Careful with that 5900 Ultra, I had one of those and the screw on the fan failed inside the pc so it stopped making good contact, the card died shortly after, I personally hate those coolers because of that.

those coolers scream mid-2000s so much

cyclone3d wrote:

Snagged a Prometheus (ARIA16) ISA sound card for cheap. […]
Show full quote

Snagged a Prometheus (ARIA16) ISA sound card for cheap.

Prior to buying it, I already tracked down a bunch of software, guides, etc. for it. Only thing I am missing is the SSDK and LSDK and the associated documentation. Not sure if I am going to be able to find it as the SSDK was only allowed to be hosted on one specific site which of course is long gone and the internet archive doesn't have it... 😒

Apparently you can actually use the onboard wavetable with any game that supports General Midi according to old information I have found where people got it working.

front.jpg

Are you planning on doing some midi recordings?

Eleanor1967 wrote:

cyclone3d wrote:

Snagged a Prometheus (ARIA16) ISA sound card for cheap. […]
Show full quote

Snagged a Prometheus (ARIA16) ISA sound card for cheap.

Prior to buying it, I already tracked down a bunch of software, guides, etc. for it. Only thing I am missing is the SSDK and LSDK and the associated documentation. Not sure if I am going to be able to find it as the SSDK was only allowed to be hosted on one specific site which of course is long gone and the internet archive doesn't have it... 😒

Apparently you can actually use the onboard wavetable with any game that supports General Midi according to old information I have found where people got it working.

front.jpg

Are you planning on doing some midi recordings?

Absolutely. I think I am going to do my first "review" with this card.

With the 20% off code on eBay today, I decided to finally look at a real desoldering tool/station.

Ended up finding an old UNGAR 4626 station with a desoldering gun as well as another gun with extra tube and new tip to go with it for a really good price compared to what they normally go for. This can be considered retro hardware, right?

Yay, I can actually not have to fight with solder wick and/or a really crappy desoldering iron or plunger anymore.

II'll probably end up getting a soldering iron and rewire it to work with this station at some point.

I'd say that counts as retro hardware. Judging by the controls, I'd say that came out in either the 70's, 80's, or 90's give or take.

bjwil1991 wrote:

I'd say that counts as retro hardware. Judging by the controls, I'd say that came out in either the 70's, 80's, or 90's give or take.

Ungar was purchased by Weller in 1996 and they still sold this unit after the aquisition. Not sure what the date was that they stopped selling this particular model, but from what I could find, they phased out all Ungar products by the year 2003.

cyclone3d wrote:

Snagged a Prometheus (ARIA16) ISA sound card for cheap. […]
Show full quote

Snagged a Prometheus (ARIA16) ISA sound card for cheap.

Prior to buying it, I already tracked down a bunch of software, guides, etc. for it. Only thing I am missing is the SSDK and LSDK and the associated documentation. Not sure if I am going to be able to find it as the SSDK was only allowed to be hosted on one specific site which of course is long gone and the internet archive doesn't have it... 😒

Apparently you can actually use the onboard wavetable with any game that supports General Midi according to old information I have found where people got it working.

front.jpg

I had my eye on this card too but I couldn't find much information about it and decided to let it go. I'd definitely like to see a mini-review of it when you get it. Would be curious about real game compatibility and sound quality (digital, FM and GM). 😀

More stuff for my 486 build. GUS MAX 2.1, AMD K5-133. I ordered the GUS from Poland from a brand new seller (for cheap!) but it took 4 months to get here, got lost in Polish postage, then got lost again on my side. But now I have it! Seller did a great job packing it in layers so the board wouldn't get damaged, but thankfully the package was fine. I am really enjoying getting *specific* stuff for my builds, although the hunt takes forever and sometimes it's too expensive. I'm still trying to find a Creative Labs 3D Blaster VLB, and I need to recap my 3DO Blaster.

How about another ARIA 16 based sound card? This one brand new in the shrink-wrapped box. To open or not to open.. that is the question.

This one is the Computer Peripherals Inc. Viva Multi-Media Maestro 16 VR.

Google Books archive of the InfoWorld review:
https://books.google.com/books?id=6joEAAAAMBA … %20card&f=false

From the pictures, it looks like it includes all the upgrade chips.. SRAM and extra wavetable chip? But who knows if the box pics are actually accurate.

What do you mean by the extra wavetable chip? Iirc the ARIA chipset is comprised by 3 chips. Or do you refer to the second ROM chip?

Anyway, great find! Aria cards are quite rare, let alone boxed and sealed. Congratulations!

Second ROM chip. Looks like maybe the cards with 1 chip are 512KB and the ones with 2 ROM chips are 1MB? The setup is kinda unclear at this point.

That second card had been sitting on eBay for over 3 months. I actually looked at it before but didn't realize what it was until now and I guess neither did anybody else.

Edit.. thx by the way.

I think the seller lowered the price.. I just looked at the revisions, and they changed the price and shipping on the 29th of last month. Maybe that is part of the reason I overlooked it before

Edit again... Looks like the Prometheus card is a later revision card and the Computer Peripherals Inc. card is the earlier revision. (Earlier ROMs and only 10-bit ADC instead of 16-bit ADC)... as well as some other differences.

When I do the review, I'll post the differences, etc.. Think I might actually open up the new card and do a comparison.. or is that a bad idea.. uggghhhh.. I hate dealing with sealed items, especially when there seems to be a good reason to open them up.

Edit yet again... I think I tracked down the person, Dr. Daniel Tauritz, that made the ARIA FAQ and had the SSDK, etc. for download. I sent him an email asking about it. Hoping to get a response.

furan wrote:

More stuff for my 486 build. GUS MAX 2.1, AMD K5-133. https://i.imgur.com/njzACwM.png […]
Show full quote

More stuff for my 486 build. GUS MAX 2.1, AMD K5-133.

That is not a K5, K5 were made for socket 5/7

Finally found the right card for the box I had for years. It had an Orion16 in it... Only thing missing now is the complete set of floppy's. Only have 1.

@dionb: there seems to be a lot more retro stuff up to the north jeez! Or I can't find it here :p

Murugan wrote:

Finally found the right card for the box I had for years. It had an Orion16 in it... Only thing missing now is the complete set […]
Show full quote

Finally found the right card for the box I had for years. It had an Orion16 in it... Only thing missing now is the complete set of floppy's. Only have 1.

@dionb: there seems to be a lot more retro stuff up to the north jeez! Or I can't find it here :p

I bought the exact same model (I38-MMSN810) back in 1994.
Mine is just called the Sound Galaxy Basic 16.
If you're looking for driver disks for this model, they are available on Vogonsdrivers or still on Aztech's ftp site.

I found the drivers but since I always go for CIB stuff....I'll get over it 😀

furan wrote:

I ordered the GUS from Poland from a brand new seller (for cheap!) but it took 4 months to get here, got lost in Polish postage, then got lost again on my side. But now I have it!

How did you deal with this, waited it out? I had a VLB VGA shipped to me from Spain 1.5 months ago and tracking information suggests it got lost right after it left Spain for international flight, no more tracking information of any kind since. I'm tracking with local post, he's trying Spanish post, nobody can find it. Do these things eventually just pop up?

furan wrote:

https://i.imgur.com/njzACwM.png […]
Show full quote

As others noted earlier this is a 5x86 133 processor, not a K5-133 - this one goes onto a 486 motherboard.

Murugan wrote:

@dionb: there seems to be a lot more retro stuff up to the north jeez! Or I can't find it here :p

Can't comment on the relative frequency (it's been 21 years since I lived in BE), but up here it's also hit-and-miss too. You need to watch Marktplaats etc like a hawk and take risks based on bad pics and little to no info. Sometimes you lose, but sometimes (like this week) you win 😉

Here on the biggest second hand site, they often think they need ask the price of gold for old stuff. I hardly see any lots of that size here too.
I sometimes visit MP but often the distance turns me off. And I am not a daily browser when it comes to looking for stuff on MP :p

dionb wrote:

Murugan wrote:

@dionb: there seems to be a lot more retro stuff up to the north jeez! Or I can't find it here :p

Can't comment on the relative frequency (it's been 21 years since I lived in BE), but up here it's also hit-and-miss too. You need to watch Marktplaats etc like a hawk and take risks based on bad pics and little to no info. Sometimes you lose, but sometimes (like this week) you win 😉

Yes, and more people being interested in this old junk doesn't help either 😉 Although it's also a blessing, since I need to debulk my collection soon.