dionb wrote:

The question is whether it's financially worth the time. We're obsessed and spend vast amounts of time on this stuff, but cold l […]
Show full quote

Cyrix200+ wrote:

Yeah it's probably a scrapper. If they knew that they might get more cash if the components are complete they would sell them like that, but that takes a lot more time and knowledge.

The question is whether it's financially worth the time. We're obsessed and spend vast amounts of time on this stuff, but cold logic dictates you'd earn more flipping burgers - or scrapping PCBs - at least if you factor in the time involved in figuring out what you have and how best to sell it.

Talking about figuring out, yesterday I responded to an ad for a small pile of cards, cables (ST-506!) and two AT PSUs where I'd spotted an Aztech Sound Galaxy Waverider 32+ as well as two nice NICs, some or other ST-506 controller and two cards I couldn't quite identify but potentially a (VLB) VGA card and some or other 8b ISA thing. I did a decent offer given what I could see, which was apparently significantly more than the seller had expected. He answered that he'd accept the offer and because it was more, he would add some other stuff he scraped together, and asked what I was most interested in. I answered 'obscure old boards and cards'. This evening he got in touch again, stating he was using a different shipping company because the box he was planning to send me weighed 15kg 😮

The stuff in the ad I responded to wouldn't even come to 5kg, so I'm very, very curious as to what I'll be getting later this week 😀

We are obsessed

Uh, no, you are.

I only buy to sell and my collection is complete with working systems.

cold logic dictates you'd earn more flipping burgers - or scrapping PCBs

Depends on many variables.

Here’s a really ‘cold’ logical question for you:

What’s the point of buying more cards and boards if you already own so much? (not jealous here, just want to know the cold logic behind it).

Predator99 wrote:

Look at this i****: https://www.ebay.com/itm/ca-12-5-Kg-Pc-Platin … -1/173726777992 […]
Show full quote

Look at this i****:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/ca-12-5-Kg-Pc-Platin … -1/173726777992

Many nice cards. He destroyed them all and sells the ICs in his other listings:
https://www.ebay.de/sch/balisong81/m.html?ite … =p2047675.l2562

Anybody has an explanation why he did this? I think its just to anger us. Its for sure that he has too much money, he wasted very much of it (and also of his time by doing the "disassembling")! Will not bid on any listing to not support him...

It is just scrap metal / e-waste for most people, never forget that.

So... the left hinge side gave way on my Compaq Armada 1573DM laptop, so I went searching for a busted laptop, since the front bezel, back bezel, and top part of the chassis was pretty much busted. Amazingly, I found a for-parts Compaq Armada 1573DM laptop which was still whole.

Got it Friday, and was curious to see if it would run. There were screws rattling in the for-parts unit, so I removed all of them before powering it on. No video, but at one point there was floppy seek activity. Also wasn't sure if there was a hard disk installed at the time. Oh, the force power off switch didn't function, so power-cycled by removing the battery, reinstalling that, and powered it on again. Thought the inverter was bad, but using the inverter from my unit: same result. Display board was the same result as well. Power-cycled the unit again, and... This time, it just beeped incessantly. Board was shot after all.

So, I pretty much took it apart and decided to use the chassis for my own Armada 1573DM laptop, which was the original goal, anyway. Did test a few parts with my working unit along the way: my original battery died recently, but the for-parts unit came with one, and surprisingly, it still has a charge. Floppy drive and CD-ROM drive work as well. I was most curious of the LCD screen that came with the for-parts unit. Took a few hours for disassembly, assembly, and tossing some stuff out, but the end result turned out fine. Got a lot of extra parts for the unit as well.

Yes, the LCD screen is yellowed, as shown in the pictures below. I was a bit amused, and kept it installed in my laptop. The first photos don't quite capture the display's appearance, so I recreated it with some manual adjustment.

Didn't mention it earlier, but the unit surprisingly came with a 20GB Hitachi DK23DA-20F HDD. Hadn't tested it yet, but I'm not that optimistic. I already have a 10GB DK23CA-10 variant of this drive last year and the parking noise from these and the DA series' drive is more frequent than most old drives, I just installed an 8GB CF card in the machine instead.

Reassembled laptop (with flash)
Reassembled laptop (without flash)
How the screen looks (with manual adjustment)
The 20GB Hitachi DK23DA-20F Hard Disk Drive

SpectriaForce wrote:

We are obsessed

Uh, no, you are.

I only buy to sell and my collection is complete with working systems.

Indeed - but you have something a scrap seller doesn't have: you already know your stuff, so you don't need to invest a massive amount of time to figure out what it is worth and to whom. You did that investment long ago, probably when putting together that collection.

Here’s a really ‘cold’ logical question for you:

What’s the point of buying more cards and boards if you already own so much? (not jealous here, just want to know the cold logic behind it).

Financially: none of course, at least not the way I go about it. I aim to pretty much break even in terms of money spent, which I manage pretty well. But if you factor in time as money, it's massively loss-making. Thing is that that time is enjoyment. I do it to relax, to challenge myself, to generally unwind after the children have gone to bed. That's worth a lot to me.

dionb wrote:

I do it to relax, to challenge myself, to generally unwind after the children have gone to bed. That's worth a lot to me.

Amen to that. Something about getting an old piece of hardware new life and getting it working that is very satisfying even though most of the time it is just you who appreciates it.

One of today's things is not very retro, but has so far been very handy in getting my second ISA SBC up and running. With this TL866 it took no time at all to copy the BIOS from one EEPROM and write it to the second one that had no display (which I backed up, it appears to be set up for LCD usage instead of VGA). I even checked an SRAM chip to see if that works okay.

Another 486 DX4 100 (for SBC #2) 😀

This Gravis pad smelled of garden shed and was pretty dirty, it cleaned up nicely though:

dionb wrote:

Indeed - but you have something a scrap seller doesn't have: you already know your stuff, so you don't need to invest a massive amount of time to figure out what it is worth and to whom. You did that investment long ago, probably when putting together that collection.

You know a lot more about old hardware than I do (and thanks to people like you and other sources I still learn), indeed I would say that some knowledge of the stuff that I sell comes in handy with respect to earning some money. Rome indeed wasn’t built in one day.

dionb wrote:

Financially: none of course, at least not the way I go about it. I aim to pretty much break even in terms of money spent, which I manage pretty well. But if you factor in time as money, it's massively loss-making. Thing is that that time is enjoyment. I do it to relax, to challenge myself, to generally unwind after the children have gone to bed. That's worth a lot to me.

I understand that, but I can enjoy myself with a few systems and games. I don’t see the point of buying all sorts of old computer stuff (unless it’s for resale or a museum), especially not lots with a lot of garbage. I have been at people’s homes who had hoarded old computers for years, until their homes were pretty much full, lost interest, got health issues or died. Needless to say those people had problems in life. More stuff doesn’t make me happy at all. Everything needs to be stored, maintained once in a while and I can really only use so few. Maybe it is because I have other interests as well, but to me it looks as if some folks (not necessarily pointing to you, because I don’t know you) just hoard to fill up some void.

AmiSapphire wrote:

... Didn't mention it earlier, but the unit surprisingly came with a 20GB Hitachi DK23DA-20F HDD. Hadn't tested it yet, but I'm not that optimistic. I already have a 10GB DK23CA-10 variant of this drive last year and the parking noise from these and the DA series' drive is more frequent than most old drives, I just installed an 8GB CF card in the machine instead.

I have the 30GB DK23DA-30F in my ThinkPad A30, and a few other assorted *BA/*DA/*EB/*FA models in my collection. All working 100%. IMO the idle head-parking noise in these is cool, but I can see why it might annoy some people (it's *three* clicks instead of one, and the timer for it seems to be set shorter than in similar HDDs).

Picked up a bunch of boards from gdonovan, some of his old test boards he wasn't using anymore. (along with a bunch of CPU's, RAM, heatsinks, etc) He was super nice and only charged me shipping fees.

AmiSapphire wrote:

So... the left hinge side gave way on my Compaq Armada 1573DM laptop, so I went searching for a busted laptop, since the front b […]
Show full quote

So... the left hinge side gave way on my Compaq Armada 1573DM laptop, so I went searching for a busted laptop, since the front bezel, back bezel, and top part of the chassis was pretty much busted. Amazingly, I found a for-parts Compaq Armada 1573DM laptop which was still whole.

Got it Friday, and was curious to see if it would run. There were screws rattling in the for-parts unit, so I removed all of them before powering it on. No video, but at one point there was floppy seek activity. Also wasn't sure if there was a hard disk installed at the time. Oh, the force power off switch didn't function, so power-cycled by removing the battery, reinstalling that, and powered it on again. Thought the inverter was bad, but using the inverter from my unit: same result. Display board was the same result as well. Power-cycled the unit again, and... This time, it just beeped incessantly. Board was shot after all.

So, I pretty much took it apart and decided to use the chassis for my own Armada 1573DM laptop, which was the original goal, anyway. Did test a few parts with my working unit along the way: my original battery died recently, but the for-parts unit came with one, and surprisingly, it still has a charge. Floppy drive and CD-ROM drive work as well. I was most curious of the LCD screen that came with the for-parts unit. Took a few hours for disassembly, assembly, and tossing some stuff out, but the end result turned out fine. Got a lot of extra parts for the unit as well.

Yes, the LCD screen is yellowed, as shown in the pictures below. I was a bit amused, and kept it installed in my laptop. The first photos don't quite capture the display's appearance, so I recreated it with some manual adjustment.

Didn't mention it earlier, but the unit surprisingly came with a 20GB Hitachi DK23DA-20F HDD. Hadn't tested it yet, but I'm not that optimistic. I already have a 10GB DK23CA-10 variant of this drive last year and the parking noise from these and the DA series' drive is more frequent than most old drives, I just installed an 8GB CF card in the machine instead.

Reassembled laptop (with flash)
Reassembled laptop (without flash)
How the screen looks (with manual adjustment)
The 20GB Hitachi DK23DA-20F Hard Disk Drive

Is that your ZX Spectrum game that was just featured @ indieretronews.com? Congrats if it is.

http://www.indieretronews.com/2019/01/droid-b … eleased-on.html

So I bought this 'dumpster' PC today. Seller and auction pics state it's in working condition. Payed ~55$. 286 (don't know which one yet), 2 SIPP modules, Tseng ET4000, Seagate ST157A with black front panel... I will call it "zie gehrman condom" because of the sticker and the country of origin… Also this card came out from under the motherboard. How curious. I didn't tried to start it yet, because it's freezing outside and it has to warmup.

That's an interesting desktop. Looks pretty clean on the inside, which is nice. If there's a NiCd battery in there, remove it before it lays its eggs on the motherboard. Also, I've never seen SIPP sockets before on a motherboard.

Interesting mix of new and old - that ET4000 dates to 1991, which is very late for a 286. The multi I/O card is also more 1990s (and 386/486) than I'd expect in a 286 - where you'd usually find separate 8b ISA parallel/serial and 16b IDE (or ST-506) controller, and SIPPs are also typical of the 286/386 transition period. That HDD looks big, heavy and old though 😉

Not a bad price if it does still work.

i see dates written on the components, 5/91 on the mainboard (with AD or HD above it), 7/91 on the FDD (I think).

My money is on a 1991 286.

286s were nothing unusual in Europe (especially in Central/Eastern Europe where I live) until mid-90s. All my 286 mobos so far are from 90-91 and all come with SIPP connectors.

I have a bunch of fresh NiCd's so yeah, I will replace it ASAP.

Here is another motherboard that arrived in mail today (supposed to be dead, but maybe I will be able to reanimate it - it had battery leak and somebody's attempt at repair was clumsy) but I paid ~3$ so it was worth it even as a source of spare parts:

I grabbed nice i486 DX4 &EW and finally got to try the new Adaptec AAA-131U2(2MB Ram) with a Cheetah - only problem I have no drivers for Win98?

Unfortunately the other Hard disks(IBM) seem to have 80pin SCSI connectors or are SAS.

Funny situation, local seller had a listing for Corsair CMX Pro ram, DDR 400 PC3200 2-2-2-5 with LEDs, had pics in the listing too so it was easy to read the specs on the sticker. It was cheap so I went for it.. but weirdly enough, what I received was this:

DDR 500 PC4000 3-4-4-8 😀 So item did not match the pics in the listing, at first I was ok, cant complain if I got faster ram than what I was bargaining for, but it seems like this ram refuses to post in my DFI LanParty NF4 Ultra-D ... guess I'll keep it, maybe it will work in another board

Scored a fulltower that had Asus P2B-D rev. 1.06 in it with two PII 400 CPU's, 2x256 MB SDRAM, Adaptec SCSI card etc. Also had brand new 500watt PSU in it. Only hard drives were pulled, otherwise working system. Paid 40 euros for it, woot! 😀

Also bought 2nd Asus S370-DL slocket from ebay to complete dual PIII-S 1.4GHz conversion for P2B-D. P2B-D has proper voltage regulator but sadly the PLL is early one and does not allow 4th jumper mod, has to be changed out for 133 MHz/33 MHz.

God Of Gaming wrote:

Funny situation, local seller had a listing for Corsair CMX Pro ram, DDR 400 PC3200 2-2-2-5 with LEDs, had pics in the listing t […]
Show full quote

Funny situation, local seller had a listing for Corsair CMX Pro ram, DDR 400 PC3200 2-2-2-5 with LEDs, had pics in the listing too so it was easy to read the specs on the sticker. It was cheap so I went for it.. but weirdly enough, what I received was this:

DDR 500 PC4000 3-4-4-8 😀 So item did not match the pics in the listing, at first I was ok, cant complain if I got faster ram than what I was bargaining for, but it seems like this ram refuses to post in my DFI LanParty NF4 Ultra-D ... guess I'll keep it, maybe it will work in another board

These are awesome - I have the slower ones.
Nicely built and the lightshow is cool.

wiretap wrote:

https://i.imgur.com/A23MNfEh.jpg […]
Show full quote

Worth it!