Nprod wrote:

Vegge wrote:

And open sesame 😁

I genuinely laughed out loud, what a marvellous troll... Perhaps Beckman just made cases for people looking to replace the spongy keyboard on their original units?

Er yes, there was a whole industry around that because the original ones were *so* bad. This one is interesting because you apparently don't even unscrew the top part of the case, but there were lots out there, including the highly regarded Saga Emperor series where you kept the bottom part of the case and just screwed that - with motherboard and all - into the new case.

I had an LO-Profile case that was more advanced in that you transplanted the motherboard without keeping any of the original case. Sounds good, but gave no end of problems with peripherals like the Interface 1 that were supposed to fit snugly under the (original) case.

But it's a long time since I had any Speccy stuff. I sort of keep an eye open for a 128k 'toast rack', but don't want it enough to pay the very high going rates for it - not many were made and most agree it's the best looking and most functional of the Spectrums, so it's highly sought-after.

What I did receive today:

The original clickety-clack Orchid Voodoo 1. A very late example (1998...) of the very first Voodoo 1 retail design.

creepingnet wrote:

Going off the number of slots I'd say Zenith Data Systems Z-386. I found the carcass of one in a junk pile 15 years ago and I quite firmly recall it had 10 slots and an AT Jack in the back, one of the reason I did not pick it up (already had too many projects at that time with missing proprietary parts). Here's a picture, can't find one of the backplane anywhere though.

vdpiyt.jpg

Thanks! I have found a picture of the inside:
https://hiveminer.com/Tags/crrc,z386

This board seems to be different, but the case layout is prepared for 10 ISA slots. So maybe its indeed a Zenith. I noticed there is another label on the ROM "VT386VT".

Predator99 wrote:

Not enough ISA-Slots...this one has..1..2..3....10!!! Not enough RAM for your 386...this one has...1...2..3...16 SIMM Sockets! h […]
Show full quote

Not enough ISA-Slots...this one has..1..2..3....10!!!
Not enough RAM for your 386...this one has...1...2..3...16 SIMM Sockets!

Absolutely fabulous!
And its not even the full version 😮! Look at all the unpopulated stuff in the corner, seems its missing optional I/O at J11/12/13 and 32 capacitor/inductor pairs, another battery/clock/decoder logic and some controller chip. Fascinating, would love to know what was its intended application.
Is it running that 386 at 33 or 25MHz (clock chip is 50)?

that 386 board is an absolute unit.

kinda late though, date codes are early 1991. So the last of the 386 era.

Crucial 9800 Pro & HIS 9800 SE AIW (not sure the added ram sinks were totally necessary in either case, so may remove)

News in collection, not tested, got them for a notebook display. I got some socket 754 Semprons too.

update: Geforce is OK, the Sapphire shows only artifacts in 3 motherboards tested, DVI and VGA too 😒
From Sempron CPUs only one is working

rasz_pl wrote:

Absolutely fabulous! And its not even the full version :o! Look at all the unpopulated stuff in the corner, seems its missing op […]
Show full quote

Predator99 wrote:

Not enough ISA-Slots...this one has..1..2..3....10!!! Not enough RAM for your 386...this one has...1...2..3...16 SIMM Sockets! h […]
Show full quote

Not enough ISA-Slots...this one has..1..2..3....10!!!
Not enough RAM for your 386...this one has...1...2..3...16 SIMM Sockets!

Absolutely fabulous!
And its not even the full version 😮! Look at all the unpopulated stuff in the corner, seems its missing optional I/O at J11/12/13 and 32 capacitor/inductor pairs, another battery/clock/decoder logic and some controller chip. Fascinating, would love to know what was its intended application.
Is it running that 386 at 33 or 25MHz (clock chip is 50)?

I think its hardwired to 25 MHz (crystal 50 MHz). I got it without CPU, so the 33 MHz one was added by me. Therefore I dont think its a very late board. But it seems to be really fast for a 25 MHz.

Do you know what kind of FPU I can add? Think a 387 doesnt fit?

Just got offered $5 off a XT-IDE from a local outfit so ordered one. Now my XT Turbo with EGA will be rocking. Just need to find a suitable NIC.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

Crucial 9800 Pro & HIS 9800 SE AIW (not sure the added ram sinks were totally necessary in either case, so may remove)

Leave the memory heatsinks on... i've read quite a few horror stories from 9800pro cards failing because the memory running hot, or maybe it was from OCing them w/o proper cooling, cant hurt to leave them on for longevity purposes if you are going to be using it on a daily basis.

As an Amigan, I had never ever messed with Ataris, always thought of them as inferior (well, except for MIDI stuff). Recently I got my first Atari 520ST from eBay. The bundle looked right - it included a mouse, a red joystick, ten floppies (games), a power cable and a big fat SCART cable. Only it appeared to be in French; I saw an AZERTY keyboard so it most likely had a French TOS. As soon as I won the auction, I ordered a VGA cable for the monochrome hi-res, and the next day bid on a big red Steinberg SMP II SMPTE-MIDI interface for it 😈 (The last was an impulse bid as a couple of months ago I passed on a MIDEX and regretted it badly, even without owning an ST back then - that's how much of a hoarder I am...)

As mentioned above, I was clueless about everything ST. Days were passing by and with more rational thinking before even receiving it, I researched a bit to see the various possibilities, only to get more and more depressed: the ST can't take more RAM easily, Cubase doesn't run with the stock 512kb, lack of blitter etc etc. On second thought, maybe I should have waited to get something better, and certainly not in French...
...but looking closely to the auction images, what I won appeared more like an STe...!

Long story short, it indeed turned out to be a 520STe with blitter, which had at some point been upgraded to 1mb! (It's also indeed in French, but that's minor 🤣). Today I opened it up to upgrade the RAM with standard 4x1MB 30pin 70ns SIMMs, wrote Cubase 2.01 to a floppy so as to verify that the SMP II works and played some Lemmings on the TV with the SCART cable! It's like entering a new world...

Pics are from the auctions... Hopefully will take some myself as soon as I find more time. It's been sitting in my room for, like, two weeks and only today I managed to fool around with it 😢 Next plans are to fit in a CF-IDE adapter (I also bought an IDE interface for later), might consider a picopsu or something like that too, but the ultimate target is to make an ultra-barebone setup with a keyboard and two modules at most, and try to come up with a small track on it. Time will tell...

Bige4u wrote:

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

Crucial 9800 Pro & HIS 9800 SE AIW (not sure the added ram sinks were totally necessary in either case, so may remove)

Leave the memory heatsinks on... i've read quite a few horror stories from 9800pro cards failing because the memory running hot, or maybe it was from OCing them w/o proper cooling, cant hurt to leave them on for longevity purposes if you are going to be using it on a daily basis.

Can confirm, 9800s run hotter than hell itself.

In other news, the search for a reasonably priced GeForce DDR and Radeon DDR 64MB continues. I already have 256 SDR, and a S3 Savage2000. I want to complete the set of inital DX7 TnL hardware.

@psychz if you want to upgrade TOS or just have it in another tongue, you can simply flash new TOS chips ^^

However how are you going to put an IDE drive in it ? There are Atari to IDE adapters now ? (I haven't checked the "st news" for a while)

just received a used boxed but complete MediaVision ThunderBoard 😀

keropi wrote:

just received a used boxed but complete MediaVision ThunderBoard :) […]
Show full quote

just received a used boxed but complete MediaVision ThunderBoard 😀

That was my first ever sound card that I fitted to my old 286/16. Still have it too. The only thing I kept of that system.

Deksor wrote:

@psychz if you want to upgrade TOS or just have it in another tongue, you can simply flash new TOS chips ^^

However how are you going to put an IDE drive in it ? There are Atari to IDE adapters now ? (I haven't checked the "st news" for a while)

Yeah I'll have to check if they're socketed and go the UK TOS 2.06 route someday I guess... If they're not, I'd rather not touch them for now 😊
The ST IDE adapter is like a CPU bypass thingie, it's a pcb with an IDE header and a socket in which you place the 68k, and sits in the motherboard's CPU socket... Didn't have the time to check it out yet though, it's still shrinkwrapped 🤣

Caluser2000 wrote:

That was my first ever sound card that I fitted to my old 286/16. Still have it too. The only thing I kept of that system.

according to the registration card that is filled but never sent out, the previous owner installed it in a XT system for games 🤣
it's a good card , does what it says 😀

Got my IDE update kit ready to go into my Redstone Computers XT Turbo. Comprises of a XT-IDE 8-bit card, BigFoot 2.1gig 5.25" IDE hdd with cable.

The system it's going in.

keropi wrote:

just received a used boxed but complete MediaVision ThunderBoard 😀

That one is rare - Congrats!

rikukos wrote:

keropi wrote:

just received a used boxed but complete MediaVision ThunderBoard 😀

That one is rare - Congrats!

really? I would think uncommon but rare? 😕

Predator99 wrote:

I think its hardwired to 25 MHz (crystal 50 MHz). I got it without CPU, so the 33 MHz one was added by me. Therefore I dont think its a very late board. But it seems to be really fast for a 25 MHz.

There's some cache on that board - that's why it's so fast.
386DX-25 systems usually lack cache, which makes them much slower than 33 or 40 MHz ones.