VOGONS


First post, by ux-3

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We all know the problem: Many crates turn yellowish over time - all without smoking.
Is there a way to remove that aging effect?

Reply 1 of 57, by Harekiet

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Billy Mays here with yet another fantastic product, Oxiclean! Wonder if that would actually work though, the sun has probably just altered the material.

Reply 2 of 57, by keropi

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http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/

it works. have seen it many times. 😁

🎵 🎧 PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 7 of 57, by ux-3

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I wasn't joking when I said that I am looking towards a cheaper black alternative. I am not going to waste a fortune on chemicals to get a case grey again. My best two cases are still grey, so they will stay. The rest will have to suffer...

Retro PC warning: The things you own end up owning you.

Reply 9 of 57, by Tetrium

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Davros wrote:

Wouldnt a black at case be hard to find ?
do at mboards fit in atx cases ?

They 'fit' in some older ATX cases, but you'd need either an AT-ATX backplate or put up with a large open hole in the back

Reply 10 of 57, by ux-3

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A few years ago, I made the decision to do retro gaming on ATX only. I am partially biased, cause I had a Gigabyte 6BA (AT form factor) back in the late 90s. It turned out to be the totally wrong choice: It could not support V3 3000, it could not support Coppermine.

I have since dumped all AT equipment, including a really cool P1 50-200 MHz (sniff). Too much trouble to keep it going.

Reply 11 of 57, by swaaye

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There are some interesting ATX Socket 7 mobos out there. ATX is such a more organized form factor, and you can usually use any 'ol ATX PSU.

I wonder if Retr0bright has too much hydrogen peroxide to be easily sold to the general populace.

Reply 12 of 57, by ux-3

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swaaye wrote:

There are some interesting ATX Socket 7 mobos out there. ATX is such a more organized form factor, and you can usually use any 'ol ATX PSU.

Yes indeed. I didn't have the heart to throw out my SuperSocket 7 mATX board. It is so utterly well organized in comparison to the FX Triton board I mentioned above. It came with a K6-2 500 MHz. Amazingly enough, that CPU is too slow to trigger the turbo pascal bug. I have also aquired a few P1-233mmx for it, so I can burn them up at 300, if the need arises. The SIS chipset is slow, it can only cache 64MB of ram, but it has nice onboard sound (ess solo-1), offers ISA and onboard graphics.
One shared ISA and two further PCI give it some flexibility. It has onboard graphics, which can be made VESA 2 compliant. I've used it before with a banshee or V3 pci. I have placed it aside, should I ever have to get under 200 MHz with L1 cache again.

Reply 13 of 57, by Tetrium

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ux-3 wrote:
swaaye wrote:

There are some interesting ATX Socket 7 mobos out there. ATX is such a more organized form factor, and you can usually use any 'ol ATX PSU.

Yes indeed. I didn't have the heart to throw out my SuperSocket 7 mATX board. It is so utterly well organized in comparison to the FX Triton board I mentioned above. It came with a K6-2 500 MHz. Amazingly enough, that CPU is too slow to trigger the turbo pascal bug. I have also aquired a few P1-233mmx for it, so I can burn them up at 300, if the need arises. The SIS chipset is slow, it can only cache 64MB of ram, but it has nice onboard sound (ess solo-1), offers ISA and onboard graphics.
One shared ISA and two further PCI give it some flexibility. It has onboard graphics, which can be made VESA 2 compliant. I've used it before with a banshee or V3 pci. I have placed it aside, should I ever have to get under 200 MHz with L1 cache again.

Yours is the Sis5598 or the Sis530?
It should be possible to install a K6+ in there, expanding the cacheable area 😉

Reply 14 of 57, by ux-3

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Tetrium wrote:

Yours is the Sis5598 or the Sis530?
It should be possible to install a K6+ in there, expanding the cacheable area 😉

Actually, it is the SIS530. The system was a very compact Packard Bell.

Let's make no mistake about this: All jobs this system is destined for (if any) will do nicely with 64MB, even if you share Ram with the onboard card. The same goes for the thought of expanding beyond 500 MHz K6-2. All I could manage is to trigger the TP bug. If a game needs more then 64MB or 500 MHz P1, it will find itself on my regular retro rig.

This board only stays as a precaution, should there be a "133 MHz with L1" gap.

Reply 15 of 57, by Tetrium

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ux-3 wrote:

A few years ago, I made the decision to do retro gaming on ATX only. I am partially biased, cause I had a Gigabyte 6BA (AT form factor) back in the late 90s. It turned out to be the totally wrong choice: It could not support V3 3000, it could not support Coppermine.

I have since dumped all AT equipment, including a really cool P1 50-200 MHz (sniff). Too much trouble to keep it going.

Just to come back at this, I was in the same situation, just a little different.
Years ago (when I had juuust started collecting) I was dumpsterdiving a LOT and I also found heaps of computers that are now considered vintage. Back then they were considered junk, space takers and dust collectors. But I found so many different types of hardware, macs, IBM's, AT, desktop AT's, compaq AT, XT's and whatever more there was. In the end I decided it was not worth it for me to bring all different kinds of hardware in my small room so I decided to stick with just statdard AT - Tower style with the standard AT power supplies. This way I could exchange parts easilly if something were to break.
I decided to go for 486 and later, basically only stripping systems that were older with one and only one exception:

While dumpsterdiving I found a standard AT tower, but it had a 386 in it. It was complete, it was completely dust free(!!!) and was looking absolutely NEW except for the leaking battery which I removed.
To this day this is the only motherboard I own that predates the 486.

Just remember, back then (say 2002 2003-ish) ATX's were vere few and far in between. If someone tosses an ATX system back then there was usually a LOT wrong with it.

So when you say you decided to toss everything predating ATX, I can see where you're coming from 😉
I did the same thing, except I layed the boundary 1 mere step further in the past!

Ok, on another note, I ofcourse also took apart numerous ATX systems by now. Those packard bells I found were horrible computers, the cases were ugly with non-standard things...I never liked them.
But the boards...I was intreaged with that no-name mATX super 7 board (or normal 7 board in the case of 5598).
Heh, I just have a weak spot for super 7 😁

Reply 16 of 57, by ux-3

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Tetrium wrote:

...so I decided to stick with just statdard AT - Tower style with the standard AT power supplies. This way I could exchange parts easilly if something were to break.

Exactly. And that includes HDDs as well.

Tetrium wrote:

Those packard bells I found were horrible computers, the cases were ugly with non-standard things...I never liked them.
But the boards...I was intreaged with that no-name mATX super 7 board

The Packard Bell case stayed grey without need for retrobright. It also is about the smallest mATX case I have. It looks odd, but is practical, well vented too. I actually like it. The machine was already vintage hardware when it was sold, but it has worked very nicely ever since. So I won't complain. I just don't yet see the need for it.

Reply 17 of 57, by Tetrium

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Maybe you're right. I keep mixing packard bell and compaq. One of those 2 had really odd cases with those sis530's while the other used more standard-ish mATX cases.

And you're right about those harddrives!
I did keep anything IDE or SCSI though. Except for a couple of those weird ones I have IDE harddrives starting with 20 meg or so.
Don't expect to ever be using them, but still fun reading The Redhill Guide first and then be able to hold that exact drive in your hands 😀

I have tons of those early Quantum Prodrives! It was as if more then half of all the computers came with those here in The Netherlands!

Edit:It also depends what your purpose is for vintage hardware (or just old hardware in general).
To me it's not primarilly about running old games, it's more being busy with the old stuff, trying to find a use for it and about fun things to try out.
Some hardware I just plain like, like voodoo cards or 2.88M floppy disks/drives

Reply 18 of 57, by ux-3

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No, for me it is purely for running old games. Would Dosbox do a perfect job, I'd switch to a pure win98 machine instantly (I've got the parts stored away for it already). From the fact that I am driving towards a single P2/P3 retro PC, you can infer that Dosbox is getting closer to that goal. But for now, the fast lane leaves something to be desired. For anything lesser than a P2, I really see no need anymore.

The only trouble I have with dosbox is the maintanance of configurations between versions. That keeps me using real hardware frequently.

Retro PC warning: The things you own end up owning you.