Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-03-22, 23:55:

PD2JK wrote on 2024-03-22, 21:37:

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-22, 17:33:

Heh, I thought "That better not be just an FM card" then zoomed in to see it's actually rather decent frequency coverage. Looks like fun, like earlier incarnation of those SDR dongles you can buy for USB. Yah, I'd probably buy one too if it was in front of me, not sure I'd hunt one out though unless I got a project in mind.

Do you know what software you can use with it, or are you stuck with some ancient weather sat decoders for DOS or using GNUradio in linux?

The Winradio software should even work with Windows 7 32-bit: link.
The plan is to get it working in Windows 3.11, in a DX4 system. I'll hang a simple dipole antenna in the attic and have fair reception, wandering the bands.

Are you planning on sharing the results here? In addition to games, it's interesting to see the fun things that you can do on retro computers. It's also harder to find information on some of these areas online.

Rosetta still exists as part of the Radxion group here in Australia, the hardware is still supported too and since its for military/advanced surveillance itll be supported for quite a bit longer, its a very solid bit of kit and I doubt any normal user will be able to kill it with normal use.

Tempting, but I will resist the urge. This is basically fluff surrounding the video card. I wonder why this place doesn't sell on Ebay?

My 4CoreDual-sata2 always had issues. Instabilities, ps2/usb not working randomly.

I wanted to buy a new one but i only found extremely expensive ones.

I found a 4CoreDual-vsta, tested + ram + a c2d E6850 (quite decent) . 25€ inc. Shipping. Its not as good as the sata2, but i took the offer anyway.

Instead of a 4CoreDual-vsta I received a 4CoreDual-sata2.

I'm not gonna return it... for sure.

I'm quite pleased about this one. I hadn't really done any retro purchases for almost a year, but I have started checking my usual sources again lately.

Someone was selling a very small scrap lot and the first picture on the listing just showed a little RAM, some newish processors, what looked like a basic old S3 Virge of some kind aaaand... a small black board that was only half visible in the picture. It caught my eye immediately, and I knew what it was!

(Yes I know there is a notch out of the PCB. It looks like someone notched it out, probably to clear a capacitor. Thankfully there is just a ground plane on either side so it should work fine.)

Since I started actively seeking out retro hardware about 8-9 years ago I have wondered how many of the already somewhat rare MIDI daughterboards have ended up in scrap heaps because they look like absolutely nothing and they're quite hard for people to identify unless they are pretty familiar with this stuff. Honestly, it's tough to even describe them to people. You can tell someone "I'm looking for small boards with gold fingers on one edge and a metal plate with one of those blue or black 15-pin plugs that old monitors used." and people will show you VGA cards. But how on earth do you describe MIDI daughterboards without ending up with absolutely every little scrap of unidentifiable (and useless) telecom or appliance boards?

Anyway, I think this is the first MIDI daughterboard I have found this way out of the dozens upon dozens of these lots I have purchased over the years. I believe it is only the third one I own now, including one that came attached to a card.

It will go nicely with the new (Open Box) Terratec Promedia Base-1 sound card I got a good deal on last year.

As an added bonus, it turns out that there were a couple nice surprises in the lot too. An i7 3520M (fast 35W dual core), i7 4600M (fast 37W dual core), the S3 Virge card is in good shape and there were some 8GB and 4GB sticks of DDR3. Nice! 😀

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-03-24, 00:38:

"I'm looking for small boards with gold fingers on one edge and a metal plate with one of those blue or black 15-pin plugs that old monitors used." and people will show you VGA cards. But how on earth do you describe MIDI daughterboards without ending up with absolutely every little scrap of unidentifiable (and useless) telecom or appliance boards?

Well you'd hope you'd get a VGA card if you described one... just given me a flashback to this dude who had an indoor fleamarket stall some decade or more back. Now he theoretically sold parts, and used PCs, and did "repairs", and ponced around behind his counter doing a scientist/lab-tech cosplay with a white coat on. Now his counter went all the way round, and you could see stacks of parts, though not get near them, but even if you could see what you want and point at it he was useless. I think all he knew was OS reinstalls and using norton antivirus... since this was peak limewire times, he could probably skate by on that, but he went out of business so must have owed one too many people a few hundred bucks by attempting hardware repairs, because in that area he seemed absolutely clueless....

... You ask this guy for a 15 pin card you plug into a monitor and he's gonna scrabble about for 5 minutes then hand you a game card. I tried a couple of times, one time I asked if he had a duron motherboard, he tried to fob me off with a socket 370 board, insisting the duron would work in it, because it was the same thing as a celeron. Another time I asked if he had any TV cards, he says no they're illegal, no no not satellite smart cards to get free HBO you twonk, TV Cards to capture TV... again he takes me to mean satellite stuff... I'm getting real annoyed about now and thinking he's never heard of them... and suddenly I see a light dawn in his eyes, he thinks I am the moron, because he goes "Oh for a monitor!" and I can tell he's about to grab a trash VGA card, but I've had enough and leave again.

Added a PowerVR PCX1 to the vgamuseum.

I've been wanting an IBM model 60 for a while. its one of my favorite tower cases. I have several model 80's (identical except 386 guts)

got it for a good price and great condition: https://www.ebay.com/itm/226055490888

here are the seller images: https://imgur.com/gallery/m3a2tMY

The model 60 has some weird issue where the inside will rust like a tincan soaking in salt water. Something to do with the foam IBM used on the inside of the unit. so this is one of the least rusted models i've seen in quite a while. The 286 > 386 is a nice bonus. I've been trying to get a 286 for a while, and I still mess it up!

I'm hoping to see if those 10 pound bricks of spinning rust still spin. I'm not holding my breath, but I really should when I go to power them on.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-24, 01:01:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-03-24, 00:38:

"I'm looking for small boards with gold fingers on one edge and a metal plate with one of those blue or black 15-pin plugs that old monitors used." and people will show you VGA cards. But how on earth do you describe MIDI daughterboards without ending up with absolutely every little scrap of unidentifiable (and useless) telecom or appliance boards?

Well you'd hope you'd get a VGA card if you described one... just given me a flashback to this dude who had an indoor fleamarket stall some decade or more back. Now he theoretically sold parts, and used PCs, and did "repairs", and ponced around behind his counter doing a scientist/lab-tech cosplay with a white coat on. Now his counter went all the way round, and you could see stacks of parts, though not get near them, but even if you could see what you want and point at it he was useless. I think all he knew was OS reinstalls and using norton antivirus... since this was peak limewire times, he could probably skate by on that, but he went out of business so must have owed one too many people a few hundred bucks by attempting hardware repairs, because in that area he seemed absolutely clueless....

... You ask this guy for a 15 pin card you plug into a monitor and he's gonna scrabble about for 5 minutes then hand you a game card. I tried a couple of times, one time I asked if he had a duron motherboard, he tried to fob me off with a socket 370 board, insisting the duron would work in it, because it was the same thing as a celeron. Another time I asked if he had any TV cards, he says no they're illegal, no no not satellite smart cards to get free HBO you twonk, TV Cards to capture TV... again he takes me to mean satellite stuff... I'm getting real annoyed about now and thinking he's never heard of them... and suddenly I see a light dawn in his eyes, he thinks I am the moron, because he goes "Oh for a monitor!" and I can tell he's about to grab a trash VGA card, but I've had enough and leave again.

🤣

Yeaaah... those types can be infuriating. Dealt with a few myself over the years. It's super frustrating dealing with them online. I've had people that will write back and forth for weeks, totally willing to send pictures of stuff and willing to reply to messages in a timely fashion, but you can circle one board in a picture of ten and they'll send a picture back saying "This one?" and it is not only the wrong one, but it looks completely different. Like... why ask me to verify if there are no similarities what so ever? I understand we're all wired differently and some people just don't have an eye for details on obscure\worthless old computer stuff, but when it takes 15 messages back and forth for someone to match up two images it really boggles the mind. It generally ends in a sale after they've wasted a bunch of time so I don't think they're trolling.

Also, I put the Terratec Promedia WT64 1.0A daughterboard on my Base1 card. It looks super weird sticking out like that, but that is the correct orientation. The WT64 1.0A has a manufacture date just 6 months after the Base1, so this was most likely one of the cards it was intended for... but man, I was hoping it'd just lay over the card perfectly. As it is, I can't even fit the assembled combo in the box for the card. 🤣

The Video Technology Computers Ltd (FCC Code: BNX) Virge card I picked up is also pictured. 😀

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-03-24, 02:27:

:rofl: […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-24, 01:01:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-03-24, 00:38:

"I'm looking for small boards with gold fingers on one edge and a metal plate with one of those blue or black 15-pin plugs that old monitors used." and people will show you VGA cards. But how on earth do you describe MIDI daughterboards without ending up with absolutely every little scrap of unidentifiable (and useless) telecom or appliance boards?

Well you'd hope you'd get a VGA card if you described one... just given me a flashback to this dude who had an indoor fleamarket stall some decade or more back. Now he theoretically sold parts, and used PCs, and did "repairs", and ponced around behind his counter doing a scientist/lab-tech cosplay with a white coat on. Now his counter went all the way round, and you could see stacks of parts, though not get near them, but even if you could see what you want and point at it he was useless. I think all he knew was OS reinstalls and using norton antivirus... since this was peak limewire times, he could probably skate by on that, but he went out of business so must have owed one too many people a few hundred bucks by attempting hardware repairs, because in that area he seemed absolutely clueless....

... You ask this guy for a 15 pin card you plug into a monitor and he's gonna scrabble about for 5 minutes then hand you a game card. I tried a couple of times, one time I asked if he had a duron motherboard, he tried to fob me off with a socket 370 board, insisting the duron would work in it, because it was the same thing as a celeron. Another time I asked if he had any TV cards, he says no they're illegal, no no not satellite smart cards to get free HBO you twonk, TV Cards to capture TV... again he takes me to mean satellite stuff... I'm getting real annoyed about now and thinking he's never heard of them... and suddenly I see a light dawn in his eyes, he thinks I am the moron, because he goes "Oh for a monitor!" and I can tell he's about to grab a trash VGA card, but I've had enough and leave again.

🤣

Yeaaah... those types can be infuriating. Dealt with a few myself over the years. It's super frustrating dealing with them online. I've had people that will write back and forth for weeks, totally willing to send pictures of stuff and willing to reply to messages in a timely fashion, but you can circle one board in a picture of ten and they'll send a picture back saying "This one?" and it is not only the wrong one, but it looks completely different. Like... why ask me to verify if there are no similarities what so ever? I understand we're all wired differently and some people just don't have an eye for details on obscure\worthless old computer stuff, but when it takes 15 messages back and forth for someone to match up two images it really boggles the mind. It generally ends in a sale after they've wasted a bunch of time so I don't think they're trolling.

Also, I put the Terratec Promedia WT64 1.0A daughterboard on my Base1 card. It looks super weird sticking out like that, but that is the correct orientation. The WT64 1.0A has a manufacture date just 6 months after the Base1, so this was most likely one of the cards it was intended for... but man, I was hoping it'd just lay over the card perfectly. As it is, I can't even fit the assembled combo in the box for the card. 🤣

The Video Technology Computers Ltd (FCC Code: BNX) Virge card I picked up is also pictured. 😀

you could likely rig up an adapter that allows the card to sit the way you want, you have both cards so pin outs wont be and issue.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-24, 02:39:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-03-24, 02:27:

:rofl: […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-24, 01:01:

Well you'd hope you'd get a VGA card if you described one... just given me a flashback to this dude who had an indoor fleamarket stall some decade or more back. Now he theoretically sold parts, and used PCs, and did "repairs", and ponced around behind his counter doing a scientist/lab-tech cosplay with a white coat on. Now his counter went all the way round, and you could see stacks of parts, though not get near them, but even if you could see what you want and point at it he was useless. I think all he knew was OS reinstalls and using norton antivirus... since this was peak limewire times, he could probably skate by on that, but he went out of business so must have owed one too many people a few hundred bucks by attempting hardware repairs, because in that area he seemed absolutely clueless....

... You ask this guy for a 15 pin card you plug into a monitor and he's gonna scrabble about for 5 minutes then hand you a game card. I tried a couple of times, one time I asked if he had a duron motherboard, he tried to fob me off with a socket 370 board, insisting the duron would work in it, because it was the same thing as a celeron. Another time I asked if he had any TV cards, he says no they're illegal, no no not satellite smart cards to get free HBO you twonk, TV Cards to capture TV... again he takes me to mean satellite stuff... I'm getting real annoyed about now and thinking he's never heard of them... and suddenly I see a light dawn in his eyes, he thinks I am the moron, because he goes "Oh for a monitor!" and I can tell he's about to grab a trash VGA card, but I've had enough and leave again.

🤣

Yeaaah... those types can be infuriating. Dealt with a few myself over the years. It's super frustrating dealing with them online. I've had people that will write back and forth for weeks, totally willing to send pictures of stuff and willing to reply to messages in a timely fashion, but you can circle one board in a picture of ten and they'll send a picture back saying "This one?" and it is not only the wrong one, but it looks completely different. Like... why ask me to verify if there are no similarities what so ever? I understand we're all wired differently and some people just don't have an eye for details on obscure\worthless old computer stuff, but when it takes 15 messages back and forth for someone to match up two images it really boggles the mind. It generally ends in a sale after they've wasted a bunch of time so I don't think they're trolling.

Also, I put the Terratec Promedia WT64 1.0A daughterboard on my Base1 card. It looks super weird sticking out like that, but that is the correct orientation. The WT64 1.0A has a manufacture date just 6 months after the Base1, so this was most likely one of the cards it was intended for... but man, I was hoping it'd just lay over the card perfectly. As it is, I can't even fit the assembled combo in the box for the card. 🤣

The Video Technology Computers Ltd (FCC Code: BNX) Virge card I picked up is also pictured. 😀

you could likely rig up an adapter that allows the card to sit the way you want, you have both cards so pin outs wont be and issue.

It's really not that big of a deal. It'll probably still fit in a case without any issues. These were both devices that sort of fell into my hands and I was happy to be able to match them up. I will definitely tinker with it to hear the wavetable, but it may or may not actually end up in a build long-term. Within my hardware collection, the coveted position of "Sound card that's ACTUALLY installed in a computer AND being used." has a lot of competitors but only a handful of slots for them to fill. 😁

Still, being tucked away in the collection is better than being melted down into 12 cents worth of gold. 🙁

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-03-24, 02:55:

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-24, 02:39:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-03-24, 02:27:

:rofl: […]
Show full quote

🤣

Yeaaah... those types can be infuriating. Dealt with a few myself over the years. It's super frustrating dealing with them online. I've had people that will write back and forth for weeks, totally willing to send pictures of stuff and willing to reply to messages in a timely fashion, but you can circle one board in a picture of ten and they'll send a picture back saying "This one?" and it is not only the wrong one, but it looks completely different. Like... why ask me to verify if there are no similarities what so ever? I understand we're all wired differently and some people just don't have an eye for details on obscure\worthless old computer stuff, but when it takes 15 messages back and forth for someone to match up two images it really boggles the mind. It generally ends in a sale after they've wasted a bunch of time so I don't think they're trolling.

Also, I put the Terratec Promedia WT64 1.0A daughterboard on my Base1 card. It looks super weird sticking out like that, but that is the correct orientation. The WT64 1.0A has a manufacture date just 6 months after the Base1, so this was most likely one of the cards it was intended for... but man, I was hoping it'd just lay over the card perfectly. As it is, I can't even fit the assembled combo in the box for the card. 🤣

The Video Technology Computers Ltd (FCC Code: BNX) Virge card I picked up is also pictured. 😀

you could likely rig up an adapter that allows the card to sit the way you want, you have both cards so pin outs wont be and issue.

It's really not that big of a deal. It'll probably still fit in a case without any issues. These were both devices that sort of fell into my hands and I was happy to be able to match them up. I will definitely tinker with it to hear the wavetable, but it may or may not actually end up in a build long-term. Within my hardware collection, the coveted position of "Sound card that's ACTUALLY installed in a computer AND being used." has a lot of competitors but only a handful of slots for them to fill. 😁

Still, being tucked away in the collection is better than being melted down into 12 cents worth of gold. 🙁

That position for me is 3 ISA cards, the Legendary SoundBlaster 2.0 Pro, The AWE64 Gold and a Yamaha YFM719F with a X16GS and other mods to fix reversed stereo channels and mixer issues. Id love and Orpheus II or a Real GUS but I doubt either would take the place of the main three. I have a few other cards worth of being in the three but you gotta choose, the AWE32 with extra ram is a worthy replacement for the AWE64 Gold even more so if its got OPL and the Yamaha could be replaced with the ESS1869f.

Id love to hear this Terratech wavetable though, Tera made some really excellent hardware that had that high end polish.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-03-24, 02:27:

Yeaaah... those types can be infuriating. Dealt with a few myself over the years. It's super frustrating dealing with them online. I've had people that will write back and forth for weeks, totally willing to send pictures of stuff and willing to reply to messages in a timely fashion, but you can circle one board in a picture of ten and they'll send a picture back saying "This one?" and it is not only the wrong one, but it looks completely different. Like... why ask me to verify if there are no similarities what so ever? I understand we're all wired differently and some people just don't have an eye for details on obscure\worthless old computer stuff, but when it takes 15 messages back and forth for someone to match up two images it really boggles the mind. It generally ends in a sale after they've wasted a bunch of time so I don't think they're trolling.

Heh, yeah there's a dude had a listing for 8 motherboards on a local classified for a whole year, but he seems completely oblivious to the fact that motherboards are not all completely identical and interchangeable, especially these, I think he's only got two with the same socket, either end of 775 era, I wouldn't mind having one of them but specific questions just bounce off him. Then there was another guy with an Amiga 2000 for sale "and other stuff" and I could not get him to tell me about the Amiga, kept giving me details on Vic 20s, PET, C64s and two fuzzy pics of the A2000 was all I could get. I would just try to arrange meet to see everything, but I've been burned a few times on that, going "a ways" out of town with a dude saying he still had "most" of it, to find the barest dregs. Or a "no split" box lot that when I get there has had the two things that made it worth hauling the junk out gone.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-24, 03:42:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-03-24, 02:27:

Yeaaah... those types can be infuriating. Dealt with a few myself over the years. It's super frustrating dealing with them online. I've had people that will write back and forth for weeks, totally willing to send pictures of stuff and willing to reply to messages in a timely fashion, but you can circle one board in a picture of ten and they'll send a picture back saying "This one?" and it is not only the wrong one, but it looks completely different. Like... why ask me to verify if there are no similarities what so ever? I understand we're all wired differently and some people just don't have an eye for details on obscure\worthless old computer stuff, but when it takes 15 messages back and forth for someone to match up two images it really boggles the mind. It generally ends in a sale after they've wasted a bunch of time so I don't think they're trolling.

Heh, yeah there's a dude had a listing for 8 motherboards on a local classified for a whole year, but he seems completely oblivious to the fact that motherboards are not all completely identical and interchangeable, especially these, I think he's only got two with the same socket, either end of 775 era, I wouldn't mind having one of them but specific questions just bounce off him. Then there was another guy with an Amiga 2000 for sale "and other stuff" and I could not get him to tell me about the Amiga, kept giving me details on Vic 20s, PET, C64s and two fuzzy pics of the A2000 was all I could get. I would just try to arrange meet to see everything, but I've been burned a few times on that, going "a ways" out of town with a dude saying he still had "most" of it, to find the barest dregs. Or a "no split" box lot that when I get there has had the two things that made it worth hauling the junk out gone.

This sounds extremely familiar. 🤣

I will say, I recently had a fantastic experience that was totally the opposite of what normally happens. I was communicating with a guy about an hour from me who was selling some nice EVGA GTX 1080 cards from a mining rig for a really solid price, and I knew some friends that needed good cheap GPUs for their PCs. He was great to communicate with and mentioned that he also had a 3080 but was asking $500 for it so I had to pass. I have a 3060 Ti and I have considered getting a 3080 if one ever turned up cheap (because I'm not spending $500+ on a GPU these days). He later said he'd take $400 for the 3080 but I still said I wasn't really planning to spend that much right now so I declined. I made arrangements to buy 4 1080s from him for a fair price and drove to his house.

When I got there he brought out the 1080s and they all looked fantastic, some were higher end EVGA models too. As we were talking he said that since I was easy to deal with he'd take $300 for the 3080 if I wanted it. He brought it out and it was basically brand new ASUS 3080 TUF, which is a monster of a card and known for being a great model. It even had the manual and some paperwork. He said he'd just gotten it from someone who had barely used it, and he intended to dabble in mining but found that the power consumption made it not profitable enough, so it was barely used. It looked immaculate, and for $300 I couldn't pass it up. He installed it in his rig to show me it worked, and long-story-short I came away from there with a 3080 and two 1080s for ~$450. I sold my 3060 Ti to one of my GPU-needing friends, sold the 1080 to another and at this point I have about $120 into a 3080, and I still have a spare 1080 SC.

Once in a while I find people who are awesome to deal with. To be honest though, dealing with people in the retro computing community has been fantastic. I sell a decent number of parts and all of my customers have been awesome. A few years ago I had one single person buy an item from me and then post a positive review while complaining about a thing that was clearly described and pictured in the listing, but other than that I've never had a truly bad buyer. I think being thorough with testing, descriptions, pictures and communication really helps a lot with the type of people who are typically into this hobby.

Look what I bought yesterday for a whole $15!

- ECS KT-600A + Athlon XP 2600+
- ASUS A8N-E + Athlon 64 3000+
- Sapphire Ati Radeon X800 GTO 128MB
- Two DDR400 512MB memory sticks
- One DDR400 256MB memory stick
- Two optical drives with cool ASUS cables

I picked it up today and everything works fine.

Maryoo wrote on 2024-03-24, 15:54:

Look what I bought yesterday for a whole $15! […]
Show full quote

Look what I bought yesterday for a whole $15!

- ECS KT-600A + Athlon XP 2600+
- ASUS A8N-E + Athlon 64 3000+
- Sapphire Ati Radeon X800 GTO 128MB
- Two DDR400 512MB memory sticks
- One DDR400 256MB memory stick
- Two optical drives with cool ASUS cables

I picked it up today and everything works fine.

Nice!

Was about to leave the thrift store empty handed , but I saw this as I was walking out the door. It was looking right at me. I walked past it at least twice , or I must have, or possibly it was put out after I walked there before.
Either way, I got a rush of adrenaline, hurried over and picked it up. It was labelled at $5.49.

I cant wait to open it up and see what's inside!

Sorry for the double post. It seems any time I post with images, I get an error, then refresh the page, and then my post is posted twice. I've been having this issue for a few months on here

Hmmmm something with an ATX form card and a DVD decoder...

Yeah, looks like there's a lot of stuff in that case! Love the extremely professional port labelling. 😎👍

Law212 wrote on 2024-03-24, 21:15:

Sorry for the double post. It seems any time I post with images, I get an error, then refresh the page, and then my post is posted twice. I've been having this issue for a few months on here

When I get a posting error, I go back to the page prior to typing the post, then refresh. A new thread will be there, or a comment on an existing post will be there. If I accidentally double post, I'm always able to delete the last post (but not any post before that, until that becomes the last post in a thread)