Cyrix200+ wrote:

The mystery has been solved! Unfortunately, no Pentium Pro machine hidden in the 19"case. But I was happy nontheless! […]
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The mystery has been solved! Unfortunately, no Pentium Pro machine hidden in the 19"case. But I was happy nontheless!

There she is, on the test bench:

Dang! Not a PPro 🙁 But is is Socket 7, my favourite platform!

Let's see what else is in there!

SoundBlaster 16 CT4180. Meh, but it could be worse!

Trident VGA. Yuck!

Now this is nice! A Quantum Bigfoot!

Let's check out the CPU. Probably a boring Pentium 1 right? Or not?

My precious!

Let's push my luck and just switch it on, I mean what could go wrong right? (I know this is a bit of a gamble)

Tadaaaaa!

The motherboard is an Intel TX one, can't find any markings now. EDIT: Some Googling tells me it's a Shuttle HOT-569

I don't have time to disassemble it yet, but the original reason I started this retro hobby is to rebuild my first own real computer, A Cyrix 6x86L PR200+ on an Abit T/P?X5 with a Quantum Bigfoot. So this systems is quite close!

And that for just 20 euro.

I have no idea what to do with the case though, I have to many already...

🤣. The CPU on that PC makes honour to your name xD

Brickpad wrote:

Those Quantum Bigfoots are notoriously SLOW ala 3600RPM. I have two of the 2.5GB variants, but both have bad sectors. Did I mention they are slow? I've watched ice melt faster in a freezer. 🤣

Still quicker than the CF card that's in my 486 laptop... I think its transfer speeds are about on par with those in the original IBM PC hard cards...

i had a bigfoot 6,4gb on a k6 2 350, my first quake 3 experience iirc 😀))
loved the machine

SIX! SIX SIX! THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST! HELL, AND FIRE, WAS SPAWNED TO BE RELEASED! 🤣

clueless1 wrote:

The Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) were the late 90s version of something like a WD Blue--cheap, slow but lots of storage space. I've got two of them myself (somewhere between 8-20GB), both are in perfect health. 😀 I've fired them up once or twice and run SpinRite on them occasionally to keep their health up, but otherwise they are sitting on a shelf.

WD Blues aren't that slow, sure you're not thinking of the WD Greens?

Lukeno94 wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

The Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) were the late 90s version of something like a WD Blue--cheap, slow but lots of storage space. I've got two of them myself (somewhere between 8-20GB), both are in perfect health. 😀 I've fired them up once or twice and run SpinRite on them occasionally to keep their health up, but otherwise they are sitting on a shelf.

WD Blues aren't that slow, sure you're not thinking of the WD Greens?

Blues are less expensive than Greens. But you could throw the Green in the mix too.

MrEWhite wrote:

http://i.imgur.com/ya1cLN5.png SIX! SIX SIX! THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST! HELL, AND FIRE, WAS SPAWNED TO BE RELEASED! :lol: […]
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SIX! SIX SIX! THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST! HELL, AND FIRE, WAS SPAWNED TO BE RELEASED! 🤣

In honor of this milestone I will power on my build with a Radeon X850 in it. The Radeon has some sort of beast painted on the heatsink. I will make it fiery hot. 😀

fantasma wrote:

CkRtech wrote:

Congrats!

It looks like that card has been at the bottom of a pile for awhile. While it is perfectly normal to have those components leaning over or flattened, it seems like the ones on your card are doing so due to other items stacked on top of them. That cap you mentioned basically had its back broken by being smashed into another component. Also note that your IRQ selection pins are bent. One area that concerns me just a little bit is IC7 - it looks like you might have a bit of pin corrosion - probably just enough that it needs to be cleaned up slightly (in other words - no leg damage).

But really that board first needs to be cleaned! Hopefully you have someone local that can help you out with component testing/replacement. I am jealous! 😀

Thanks for the insight! I don't even want to think what this poor card went through. It certainly was at the bottom of the box when I received it.

I will clean it this weekend with compressed air and q-tips, and inspect if there's some further damage. Then I'll look into replacing that cap, I hope it's still salvageable!

Better replace all those caps, perhaps the other ones are in bad condition as well.. (they dont have to be broken to became bad) On this old hardware you want to be sure that every cap is in perfect condition.

MrEWhite wrote:

http://i.imgur.com/ya1cLN5.png SIX! SIX SIX! THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST! HELL, AND FIRE, WAS SPAWNED TO BE RELEASED! :lol: […]
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SIX! SIX SIX! THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST! HELL, AND FIRE, WAS SPAWNED TO BE RELEASED! 🤣

You rang?

clueless1 wrote:

Lukeno94 wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

The Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) were the late 90s version of something like a WD Blue--cheap, slow but lots of storage space. I've got two of them myself (somewhere between 8-20GB), both are in perfect health. 😀 I've fired them up once or twice and run SpinRite on them occasionally to keep their health up, but otherwise they are sitting on a shelf.

WD Blues aren't that slow, sure you're not thinking of the WD Greens?

Blues are less expensive than Greens. But you could throw the Green in the mix too.

Up until recently Blues were mainstream desktop drives running at 7200rpm. The Greens were the 5400rpm drives with automatic head parking that were really just good for bulk storage. People liked the Blues so WD stopped developing them after 1TB (the WD10EZEX) while the Greens kept getting bigger. When too many people persisted in not liking the Greens, WD solved that problem by renaming the Greens as Blues. Once the Blue branding is sufficiently tarnished maybe they'll rename them again.
In other words, WD has exited the market for mainstream 7200rpm drives but because people liked them, they co-opted the label for what they still sell.

shamino wrote:

Up until recently Blues were mainstream desktop drives running at 7200rpm. The Greens were the 5400rpm drives with automatic head parking that were really just good for bulk storage. People liked the Blues so WD stopped developing them after 1TB (the WD10EZEX) while the Greens kept getting bigger. When too many people persisted in not liking the Greens, WD solved that problem by renaming the Greens as Blues. Once the Blue branding is sufficiently tarnished maybe they'll rename them again.
In other words, WD has exited the market for mainstream 7200rpm drives but because people liked them, they co-opted the label for what they still sell.

A great way to ruin a good product! 😁

shamino wrote:

Up until recently Blues were mainstream desktop drives running at 7200rpm. The Greens were the 5400rpm drives with automatic head parking that were really just good for bulk storage. People liked the Blues so WD stopped developing them after 1TB (the WD10EZEX) while the Greens kept getting bigger. When too many people persisted in not liking the Greens, WD solved that problem by renaming the Greens as Blues. Once the Blue branding is sufficiently tarnished maybe they'll rename them again.
In other words, WD has exited the market for mainstream 7200rpm drives but because people liked them, they co-opted the label for what they still sell.

Sounds just like the kind of decision that a corporate shmuck would take! He will probably even get a bonus to his paycheck for "streamlining" the WD drive line-up 😁

Well seems today was a good day,in flea market i got:

Cirrus logic cl-542x on GD 5429 chip

TEKRAM DC-680C Cache Controller with ram

ESS MF-1868

with... wavetable daughterboard MediaForte SoundForte SF32-WTS-01

finally got one of those

Nice catch! I love the VLB stuff!

rein_ein wrote:

Well seems today was a good day,in flea market i got: […]
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Well seems today was a good day,in flea market i got:

Cirrus logic cl-542x on GD 5429 chip

TEKRAM DC-680C Cache Controller with ram

ESS MF-1868

with... wavetable daughterboard MediaForte SoundForte SF32-WTS-01

finally got one of those

Two more pacakages arrived today, again from local sellers:

Socket 7 board, Intel FX chipset, it's a 'BCM SQ595'. Good tech support, the site is still up! http://www.bcmcom.com/tech/sq595/tech595.htm . The CPU is a 75MHz Pentium

486 VLB board, Gemlight? GMB-486UNP V2.2, with Intel 486 DX2 66MHz

486 PCI board, UMC chipset, removed barrel battery but quite some acid damage near the keyboard connector unfortunately. No markings on the board, but good silkscreened settings on it fortunately.

386 motherboard, AMD 386 DX-40, again removed barrel but again acid damage 🙁 I also think some cache chips are missing? No markings to tell brand or type...

Various memory and 2 CPU's, Intel 486 SX 33 and Pentium 100

Great to see so much 486 gear still being found.

My second AGP-era PCI card in the last week: found this for £1 at a boot sale:

PowerVR Kyro based card. Hard to find apparently. Thanks to amoretro.de for the info.

shamino wrote:

Up until recently Blues were mainstream desktop drives running at 7200rpm. The Greens were the 5400rpm drives with automatic head parking that were really just good for bulk storage. People liked the Blues so WD stopped developing them after 1TB (the WD10EZEX) while the Greens kept getting bigger. When too many people persisted in not liking the Greens, WD solved that problem by renaming the Greens as Blues. Once the Blue branding is sufficiently tarnished maybe they'll rename them again.
In other words, WD has exited the market for mainstream 7200rpm drives but because people liked them, they co-opted the label for what they still sell.

That explains why I was a bit confused - until a couple of months ago I still had a Caviar Blue 640GB drive in my desktop, which was definitely 7200RPM and definitely wasn't hopeless. I hadn't heard that they'd done that (my last two drives have been Seagate).

I must admit I will jump on any 486 stuff I can find locally, especially VLB.

That Hercules card is cool, looks so modern yet PCI 😀

brassicGamer wrote:

Great to see so much 486 gear still being found.

My second AGP-era PCI card in the last week: found this for £1 at a boot sale:

PowerVR Kyro based card. Hard to find apparently. Thanks to amoretro.de for the info.

About a week ago I checked in a Goodwill and came out with more junk than I've ever bought there at one time.

1) As I went in, I saw a couple rummaging around looking for something in the electronics area. One of them roughly grabbed a Matrox Mystique 220 retail box and moved it aside. I was surprised to see such a thing, made a mental note of it and went to browse nearby until they were out of the way. Then the guy grabbed it again and tossed it on the floor. I didn't want to see any more abuse so I made a beeline to get past them and grab it before he started stomping on it like a monkey or something.
I was disappointed to find that the card was not inside the box, but it did contain a manual in basically perfect condition and a sealed set of discs. I questioned my sanity as I decided I wanted to buy it anyway even without the card. I guess I'm starting to find some of the old video card boxes interesting, and I rationalize that I can store it flat. There might also be something worthwhile about those discs. When I get around to it I'll open them and figure out if there's anything worth uploading to vogonsdrivers.
I really wish the card had been in there (a Matrox Mystique 220 PCI 4MB SGRAM, apparently). I would have liked to put it in my DOS machine.

2) While digging around hoping to find the missing Matrox card, I instead found a Turtle Beach Aureal Vortex2 PCI sound card. I already had a Vortex1 version of the same card, but the Vortex2 is a nicer find. It's funny, I saw that same sound card like 6 months ago and left it there. I was sure it was gone. Apparently not, it just got buried in all the mess.

3) They had a Dell QuietKey keyboard that was in great condition and a perfect match for a Slot-1 Dell Dimension XPS mid-tower that I already have. I need another keyboard like I need a hole in my head, but I couldn't leave it there. I decided I "needed" that keyboard to go with the Dimension. I generally don't care about rubber dome keyboards but this one feels better made than others that I have.

It's a bad picture but looks very good in person. Either Goodwill actually cleaned the thing or it wasn't used heavily.

4) For various reasons I recently decided I want a scanner. So I looked and found a Visioneer 7600 USB in it's original packaging. The box made clear when it was made, loudly telling the prospective buyer that it will not work with Windows 95 or LPT ports. Unfortunately I failed to notice that it didn't have the correct power supply in the box, so it remains untested. I am further disappointed to discover that it doesn't have a driver for WinXP, so that's not going to be convenient at all.

5) They had a complete boxed copy of Might & Magic II for the Sega Genesis. I had a loose copy but with Sega games I much prefer them complete in the plastic case, so I bought it.

6) Power supply for a Sony PS2 slim. I don't have a Slim but I have thought before about modifying one to power a Sega Genesis+CD combo. It's voltage and current ratings seem perfect for doing that job while generating less heat inside the consoles than the original power supplies do.

7) About 42 blank DVD+R discs on a spindle. After thinking back on it I realize paying $5 for those was a mistake. They're just cheap old Memorex discs, I should have left them.

I have that exact keyboard for my DOS PCs. I like the position of the backslash and the narrower Enter key. Makes command prompt typing easier for my hands.