 1,102.00 USD.

Seems like a lot of money to save one PCI slot.

^this confirms the fact that: Diminishing Returns has no financial rationale.

I'll give you a Very Good painting of a woman sorta-smiling for $1000, but if you insist that it must be painted by a certain man from Vinci, then that last little detail will cost you $the world.

feipoa wrote on 2022-05-08, 04:16:

QUANTUM 3D Obsidian 2 X-24 SLI2 3Dfx Voodoo 2 SLI https://www.ebay.com/itm/275296657446 […]
Show full quote

QUANTUM 3D Obsidian 2 X-24 SLI2 3Dfx Voodoo 2 SLI
https://www.ebay.com/itm/275296657446

Sold for: 1,102.00 USD.

Seems like a lot of money to save one PCI slot.

why is that fan even there? doesn't look like it would do anything at all

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-05-08, 11:48:

feipoa wrote on 2022-05-08, 04:16:

QUANTUM 3D Obsidian 2 X-24 SLI2 3Dfx Voodoo 2 SLI https://www.ebay.com/itm/275296657446 […]
Show full quote

QUANTUM 3D Obsidian 2 X-24 SLI2 3Dfx Voodoo 2 SLI
https://www.ebay.com/itm/275296657446

Sold for: 1,102.00 USD.

Seems like a lot of money to save one PCI slot.

why is that fan even there? doesn't look like it would do anything at all

I assume it blows in between the two layers, cooling the "trapped" chips. The chips on the outside are supposed to get by on their own.

New, open box Improve Technologies Make-It 486 Upgrade for 386SX 16-40 MHz systems
Sold for $259USD
https://www.ebay.com/itm/185416191042

I thought it would sell for more. I guess now that COVID restrictions are lifting/lifted, the price of this old junk is falling?

feipoa wrote on 2022-05-13, 05:30:

New, open box Improve Technologies Make-It 486 Upgrade for 386SX 16-40 MHz systems
Sold for $259USD

still seems high though, it's a niche collectable - if there was a real need to to increase performance of software that ran on a 386/486 it would be more easily met in other ways of course, so its a shelf display item i suspect

Something else interesting: the box says it is to upgrade 386SX and 386DX systems, however the CPU employed on the upgrade, the 486SXLC, is 16-bit only. So I guess you'd see a sizeable performance hit if you were to upgrade your 386DX?

Unless it has some adapter this one is the upgrade for 386SX only.

feipoa wrote on 2022-05-13, 09:54:

Something else interesting: the box says it is to upgrade 386SX and 386DX systems, however the CPU employed on the upgrade, the 486SXLC, is 16-bit only. So I guess you'd see a sizeable performance hit if you were to upgrade your 386DX?

Well, the point is that it's an 486 internally. Somehow.

Putting a 16bit processor on a 32 bit chipset would mean to ignore half the address bus? Is that possible?
Original PGA 386DX had 132 pins, SX only 88...
Basically, this was a chip with 486 instructions, but able to work with a 286 chipset?