feipoa wrote:

Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM T VLB 2 MB (Trio64 VLB 764X chipset) sold for $225 USD. Remember when these were going for $15 not too long ago?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/-/183365546114

I've never seen VLB Trio64 cards sell for 15EUR - been on the market for one since 2014. But sure I could miss some good deals tho.

A Creative Game Blaster, 8-bit just sold for $1300 USD. Seriously? Are these that interesting to own? Isn't this above Roland pricing?

DISCLAIMER
What I see happening on eBay is sellers listing ridiculously high prices, then buyers put in private offers, seller accepts, but when you view the completed auction, it shows the item as having been sold at the ridiculously high price, not the private offer price. I'm not sure if this is a bug, or eBay intentional, but it is very misleading. The same problem sometimes occurs if using the eBay Best Offer feature, it shows the original asking price as the sale price.

Might be a nice idea for a scraper project.
But, how would ebay react if there would be some publicly accessible vintage computing price search engine?

Check my thread here, it is intended to be a price search database based on sold items. Weighted averages and all that:

eBay Vintage Computing historical prices database

Wow, it will be very difficult to grab all the keywords to search for. The task of generating part numbers for vintage items of interest will take a lifetime.

Voodoos shouldn't have a market value beyond $4 really. They're the most practical and compatible cards that should be used (despite the notably messy 3d output fans don't tell you about), rather than obsessed about and collected/scalped as gold.

I feel that we have entered a period of what I consider 'runaway madness'. Prices have gone out of control and so have the buyers. It seems that the common e-waste recycler has now caught on to the trend and they are offering yesturday's $10 motherboard for $300. Unless you are willing to spend a month's worth of groceries on some item you want, there's very little to be had for acceptable limits. The exception seems to be for CPUs on CPU-World from the regular sellers, but even there, I'm starting to see ridiculous values, like a $1000 offer for a slot A 1 GHz Thunderbird, or $100 for a K6-III-450.

When my eBay saved searches come up now I can no longer afford to buy them, and they are usually gone within 24-hrs at insane prices. I don't even bother to list them here as this thread would fill up at least a page per day of listings. What I find most interesting, though, is that even if you think you've overpaid for that got-to-have item, that amount now becomes the new low bid, with the next sale being higher. I've reached a rough conclusion that you cannot over pay for rare items in this market. I predict that the price wars won't end until a substantial number of this generation, which I presume is mostly GenX and some older millenials, die out. In the meantime, I find it interesting to watch the trend of prices go nutz. Most likely, those without families or other strict financial obligations can pay more, with the acquisition of parts filling some internal void.

I agree - I do not understand the market for Voodoo's. Perhaps if you're running a CRT the fuzziness is less obvious, but even on a slow system, the Voodoo2 is faster and nearly as compatible.

You can still find bargains, but you need to spend more time finding them and have more patience than let’s say 10 years ago. Two weeks ago I almost won the auction for a NIB Pentium Overdrive 83 on ebay.de, which eventually sold for under € 100, which I consider a bargain. Furthermore I see many desirable Asus motherboards and graphics cards sell for attractive prices. Sure, 386/486 era hardware starts to become quite expensive, but hey that stuff is 25 years old and there’s not much out there anymore in good condition.

Sure things get more expensive because of rarity and supply/demand. It is like with ferrari's, yet of course not as extreme an example as the 250 GTO. 18k dollars when new, sold for 52 million dollars recently. Yet it perfectly demonstrates the fact that 486 era stuff is rising in value. And why only a handfull of people can get into 486 stuff in the future. Lack of parts that are working, too many people wanting to own.

feipoa wrote:

I feel that we have entered a period of what I consider 'runaway madness'. Prices have gone out of control and so have the buyers. It seems that the common e-waste recycler has now caught on to the trend and they are offering yesturday's $10 motherboard for $300. Unless you are willing to spend a month's worth of groceries on some item you want, there's very little to be had for acceptable limits. The exception seems to be for CPUs on CPU-World from the regular sellers, but even there, I'm starting to see ridiculous values, like a $1000 offer for a slot A 1 GHz Thunderbird, or $100 for a K6-III-450.

When my eBay saved searches come up now I can no longer afford to buy them, and they are usually gone within 24-hrs at insane prices. I don't even bother to list them here as this thread would fill up at least a page per day of listings. What I find most interesting, though, is that even if you think you've overpaid for that got-to-have item, that amount now becomes the new low bid, with the next sale being higher. I've reached a rough conclusion that you cannot over pay for rare items in this market. I predict that the price wars won't end until a substantial number of this generation, which I presume is mostly GenX and some older millenials, die out. In the meantime, I find it interesting to watch the trend of prices go nutz. Most likely, those without families or other strict financial obligations can pay more, with the acquisition of parts filling some internal void.

I agree - I do not understand the market for Voodoo's. Perhaps if you're running a CRT the fuzziness is less obvious, but even on a slow system, the Voodoo2 is faster and nearly as compatible.

Yup.... Voodoo for P-II to P-III around 1ghz. After that, I just choose some kind of Nvidia solution that fits the bill. Like Geforce2-GTS for a P3 tualatin or Athlon 1.4 or just a Matrox G400 for a P-III 1ghz. Might just be me, that wants 32bit colours for speed higher than 1Ghz.

I think Phils computer lab has it right with building budget friendly modern 486 computers with as many modern parts as possible.
These will last you 10 years or so of good play time.

Modern 486
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHIVGxNnkbA

Budget friendly DOS PC
https://youtu.be/K5vYD0JMD_A

I think this Budget friendly AMD Duron DOS PC is the bests build.

It is inexpensive, has all the stuff you need and is very affordable.

I agree, people can get carried away with purchasing old computer when all they want is an All-in-One 386-486-Pentium-AMD DOS computer to play
Voodoo and old DOS games.

This AMD Duron build meets all the requirements.

Just get an inexpensive socket A motherboard with VIA chipset.
AMD Duron CPU
Sound Blaster 5.1 PCI
Voodoo-3 AGP card.
and 256mb ram.
IDE CF card reader.
Windows98se and DOS.

About $300

You should be able to play lots and lots of games.

I think ISA card audio/video enthusiast have inflated the old PC component market.
I wont buy anymore old PC parts for playing games.
When all I really need is this inexpensive yet packed with performance AMD Duron/Athlon Budget PC.

Sellers have to know that these old components have a shelf life. They don't last forever without needing a complete rebuild.
Capacitors, PCB's, coatings, solder welds, solder balls.
These old electronic components need to be repaired.
Most are over 30 years old.
Electronics are susceptible to the elements and environment.
heat, moisture, dusts, and dirt.

Not only that, But you don't know what you are paying for on ebay.
it could be junk?
It has no warranty !
No instructions.
No guarantee.
It's a crap shoot.

Where is the eBay police ?
Who is regulating and testing these old computers and parts ?
If you buy something used on ebay, You should expect to fix it because most likely something is wrong with it.
It could have been modified or previously repaired, maybe incorrectly.

Sellers are selling these components like they are NEW.
These are old electronics that need repair. Complete rebuilds.
GPU chips don't last forever. They are held together with solder ball welds that a susceptible to heat
and these Voodoo cards run very hot. The heat tends to break the solder ball welds and ram chip welds.
So these cards need to be de-soldered cleaned , prepped and re-soldered in a professional baking oven.
A process called re-balling or re-flowing the chips.

I think another reason for the current price situation, aside from supply/demand, is that most veteran collectors have must of what they want, with the exception of perhaps some rarer items. When those rare items appear, they are willing to spend more for them as such items may not show up again.

I'm guilty of occasionally paying too much for rare items, but unsurprisingly they've all gone up in value to more than I paid for them originally. $100 AUD I paid for my complete in box Canopus Spectra 8800 two years ago that I thought was ludicrous? Absolute bargain with today's pricing. The $75 that V5 5500s used to cost? I wish! The $220 I paid for my "Black Limited" AOpen AX6BC including shipping the other week? Regular ones on eBay aren't too far off, so I got a great deal. I don't even know what that'll be worth as time goes on and even fewer of those limited edition boards exist. Even bare basic S3 cards that used to be a dollar each regularly sell for $30+ on eBay here.

Some people may be like me. I like to try new (old) hardware. I keep what I enjoy and resell what I don't. It's part of the hobby. Getting to experience things you couldn't get your hands on when they were new, for reasons of price, scarcity or lack of interest or knowledge of the platform at the time.

Prices keep rising and it's difficult to justify spending so much on hardware. The solution? Sell things you aren't using anymore at the ridiculous (imo) market prices just so you can buy something else at those ridiculous market prices. It's a vicious cycle and one I feel bad feeding, but with prices through the roof (often higher than their launch price on rare items), it's hard not to do it just to have a chance at enjoying the hardware too.

Truth be told, if I just wanted the games I'd be emulating. But I want the hardware. That's where half the fun is. The hunt, the thrill of finally finding that part you need, putting it all together and having a system you worked hard to source and build to enjoy your games and applications on. Appreciation for the hardware of years gone by. Cataloguing and researching. It's all part of the hobby to me.

But yes, that all comes with a mild to hefty financial cost, and I don't see that cost falling anytime soon, if ever. It sucks, but it's how it is.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

I think Phils computer lab has it right with building budget friendly modern 486 computers with as many modern parts as possible […]
Show full quote

I think Phils computer lab has it right with building budget friendly modern 486 computers with as many modern parts as possible.
These will last you 10 years or so of good play time.

Modern 486
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHIVGxNnkbA

Budget friendly DOS PC
https://youtu.be/K5vYD0JMD_A

I think this Budget friendly AMD Duron DOS PC is the bests build.

It is inexpensive, has all the stuff you need and is very affordable.

I agree, people can get carried away with purchasing old computer when all they want is an All-in-One 386-486-Pentium-AMD DOS computer to play
Voodoo and old DOS games.

This AMD Duron build meets all the requirements.

Just get an inexpensive socket A motherboard with VIA chipset.
AMD Duron CPU
Sound Blaster 5.1 PCI
Voodoo-3 AGP card.
and 256mb ram.
IDE CF card reader.
Windows98se and DOS.

About $300

You should be able to play lots and lots of games.

I think ISA card audio/video enthusiast have inflated the old PC component market.
I wont buy anymore old PC parts for playing games.
When all I really need is this inexpensive yet packed with performance AMD Duron/Athlon Budget PC.

Sellers have to know that these old components have a shelf life. They don't last forever without needing a complete rebuild.
Capacitors, PCB's, coatings, solder welds, solder balls.
These old electronic components need to be repaired.
Most are over 30 years old.
Electronics are susceptible to the elements and environment.
heat, moisture, dusts, and dirt.

Not only that, But you don't know what you are paying for on ebay.
it could be junk?
It has no warranty !
No instructions.
No guarantee.
It's a crap shoot.

Where is the eBay police ?
Who is regulating and testing these old computers and parts ?
If you buy something used on ebay, You should expect to fix it because most likely something is wrong with it.
It could have been modified or previously repaired, maybe incorrectly.

Sellers are selling these components like they are NEW.
These are old electronics that need repair. Complete rebuilds.
GPU chips don't last forever. They are held together with solder ball welds that a susceptible to heat
and these Voodoo cards run very hot. The heat tends to break the solder ball welds and ram chip welds.
So these cards need to be de-soldered cleaned , prepped and re-soldered in a professional baking oven.
A process called re-balling or re-flowing the chips.

Those socket 462 motherboards are notorious for their bad capacitors. Phil should have performed a little bit of research about the capacitor plague of that time frame (2000-2005). Such a socket S462 board will need to be completely recapped which is a very time consuming and costly fix.

Furthermore I think that Phil is really a Voodoo fanboy. Sure, the first Voodoo graphics card has some historical significance, but I really can not say that of a Voodoo 3 card, which is way overrated compared to a Riva TNT2.

True, I preferred the Nvidia cards back in the 1990’s for better graphics.
But some games require the Voodoo card.

Another shocker! An IBM PS/1000, which contains an IBM Blue Lightning 33/66 (the DLC type, not PGA168 true 486 form), sold for 1775 GPB. That's $2300 USD.

It is a very intriguing system and another Vogons member made a post about one several years back, IBM PS/1000 486DLC2-66 . Seems like he had issues booting Windows 3.11. I'm re-reading this thread to see if he found a solution. It can be really tricky to get the L1 cache cooperating on a BL2 or BL3 system. The BL3 chip is really interesting as it is probably the most advanced chip with a mostly 386 design. I've been able to get a BL3 running up to 110 MHz reliably.

seems like a cheap low end price, go nab it

feipoa wrote:

Another shocker! An IBM PS/1000, which contains an IBM Blue Lightning 33/66 (the DLC type, not PGA168 true 486 form), sold for 1775 GPB. That's $2300 USD.

It is a very intriguing system and another Vogons member made a post about one several years back, IBM PS/1000 486DLC2-66 . Seems like he had issues booting Windows 3.11. I'm re-reading this thread to see if he found a solution. It can be really tricky to get the L1 cache cooperating on a BL2 or BL3 system. The BL3 chip is really interesting as it is probably the most advanced chip with a mostly 386 design. I've been able to get a BL3 running up to 110 MHz reliably.

IBM_PS1000_for_1775_GPB.jpg

Maybe bought by one of the many ebay troll 'buyers', because that price seems a little too high. Someone 'bought' my most expensive computer earlier this week on ebay but didn't respond at all and the account is registered on a non-existent address.. 😵

Sometimes I wonder if these high-priced vintage auctions are just a masquerade to perform fishy transactions. 😉
You know, a precious vintage computer from the road side is easier to aquire for selling than a vintage Harley is..

The PS/1000 is considered to be a very collectible item, especially in such condition. Seems to be a little on the expensive side but when there is a happy chap who has the money and wants to throw it out of the window, why the fuss?