rkurbatov wrote on 2022-08-29, 11:42:

SCSI drives. AGAIN.

I got a case today with a SCSI Zip 100 drive in it, hopefully it works.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-08-29, 12:17:

I got a case today with a SCSI Zip 100 drive in it, hopefully it works.

They are not as fragile I suppose, as drives, rotating in server for years at 10-15k rpm speed.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2022-08-29, 04:02:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-08-29, 01:56:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2022-08-29, 01:06:

I managed to repair the EVGA GeForce 6800GT AGP that I acquired from fellower VOGONr @CJ_reha 6 years ago. I had bought it with […]
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I managed to repair the EVGA GeForce 6800GT AGP that I acquired from fellower VOGONr @CJ_reha 6 years ago. I had bought it with the understanding the VGA port had an RGB channel dead but unfortunately USPS did what they do best and beat the crap out of it during shipping, knocking off a cap and apparently causing at least one cold solder joint either in the BGA or in the resistors on the back of the card that was causing artifacting on BIOS. Basically I stripped the cooler off, cleaned it with isopropyl alchohol and a toothbrush, then ran my heatgun at 480 degrees with low air over the NV40 chip (8 minutes) and the BGA RAM chips (30 seconds per chip) then bumped the air flow up to medium and slowly reflowed the entire back of the card along with the rear front portion where the VRMs are. I let it cool down and sure enough the artifacts were gone, and now it renders perfectly after reassembling the cooler with new thermal paste. VGA port is still messed up but DVI to VGA works fine and I don't foresee myself ever running dual monitors on this (realistically I would never use a card this valuable/fragile for anything other than benchmarking, seeing as how ludites have inflated the price of EVGA 6800GTs to $125+ now)

Not the cleanest SMD soldering job but it seems to be electrically functional. Didn't help I accidentally ordered a 8mm cap instead of a 10mm cap.

Tested it out with the classic Nalu tech demo. Seems to be working fine.

Also ran 3DMark2005 for good measure. Scores seem to be on par, didn't notice any issues.

Kinda wish I hadn't sold my giant box of dead GPUs from 2004-2011 last year, now that it seems there is a high likelyhood I could have gotten some of them going with my heat gun and newfound proficiency in soldering.

Weirdly I got three 6800GT AGP cards recently for 125 USD for the lot, all three work perfectly and dont appear to have ever had much use, disassembly of the fan unit revealed almost no dust or any indication of the cards having been in constant use.

Thought I was only buying one but got all three, Wonder how they would go in SLI.

SLI over AGP.... not really a thing but thats a good deal for 3 6800GT AGPs. Sometimes eBay sellers just want to clear inventory. Sometimes I bookmark something overpriced and come back a month or two later and low ball them. You'd be amazed how often it works.

I prefer to do other thing instead. When someone sells old tech that i want (to add where it belong in the collection), but the seller did put high price and he does not even know what the thing is, does not have the knowledge how to test it, and confirm the thing is working fine, or is partly working, or not at all (i like to buy blindly stuff for 5-10-15 euros, but if someone wants much money for something that is not 110% tested and free of BS and problems they can go fk themselves for being greedy and lazy, or ignorant), i like to offer low price, or fair trade, and they refuse.. Fine then i bring the big guns, i just use alt ACC, and make some days later offer to the seller, to buy what i want, but the thing is i say that i "dont have" the money, and i will need an week to gather them, so i will send PM then. Ofc when a week passes i find picture from the internet, i send to the seller, and i say i did find the exact same thing, but for 1/3 of the price, and i "wish" all good to the seller and GL selling the thing.. Most of the times this is very good to lower the moral, and the high hopes of the seller, for the big money he wanted, and then after some time i talk to him from another alt ACC and i try to get the thing on my own terms, and most of the time it works..

Some ppl really suck at selling things, they want big money, but they dont even bother to test even to BIOS FK them... Rather sell the 3Dfx card (or whatever the rare is) for pocket change like 10$ UNtested, i am happy to try my luck, or test the card and sell it for 50-60$.... But asking for 50-60$ on UNtested rares well, he can get the money (from someone that is fine with that kind of BS) he want, and shove them in his greedy mouth ......

Finished up recording LPs of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2 on Easymode on the 486 DX4-100 desktop. Also did some shots for the channel profile of that system in December.

Then there's the weird Copyright warning I got from YouTube this morning. How in the heck does WMG have a copyright on anything in Tetris? Did one of those jackboot Rapper/R&B people sample the Type 3 music from the NES version or something and now I need to start panicing about Let's Plays being taken down. I already stopped doing guitar covers (mostly).

Archived some stuff to Archive org. Probably most of us have this or can still find it but figured sometime in the near future someone may go looking for it and can not find.
It seems is getting to harder to find old versions of even old open source stuff...
https://archive.org/details/memtest_memtest_archive

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-08-29, 04:16:

heh yup on the SLI but Im still curious since they also come in PCIe, IIRC they should be the first SLI capable cards from nVidi […]
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TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2022-08-29, 04:02:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-08-29, 01:56:

Weirdly I got three 6800GT AGP cards recently for 125 USD for the lot, all three work perfectly and dont appear to have ever had much use, disassembly of the fan unit revealed almost no dust or any indication of the cards having been in constant use.

Thought I was only buying one but got all three, Wonder how they would go in SLI.

SLI over AGP.... not really a thing but thats a good deal for 3 6800GT AGPs. Sometimes eBay sellers just want to clear inventory. Sometimes I bookmark something overpriced and come back a month or two later and low ball them. You'd be amazed how often it works.

heh yup on the SLI but Im still curious since they also come in PCIe, IIRC they should be the first SLI capable cards from nVidia that needed to physically linked via SLI bridge. (IIRC 6600GT could do SLI but it was via software rather than hardware link and was terrible)

I dont have any PCIe 6800gt cards but might be interesting to grab one to see what the performance difference is between AGP 8x and PCIe, the PCIe version should be significantly cheaper to acquire.

As for lowballing offers .. yes, thats how I got my NIB complete Audigy 2 ZS platinum for a song, seller had had it listed for 4 months and had been slowly lowering the price so I threw an offer at them 150 USD below what they had it listed for and they took it.

Oh nice.

I have a complete Audigy2 Pro Studio w/breakout box and all addendum. Found it for $5 at a thrift store (oddly where I've found 2 other less noteworthy boxed creative soundcards)

Radical Vision wrote on 2022-08-29, 20:03:

Some ppl really suck at selling things, they want big money, but they dont even bother to test even to BIOS FK them...

Yeah, some prices are really crazy. Like it's not a precious thing, it's just piece of junk you don't need anyway and can't use anyway. I just want to play with it a little to have my nostalgic feelings. It's old, fragile, often working badly and requires lot of attention, restoration, some additional stuff.

I see somebody selling Pentium 60 or 66 desktop for something like $7000. I suppose, that's that one, with an FDIV bug. Only CPU has some value. Everything else is in unknown condition, not tested, no guarantee. Man, you won't find a buyer on such demands.

rkurbatov wrote on 2022-08-30, 09:32:

Radical Vision wrote on 2022-08-29, 20:03:

Some ppl really suck at selling things, they want big money, but they dont even bother to test even to BIOS FK them...

Yeah, some prices are really crazy. Like it's not a precious thing, it's just piece of junk you don't need anyway and can't use anyway. I just want to play with it a little to have my nostalgic feelings. It's old, fragile, often working badly and requires lot of attention, restoration, some additional stuff.

I see somebody selling Pentium 60 or 66 desktop for something like $7000. I suppose, that's that one, with an FDIV bug. Only CPU has some value. Everything else is in unknown condition, not tested, no guarantee. Man, you won't find a buyer on such demands.

You can't argue with Adam Smith's invisible hand. If there is at least one crazy man who is ready to pay those $7000, then that is the market price of this piece of junk.

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-08-30, 10:55:

You can't argue with Adam Smith's invisible hand. If there is at least one crazy man who is ready to pay those $7000, then that is the market price of this piece of junk.

Surely there is not 😀 It's a type of arrogant dumb (usually pretty old) people thinking they won a lottery.

rkurbatov wrote on 2022-08-30, 11:06:

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-08-30, 10:55:

You can't argue with Adam Smith's invisible hand. If there is at least one crazy man who is ready to pay those $7000, then that is the market price of this piece of junk.

Surely there is not 😀 It's a type of arrogant dumb (usually pretty old) people thinking they won a lottery.

Well, it's hard to call old man dumb if he has enough money to be able to afford himself throughing away $7000 on some piece of junk.

I mean the one who finds an old PC somewhere and thinks he can sell it for such a huge price even without checking just because he heard something about strange geeks paying the fortune for old junk.

I've seen single floppies (untested for sure) for $10, CPUs for $100 and so on.

There are collectioners or old junkers that raise prices but at least they understand what they are selling and why it costs so much.

Oh, I don't even mention gold-hunters that destroyed buckets of chips 🙁

rkurbatov wrote on 2022-08-30, 12:12:

I mean the one who finds an old PC somewhere and thinks he can sell it for such a huge price even without checking just because […]
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I mean the one who finds an old PC somewhere and thinks he can sell it for such a huge price even without checking just because he heard something about strange geeks paying the fortune for old junk.

I've seen single floppies (untested for sure) for $10, CPUs for $100 and so on.

There are collectioners or old junkers that raise prices but at least they understand what they are selling and why it costs so much.

Oh, I don't even mention gold-hunters that destroyed buckets of chips 🙁

I agree.
I've seen auctions on ebay with the usual untested starting at 95% the price for a full working machine. Sometimes people don't understand the world collectors live in.
Same for coins and banknotes, books....

Nexxen wrote on 2022-08-30, 12:35:

Same for coins and banknotes, books....

Offtopic: Ukrainian post issued a line of postage stamps starting with one with sunk Russian ship. It was impossible to buy them and they appeared on auctions immediately. But most of people don't even understand they stamps should be kept in special conditions and even small sign of finger fat will decrease the price significantly. Don't even mention these stamps are not rare.

So I can understand when I see rare GUS in mint condition - I will decide am I ok to buy it or wait for modern replica (hope it will be available). But paying for old junk... Nah.

rkurbatov wrote on 2022-08-30, 13:39:

Nexxen wrote on 2022-08-30, 12:35:

Same for coins and banknotes, books....

Offtopic: Ukrainian post issued a line of postage stamps starting with one with sunk Russian ship. It was impossible to buy them and they appeared on auctions immediately. But most of people don't even understand they stamps should be kept in special conditions and even small sign of finger fat will decrease the price significantly. Don't even mention these stamps are not rare.

So I can understand when I see rare GUS in mint condition - I will decide am I ok to buy it or wait for modern replica (hope it will be available). But paying for old junk... Nah.

It depends whose finger left a small fat sign. Some people's fat signs not only do not decrease the price, but may even increase it. 😉

And in general, I don't think it is wise to think that those who rise the prices are dumber than you. Yes, I admit that it sucks when prices are rising, but if there are folks who are ready to pay more, then those are the market prices. That's how laws of free market actually work.

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-08-30, 14:56:

And in general, I don't think it is wise to think that those who rise the prices are dumber than you.

I still see the difference between: "I want $100 for this rare processor because I see demand" and "I want $7000 for this junk, because I've heard some stupid idiots call it retro".

rkurbatov wrote on 2022-08-30, 16:19:

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-08-30, 14:56:

And in general, I don't think it is wise to think that those who rise the prices are dumber than you.

I still see the difference between: "I want $100 for this rare processor because I see demand" and "I want $7000 for this junk, because I've heard some stupid idiots call it retro".

No one forces you to pay $7000. Also no one forbids you to contact the seller and to explain him that $7000 is not a realistic price and that a fair price is $100. I did it several times. Sometimes it works and sellers lower the price significantly. But if they refuse, it's their right to keep the price high. And your right is not to buy it. And other guy's right is to buy it cause he wants it badly and has enough money. That's how it works.

Longshot, but if anyone here has a BFG 5900XT 128MB could you dump your VBIOs and upload it?

I disassembled the Austin M1RC laptop to get to know the hardware and here are the specs:

Pentium 100 2.9V
ES1688F
16MB RAM (proprietary)
1.44MB Mitsumi FDD
2GB SD (SD2IDE) that I recently installed
Li-Ion battery (needs a calibration)
TFT display (either 800x600 or 1024x768)
CL-GD7543 video (between 1-2MB video RAM)
CL-PD6729 PCMCIA
Intel i430MX chipset

The good:
Integrated sound
TFT active
Removable battery and floppy drive
Can have up to 2 batteries installed

The bad:
RTC battery is not replaceable, however, I fixed that by installing a CR1220 battery holder
Display power button isn't working since the button needs to be repaired
The locking clip broke off, which is needed to keep the display closed and I can fix that or find a replacement
The TrackPoint is worn and gooey and I can use the one meant for a ThinkPad with it and see if that works
Some drivers are hard to find (primarily the PCMCIA drivers and I think Windows 95 has them, but I digress)
The HDD caddy is missing, so I'll look to see if someone has a NOS one and the original hard drive so I can archive all of the drivers and OS files

Overall:
It's a cute laptop for DOS gaming and it's not that bad, but for how many minor inconveniences there are, it's a fixer upper, however, it boots from the diskette and I've yet to install the OS on it.

I'll post a vlog about it and make a thread about it here and other sites with some gaming.

I tested Lemmings after it booted to MS-DOS via the floppy boot diskette and the sound works without issues.

bjwil1991 wrote on 2022-08-31, 09:00:

CL-GD7543 video (between 1-4MB video RAM)

Datasheet says it can have only 1 or 2 MB of VRAM. Two chips are 256x16 = 1MB, for chips are either 256x16 or 512x8 = 2MB.

Thanks. I updated the post with the information you provided.