Re: Bought this (Modern) hardware today
Posted on 2020-09-02, 16:35
There are 486/33 socketed upgrade boards for the IBM PS/2 model 80's (I have a few).
Re: Collecting rants
Posted on 2020-08-28, 02:13
On the topic of prices and availability. Is the general idea that eBay is always going to be the worst in terms of pricing? I assume finding local sellers on facebook or craigslist or whatever is going to net the best deals? I have been looking to increase my parts collection recently so I have …
Re: IBM 5150, correct period considerations and more
Posted on 2020-08-21, 00:11
I stuck a CGA card in my early 5150 64K board because I have a couple CGA monitors (the original MDA is on the shelf). My unit came with a Monet Carlo RAM serial card with the same black wide bracket used on IBM original PC cards.
Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today
Posted on 2020-08-20, 22:53
It contains a nice mobo, the DFI LanParty NFII Ultra B with a Athlon XP 2500+, plus a nice Geforce 4 ti 4200. I didn't known at the time the state of the components, and mainly did it just for the mobo, unsurprisingly the fault was a horrible PSU gone bad. The DC-DC converters on the vcore are in …
Re: Where did 83 MHz come from, and why didn't it catch on?
Posted on 2020-08-20, 21:31
Reminds me of the original Apple G3 Wallstreets having a 83FSB bus along with the more common 66FSB that was quickly removed on the later Wallstreets (and maybe Beige G3 towers). I figured there must have been an issue with 100Mhz SDRAM at the time as there was never 83Mhz RAM and 66Mhz would be too …
Re: What's the success rate of repairing faulty graphics cards?
Posted on 2020-08-16, 06:50
I fixed a few cards over the years. 4870x2 just needed a new fan. HD7950 needed reflowed using a hot air workstation and some liquid flux. various other cards with broken power connectors, solder cracks, bad capacitors. Most dead cards stay dead.
Re: Collecting rants
Posted on 2020-08-16, 06:42
This still counts as poor packaging, the box is way too small and not enough bubble wrap. I don't get people. A huge roll of bubble wrap is like $15 and using 10-20-30 layers of that prevents nearly every damage. PC in the picture has maybe 2 layers and look at the size of that box, way too small. …
Re: Collecting rants
Posted on 2020-08-16, 03:53
Powermac 9500's are very brittle these days(same with 7500 and 8500 and Quadra 800/840av). The 9500 I own will drop bits if you look at it funny.
Re: AT case suggestions
Posted on 2020-08-10, 21:01
Anything modern with not have an AT compatible mounting plate and most likely won't even have slots for floppy drives (most new cases are diskless). AT cases will be pricey these days but the early ATX cases were backwards compatible with AT mounting and some even had an AT backplate you had to …
Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?
Posted on 2020-08-10, 03:33
Is that an aluminum turkey baking pan? Luckily peroxide and aluminum work well together.
Re: How much RAM do you need ?
Posted on 2020-08-10, 03:30
For a DOS gaming machine 4MB was fine. Back in the day when I built my new 386DX/40 I had 4MB of RAM but since I wanted to use Excel and some data bases I upgraded to 16MB of RAM and purchased a IIt FPU. Never bothered to put more then 32MB into a 486 and that was over 15-20 ago when I used a web …
Re: overwhelmed by motherboard and CPU selection for 486 build
Posted on 2020-08-07, 17:31
486 boards don't have USB so you need a real floppy drive or GOTEK. If you go with Vesa Local Bus (VLB) you will need a floppy/ide controller card as well as a video card. If you go with a PCI based board then I/O and floppy, HD are built in and PCI video cards are easier to find and cheaper. Either …
Re: Tips for thrifting 486 parts?
Posted on 2020-08-04, 08:09
There are not that many capacitors on 386/486 boards and not the kind that leak anyway. I would look for: Leaking CMOS batteries and corrosion. Is anything missing (keyboard controller, cache, jumpers) that would mean the board was broken and somebody stripped it for parts before recycling. Has …
Re: Collecting rants
Posted on 2020-07-26, 19:44
Yeah, good point actually. I mean we all think that X might happen in the future but we rarely look back if what we thought would happen at this point in time actually did happen. That reminds me: a friend's father was absolutely sure that GPUs would become as cheap as chocolate bars one day. Well …
Re: Collecting rants
Posted on 2020-07-26, 19:43
Sometimes a seller would put in "rare" even if it's blatantly untrue lol. It's such a commonly abused word I makes me laugh rather than have a look at the item. Like a PlayStation listing with 'rare' in the description. Over 100 million were manufactured, and it's not even one of those audiophile- …
Re: Your favorite retro socket/platform
Posted on 2020-07-13, 05:54
Socket 3 /486 just because of all the different card types it had (ISA/VLB/PCI/MCA/EISA) plus you can even get a 486 card for a Nubus slot Mac.
Re: The first ATX case?
Posted on 2020-07-03, 02:33
Intel made one of the cases I have for a early Pentium EISA server sold by Zenith Data Systems ( A Zenith Data Systems Z Server EX). Those systems were not ISA or ATX and had the processor and RAM on separate cards from what I recall and you could have used a 486 or P66 card in that system. I forget …
Re: Collecting rants
Posted on 2020-07-03, 02:23
I got my A1200 4 years ago and even back then I had to import it from the UK and pay something like $250 all told for it. Things have changed. Back when I purchased an A1200 I think it was under $100 shipped. To give you some idea on prices I was looking at some old ebay receipts from 2005 and …
Re: Collecting rants
Posted on 2020-07-03, 01:25
imi wrote on 2020-07-02, 19:11: funnily enough people asking me to repair their computers has been a thing of the past ever since the smartphone era pretty much. I think computers have dropped in price so much people just junk anything that isn't working correctly instead of trying to fix it.
Re: Collecting rants
Posted on 2020-07-02, 06:20
speaking of scalpers and people buying up stock, when I look for Amiga machines on the local classifieds I find like 3 sellers that each sell multiple machines, some 10 or more... sure feels like they bought up every Amiga they could find and are now reselling them at a high markup, because why …
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