VOGONS


Jackheads Retro Tower

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First post, by Jackhead

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i like to show you guys one of my lovely retro PCs. This one is based on Win98SE with focus on 3dfx and some special boards for Playstation development.
I also start building another one for DOS Gaming and Midi based on a Pentium 100.
My Desktop holds a full setup of the Playstation development Kit with special CD-Rom, cd Emulator, Graphic Artist board and the Main Devboard. And yes you can also play your old PSX Games with this tower 😀
As Case i use a Silverstone Raven, because i have many long boards and i dont want that they hang horizontal..

The Specs are:

MB: Asus P2B Rev 1.12
CPU: Pentium3 Slot1 Coppermine 1Ghz @ FSB133
RAM: 2x 256MB
GPU: Voodoo 5500 AGP (i replaced the fans with Noiseblocker series)
HDD: 120GB SSD with a IDE adapter
SCSI: Adaptec AHA-2940
CD-Rom: Sony DVD
Audio: Soundblaster Live!
Case: Silverstone Raven
OS: Win98SE
PSU: Corsair VS350

Here some pictures, hope you enjoy:

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Last edited by Jackhead on 2020-04-16, 12:52. Edited 1 time in total.

Dos 6.22: Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 Rev 2.0 1Mb L2 - AMD A5x86 X5 ADZ 133MHz @160MHz - 64MB RAM - CT2230 - GUS ACE - MPU-401 AT - ET4000W32P
Win98SE: Asus P5K-WS - E8600 @ 4,5GHz - Strange God Voodoo 5 6000 PCI @ 66MHz PCI-X - 2GB DDR2 1066 - Audigy 2 ZS

Reply 1 of 20, by imi

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wow I was like "that sony drive looks awesome" then I read that it's the PSX devkit... I guess that's going to be pretty much unattainable.
very nice system, also like the case, I'm using a FT05 for a retro build ^^

Reply 2 of 20, by Jackhead

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yes its a special drive, push out with psx laser unit connected to the devboard. I also build the controller ports into a slot cover.

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Dos 6.22: Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 Rev 2.0 1Mb L2 - AMD A5x86 X5 ADZ 133MHz @160MHz - 64MB RAM - CT2230 - GUS ACE - MPU-401 AT - ET4000W32P
Win98SE: Asus P5K-WS - E8600 @ 4,5GHz - Strange God Voodoo 5 6000 PCI @ 66MHz PCI-X - 2GB DDR2 1066 - Audigy 2 ZS

Reply 4 of 20, by chinny22

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P2B with 1Ghz 120GB HDD and V5 is a pretty maxed out PC to start with!
Dev kit makes it one of a kind!
Case is pretty cool as well, never seen cards mounted that way before.
Do you use the Dev Kit for anything or is it just for the ability to play games now?

Reply 5 of 20, by Jackhead

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lolo799 wrote on 2020-04-16, 12:19:

Hey Jackhead, now on vogons!
What happened to the desktop style case you used to host the ps1 devkit a few years ago?

Hi there!
I think you know me from ASG? 😀 Found this place after searching MT32. I got fixed on Roland midi devices now..
Still have the case, but changed it for more space to the raven, pretty happy with it now.

chinny22 wrote on 2020-04-16, 12:19:
P2B with 1Ghz 120GB HDD and V5 is a pretty maxed out PC to start with! Dev kit makes it one of a kind! Case is pretty cool as w […]
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P2B with 1Ghz 120GB HDD and V5 is a pretty maxed out PC to start with!
Dev kit makes it one of a kind!
Case is pretty cool as well, never seen cards mounted that way before.
Do you use the Dev Kit for anything or is it just for the ability to play games now?

Well i not really play with the kit retail ps1 games to reduce the usage on the cd drive. But from time to time i compile some code and test it with the kit.
But nothing to fancy, because i dont have the graphic knowledge to create something.
So its more a collecters aspect at all. And of corse all this boards in one pc its really hard to come by thies days.
Thats why i like the P2B so much, anything is working without conflicts.
I grow up with the ps1 and 3dfx on the PC side, so having anything in one machine is really nice.

Dos 6.22: Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 Rev 2.0 1Mb L2 - AMD A5x86 X5 ADZ 133MHz @160MHz - 64MB RAM - CT2230 - GUS ACE - MPU-401 AT - ET4000W32P
Win98SE: Asus P5K-WS - E8600 @ 4,5GHz - Strange God Voodoo 5 6000 PCI @ 66MHz PCI-X - 2GB DDR2 1066 - Audigy 2 ZS

Reply 6 of 20, by lolo799

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Right, i didn't register with the same username here as i did on AG (unclejun) for some reason lost to time!
Falling down the rabbit hole of retro machines and MIDI devices, you're in the right place!

Thinking about retro stuff, a T10000 could make a decent Pentium 233 machine, you only need to cram in a pci sound card such as Yamaha YMF-719, something like that, and possibly a scsi card to use an external cdrom, or a bracket for the parallel port of the SBC if you prefer to avoid scsi at all cost!

PCMCIA Sound, Storage & Graphics

Reply 7 of 20, by Jackhead

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unclejun!! good to hear from you!
But t10k is linux and to loud ^^. I musst agree, the idea is not bad at all hehe.

Dos 6.22: Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 Rev 2.0 1Mb L2 - AMD A5x86 X5 ADZ 133MHz @160MHz - 64MB RAM - CT2230 - GUS ACE - MPU-401 AT - ET4000W32P
Win98SE: Asus P5K-WS - E8600 @ 4,5GHz - Strange God Voodoo 5 6000 PCI @ 66MHz PCI-X - 2GB DDR2 1066 - Audigy 2 ZS

Reply 8 of 20, by lolo799

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Well, you can either add a compact flash IDE adapter as a slave and update lilo (or put it as master and install a bootloader on it or use loadlin from Dos) or make some room on the original hdd for Dos/Windows, but yes, there's still the loudness problem, though if you play a flight sim, you can view it as part of the experience i suppose!

PCMCIA Sound, Storage & Graphics

Reply 9 of 20, by Almoststew1990

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That's a great twist on that build! Where is the rest of the dev kit, is all contained within the 5.25 bays? how is it powered? Does it operate independently of the motherboard and windows (i.e. has its own power switch, i/o etc) or is there "Dev kit software" that you launch from within the Windows but it entirely works using the dev kit hardware? I'm intrigued!

Ryzen 3700X | 16GB 3600MHz RAM | AMD 6800XT | 2Tb NVME SSD | Windows 10
AMD DX2-80 | 16MB RAM | STB LIghtspeed 128 | AWE32 CT3910
I have a vacancy for a main Windows 98 PC

Reply 11 of 20, by Jackhead

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The PS1 Devkit is based on ISA and PCI cards. You see the boards on the first picture.
From left: CD Emulator board ISA, Than the DTL-H201a Graphic artist board ISA and than the mainboard the DTL-H2500 PCI (there was also 2 ISA Mainboards the H2000 and the H2700).
The devdrive and the conroller port are connected to the H2500 as you also can see in the pictures.
And yes you have an SDK on win98 running where you compile, debug and so on..

There is also a Sound Artist board but the driver are not working correctly on Win98. But i will get today another retro machine where i try it with win95.
Pictures follow 😀

For those are interested in the Sound Devboards here a picture:
The DTL-H700 its for Mac Power PC and the later DTL-H800 on PCI

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Im not totaly sure how they work or for what exactly they used. Both have a digital toslink out.

Dos 6.22: Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 Rev 2.0 1Mb L2 - AMD A5x86 X5 ADZ 133MHz @160MHz - 64MB RAM - CT2230 - GUS ACE - MPU-401 AT - ET4000W32P
Win98SE: Asus P5K-WS - E8600 @ 4,5GHz - Strange God Voodoo 5 6000 PCI @ 66MHz PCI-X - 2GB DDR2 1066 - Audigy 2 ZS

Reply 14 of 20, by Jackhead

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lolo799 wrote on 2020-04-17, 19:08:

Did you ever get the chance to test the Nubus card?

Unfortunately not, need a mac machine first.

imi wrote on 2020-04-17, 19:17:

may I ask how you acquired those gems? :3
took them with you from a job, contacts, or did you find them out in the wild?

I collect console dev hardware since 2008. Found stuff over forum contacts, yahoo.jp some on ebay over the years.

Dos 6.22: Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 Rev 2.0 1Mb L2 - AMD A5x86 X5 ADZ 133MHz @160MHz - 64MB RAM - CT2230 - GUS ACE - MPU-401 AT - ET4000W32P
Win98SE: Asus P5K-WS - E8600 @ 4,5GHz - Strange God Voodoo 5 6000 PCI @ 66MHz PCI-X - 2GB DDR2 1066 - Audigy 2 ZS

Reply 15 of 20, by lolo799

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The world is waiting to see that card in action, buying a computer for one piece of hardware may not be worth it though, when seeing the prices of old apple hardware on ebay.

PCMCIA Sound, Storage & Graphics

Reply 16 of 20, by Jackhead

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My second new Retro PC. Its a Pentium 100MHz with Asus MB and 32MB EDO RAM, Soundblaster AWE32. Installed Dos6.22 with Win3.11.
I will use it for my SNES Sound Devkit and the MPU-401. The Devkit has a Midi out that i connected to the MT-32. But i still got trouble with the sound programms getting working, only japanese docs...
Really want to get SNES Midi Sound out of the box -.-

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Dos 6.22: Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 Rev 2.0 1Mb L2 - AMD A5x86 X5 ADZ 133MHz @160MHz - 64MB RAM - CT2230 - GUS ACE - MPU-401 AT - ET4000W32P
Win98SE: Asus P5K-WS - E8600 @ 4,5GHz - Strange God Voodoo 5 6000 PCI @ 66MHz PCI-X - 2GB DDR2 1066 - Audigy 2 ZS

Reply 17 of 20, by Jackhead

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And one of my favorite Retro PC my Alpha1 Xbox development Kit. Based on a Pentium 3 Slot1 MB with a nvidia GPU with special firmware booting directly in a alpha Dashboard, with Hammerhead Proto X Controller :

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Dos 6.22: Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 Rev 2.0 1Mb L2 - AMD A5x86 X5 ADZ 133MHz @160MHz - 64MB RAM - CT2230 - GUS ACE - MPU-401 AT - ET4000W32P
Win98SE: Asus P5K-WS - E8600 @ 4,5GHz - Strange God Voodoo 5 6000 PCI @ 66MHz PCI-X - 2GB DDR2 1066 - Audigy 2 ZS

Reply 19 of 20, by Jackhead

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imi wrote on 2020-04-22, 16:32:

you sure have quite the collection there ^^

I still like the first one most for pure vanity.

Playstation Fanboy ? 😀 Also have some fancy N64 stuff. The timeline are the best. There are many history behind that, like SN Systems aka Psygnosis Dev Department. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_Systems

My SN64 Kit *complete*

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Last edited by Jackhead on 2020-04-22, 17:16. Edited 2 times in total.

Dos 6.22: Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 Rev 2.0 1Mb L2 - AMD A5x86 X5 ADZ 133MHz @160MHz - 64MB RAM - CT2230 - GUS ACE - MPU-401 AT - ET4000W32P
Win98SE: Asus P5K-WS - E8600 @ 4,5GHz - Strange God Voodoo 5 6000 PCI @ 66MHz PCI-X - 2GB DDR2 1066 - Audigy 2 ZS