Slightly hardware since it includes an adapter cable. Saw this new in box for $3 at a dingy thrift store and at first glance it does not look like much. It's a piano tutor software package from Roland for Windows 95/98. It includes a serial cable that connects an electronic piano to your PC circa 1999.

On closer inspection, though, it also includes Roland's VSC-88 software synth which is what I bought it for. Tried to install the software synth on Windows 7 64 and even with compatibility mode no dice, but this will work fine on my 98 SE box.

Roland still sells a modern version of this soft synth, but not for $3.

https://www.roland.com/global/products/sound_canvas_va/

Collecting 3dfx HW is difficult these days. Anyway this one was a must have to fit the Voodoo4 line. Now I'm only missing the V4 MAC. 🤣

Today I received a computer I bought a few days ago. The only thing I knew was that it's a Pentium III, a bunch of PCI cards and an AGP graphics card are installed and that the case is completely destroyed, but everything works (according to the seller). I only paid 15€ for it so I took the risk.

It was loosely packed in news paper, so the case is now completely screwed up but I don't care about it anyway. But this is what I found inside the case:

The poor Pentium III looks completely scuffed. The cooler fell off and probably banged against it during shipping. Also it seems that no thermal paste was applied whatsoever. I wonder if it still works? It's an 866 Mhz, I think I could get a replacement for the cheaps..

However, the main board seems to be quite substantial, it's an ASUS CUSL2. The AGP card is an ATI Rage IIc, so yet another Rage card I have no use for, just like the two networking cards that also came with it. The sound card is a creative CT4750 (Sound Blaster 128 PCI?). The CPU cooler is not too bad either and three 128mb PC133 SDRAM sticks made by Infineon are also useful.
Interestingly enough, although the case smells moldy and contained a small amount of debris all of the parts look like brand new:

For 15€ not too bad of a deal I guess, what do you think?

I got one last item before I'm off to uni soon:

I got yet another Lifebook, but this one's a C352 model. Got it for $28 total ($10 + $18 shipping), was listed as a "parts only" unit, but it just needs RAM, which is only $6. All the stuff in the background came with it too. This was my best find yet.

@havli
Nice L-shape V4 😀
I have the same problem, I also dont have a V4 MAC yet 😎

a few weeks ago I managed to find an STB Blackmagic Voodoo2 with 12MB 😀

Arctic wrote:

@havli Nice L-shape V4 :) I have the same problem, I also dont have a V4 MAC yet 8) […]
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@havli
Nice L-shape V4 😀
I have the same problem, I also dont have a V4 MAC yet 😎

a few weeks ago I managed to find an STB Blackmagic Voodoo2 with 12MB 😀

I have the same VooDoo2 card as well. I was lucky to get it for $25 or so and it works very well.

perkyagnostic wrote:

Today I received a computer I bought a few days ago. The only thing I knew was that it's a Pentium III, a bunch of PCI cards and an AGP graphics card are installed and that the case is completely destroyed, but everything works (according to the seller). I only paid 15€ for it so I took the risk.

I find it interesting that Socket370 stuff is starting to become retro now, a couple of years ago it would've been considered absolute trash. How much do PIII's normally go for these days?

@Nprod: Well .. Socket 370 stuff is now about 20 years old so it's at least not contemporary .. It may not be that desirable for collectors but it's a cheap (here in Germany most Pentium IIIs can be had for about 5€ or less) and easy way to get into retro gaming - not necessary DOS gaming but Windows 98SE-stuff for sure. Actually I don't know what your point is exactly, a Voodoo 5 5500 for instance is from the exact same time period?

Picked up two CRT monitors and a 16-bit ISA network card for free off of Letgo. All works perfect.

Diamond FireGL 1000 Pro PCI, Permedia2 chipset. I need this for the project I'm working on. Right off the bat you can see a popped capacitor between the chip and the VGA connector. The card and CDs also reek of cigarette smoke, bleh. Will need some serious cleaning and fixing before powering up.

Also until today I hadn't seen a video card where the voltage regulator has a bigger heatsink than the chipset. Or a video card with IBM-branded memory chips.

Bought last week
PowerBook 1400cs, lcd in bad shape and broken case, but working - us$ 5.
Awe32 ct3600, crystal isa sound Card , st238r mfm hdd, trident pci and a complete pc xt clone - us$ 25.
New old stock pcchips m326, cx486dlc 40, iit387 - us$ 20 (not pictured)

Not really retro but well related, i hope.


Brand new compact 4 ISA/PCI slot industrial chassis. Don't have suitable isa backplane yet.

perkyagnostic wrote:

However, the main board seems to be quite substantial, it's an ASUS CUSL2. The AGP card is an ATI Rage IIc, so yet another Rage card I have no use for, just like the two networking cards that also came with it. The sound card is a creative CT4750 (Sound Blaster 128 PCI?). The CPU cooler is not too bad either and three 128mb PC133 SDRAM sticks made by Infineon are also useful.

The main board should be a good one if it works. Asus boards of that time have quite a lot of tuning options.

picked up a cheap 6800 GT locally, haven't tested it yet, hope it works

While on vacation and not looking at my favorite searches all the time... I missed by some minutes a NIB and sealed Diamond Stealth64 Trio64 based vlb card 🙁

But somehow managed to get a long time elusive M919 cache module in a lot of 7 sram modules. The rest are for Socket 7 boards. I just hope if works 😀

God Of Gaming wrote:

picked up a cheap 6800 GT locally, haven't tested it yet, hope it works […]
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picked up a cheap 6800 GT locally, haven't tested it yet, hope it works

If you value your hearing make damn sure it's getting enough molex power.

The squelling of death those 6 and 7 series cards make when they detect insufficient current from auxiliary power is absolutely hellish. Easily the worst sound I've ever heard.

Also, make sure the thermal paste is good. Lest ye invoke the curse known as bumpgate early.

My haul from yesterday:

All the cards are confirmed working. The fan of the Ultra needed some TLC. I threw the TV card away though. That is useless for me.
The boxes also contained some optical drives, floppy drive, PSU's, DVD/R-CD-R/CD-RW.
I am planning on flashing the Crosshair with custom BIOS and slapping an Phenom II X4 940 on it. This should be the max this board can take then.

Bought the 5160 as is. Seller thought it was the PSU but I followed basic diagnostics from minuszerodegrees and according to the site, the problem lies in the 12v part of the motherboard. Tested it with another XT psu and an AT one, and the same results all the time.
Guess I'll need to look for some replacement caps and find someone to replace the 2 culprits.
No luck so far with the 2 XT's I bought.

Still happy with the model M and the 5153 😀
Can't test them for now but the monitor turns on.

Got some nice Zalman heatsinks this week.

Turbo -> wrote:

Got some nice Zalman heatsinks this week.

Those Zalmans are very nice. I have one just like the one on the left. Bought it back in the day and used in my Athlon XP machine circa 2003.

You should be aware that the plastic used for the fan on those coolers is pretty fragile, it doesn't take much to snap the fan blades off. One blade on mine broke, and that made the fan unbalanced and generating vibrations when running, essentially unusable. I replaced it a few years ago with a copy of the fan that I 3D-printed. There is a model of this fan that can be downloaded on Thingiverse, made by someone else (this problem is apparently common enough that someone addressed it this way).

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1240440

I used the v2 version with 9 blades, works fine.

Murugan wrote:

My haul from yesterday: <snip> http://i.imgur.com/rzBS4Srl.jpg <snip> Bought the 5160 as is. Seller thought it was the PSU but I […]
Show full quote

My haul from yesterday:
<snip>

<snip>
Bought the 5160 as is. Seller thought it was the PSU but I followed basic diagnostics from minuszerodegrees and according to the site, the problem lies in the 12v part of the motherboard. Tested it with another XT psu and an AT one, and the same results all the time.
Guess I'll need to look for some replacement caps and find someone to replace the 2 culprits.
No luck so far with the 2 XT's I bought.

Still happy with the model M and the 5153 😀
Can't test them for now but the monitor turns on.

Ah, so it was you 😉 Nice machine, I hope it can be restored!