Something that hasn't been done which I would absolutely love is an AGP switcher. Imagine having multiple AGP cards in one computer that you can select with some sort of hardware switch before booting. Then you can boot into a hardware profile to match. For my Windows 98 games, this would be so cool.

cloverskull wrote on 2024-04-20, 11:41:

Something that hasn't been done which I would absolutely love is an AGP switcher. Imagine having multiple AGP cards in one computer that you can select with some sort of hardware switch before booting. Then you can boot into a hardware profile to match. For my Windows 98 games, this would be so cool.

Physical space apart, this seems quite simple. Put multiple AGP ports with all lanes but the power suppy in parallel. Then switch only the power to the desired slot.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2024-04-20, 18:41:

Physical space apart, this seems quite simple. Put multiple AGP ports with all lanes but the power suppy in parallel. Then switch only the power to the desired slot.

AGP just like PCI (as thats what it started as) uses reflected-wave switching. Afaik cant just parallel few connectors and call it done at those frequencies, even 66 MHz PCI (AGP x1 speed) was pushing it and PCI-X requires PLLs and controlling delays. https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questio … -captured-by-th

Sounds like that would be best approach to develop it, get a PCI 66 board/backplane and do it in AGP 1x first....

... though for "plenty of space" just have 4 boards with KVM.

It is probably possible to figure out a goldilocks config with one of those AGP/PCIe boards where you have older GPU on a PCI32 slot, or two of them, GPU in AGP, and a PCIe bridged late period "AGP" available one on the PCIe.

A new motherboard for Sony Vaio P gen2 with modern specs would be amazing. Or new drivers for the GMA500.

Does anyone reading this today feel like they can tackle any of the things that have been mentioned here?

supercordo wrote on 2024-04-21, 02:54:

A new motherboard for Sony Vaio P gen2 with modern specs would be amazing. Or new drivers for the GMA500.

https://hackaday.com/2024/12/16/sony-vaio-rev … does-one-start/
https://github.com/CRImier/MyKiCad/tree/maste … /sony_vaio_p_re

So who here knew this thing existed?

https://www.anandtech.com/show/318

Jasin Natael wrote on 2024-12-20, 16:39:

So who here knew this thing existed?

https://www.anandtech.com/show/318

I also thought there were socket 370 to slot 2 but similar to the socket A to slot A adapters they were mostly vapor ware from what I remember. Not sure if this stuff ever went beyond being motherboard specific.

rmay635703 wrote on 2024-12-22, 04:36:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2024-12-20, 16:39:

So who here knew this thing existed?

https://www.anandtech.com/show/318

I also thought there were socket 370 to slot 2 but similar to the socket A to slot A adapters they were mostly vapor ware from what I remember. Not sure if this stuff ever went beyond being motherboard specific.

Yeah, vapor ware would make sense. I can't imagine that there was a huge market for it.
At the time Slot 2 CPUs were quite expensive, motherboards were and still are rare.
Where as slot 1 stuff is comparatively speaking cheap as chips then and now.
Of course now Slot 1 CPUs are dirt, no one uses them because no one can find the boards and when they can they aren't exactly performant compared to the their slot 1 brethren.

I just never knew any kind of an adapter existed, to go in either direction.

Sphere478 wrote on 2024-02-04, 02:55:

What’s a cool build combo, or hardware hack, or software shoehorn that we haven’t done? […]
Show full quote

What’s a cool build combo, or hardware hack, or software shoehorn that we haven’t done?

We’ve had windows 7 on socket 7
Dual socket 8 on a dual slot board
M.2 in a socket 7 on sata and pci
Unlocked gpus, cpus,
Etc…

What’s remaining?

I would like to see PCB kits to build a GUS
PCB Kits to rebuild a Voodoo card
PCB kits to rebuild a CT1600
PCB kits to build a Better ISA sound card

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2024-12-23, 15:37:

I would like to see PCB kits to build a GUS PCB Kits to rebuild a Voodoo card PCB kits to rebuild a CT1600 PCB kits to build a […]
Show full quote

Sphere478 wrote on 2024-02-04, 02:55:

What’s a cool build combo, or hardware hack, or software shoehorn that we haven’t done? […]
Show full quote

What’s a cool build combo, or hardware hack, or software shoehorn that we haven’t done?

We’ve had windows 7 on socket 7
Dual socket 8 on a dual slot board
M.2 in a socket 7 on sata and pci
Unlocked gpus, cpus,
Etc…

What’s remaining?

I would like to see PCB kits to build a GUS
PCB Kits to rebuild a Voodoo card
PCB kits to rebuild a CT1600
PCB kits to build a Better ISA sound card

Sound cards:
The comprehensive list of all modern reproductions of vintage sound cards

Voodoo cards:
Anthony Zxclxiv
https://www.facebook.com/share/19AYcYJCC5/?mibextid=wwXIfr

GUS:
PicoGUS: ISA sound card emulator with Raspberry Pi Pico (Gravis Ultrasound, AdLib, MPU-401, Tandy, CMS)

Here's one: VLB-only card. Meaning not using the 16bit ISA part of the slot, only the VLB expansion part. According to the available signals, this should be possible. I even read in some low-level manual regarding VLB that the slot architecture is designed to not need the ISA part.

^I think the EPROMs for VGA BIOS do attach via ISA?
On other hand, VLB has an 16-Bit mode. So two interleaved EPROMs can talk natively via VLB?

pvlst wrote on 2025-03-21, 00:06:

Here's one: VLB-only card. Meaning not using the 16bit ISA part of the slot, only the VLB expansion part. According to the available signals, this should be possible. I even read in some low-level manual regarding VLB that the slot architecture is designed to not need the ISA part.

I'm quite certain most VLB cards use the 8 bit and 32 bitVLB part of the card, not the 16 bit part.

VLB video cards use 8bit ISA signals for their BIOS access. Technically it is possible VLB device to claim a video BIOS access cycle to itself and not have the access ripple through chipset to ISA bus. But since everything uses ISA bus for the video BIOS and option ROMs, there may be a reason for that other than not having to fit this in the VLB device's chip(s). Rest of ISA is used for power and mechanical support... there's never enough ground connections for signal integrity 🤣.

Imperious wrote on 2025-03-21, 00:22:

pvlst wrote on 2025-03-21, 00:06:

Here's one: VLB-only card. Meaning not using the 16bit ISA part of the slot, only the VLB expansion part. According to the available signals, this should be possible. I even read in some low-level manual regarding VLB that the slot architecture is designed to not need the ISA part.

I'm quite certain most VLB cards use the 8 bit and 32 bitVLB part of the card, not the 16 bit part.

Some very common ones were 16-bit

Re: Cirrus Logic GD5429 VLB significantly slower than a TSENG ET4000

Imperious wrote on 2025-03-21, 00:22:

pvlst wrote on 2025-03-21, 00:06:

Here's one: VLB-only card. Meaning not using the 16bit ISA part of the slot, only the VLB expansion part. According to the available signals, this should be possible. I even read in some low-level manual regarding VLB that the slot architecture is designed to not need the ISA part.

I'm quite certain most VLB cards use the 8 bit and 32 bitVLB part of the card, not the 16 bit part.

I may have described it inexactly. I meant not using the whole ISA slot, including 8bit part.

Interesting info about BIOS. I was thinking about such XT-IDE card, but not for 8/16bit ISA, rather for VLB. Could such a thing be possible?

SSD for 486 computers
Voodoo card rebuild kit
Sound Blaster Pro CT1600 rebuild kit
Ultimate Electronic repair workstations
Budget Friendly Electronics repair workstations

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2025-03-21, 09:20:

SSD for 486 computers

It's not that that has never been done, it's just solutions for it were extremely expensive and low capacity back in the day and are super rare to find now. Since they only sold a few units here and there in the first place.

Cheapest way to a semi era-authentic SSD setup is to get an ISA PCMCIA adapter, and either suffer with the largest PCMCIA FlashATA card you can find for under $200, likely 2MB or something, though I believe 16MB was available at extremely high prices. (Talking 1994ish here) So the semi-authentic bit comes when you go "hell with that" and use a PCMCIA to CF adapter and put a 256Mb up card in it to have a reasonable amount of space. Though then you go, "why don't I just put the CF card in an IDE adapter???"

There were also boards you get that took SRAM and a battery, not sure how long power off data retention time was, maybe a year. There was a small capacity one, up to 2MB I think published in electronics magazines. Unfortunately it involved a PIC for which the code is missing I think.

If you are foaming at the mouth by now and going "No no, a REAL SSD that gets like 300MB/sec read or better!!!!1111" remember what you are plugging it into, it can't talk that fast, even fastest PCI 486 mostly can't handle full PCI potential, they'll cap it at about 90MB/sec max due to not being able to put the data in RAM any faster. And you can do it that way also if you want, PCI to SATA, SATA to generic SSD, you can probably get sub 32GB ones for basically free now.... and even if they were super low end ones that just hit SATA1 speed, they'll still be too fast for the 486 to strain them.