IMHO do not waste your time with softmods... if you have basic solder skills just get a 3$ alladin chip, install it and you don't have to mess with locked drives and other weird stuff 😁

keropi wrote:

IMHO do not waste your time with softmods... if you have basic solder skills just get a 3$ alladin chip, install it and you don't have to mess with locked drives and other weird stuff 😁

Where i can find it?

weird I used to find them on aliexpress, Eurasia stocks them at 12$: http://www.eurasia.nu/shop/product_info.php?c … products_id=266

Back on topic though, I was gifted a Sun Ultra 2 Enterprise server(?) ... it has 2 cpus and some weird looking scsi cards along with 2 network cards with 4 ports each ... no idea what to do with it but it looks like this: http://www.sgistuff.net/collection/other/sun011.html 🤣

These arrived today. Voodoo 3 2000 16mb PCI, Creative Labs GeForce 256 Annihilator Pro 32mb DDR, Creative Labs 3D Annihilator 2 GeForce 2 GTS 32mb and a Pioneer 105S.

I now have both the DDR and SDR variants of the Geforce 256 😀

Picked up a KVM for my retro PC setup. 4-port (2x ps2, 1x vga) with 5 sets of nicely tywrapped cables for 8 dollarydoos!

Picked up a Texas Microsystems N286 SBC. It has a 16mhz Harris 80286 in it.. its replacing my xi8088 SBC... now I totally blanked, but the xi8088 has built in PS/2 keyboard + mouse, the n286 has a pin header with a couple of pins (clock+data) to connect a keyboard. Assuming AT here, I need to break the pinout to AT Keyboard DIN then to PS/2 DIN 😒 ugh.

it also has a tadiran lithium battery from 1/9/1988 that still registers 3.6v!

board does nothing (throws a beep after a long time), I suspect because it needs a keyboard to boot, but its a bit odd if it does since its an industrial SBC it should be able to run headless... so hmmm... wont know till I do something with the keyboard.

CHiLL72 wrote:

Finally, today, it arrived, the MediaTrix AudioTrix 3D-XG!

Very nice! Does this bad boy have the 'dry' sound of the cheap OPLSAx implementations of this Yamaha chipset? Not trying to knock the OPLSAx, just interested!

badmojo wrote:

CHiLL72 wrote:

Finally, today, it arrived, the MediaTrix AudioTrix 3D-XG!

Very nice! Does this bad boy have the 'dry' sound of the cheap OPLSAx implementations of this Yamaha chipset? Not trying to knock the OPLSAx, just interested!

I have one of those . By default the OPL3SA (wave and FM) audio runs through the DB60XG daughterboard and can have effects applied to it . I am using mine without a daughterboard and thus have no effects applied to it . The WSS mode sounds very good to me in various compatible module players (OCP, DMP). I have not payed much attention to the SB Pro part's quality, beyond confirming that it works in Doom I/II, Duke Nukem 3D and others .

By "dry", are you referring to the SB Pro low pass filter implementation ?

darry wrote:

By "dry", are you referring to the SB Pro low pass filter implementation ?

Yes sorry that's what I meant - I know that most people like the SB Pro sound of the OPLSAx cards; I'm not trying to be a jerk about it. I just wondered if these MediaTrix doo-dads sounded the same - not that I'll be adding one to my collection any time soon based on their price / availability 😊

luisile wrote:

So its not a pc hardware but i finally added to my playstation 1 and 2 collection a my first and only xbox classic. Its a clear limited edition so its the best. Cuttently its dissassembled for cleaning. I have added a new termal paste arctic mx2 for cpu and gpu. I plan to softmod it but i dont own any games for it so it will be hard.i post only seller picture rigt now.

keropi wrote:

IMHO do not waste your time with softmods... if you have basic solder skills just get a 3$ alladin chip, install it and you don't have to mess with locked drives and other weird stuff 😁

While I fully agree that installing a modchip definitely is the safest, and probably also the easiest way to mod an Xbox, an alternative to that is to flash a modded BIOS directly to the Xbox. Google "Xbox TSOP flash". Basically you'll have to bridge two points on the mobo to enable writing, and enable launching of unsigned code some way, to be able to run the flasher. Since you don't have any vulnerable game discs, I would have softmodded the original HDD by hotswapping first, flashed the modded BIOS after editing its boot paths, installed a new larger drive, formatted it with Slayer's EvoX auto installer CD, FTP'd XBMC or whatever dashboard you want to use to the boot path, and lastly cleaned out the unnecessary stuff the auto installer installs. Since Live is closed down for the original Xbox nowadays, there's no need to keep the original C-partition file structure intact. Just keep whatever dashboards you want to use there, point the BIOS boot path to it, and delete the rest. Personally I use XBMC4XBOX, with Evox as a fallback. Having a fallback makes updating XBMC easier and safer, and the reason I choose Evox for that is its built in BIOS flasher.

It should also be mentioned that you don't have to chase down a working IDE drive, a SATA one + adapter works perfectly. Using this $3 adapter and a 500GB Seagate drive salvaged from an old HP desktop in one of my Xboxes.

I believe all crystal clear Xboxes are 1.4's, and if I remember it correctly, those can be VGA modded. You might want look into doing it, it really gives fantastic image quality, and you can use a regular monitor, not having to deal with the input lag most TV sets introduces. Here's my VGA modded box sitting in the dashboard:

The aspect ratio is kinda squashed, it's 720p on a 5:4 monitor, but it gives an idea of what to expect quality wise 😀

sure TSOP is better but the crystal XBOX consoles are 1.6 so they can't be TSOP'ed

keropi wrote:

sure TSOP is better but the crystal XBOX consoles are 1.6 so they can't be TSOP'ed

Was sure crystals were guaranteed 1.4's, but seems you're at least partly right, according to this there are rumors of 1.6 ones. It's in the bottom of the page. Better do a thorough check up before trying to mod anything 😀

weird! I had 2 of them bought in different time periods and both were 1.6 so I thought all of them were like that. Maybe it's a regional thing then 😀

keropi wrote:

weird! I had 2 of them bought in different time periods and both were 1.6 so I thought all of them were like that. Maybe it's a regional thing then 😀

Well, that confirms the rumor at least 😁 Yeah, would guess the same. Since the crystal boxes were a special edition intended to spark new interest in the console when sales slowed down, it makes sense that they might have done runs in different times at different markets.

Never ever ran into a 1.6 one here, and then I've seen a few of those crystal boxes through the years, used to be the console mod go-to-guy among my acquaintances back in the day 😀

My NTSC Crystal Xbox is a 1.6.

I never knew Xboxes could be VGA modded. Very cool.

For last two weeks I received quite a lot cool, new stuff for my collection...

Boxed Roland LAPC-I + MCB-1 Breakout Box 😎

Gravis Ultrasound Classic 3.47 (last revision) + Gravis Record & Play Daughterboard 😎

VFX-1 Forte Headgear Helmet (boxed)... unfortunately box is in poor condition.

AdLib 8bit 1990

Logitech Soundman 16 and Logitech Soundman Wave

And a 2nd part:

16MB wavetable daugterboard Terratec Wave X Table

Turtle Beach Maui (with wavetable connector)

Moast of theese things were bought form or with help of Vogons members whom I really, really thank!

Batyra wrote:

VFX-1 Forte Headgear Helmet (boxed)... unfortunately box is in poor condition.

Ok. That's cool. Those were hard to find back in the day and way ahead of the whole VR craze going on today. Yours looks to be in mint condition. One of the great action DOS games that directly supports the VFX-1 set is Terra Nova - Strike Force Centauri. It's one of my favorite mid 90s DOS games and I can't imagine playing it through one of these.

Bought an EVGA 8800GT. The famous single-slot G80 derived G92 based single-slot furnace. I'm going to see if I can't mount a double height cooler from a dead GTS onto it in hopes of better cooling it as I'm willing to bet these single slot coolers on a G80 derivative was never a good idea in the first place.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Bought an EVGA 8800GT. The famous single-slot G80 derived G92 based single-slot furnace. I'm going to see if I can't mount a double height cooler from a dead GTS onto it in hopes of better cooling it as I'm willing to bet these single slot coolers on a G80 derivative was never a good idea in the first place.

That's not fair, now you're on stuff I remember buying the first time around. I bought an 8800GT the moment it came out and had it in my Core2Duo Shuttle. That thing was a pocket rocket =D