Cuttoon wrote on 2026-05-21, 18:26:

And, whether people spend that much money for the mere function or as collectors / hoarders.
There should be some kind of ceiling for the former, since the replicas appeared. Think those went as low as 50 €?

Ebay is full of junk that has completely bonkers asking prices and they won’t sell for that. Looking at sold items gives often much more realistic picture what people are willing to pay for a certain item. One example about insane asking prices that I can think of are MediaVision Thunderboard sound cards. There have been some for sale like ages with something like 250€ asking price. Nobody’s paying that and just as an example I got IBM EasyOptions NOS boxed sound card which is a Thunderboard variant with UART MPU401 for around 70€ around year-year and a half ago. At least not long ago some dude tried to sell MPU401 replica/clone card (MDR401, there is a discussion about these here in Vogons) for around 200€ when you could get these weird repro cards for 60-70€ a piece when they were available from a seller that most likely also made them. In my experience they work wonderfully, but 200 beans for one is just bananas.

Ebay is mostly just stupidity nowadays, but of course you occasionally can score items in decent price. I’m also sometimes willing to pay little more if I really “need” something, but I generally don’t go to foolishness, far from it. I also have a pretty decent parts bin nowadays, so I rarely crave anything that badly.

As far as replicas go, yes there are significantly cheaper options. Or just get PicoGUS and you get also other fantastic features along with intelligent mode MPU for the roughly about same 60-70€.

Yup, gotta know your onions not to get in a stew over a dangling carrot that is a bananas number of beans. If it's not a cherry it could be a potato and then you are really in the soup.

edit: Also it's not all gravy to get that bread and you don't want to blow the whole enchilada and not get another slice of the pie should a peach appear.

EditII: Apologies if this post has you all jammed up but English idiom is a real hash, a pickle, and it's pot luck whether or not you make a meal of it.

Law212 wrote on 2026-05-21, 17:10:

MattRocks wrote on 2026-05-21, 16:55:

I bought a ton of stuff while on painkillers. I'm looking at it and holding my head - really bad choices. I've banned myself from eBay now.

Show us!

It's not all arrived yet. I'm embarrassed by some most of it.

I just bought a TARGA notebook with an Athlon XP-M 2800 inside. Just for the CPU, but you can't get that CPU for 25€ alone 😁

Cuttoon wrote on 2026-05-21, 18:31:

Yep, show us! […]
Show full quote

Law212 wrote on 2026-05-21, 17:10:

MattRocks wrote on 2026-05-21, 16:55:

I bought a ton of stuff while on painkillers. I'm looking at it and holding my head - really bad choices. I've banned myself from eBay now.

Show us!

Yep, show us!

Also, maybe you should ban yourself from taking painkillers?

(Sorry, I hope you don't actually need them and wish you the best of health!)

Thanks. I'm off the painkillers now.

Attached is the only relevant photo I have on my phone right now. It's one of the better items - an AGPx4 card with blower-like cooler. The rear of the blower is closed, and the fan forces air along the vanes. But, I may actually have bid on this before going into hospital, and simply forgotten what happened when.

If it worked this would be my favourite GeForce2 Ti. It looks great in the photo, but the moment it initialised in my motherboard there was a great bang as the two caps by the backplate popped. So, it's currently unusable and currently not my favourite.

I'll share more tomorrow.

Are you buying parts for a particular build or just to have?
luckily it should be somewhat easy to replace the caps

Law212 wrote on 2026-05-21, 20:31:

Are you buying parts for a particular build or just to have?
luckily it should be somewhat easy to replace the caps

Well, both.

I'll bid on something if I think it's an upgrade on what I have. So, I did bid strategically on the GeForce2Ti because I consider the novel WinFast cooler to be an upgrade on the vanilla cooler on my other GeForce2 Ti. The cooler is somewhat historically significant because at the time the various board makers were all cloning NVIDIA reference boards and producing the same performance, so a novel cooler is one of the only differentiating qualities.

But, my interest is building plausible BBC workstations - video and audio workstations. The GeForce2 Ti does not belong in those projects. I'd select silent cards for audio monitoring, or most specialist video cards for image control.

MattRocks wrote on 2026-05-21, 20:38:

Well, both. […]
Show full quote

Law212 wrote on 2026-05-21, 20:31:

Are you buying parts for a particular build or just to have?
luckily it should be somewhat easy to replace the caps

Well, both.

I'll bid on something if I think it's an upgrade on what I have. So, I did bid strategically on the GeForce2Ti because I consider the novel WinFast cooler to be an upgrade on the vanilla cooler on my other GeForce2 Ti. It's historically significant because at the time the various board makers were cloning NVIDIA reference boards, and a novel cooler is one of the most differentiating qualities.

But, my interest is building plausible BBC workstations - video and audio workstations. The GeForce2 Ti does not belong in those projects.

Very cool. Ya its good to have spare parts around. Though I havent bought any off of ebay before. Everything i have is from thrift stores mostly. But I have quite a few parts to work with . Lots of hard drives which Iw ant to test and sell as I dont need nearly the amount I have. Im testing different sound cards in different computers. I wish I had more time for tinkering but I try to do what I can.

MattRocks wrote on 2026-05-21, 16:55:

I bought a ton of stuff while on painkillers. I'm looking at it and holding my head - really bad choices. I've banned myself from eBay now.

Oops

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2026-05-21, 18:47:

Cuttoon wrote on 2026-05-21, 18:26:

And, whether people spend that much money for the mere function or as collectors / hoarders.
There should be some kind of ceiling for the former, since the replicas appeared. Think those went as low as 50 €?

Ebay is full of junk that has completely bonkers asking prices and they won’t sell for that. Looking at sold items gives often much more realistic picture what people are willing to pay for a certain item.

It really is terrible now, people want all the money for vintage hardware while doing none of the work.

"486 PC, untested" £250.

"Untested" but they have a bunch of other, tested and working machines for sale in their other listings.

Dan386DX wrote on Yesterday, 04:29:

It really is terrible now, people want all the money for vintage hardware while doing none of the work.

"486 PC, untested" £250.

"Untested" but they have a bunch of other, tested and working machines for sale in their other listings.

will that appear in "sold items" though? if it does then the seller was "right"

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-05-21, 19:51:

I just bought a TARGA notebook with an Athlon XP-M 2800 inside. Just for the CPU, but you can't get that CPU for 25€ alone 😁

Show off! 😉

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-05-21, 19:28:

Yup, gotta know your onions not to get in a stew over a dangling carrot that is a bananas number of beans. If it's not a cherry it could be a potato and then you are really in the soup.

edit: Also it's not all gravy to get that bread and you don't want to blow the whole enchilada and not get another slice of the pie should a peach appear.

EditII: Apologies if this post has you all jammed up but English idiom is a real hash, a pickle, and it's pot luck whether or not you make a meal of it.

Thanks for that. I've been unboxing my buyer's remorse. This experience proves painkillers are in fact drugs, and that patients should be banned from accessing their credit cards. Oh my days...

• First up, a Creative CT7235 DVD decoder PCI card missing the all important passthrough cable. So now I have a project to make a passthrough cable. Photo shows I've actually physically tested a plug for that future passthrough cable. Don't know that the PCI card works though.
• Next, the cause of death is unclear. It's a GeForce4 Ti sealed in and exposed to deadly bubble wrap whilst also being plagued with cap-pox. So, now I have a project to fix a card that might be unfixable. Terrible decision. The packing and blurry photos deserve negative feedback, but that kind of setup is not something I'd have ordinarily bid on.
• Now for something I find interesting. The red breakout plug dates from a little known Pinnacle-ATI partnership in film and broadcasting. I suspect ATI wanted one of the Emmy Awards that Pinnacle had a knack of collecting. The only glitch for ATI was that Pinnacle's other knack was shipping video cards with 20+ sockets on a single breakout box, and for supporting third party breakout boxes. So together they made something that baffles most ATI customers. Their partnership broke down before really big breakouts emerged for this socket, and I'm not sure ATI used the pinout consistently. This fits my collection.
• Erm. I don't know what to say. This Club3D card, with PCIe bridge chip, does not fit my collection because I tend to stop at the preceding generation. It's just here now. I guess I'll have to test it.
• Lastly, a sound card missing its breakout cable. To be fair the card itself has a very good analogue stage, but now I have a project to make a breakout cable for a socket I don't know and for card I don't actually need. Bad choice.

There's more.

I submit the above as evidence for why I had a sick note to prevent me working! Oh my days...

ASUS N6600

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 14:43:

Show off! ;) […]
Show full quote

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-05-21, 19:51:

I just bought a TARGA notebook with an Athlon XP-M 2800 inside. Just for the CPU, but you can't get that CPU for 25€ alone 😁

Show off! 😉

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-05-21, 19:28:

Yup, gotta know your onions not to get in a stew over a dangling carrot that is a bananas number of beans. If it's not a cherry it could be a potato and then you are really in the soup.

edit: Also it's not all gravy to get that bread and you don't want to blow the whole enchilada and not get another slice of the pie should a peach appear.

EditII: Apologies if this post has you all jammed up but English idiom is a real hash, a pickle, and it's pot luck whether or not you make a meal of it.

Thanks for that. I've been unboxing my buyer's remorse. This experience proves painkillers are in fact drugs, and that patients should be banned from accessing their credit cards. Oh my days...

• First up, a Creative CT7235 DVD decoder PCI card missing the all important passthrough cable. So now I have a project to make a passthrough cable. Photo shows I've actually physically tested a plug for that future passthrough cable. Don't know that the PCI card works though.
• Next, the cause of death is unclear. It's a GeForce4 Ti sealed in and exposed to deadly bubble wrap whilst also being plagued with cap-pox. So, now I have a project to fix a card that might be unfixable. Terrible decision. The packing and blurry photos deserve negative feedback, but that kind of setup is not something I'd have ordinarily bid on.
• Now for something I find interesting. The red breakout plug dates from a little known Pinnacle-ATI partnership in film and broadcasting. I suspect ATI wanted one of the Emmy Awards that Pinnacle had a knack of collecting. The only glitch for ATI was that Pinnacle's other knack was shipping video cards with 20+ sockets on a single breakout box, and for supporting third party breakout boxes. So together they made something that baffles most ATI customers. Their partnership broke down before really big breakouts emerged for this socket, and I'm not sure ATI used the pinout consistently. This fits my collection.
• Erm. I don't know what to say. This Club3D card, with PCIe bridge chip, does not fit my collection because I tend to stop at the preceding generation. It's just here now. I guess I'll have to test it.
• Lastly, a sound card missing its breakout cable. To be fair the card itself has a very good analogue stage, but now I have a project to make a breakout cable for a socket I don't know and for card I don't actually need. Bad choice.

There's more.

I submit the above as evidence for why I had a sick note to prevent me working! Oh my days...

Actually, you have to wonder whether some ATI engineer was on high octane pain killers, prescribed or alternative, through that wacky connector era.

I could manufacture a rationale for an AGP bridge GPU, in a kind of mid XP, single core socket 754 screamer kind of way. But there's some people that got there naturally, I shouldn't think that will be too hard to sell on.

GF4 with BGA RAM seemed to be prone to desoldering it, but it might just be caps.

Well, good luck with sorting it all out. A movie ticket is quite a price for a couple hours entertainment now, so if it keeps you busy at least as long per pound, you've evened it out 🤣

BitWrangler wrote on Yesterday, 16:00:

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 14:43:

Show off! ;) […]
Show full quote

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-05-21, 19:51:

I just bought a TARGA notebook with an Athlon XP-M 2800 inside. Just for the CPU, but you can't get that CPU for 25€ alone 😁

Show off! 😉

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-05-21, 19:28:

Yup, gotta know your onions not to get in a stew over a dangling carrot that is a bananas number of beans. If it's not a cherry it could be a potato and then you are really in the soup.

edit: Also it's not all gravy to get that bread and you don't want to blow the whole enchilada and not get another slice of the pie should a peach appear.

EditII: Apologies if this post has you all jammed up but English idiom is a real hash, a pickle, and it's pot luck whether or not you make a meal of it.

Thanks for that. I've been unboxing my buyer's remorse. This experience proves painkillers are in fact drugs, and that patients should be banned from accessing their credit cards. Oh my days...

• First up, a Creative CT7235 DVD decoder PCI card missing the all important passthrough cable. So now I have a project to make a passthrough cable. Photo shows I've actually physically tested a plug for that future passthrough cable. Don't know that the PCI card works though.
• Next, the cause of death is unclear. It's a GeForce4 Ti sealed in and exposed to deadly bubble wrap whilst also being plagued with cap-pox. So, now I have a project to fix a card that might be unfixable. Terrible decision. The packing and blurry photos deserve negative feedback, but that kind of setup is not something I'd have ordinarily bid on.
• Now for something I find interesting. The red breakout plug dates from a little known Pinnacle-ATI partnership in film and broadcasting. I suspect ATI wanted one of the Emmy Awards that Pinnacle had a knack of collecting. The only glitch for ATI was that Pinnacle's other knack was shipping video cards with 20+ sockets on a single breakout box, and for supporting third party breakout boxes. So together they made something that baffles most ATI customers. Their partnership broke down before really big breakouts emerged for this socket, and I'm not sure ATI used the pinout consistently. This fits my collection.
• Erm. I don't know what to say. This Club3D card, with PCIe bridge chip, does not fit my collection because I tend to stop at the preceding generation. It's just here now. I guess I'll have to test it.
• Lastly, a sound card missing its breakout cable. To be fair the card itself has a very good analogue stage, but now I have a project to make a breakout cable for a socket I don't know and for card I don't actually need. Bad choice.

There's more.

I submit the above as evidence for why I had a sick note to prevent me working! Oh my days...

Actually, you have to wonder whether some ATI engineer was on high octane pain killers, prescribed or alternative, through that wacky connector era.

It makes more sense if you look at it through the lens of Pinnacle's engineers, because the resulting socket is fairly consistent with what Pinnacle had already been doing with their own video cards.

In practically every generation Pinnacle changed their sockets so the shape isn't a sign, but the number of VIVO sockets they needed is always high. So, Pinnacle had a real world need for all those pins while ATI never has - before or after. Also, the socket emerged on ATI cards only during the ATI-Pinnacle partnership when Pinnacle were selling ATI silicon into film and broadcast workflows.

Actually, Pinnacle's top end workflows may have needed more pins than that 28 pin socket provides so it's as though Pinnacle crammed in as much as they could onto ATI's backplate.

The history is very interesting particularly as AMD (formerly ATI) and Avid (formerly Pinnacle) appear to have redacted from their public archives pretty much all support documentation for the Pinnacle-ATI VGA card, which leads to the Pinnacle card being consistently mis-sold on eBay as an AIW despite it having none of the features that characterise an AIW!

Misrepresentation irks me. Silence irks me even more. I may have to write the essay that clears this all up.

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 14:43:

Thanks for that. I've been unboxing my buyer's remorse. This experience proves painkillers are in fact drugs, and that patients should be banned from accessing their credit cards. Oh my days...

• Now for something I find interesting. The red breakout plug dates from a little known Pinnacle-ATI partnership in film and broadcasting. I suspect ATI wanted one of the Emmy Awards that Pinnacle had a knack of collecting. The only glitch for ATI was that Pinnacle's other knack was shipping video cards with 20+ sockets on a single breakout box, and for supporting third party breakout boxes. So together they made something that baffles most ATI customers. Their partnership broke down before really big breakouts emerged for this socket, and I'm not sure ATI used the pinout consistently. This fits my collection.

Dug up some links about some "go arounds" with the freaky ATI connector that may be fully or partially related to that pinnacle one...

ChrisK posted about his dongle-less card here...
Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

We had a few more posts about things, and then...
Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

But also there's a connector pinout for what might be an X800 or X1100 or something AIW or VIVO connector...
https://pinoutguide.com/Audio-Video-Hardware/ … e5_pinout.shtml

I know the 9x00 AIWs were coming with Pinnacle Studio at the time, not sure if that is enough of a link to infer connector compatibility. Not sure what you had in mind to plug your box into.

BitWrangler wrote on Yesterday, 19:54:

Dug up some links about some "go arounds" with the freaky ATI connector that may be fully or partially related to that pinnacle […]
Show full quote

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 14:43:

Thanks for that. I've been unboxing my buyer's remorse. This experience proves painkillers are in fact drugs, and that patients should be banned from accessing their credit cards. Oh my days...

• Now for something I find interesting. The red breakout plug dates from a little known Pinnacle-ATI partnership in film and broadcasting. I suspect ATI wanted one of the Emmy Awards that Pinnacle had a knack of collecting. The only glitch for ATI was that Pinnacle's other knack was shipping video cards with 20+ sockets on a single breakout box, and for supporting third party breakout boxes. So together they made something that baffles most ATI customers. Their partnership broke down before really big breakouts emerged for this socket, and I'm not sure ATI used the pinout consistently. This fits my collection.

Dug up some links about some "go arounds" with the freaky ATI connector that may be fully or partially related to that pinnacle one...

ChrisK posted about his dongle-less card here...
Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

We had a few more posts about things, and then...
Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

But also there's a connector pinout for what might be an X800 or X1100 or something AIW or VIVO connector...
https://pinoutguide.com/Audio-Video-Hardware/ … e5_pinout.shtml

I know the 9x00 AIWs were coming with Pinnacle Studio at the time, not sure if that is enough of a link to infer connector compatibility. Not sure what you had in mind to plug your box into.

Apologies in advance for the many edits. It's a nuanced subject. The cards linked to above are an entirely different generation and a different product tier. They have the same 28-pin connector, but appear to have very different pinout so might not work with a Pinnacle breakout box.

Like most companies, Pinnacle had multiple product tiers:

• Pinnacle Studio - Consumer or OEM product for home video
• Pinnacle Liquid Edition v5 - Enthusiast retail for film editing listed at $699 retail (came with a PCI firewire card for DV camcorder capture)
• Pinnacle Liquid Edition Pro v5 - Prosumer / Studio product listed at $999 retail (this is the box that contained an AGP card featuring a 28 pin breakout connector)
• Pinnacle Silver (and above) - Colour critical workloads for film and broadcasting costing around $25k

Pinnacle Liquid Edition Pro v5 matters because it was the world's first editor to feature realtime full-resolution previews (powered by the GPU on the hot path, not by CPUs with an indirection). And, Pinnacle Liquid Edition Pro v5 is central to the Pinnacle-ATI partnership. It was an investment in technology innovation, not an OEM software freebie.

They were competing primarily against Apple Final Cut Pro, which was a closed ecosystem powered by PPC G4/G5 dual processor workstations. Final Cut Pro was boasting realtime previews, but it was actually only near-realtime (processed in software) and output at reduced "preview resolution". The generation that matters historically is specifically Pinnacle Liquid Edition Pro v5, which was powered by a Radeon 8-series GPU and ATI Rage Theatre. Importantly, the original Pinnacle pin out supports DV, Audio, and a lot of Video on the breakout box for studio work.

Next generation: When you compare the later ATI 9-series, those are paired with a different Theatre chip and their pinout appears to not support DV or Audio on the breakout box/cable. They also bundled a budget consumer Pinnacle Studio editor, which is more than a step down from the original Pinnacle bundle. On the Pinnacle side, their later Liquid Edition Pro v6 came with a lower cost USB breakout box so they were also stepping down. The moment of focus on GPU accelerated studio workflows had passed - it was still present, just no longer new.

And as previously said, its very interesting because AMD and Avid maintain no records of Pinnacle Liquid Edition Pro v5 or the AGP card it shipped with, save for one line in Avid Liquid 7 Pro manual that acknowledges the card exists only by stating it is no longer supported! Two important things there: First, the confession it really exists. Second, the confession that they don't want to pay to for a DX9 driver update. I believe to power the effects the hardware actually only only ever needed to provide fixed function DX7 T&L, but that's not what the marketing said. There's also questions to ask about why ATI did not release an 8-series VIVO reference board. It's all very curious because that decision effectively blocked third parties from competing with Pinnacle directly, and I wonder if that is the sensitive underbelly of the matter.

The attached keeps happening on eBay. No driver CD, no breakout box, no history. Also, no coax input, no tuner can, so not an All-In-Wonder! I am guessing seller confusion stems from Catalyst unified drivers not accurately identifying the Pinnacle card but still binding a driver, and them not being the original buyers/users - they most likely just blindly pulled it from a workstation and haven't a clue about the ecosystem it inhabited/supported.

This very special Matra motherboard arrived today.

I could say its a Matra Path III (as seen on the chipset), however I've seen the same exact logo on other Matra 386 and 486 motherboards.
So, I am not quite sure what motherboard model is this.

It was difficult to set it up, found no documentation.
The CPU part was easy -> Set it to 33Mhz (the only! marking on the PCB) and recognized as 486DX2-66MHz.
I *think* it's working at 3V instead of 5V as the CPU(3.45V) is not getting hot. I will measure it later, just to be sure.
The cache was difficult, when powered on the cache was reported as NONE. Removed the 20N chips and added 15N chips on BANK0 only.
After tracing the cache chip pins to the jumper pins I narrowed down which jumpers are for cache setup.
After a few hours of try and test the cache is set and working (256KB @ 15ns).

One thing that is strange is that the board only boots with all four (72pin) SIMM and only with FPM SIMM.
Tried like 20 different modules and nothing worked.

BIOS string: 08/25/95-ALI-1439-1445-2A4KCM03-00

Why this board is special:
- Socket 3.
- It is based on ALi chipset.
- It is a V.I.P. board.
- It has voltage regulator.
- Uses 72 pin SIMM.

The only other board that has a similar layout and configuration that I found is this one:
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/unknown-pci450-a

In the next days I will add/solder a BezVarta battery for CMOS, clean it up a little, test it with an ATi Mach32 VLB card, make a few photos, get a BIOS bump, send it to theretroweb and in the collection it goes! 😀

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 21:26:

Those are an entirely different generation and a different product tier. They have the same 28-pin connector, but appear to have […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on Yesterday, 19:54:

Dug up some links about some "go arounds" with the freaky ATI connector that may be fully or partially related to that pinnacle […]
Show full quote

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 14:43:

Thanks for that. I've been unboxing my buyer's remorse. This experience proves painkillers are in fact drugs, and that patients should be banned from accessing their credit cards. Oh my days...

• Now for something I find interesting. The red breakout plug dates from a little known Pinnacle-ATI partnership in film and broadcasting. I suspect ATI wanted one of the Emmy Awards that Pinnacle had a knack of collecting. The only glitch for ATI was that Pinnacle's other knack was shipping video cards with 20+ sockets on a single breakout box, and for supporting third party breakout boxes. So together they made something that baffles most ATI customers. Their partnership broke down before really big breakouts emerged for this socket, and I'm not sure ATI used the pinout consistently. This fits my collection.

Dug up some links about some "go arounds" with the freaky ATI connector that may be fully or partially related to that pinnacle one...

ChrisK posted about his dongle-less card here...
Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

We had a few more posts about things, and then...
Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

But also there's a connector pinout for what might be an X800 or X1100 or something AIW or VIVO connector...
https://pinoutguide.com/Audio-Video-Hardware/ … e5_pinout.shtml

I know the 9x00 AIWs were coming with Pinnacle Studio at the time, not sure if that is enough of a link to infer connector compatibility. Not sure what you had in mind to plug your box into.

Those are an entirely different generation and a different product tier. They have the same 28-pin connector, but appear to have very different pinout so might not won't work with a Pinnacle breakout box.

Like most companies, Pinnacle had multiple product tiers:

• Pinnacle Studio - Consumer or OEM product for home video
• Pinnacle Liquid Edition v5 - Enthusiast retail for film editing listed at $699 retail (came with a PCI firewire card for DV camcorder capture)
• Pinnacle Liquid Edition Pro v5 - Prosumer / Studio product listed at $999 retail (this is the box that contained an AGP card featuring a 28 pin breakout connector)
• Pinnacle Silver (and above) - Colour critical workloads for film and broadcasting costing around $25k

Pinnacle Liquid Edition Pro v5 matters because it was the world's first editor to feature realtime full-resolution previews (powered by the GPU on the hot path, not by CPUs with an indirection). And, Pinnacle Liquid Edition Pro v5 is central to the Pinnacle-ATI partnership. It was an investment in technology innovation, not an OEM software freebie.

They were competing primarily against Apple Final Cut Pro, which was a closed ecosystem powered by PPC G4/G5 dual processor workstations. Final Cut Pro was boasting realtime previews, but it was actually only near-realtime (processed in software) and output at reduced "preview resolution". The generation that matters historically is specifically Pinnacle Liquid Edition Pro v5, which was powered by a Radeon 8-series GPU and ATI Rage Theatre. Importantly, the original Pinnacle pin out supports DV, Audio, and a lot of Video on the breakout box for studio work.

Next generation: When you compare the later ATI 9-series, those are paired with a different Theatre chip and their pinout appears to not support DV or Audio on the breakout box/cable. They also bundled a budget consumer Pinnacle Studio editor, which is more than a step down from the original Pinnacle bundle. On the Pinnacle side, their later Liquid Edition Pro v6 came with a lower cost USB breakout box so they were also stepping down. The moment of focus on GPU accelerated studio workflows had passed - it was still present, just no longer new.

And as previously said, its very interesting because AMD and Avid maintain no records of Pinnacle Liquid Edition Pro v5 or the AGP card it shipped with, save for one line in Avid Liquid 7 Pro manual that acknowledges the card exists only by stating it is no longer supported! Two important things there: First, the confession it really exists. Second, the confession that they don't want to pay to for a DX9 driver update. I believe to power the effects the hardware actually only only ever needed to provide fixed function DX7 T&L, but that's not what the marketing said. There's also questions to ask about why ATI did not release an 8-series VIVO reference board. It's all very curious.

Wow, that's kinda wild. Was that 8 series the one they sold also as the AIW 8500DV with the purple dongle with square plug https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/ati- … r-radeon-8500dv ? I have one of those but it came devoid of software. It would have seemed more likely that the 9 series stuff would be more advanced though as the GPU had very limited GPU compute capabilities, not sure exactly what, probably stuff with matrix bit shifts on the shaders or something. Early days for that though compared with OpenCL/Cuda I met a guy once though who was doing some computational chemistry on one.

It's a shame so many of these specialty cards no longer have the matching breakout cables. No cable for my ATI X800 XT AIW and almost unobtanium. :\