VOGONS


First post, by Radical Vision

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The idea here is of PC assembled only with great dead, bankrupt brands.
Everyone can make his own version, and show it here.
Brands and parts that are still in business of computer hardware are not allowed.
There can be 2 tires of builds:

Class I : all brands on the build to be dead/bankrupt or not to be in PC hardware manufacturing today
Class II : 90% brand parts on the build to be dead/bankrupt, and 10% to be with changed name a.k.a living today under other name

Cyan color = Class I
Red color = Class II

Example of dead brands parts:

CPU - CyriX, Texas Instruments, NexGen, Motorola, WinChip, Fujitsu
MB - ABIT, AOpen, Soltek, SOYO, Chaintech, BFG Tech, DFI, EPoX,
RAM - Infineon,
VGA - 3Dfx, Trident,
Audio - Ensoniq, Aureal
HDD - Quantum, Maxtor, Conner, Fujitsu, IBM, Hitachi
LAN 3Com,
Controller - Gold star

Compaq and IBM PSU, keyboards, mouses, monitors, cases are allowed to be used for both Class.
Chipsets are not included, as is better the chipset to be dead brand, but it will end up using only 4-5 boards..

As i don`t know all the dead brands that does not exist anymore others can help with names and some info.

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Last edited by Radical Vision on 2018-01-29, 09:53. Edited 1 time in total.

Mah systems retro, old, newer (Radical stuff)
W3680 4.5/ GA-x58 UD7/ R9 280x
K7 2.6/ NF7-S/ HD3850
IBM x2 P3 933/ GA-6VXD7/ Voodoo V 5.5K
Cmq P2 450/ GA-BX2000/ V2 SLI
IBM PC365
Cmq DeskPRO 486/33
IBM PS/2 Model 56
SPS IntelleXT 8088

Reply 2 of 22, by gdjacobs

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Cyrix is still around as part of VIA, and the technology lives on. The same could be argued for IDT and Nexgen. SGS Thomson and Motorola live on in the form of STMicro and NXP. Although they no longer make x86 CPUs, they do design their own microprocessors and microcontrollers. Perhaps one of the better options would be UMC as they are strictly a merchant foundry now.

For video, you could look for a TTR card or something else from #9. UMC works here, too. In fact, you could build a 486 machine that's UMC for pretty much everything but sound.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 4 of 22, by Radical Vision

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Acquired, bankrupt, or just brands that are not in the same business, for example CyriX was acquired from VIA, still there is no CyriX today, only VIA this is the idea, so this brand is dead. Same can be said for 3Dfx they are gone, but not exactly as there are 3Dfx engineers in nVIDIA, but can some of us see 3Dfx branding, logos, technology, Glide and other, no we can`t so this brand is dead...
While in the case of ATi they was acquired as well from AMD, but the Radeon branding is still there (while for example the Voodoo/Spectre branding is gone)..

So there are many brands that are not 100% dead, but still they are not in business, and they now make way different things then they did before. For example AOpen is still alive, but do they produce motherboards, video cards, no they don`t, or do Texas Instruments make CPUs, no they don`t, do Ensoniq makes audio chips/audio cards, no they don`t..

Mah systems retro, old, newer (Radical stuff)
W3680 4.5/ GA-x58 UD7/ R9 280x
K7 2.6/ NF7-S/ HD3850
IBM x2 P3 933/ GA-6VXD7/ Voodoo V 5.5K
Cmq P2 450/ GA-BX2000/ V2 SLI
IBM PC365
Cmq DeskPRO 486/33
IBM PS/2 Model 56
SPS IntelleXT 8088

Reply 5 of 22, by noshutdown

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most videocard brands are dead today, with the exception of nvidia, intel, amd and matrox. even ati is dead, although it merged with amd and the team is still running, the brand is no longer in use.

Reply 6 of 22, by gdjacobs

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Radical Vision wrote:

Acquired, bankrupt, or just brands that are not in the same business, for example CyriX was acquired from VIA, still there is no CyriX today, only VIA this is the idea, so this brand is dead. Same can be said for 3Dfx they are gone, but not exactly as there are 3Dfx engineers in nVIDIA, but can some of us see 3Dfx branding, logos, technology, Glide and other, no we can`t so this brand is dead...
While in the case of ATi they was acquired as well from AMD, but the Radeon branding is still there (while for example the Voodoo/Spectre branding is gone)..

So there are many brands that are not 100% dead, but still they are not in business, and they now make way different things then they did before. For example AOpen is still alive, but do they produce motherboards, video cards, no they don`t, or do Texas Instruments make CPUs, no they don`t, do Ensoniq makes audio chips/audio cards, no they don`t..

I think everyone's free to set the criteria for their project based on what's interesting to them. I'd just like to point out that Ensoniq (like ESS) is still heavily involved in audio technology. I suspect they've chosen not to attempt to fight for a slice of an increasingly diminished pie and could rapidly re-enter the PC audio market if conditions were otherwise.

So the question is, what level of morbidity do you want for this build?

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 7 of 22, by Radical Vision

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Well as i did say in other post, if some brand does not make today the same hardware they used to make years ago is considered as like dead, as they are moved to other type of products.
It will be best if it is known what brands are 100% dead, as that will help a lot.
Some ppl says CyriX is still alive in VIA, well i don`t think so, they did just buy the remains of the company, and there nothing left, like with 3Dfx nVIDIA did buy all they did have, so 3Dfx is dead. While ATi is AMD now, the Radeon branding is still there, also lot o the ATi engineers are there too.

And about the project is for all forum members, not only for me, but maybe i did not make this more clear in the first post..

Mah systems retro, old, newer (Radical stuff)
W3680 4.5/ GA-x58 UD7/ R9 280x
K7 2.6/ NF7-S/ HD3850
IBM x2 P3 933/ GA-6VXD7/ Voodoo V 5.5K
Cmq P2 450/ GA-BX2000/ V2 SLI
IBM PC365
Cmq DeskPRO 486/33
IBM PS/2 Model 56
SPS IntelleXT 8088

Reply 8 of 22, by gdjacobs

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Hmm... just refreshed my memory. VIA x86 CPUs are based around the Centaur/IDT Winchip crew, although they did use the Cyrix brand briefly. Of course, the MediaGX chips became AMD's Geode processors (up to the NX model). So, you can still buy new product with what amounts to a Cyrix CPU onboard.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 9 of 22, by Stiletto

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gdjacobs wrote:

I'd just like to point out that Ensoniq (like ESS) is still heavily involved in audio technology. I suspect they've chosen not to attempt to fight for a slice of an increasingly diminished pie and could rapidly re-enter the PC audio market if conditions were otherwise.

Well, actually... Ensoniq was purchased by Creative around 2000, and merged with E-MU, another brand Creative owned. Many Ensoniq engineers did not make the jump over to E-MU.
Believe me I know, I had an acquaintance that used to work for them in the 1990's in Malvern, PA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensoniq

So, no, I'd say Ensoniq is no longer around.

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 10 of 22, by NamelessPlayer

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Hmmm... I could nearly manage one of these builds.

Abit BP6, 3dfx Voodoo5 5500 (or a garbage Trident PCI VGA card and a Voodoo2 12 MB in tandem), a few Quantum and Maxtor hard drives... I might have to fudge the sound card a bit, because while Aureal's been dead, Turtle Beach is still around as one of those console gaming headset brands (it's a Montego II).

Also got an ESS AudioDrive card of some sort (1869F, IIRC), but that brand is very NOT dead for anyone who's been hearing about those Sabre DACs in LG V-series smartphones and audiophile DAPs.

However, the real sticking point is the CPU. Almost all IBM PC-compatibles use Intel or AMD; hell, I've never owned a Cyrix-based build before, and Quake single-handedly ensured that nobody would buy one over a Pentium.

The only other post-Cyrix alternative I can think of is Transmeta, and the Crusoe is considered one of the worst x86-compatible CPUs ever made from a performance perspective in its day, enough to give the Compaq TC1000 a black eye until the succeeding HP TC1100 replaced it with a Pentium M.

Other than those two, you're going outside of IBM-compatible territory. Motorola never made any x86 CPUs to my knowledge; why would they even bother when they had every non-PC manufacturer sold on the 680x0 lineup for most of the '80s and early '90s? (Well, barring Acorn and the Archimedes...) Other than that, I guess you'd have to start looking into classic workstations: Sun SPARC, SGI MIPS, etc.

Reply 11 of 22, by vladstamate

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No PowerVR love? Kyro and Kyro II. TBDR baby!

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Reply 12 of 22, by Ozzuneoj

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vladstamate wrote:

No PowerVR love? Kyro and Kyro II. TBDR baby!

I'm on the fence on PowerVR as a "fallen" company. They designed the GPU used in nearly every mobile Apple device since the iPhone 4... though since Apple dropped them in the latest generation in favor of a custom in-house GPU, they could be added to the list in the near future. 😵

Now for some blitting from the back buffer.

Reply 13 of 22, by Radical Vision

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I did think about PowerVR as well, but my research did show me they are still alive or something like that...
I did look for Cirrus logic as well, but they are still around too....
So so far as dead GPU brands i know only 3Dfx and Trident, while other interesting seems to be not so dead..

As my progress on getting mostly dead/abandoned brands i have

Quantum HDD
Maxtor HDD
CyriX CPU
AOpen MB
3Dfx GPU
3Com LAN
Compaq peripherals

Now the memory seems and tricky part, as they was never too many brands that did make ram chips, but Infineon seems to be off the memory industry, Hyndai/HyniX is still here, Micron also, as Samsung did not make memory chips back in the 386-socket 7 era i think...

Mah systems retro, old, newer (Radical stuff)
W3680 4.5/ GA-x58 UD7/ R9 280x
K7 2.6/ NF7-S/ HD3850
IBM x2 P3 933/ GA-6VXD7/ Voodoo V 5.5K
Cmq P2 450/ GA-BX2000/ V2 SLI
IBM PC365
Cmq DeskPRO 486/33
IBM PS/2 Model 56
SPS IntelleXT 8088

Reply 14 of 22, by Ozzuneoj

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What about XGI? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XGI_Technology

I still have never ever EVER seen any of the gaming-oriented XGI Volari cards in person. I'm sure the hard core collectors here have some, but they seem to have all but vanished from existence in the resale market.

Now for some blitting from the back buffer.

Reply 15 of 22, by Tetrium

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Radical Vision wrote:
I did think about PowerVR as well, but my research did show me they are still alive or something like that... I did look for Cir […]
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I did think about PowerVR as well, but my research did show me they are still alive or something like that...
I did look for Cirrus logic as well, but they are still around too....
So so far as dead GPU brands i know only 3Dfx and Trident, while other interesting seems to be not so dead..

As my progress on getting mostly dead/abandoned brands i have

Quantum HDD
Maxtor HDD
CyriX CPU
AOpen MB
3Dfx GPU
3Com LAN
Compaq peripherals

Now the memory seems and tricky part, as they was never too many brands that did make ram chips, but Infineon seems to be off the memory industry, Hyndai/HyniX is still here, Micron also, as Samsung did not make memory chips back in the 386-socket 7 era i think...

Why not use memory modules from defunct companies? OCZ comes to mind and their modules were good looking 😜

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
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Reply 16 of 22, by gdjacobs

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Tetrium wrote:

Why not use memory modules from defunct companies? OCZ comes to mind and their modules were good looking 😜

I've used OCZ ram before. Be glad they're dead.

Stiletto wrote:
Well, actually... Ensoniq was purchased by Creative around 2000, and merged with E-MU, another brand Creative owned. Many Ensoni […]
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Well, actually... Ensoniq was purchased by Creative around 2000, and merged with E-MU, another brand Creative owned. Many Ensoniq engineers did not make the jump over to E-MU.
Believe me I know, I had an acquaintance that used to work for them in the 1990's in Malvern, PA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensoniq

So, no, I'd say Ensoniq is no longer around.

I must have been thinking of another outfit. Maybe E-Mu, who actually survived being eaten by Creative.

Last edited by gdjacobs on 2018-01-30, 05:03. Edited 1 time in total.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 17 of 22, by Ozzuneoj

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gdjacobs wrote:
Tetrium wrote:

Why not use memory modules from defunct companies? OCZ comes to mind and their modules were good looking 😜

I've used OCZ ram before. Be glad they're dead.

My best memories of OCZ's RAM are all related to reselling it for exorbitant prices when it was obsolete. I had more than one failure of OCZ's high speed DDR products though... fancy heatsinks weren't enough to stop them from cooking themselves. Several years after DDR was dead I was going to sell my OCZ DDR-500 kit for a bunch of money but it ended up being defective. If I remember correctly, I contacted OCZ and since they could no longer replace it they gave me a refund, which ended up being a pretty decent deal considering how expensive it was originally.

Now for some blitting from the back buffer.

Reply 18 of 22, by Tetrium

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gdjacobs wrote:
Tetrium wrote:

Why not use memory modules from defunct companies? OCZ comes to mind and their modules were good looking 😜

I've used OCZ ram before. Be glad they're dead.

My main rig ran a couple 2GB DDR3-1333 modules which only recently got replaced by 2x4GB modules, but I basically never overclock anyway.
I did noticed that a single second hand OCZ DDR-400 module had its heatspreader starting to let go 😵
The ultra high-end stuff tends to die more often anyway.

I did hear about issues with the quality of the items OCZ was selling (including a friend who had problems with his OCZ PSU) but several of my OCZ PSUs have never caused any problems, including the PSU that was powering my main rig till a few years ago. Maybe I just got lucky? 😜

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 19 of 22, by Radical Vision

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I know about OZC, and other brands, but that was not the original idea, i did mean the RAM chips, but as far as the chipset on the motherboards is only from living companies, so seems impossible, so they can be some exceptions i guess...

Mah systems retro, old, newer (Radical stuff)
W3680 4.5/ GA-x58 UD7/ R9 280x
K7 2.6/ NF7-S/ HD3850
IBM x2 P3 933/ GA-6VXD7/ Voodoo V 5.5K
Cmq P2 450/ GA-BX2000/ V2 SLI
IBM PC365
Cmq DeskPRO 486/33
IBM PS/2 Model 56
SPS IntelleXT 8088