I managed to find a Sparkle 9500GT 1gb PCI on ebay and won it for about $30 shipped in a regular auction.

Coincidentally, I was commenting in one of the forums here about searching for a Turtle Beach Montego II Quadzilla and decided to take a peek on ebay after I finished making that post and there was one for sale. It also had the drivers and software on CD and floppies. The Quadzilla drivers are a little different from the regular Montego II drivers. You can use the Montego II drivers, but you won't get SPDIF support or 4 channels. Only the Quadzilla drivers support those features. That was about $25 shipped, which seemed a little high compared to a regular Montego II but the Quadzilla is more difficult to find with all the important bits and pieces present so the extra was worth it to me.

Incidentally, for A3D fans, here is probably the best review I could find of the card.

http://www.gameindustry.com/review/item.asp?id=1484

I really like the double kill the reviewer made in Half Life by following the sound of two other players shooting at each other that the quad stereo made possible and would have been much harder to do with just a two speaker setup. 🤣

dirkmirk wrote:

That is a beast

What plans do you have for it?

I'm thinking of an AMD K6 3, super socket 7 setup. Voodoo 3, Vortex 2, etc. I read good things about the K6 3 on the redhill guide and have wanted to try one out since.

Just won this, a Digital Audio Labs 'CardD' with SPDIF I/O board. I think I remember someone else on here having one, but I can't remember who. Supposedly the audio quality on this thing beats the happy shit out of pretty much any other ISA card and a lot of newer PCI cards too .

I'm thinking maybe I'll put it in my PPro Win95 box.

I have a cardd plus around here somewhere.

I've received these two today. The keyboard is a Model F AT, it's disgustingly filthy, but it works as it should. It's heavy as the Model M and the clicking is a little louder too!

I'm thinking whether I should take it apart to clean it completely, or avoid messing with the insides and just do it superficially.

The screen is an IBM 5153 (CGA), it's dirty too. It got damaged in the post but it's nothing serious, I can glue back the cracked plastic pieces. It seems to work, I can turn it on and I get a white screen, but I don't have a system old enough to test it properly yet.

Do you guys know if I can plug an 8 bit CGA card on a more modern system (like a K6 or Celeron 400) and boot it on DOS just to test the screen? I haven't touched XT era stuff in like 20 years!

There are detailed guides for cleaning model F & M keyboards online. If you follow the directions you should have no problems, but in all honesty, set aside a day to clean a keyboard like that. Your first time is going to take FOREVER. As for the monitor, a regular CGA card should work in anything with an isa slot, provided the card has an onboard bios. NOT ALL DO. Your best bet would be to use an early VGA card that has both VGA & CGA outputs. The Ati isa wonder series were good about this. here is what one looks like: http://www.recycledgoods.com/product/41459-at … mac-serial-port

Yeah, I've been reading some people's logs on cleaning Model Fs, I'll definitely take my time as I don't want to accidentaly damage it.

I can get a CGA card that, according to the seller, is a clone of the ATI Small Wonder. He says it came with a Packard Bell PB 500. If I can work out a fair price with him I'll try that.

Dishwasher works really well for keyboards - pop the keytops off and put them in a mesh bag. Put the two halves of the casing on the top rack.

bjt wrote:

Dishwasher works really well for keyboards - pop the keytops off and put them in a mesh bag. Put the two halves of the casing on the top rack.

I'm a little scared of popping out the keys because it's not like the Model M where you have the key and the key cover, here is just one piece, I wouldn't want to break any of them. However, all of the restoration logs I've read omit this step, so maybe is not that big of a deal?

It really isn't a big deal. The keys are actually constructed very similarly to the ones on the Model M, just that they're one piece rather than having the little cover that snaps on top.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

It really isn't a big deal. The keys are actually constructed very similarly to the ones on the Model M, just that they're one piece rather than having the little cover that snaps on top.

Thanks, I just tried pulling one key up, gently with a screwdriver, and it came out easily. Now I'm more confident, when I have some time I'll take the keyboard apart and clean it carefully.

fantasma wrote:

Do you guys know if I can plug an 8 bit CGA card on a more modern system (like a K6 or Celeron 400) and boot it on DOS just to test the screen? I haven't touched XT era stuff in like 20 years!

Depends on card. Most "modern" ega cards worked for me with Athlon XP on Via KT133. Dual ega/vga cards should work always. But got some very old ones 8bit isa, which were working only on mine testing 486 - like original IBM ega card for example.

vlask wrote:

fantasma wrote:

Do you guys know if I can plug an 8 bit CGA card on a more modern system (like a K6 or Celeron 400) and boot it on DOS just to test the screen? I haven't touched XT era stuff in like 20 years!

Depends on card. Most "modern" ega cards worked for me with Athlon XP on Via KT133. Dual ega/vga cards should work always. But got some very old ones 8bit isa, which were working only on mine testing 486 - like original IBM ega card for example.

He also needs a monitor with a 9 pin connector on the cable instead of a 15 pin VGA connector.

sliderider wrote:

vlask wrote:

fantasma wrote:

Do you guys know if I can plug an 8 bit CGA card on a more modern system (like a K6 or Celeron 400) and boot it on DOS just to test the screen? I haven't touched XT era stuff in like 20 years!

Depends on card. Most "modern" ega cards worked for me with Athlon XP on Via KT133. Dual ega/vga cards should work always. But got some very old ones 8bit isa, which were working only on mine testing 486 - like original IBM ega card for example.

He also needs a monitor with a 9 pin connector on the cable instead of a 15 pin VGA connector.

That would be the 5153 😀 Couldn't get the CGA card though, maybe I'll get a cheap Hercules.

Nothing that would blow anyones skirts up but bought a few things from work. Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (pci audio), some sdr ram, and a Micronics AT Intel 430TX. The board is interesting but there is hardly nothing out there information wise but looks great, the 72pin slots are grouped together in pairs end to end for almost the length of the board.

It is similar to this http://www.ebay.com/itm/Micronics-motherboard … =item27d6f3c537

Micronics Twister AT 3B, I am turning up empty handed as I need to know the jumper configuration for voltage selection 😒
Every thing else is properly labeled and there are two fan headers.

I am turning up empty handed as I need to know the jumper configuration for voltage selection

One place to look might be the old Gateway support archives. They used a shit-ton of different Micronics boards, so there's a good chance they have info on either that one or a very similar board.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

I am turning up empty handed as I need to know the jumper configuration for voltage selection

One place to look might be the old Gateway support archives. They used a shit-ton of different Micronics boards, so there's a good chance they have info on either that one or a very similar board.

From what I have been able to find is that the 1B version if a different beast as its jumpers are different from the 3B version along with a slightly different layout. I don't want to take chances with this board or cpu once I get another one. Blue smoking is not what any of us want. 😵

Has a proper USB header and the ide headers look as though they will work with 80 conductor cables. 😀

Well, worst case, what you could do is just plug a regular non-MMX Pentium chip into it and take a multimeter to the relevant voltage pins... figure out the settings that way. One of those chips can handle the maximum voltage the board can put out, and likewise, lower voltages won't hurt it at all (it probably won't boot at low voltages, of course, but you can still measure the voltage even if it doesn't POST).

GUS classic 1MB from eBay, listed as untested. Fully expected it to not work and indeed the line out and line in jacks are shot. But through the (ridiculously loud) speaker out I can hear Ultrasound goodness in Second Reality 😀

Just need to find some 3.5mm PCB mount jacks with the same pin layout.

bjt wrote:

GUS classic 1MB from eBay, listed as untested. Fully expected it to not work and indeed the line out and line in jacks are shot. […]
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GUS classic 1MB from eBay, listed as untested. Fully expected it to not work and indeed the line out and line in jacks are shot. But through the (ridiculously loud) speaker out I can hear Ultrasound goodness in Second Reality 😀

Just need to find some 3.5mm PCB mount jacks with the same pin layout.

ah that was you I was bidding against 😜