Today, I got a serious load from my brother.....

First up, he gave me 1/2 of a complete set of PCB's from an old 70's NCR accounting machine.
Beautifull cards, that are all crafted by hand. Traces layd out by hand and soldered by hand.
There were some input and output modules/card's in this lot.
Even a handwired mem-module, made out of a cobber-net and ferrit-ring's. So lovely.

Then I got 2x512mb DDR-400 memory modules. One Elixir and one Kingston.
He had 3 or 4 harddrives, all 2.5 inch drives of unknown size. One Pata, the rest Sata.

Finally he gave me a HP Vectra VL tower machine.
It is a Slot-1, 440ex chipset, 256mb Ram and P-II of unknown speed.
It has an Matrox G400 16mb AGP, Seagate 120GB HDD modded to 32GB and two optical.
It has an Creative SB16 CT-2950. I have no idea how well this computer is working.

I "bought" this from him, by making a deal on reinstalling Win7 on his Lenovo Laptop.
And promising him support for serious issues. Not a bad deal, if I might say so.

EDIT:
I asked him, if he did not want to keep the mem-module. He loves good old industrial
design, and after explaining him that the mem-module is basically ram.
Then he wanted to keep it, because he thinks that these sort of thing's are beautifull.

brassicGamer wrote:

And today's entry for worst packaging ever goes to: […]
Show full quote

And today's entry for worst packaging ever goes to:

20160726_221540-1600x899.jpg

Yes, because written instructions definitely prevent it from being damaged in transit. I wonder if the seller also has "make me rich!" scrawled on his face.

20160726_221630-1600x899.jpg

Ah, it seems I have judged our friend harshly - he has placed the COAST module in an anti static bag and sellotaped it to the inside of the envelope. Clearly these measures have resulted in it arriving unscathed!

Module yet to be tested. Was advertised as from a PowerPC system. Took a chance and it is physically compatible, but is only 256K so could be pointless. £2 shipped.

Why? WHY? Do people not realize that sorting machines can BEND envelopes?? This is exactly why I ship everything in boxes, packed in layers of bubble wrap and / or newspaper.

Brickpad wrote:

Why? WHY? Do people not realize that sorting machines can BEND envelopes?? This is exactly why I ship everything in boxes, packed in layers of bubble wrap and / or newspaper.

Yes... sorting machine... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_qQvIEITdY

brassicGamer wrote:

And today's entry for worst packaging ever goes to: […]
Show full quote

And today's entry for worst packaging ever goes to:

20160726_221540-1600x899.jpg

Yes, because written instructions definitely prevent it from being damaged in transit. I wonder if the seller also has "make me rich!" scrawled on his face.

20160726_221630-1600x899.jpg

Ah, it seems I have judged our friend harshly - he has placed the COAST module in an anti static bag and sellotaped it to the inside of the envelope. Clearly these measures have resulted in it arriving unscathed!

Module yet to be tested. Was advertised as from a PowerPC system. Took a chance and it is physically compatible, but is only 256K so could be pointless. £2 shipped.

I got ripped by a seller who shipped a VLB card just like that but here in the states really pissed me off. I know most sellers do it because they are stupid and get greedy by trying to save a buck but wouldn't be surprised if a rare few out there that do it out of spite once in a blue moon.

easy_john wrote:

Brickpad wrote:

Why? WHY? Do people not realize that sorting machines can BEND envelopes?? This is exactly why I ship everything in boxes, packed in layers of bubble wrap and / or newspaper.

Yes... sorting machine... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_qQvIEITdY

This is exactly how I envision the United States Postal Service sorts its mail.

Nope, that's not the worst packaging ever. Because I ordered a stick of laptop RAM that was in a plain white envelope with no reinforcement or anti-static bag... and it fell out in the mail. The kicker? It came from the same town I lived in!

Forgot to add some pictures, of what I recieved from my brother yesterday.
I have decided to keep the old 70's NCR stuff and these two parts I have pic's of.
I know it is an G400 single head. Can someone identify if this is a 32 or 16mb card?

brostenen wrote:

I know it is an G400 single head. Can someone identify if this is a 32 or 16mb card?

Easy one, check sticker on back side - there is G4+ MA32G. G4 = G400, 32G = 32MB RAM.

brostenen wrote:

Today, I got a serious load from my brother..... […]
Show full quote

Today, I got a serious load from my brother.....

First up, he gave me 1/2 of a complete set of PCB's from an old 70's NCR accounting machine.
Beautifull cards, that are all crafted by hand. Traces layd out by hand and soldered by hand.
There were some input and output modules/card's in this lot.
Even a handwired mem-module, made out of a cobber-net and ferrit-ring's. So lovely.

Then I got 2x512mb DDR-400 memory modules. One Elixir and one Kingston.
He had 3 or 4 harddrives, all 2.5 inch drives of unknown size. One Pata, the rest Sata.

Finally he gave me a HP Vectra VL tower machine.
It is a Slot-1, 440ex chipset, 256mb Ram and P-II of unknown speed.
It has an Matrox G400 16mb AGP, Seagate 120GB HDD modded to 32GB and two optical.
It has an Creative SB16 CT-2950. I have no idea how well this computer is working.

I "bought" this from him, by making a deal on reinstalling Win7 on his Lenovo Laptop.
And promising him support for serious issues. Not a bad deal, if I might say so.

That's a good way to pay for your stuff 😁
Just remember to not do this too much, or you'll have people waiting at your doorstep, asking you for help all the time 😵

And I hope you have a bit more luck than I had with Elixer DDR memory modules. I once bought 2 new 1GB DDR-400 modules to upgrade my XP-3200+ and after a while I noticed the total amount of memory kept decreasing. First something a bit below the 2048MB it should have when I went to rightclick "my computer", then only 512MB and then the system shut down...modules seemed to overheat easily. After this happened another time I decided this wasn't gonna work. As I got the modules brand new and both had these same problem while my old 2x512MB modules never did, I had them replaced with 2x1GB Crucial DDR-400 and the problem never returned.

And I'm a real fan of 2.5in HDDs in desktop systems 😀

I've not bought a lot recently, only a couple old PS/2 optical mouses (second hand) and a PS/2 extension cable.

vlask wrote:

Easy one, check sticker on back side - there is G4+ MA32G. G4 = G400, 32G = 32MB RAM.

Thanks. I suspected it to be a 32 one. I was just not shure, as most singleheads that I have seen, are 16 ones.

Tetrium wrote:

That's a good way to pay for your stuff :D Just remember to not do this too much, or you'll have people waiting at your doorstep […]
Show full quote

That's a good way to pay for your stuff 😁
Just remember to not do this too much, or you'll have people waiting at your doorstep, asking you for help all the time 😵

And I hope you have a bit more luck than I had with Elixer DDR memory modules. I once bought 2 new 1GB DDR-400 modules to upgrade my XP-3200+ and after a while I noticed the total amount of memory kept decreasing. First something a bit below the 2048MB it should have when I went to rightclick "my computer", then only 512MB and then the system shut down...modules seemed to overheat easily. After this happened another time I decided this wasn't gonna work. As I got the modules brand new and both had these same problem while my old 2x512MB modules never did, I had them replaced with 2x1GB Crucial DDR-400 and the problem never returned.

And I'm a real fan of 2.5in HDDs in desktop systems 😀

I've not bought a lot recently, only a couple old PS/2 optical mouses (second hand) and a PS/2 extension cable.

Can't have enough mice. They are after all in use all the time. Spare one's are a good thing. 😀

I have checked the HDD's today, and they were all Mac formatted, and would not erase from the Win7 partition manager.
So I started the command line, and entered the command line partition tool, in order to clean the drive.
Went well, yet the PATA drive was all dead. The two SATA drives were perfectly all right. 160gb and 250gb drives.
I also got an usb box for 2.5 inch sata drives, so now I can do some backup of my retro folder on my Win7 machine.

I have no use for DDR-400 ram at all. I just remember all the trouble I had with that brand, when I build computers
for a living between 2003/04 and 06 or something like that. Two years with shitty mem modules. Kingston works.

Enjoy the drop in prices and general lack of competition atm (while it lasts), even scored another V3 3K pci for a grand total of $7 shipped. Don't know how long that will last but may as well milk it.

nforce4max wrote:

Enjoy the drop in prices and general lack of competition atm (while it lasts), even scored another V3 3K pci for a grand total of $7 shipped. Don't know how long that will last but may as well milk it.

Its because I stopped scouring eBay for cheap old parts about a month ago. 😮

brassicGamer wrote:

And today's entry for worst packaging ever goes to:

Yes, because written instructions definitely prevent it from being damaged in transit. I wonder if the seller also has "make me rich!" scrawled on his face.

Ah, it seems I have judged our friend harshly - he has placed the COAST module in an anti static bag and sellotaped it to the inside of the envelope. Clearly these measures have resulted in it arriving unscathed!

Last year I bought a complete Compaq Deskpro 386s/20 from a seller in Germany for about £20. I thought it was a great deal.

It arrived boxed, i'll grant them that. Though when opening the box however, there was the Deskpro wrapped in nothing but a single layer of wrapping paper! Needless to say, the vigour of international transit smashed all the plastics beyond recognition. A Deskpro 386s/20 it was no longer. 😢

After the sale I questioned them and asked them if they thought they provided adequate protection... I got a refund, but no reply. Unfortunately, the refund didn't make me feel any better about the whole thing, sure the Deskpro went for parts but that is one less model Deskpro out there.

nforce4max wrote:

Enjoy the drop in prices and general lack of competition atm (while it lasts), even scored another V3 3K pci for a grand total of $7 shipped. Don't know how long that will last but may as well milk it.

Awesome, that one flew under the radar! Ebay?

Noticed how many 286/386/486 Motherboards for sale these days? A lot more than a few years ago thanks to those Eastern European sellers.

Lukeno94 wrote:

When it comes to Windows 8, the sole issue really centres around the UI (apart from the odd Windows 7 driver being totally broken, which didn't make sense as most Vista drivers went to 7 just fine, and it's not like 8 was that different under the hood), which doesn't work for portable or desktop devices - it's just a messy mish-mash. Millennium was a deliberately nerfed 98 that was also rushed and, I suspect, some of the lack of polish was a deliberate ploy to encourage people to swap to XP - which worked.

I have been using Windows Me on my classic gaming PC rig for over a decade now, and coupled with System Commander's 7/8's TrueDOS feature to restore Real-Mode DOS to Me, have found this setup to easily be the most versatile for my classic gaming needs, even moreso than Windows 98/98SE (both of which I have also have separate partitions for, but hardly ever use). With TrueDOS, you can add back the DOS functionality that Microsoft removed from Me, plus keep all of the nice tools and features that Microsoft added to Me, such as System Restore, native USB support, larger hard drive support, built-in ZIP file compatibility, etc.

Got an Optiplex GX110, 866MHz PIII 128mb RAM 6GB HD. A few upgrades came too or on their way. ATI RADEON 9200 64mb PCI, an SB128, ordered a faster and larger hard drive for it. Should be a nice Win98 rig. Cleaned it up real nicely.

Before/after http://imgur.com/a/8yaFC

Galahad wrote:

Lukeno94 wrote:

When it comes to Windows 8, the sole issue really centres around the UI (apart from the odd Windows 7 driver being totally broken, which didn't make sense as most Vista drivers went to 7 just fine, and it's not like 8 was that different under the hood), which doesn't work for portable or desktop devices - it's just a messy mish-mash. Millennium was a deliberately nerfed 98 that was also rushed and, I suspect, some of the lack of polish was a deliberate ploy to encourage people to swap to XP - which worked.

I have been using Windows Me on my classic gaming PC rig for over a decade now, and coupled with System Commander's 7/8's TrueDOS feature to restore Real-Mode DOS to Me, have found this setup to easily be the most versatile for my classic gaming needs, even moreso than Windows 98/98SE (both of which I have also have separate partitions for, but hardly ever use). With TrueDOS, you can add back the DOS functionality that Microsoft removed from Me, plus keep all of the nice tools and features that Microsoft added to Me, such as System Restore, native USB support, larger hard drive support, built-in ZIP file compatibility, etc.

98SE has perfectly good native USB support, and has little issue with larger HDDs either - in fact, its FDISK behaves better with larger drives than basic XP setup did!

brostenen wrote:

Can't have enough mice. They are after all in use all the time. Spare one's are a good thing. :-) […]
Show full quote

Tetrium wrote:

That's a good way to pay for your stuff :D Just remember to not do this too much, or you'll have people waiting at your doorstep […]
Show full quote

That's a good way to pay for your stuff 😁
Just remember to not do this too much, or you'll have people waiting at your doorstep, asking you for help all the time 😵

And I hope you have a bit more luck than I had with Elixer DDR memory modules. I once bought 2 new 1GB DDR-400 modules to upgrade my XP-3200+ and after a while I noticed the total amount of memory kept decreasing. First something a bit below the 2048MB it should have when I went to rightclick "my computer", then only 512MB and then the system shut down...modules seemed to overheat easily. After this happened another time I decided this wasn't gonna work. As I got the modules brand new and both had these same problem while my old 2x512MB modules never did, I had them replaced with 2x1GB Crucial DDR-400 and the problem never returned.

And I'm a real fan of 2.5in HDDs in desktop systems 😀

I've not bought a lot recently, only a couple old PS/2 optical mouses (second hand) and a PS/2 extension cable.

Can't have enough mice. They are after all in use all the time. Spare one's are a good thing. 😀

I have checked the HDD's today, and they were all Mac formatted, and would not erase from the Win7 partition manager.
So I started the command line, and entered the command line partition tool, in order to clean the drive.
Went well, yet the PATA drive was all dead. The two SATA drives were perfectly all right. 160gb and 250gb drives.
I also got an usb box for 2.5 inch sata drives, so now I can do some backup of my retro folder on my Win7 machine.

I have no use for DDR-400 ram at all. I just remember all the trouble I had with that brand, when I build computers
for a living between 2003/04 and 06 or something like that. Two years with shitty mem modules. Kingston works.

True that about the PS/2 optical mice 😀
And nothing wrong with keeping soms spare DDR-400 modules around 😀 (especially 512MB modules and 1GB ones).

Lukeno94 wrote:

98SE has perfectly good native USB support

Not for mass storages devices (which is basically the only thing I use USB for when using a retro rig, which I would hardly call "perfectly good native USB support").

But that discussion doesn't really belong here anyway.

True, but there's a very easy-to-find driver that works with every single USB stick I've tried it with.

Good ol' nusb33e.exe