drosse1meyer wrote on 2021-09-14, 00:10:

Joakim wrote on 2021-09-13, 17:34:

I got myself an IBM usb floppy drive so that I can have floppy disks fail on me also in windows 10.

I have a few of these, never cracked them open but they've been very reliable for 15 years now...

Just remember to NEVER stack anything on top of your usb floppy drive. It sends to push the heads into the disks and scratch your disks up. Took me too long to learn that valuable lesson.

I've been on an absolute tear recently these last two weeks as well. Some are parts to get my My ultimate dual 440LX / Voodoo2 SLI build working, some to repair of items damaged in transit (LTE 5200) and some are lifelong dream items from my youth (Cyrix 5x86, a SCSI build, Obsidian, Roland MA-12C, etc):

- Dell 2001fp (my $0.80 Eizo L565 didn't survive transit from Japan unfortunately)
- Dell AS501 sound bar speakers
- AT to PS/2 keyboard adapter
- Seasonic SS-300FS
- Quantum3D Obsidian 2 X24 SLI2
- Cyrix 5x86 100GP
- Assorted Atari 2600 / Intellivision game box protectors for storage
- IBM 2.1GB FRU P/N 82H8489 for Thinkpad 755cd/cx
- Logitech M-CW47 MouseMan Wheel
- Western Digital 9.18GB Ultra2 LVD SCSI
- Compaq 224149-001 10.4' CTFT Enhanced Display Assy (!) SVGA with bezel for Compaq LTE 5200
- Original IB Thinkpad 755 AC adapter
- Verbatim Datalife Colors 3.5" 10-pack MF-2HD 1.44MB
- TEAC CD-ROM drive for IBM Thinkpad 755cd ASM P/N 73H9983
- SCSI 50-pin Female to Female 30cm cable
- Geforce 8800 GTX 768MB
- Adaptec 68-pin SCSI cable with terminator
- Matrox G200 AGP DVI 8MB
- Roland MA-12C
- Intergraph ConcertMaster Keyboard
- Plextor PX-20TSi SCSI CD-ROM
- 2x Diamond Monster 3D 3dfx Voodoo 2 12MB cards with cables

lots of you getting hauls lately ! 😀

drosse1meyer wrote on 2021-09-14, 00:10:

Joakim wrote on 2021-09-13, 17:34:

I got myself an IBM usb floppy drive so that I can have floppy disks fail on me also in windows 10. […]
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I got myself an IBM usb floppy drive so that I can have floppy disks fail on me also in windows 10.

If windows sais "invalid media or track 0 bad -disk unreadable"... Should I just throw it out or is there a way to try to repair it? :-s

IMG_20210913_192950.jpg

Edit: added a pic.

I have a few of these, never cracked them open but they've been very reliable for 15 years now...

Same - my IBM USB Floppy drive works very well! Much better than an almost identical no name one.

canthearu wrote on 2021-09-14, 03:20:

drosse1meyer wrote on 2021-09-14, 00:10:

Joakim wrote on 2021-09-13, 17:34:

I got myself an IBM usb floppy drive so that I can have floppy disks fail on me also in windows 10.

I have a few of these, never cracked them open but they've been very reliable for 15 years now...

Just remember to NEVER stack anything on top of your usb floppy drive. It sends to push the heads into the disks and scratch your disks up. Took me too long to learn that valuable lesson.

Good point, the plastic is bendable. Guess there isn't a metallic cover underneath. I also have a dell usb floppy drive which is a bit more sturdy in that regard, though it looks like trash compared to the IBM one

gerry wrote on 2021-09-14, 08:19:

lots of you getting hauls lately ! 😀

Covid and never-ending lockdowns dragging on turn me into a itchy-triggerfinger-onlineshopper.

It will be the death of me (or my marriage)

😜

Nabbed some good stuff at the flea market this weekend. All came in some really beat up and rusted beige boxes, but the contents were almost intact!

First is a 486 machine - VLB board with an early AMD dx2-66, S3 86C805-P VLB video card, 20MB of memory (4x1MB + 4x4MB), winbond ISA controller card, 400MB Hard drive, Yamaha YMF719 sound card (Looks like an Audician 32 with a second crystal). The Y98 date codes on some of the RAM and the sound card indicate that it was upgraded later on, possibly to run Windows. Had some cosmetic battery damage, which cleaned up nicely. After flashing a Win95 load screen it booted into Norton Commander. Luckily our very first family PC had the same setup (booted into NC first, to Win3.11 after a command) so I knew how to get around it - a quick "Win+Enter" got me into a Win95 desktop where I was greeted by custom boot-up sounds and some "interesting" entertainment options.

Next up was a Socket 423 board from ECS with a P4 1.5GHZ, Nvidia Geforce MX400 32MB and a 40GB HDD. Has universal AGP, DDR and SDR memory support. Unfortunately, the computer was banged up pretty hard and one of the cooler retention clips snapped off. This will be quite difficult replace as I don't see these too often. I threw in a stick of ram and booted it up in hopes of finding some interesting stuff. Among a bunch of game installs, like Hitman Contracts, Moto GP 3, Harry Potter games, etc., I found something! Shame it needs a CD to launch 😁

And lastly - a SS7 board. MVP3 chipset, 128MB of PC100 memory, AMD k6-2 300, ATI Rage-II card, a CMI PCI audio card and a network card. The cooler was missing, so I added an Intel stock one for testing. No hard drive in this one, so no peeping into someones files this time. And yes, I do wipe all drives afterwards.

drosse1meyer wrote on 2021-09-14, 12:06:

canthearu wrote on 2021-09-14, 03:20:

drosse1meyer wrote on 2021-09-14, 00:10:

I have a few of these, never cracked them open but they've been very reliable for 15 years now...

Just remember to NEVER stack anything on top of your usb floppy drive. It sends to push the heads into the disks and scratch your disks up. Took me too long to learn that valuable lesson.

Good point, the plastic is bendable. Guess there isn't a metallic cover underneath. I also have a dell usb floppy drive which is a bit more sturdy in that regard, though it looks like trash compared to the IBM one

Well, I had it opened because the spring for the hatch was displaced (easy fix). There was a metallic cover beneath the plastic but yeah it is probably not that sturdy. I guess that the drive is actually a low profile floppy drive like the ones you'd find internally in laptops. If someone is interested in nude pics of an external floppy drive I can make a thread about it. 😉

Cool stuff Munx, IDK if you wanna post a thread with closeups of that broken clip so we can brainstorm repair/replacement.

Munx wrote on 2021-09-14, 13:09:

And lastly - a SS7 board. MVP3 chipset, 128MB of PC100 memory, AMD k6-2 300, ATI Rage-II card, a CMI PCI audio card and a network card. The cooler was missing, so I added an Intel stock one for testing. No hard drive in this one, so no peeping into someones files this time. And yes, I do wipe all drives afterwards.
P_20210914_153408.jpg

Heh, I kinda tryyyyy to resist that... but coolest stuff I've found were plans for a semiconductor manufacturers new fab (Not full full plans, just some costing of construction stuffs) years ago and wiped, and photos of the last Space Shuttle launch.

Impossible to resist.. my Compaq ap550 came from the university.. seems like it was used to create maps or something. Cool stuff.. I haven't wiped that disk yet..

pixelatedscraps wrote on 2021-09-14, 12:52:

Covid and never-ending lockdowns dragging on turn me into a itchy-triggerfinger-onlineshopper. […]
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gerry wrote on 2021-09-14, 08:19:

lots of you getting hauls lately ! 😀

Covid and never-ending lockdowns dragging on turn me into a itchy-triggerfinger-onlineshopper.

It will be the death of me (or my marriage)

😜

must admit, though not all in one go i have been buying more lately... and i'm sure i said i wouldn't ! 😀

Munx wrote on 2021-09-14, 13:07:

Next up was a Socket 423 board from ECS with a P4 1.5GHZ, Nvidia Geforce MX400 32MB and a 40GB HDD. Has universal AGP, DDR and SDR memory support. Unfortunately, the computer was banged up pretty hard and one of the cooler retention clips snapped off. This will be quite difficult replace as I don't see these too often. I threw in a stick of ram and booted it up in hopes of finding some interesting stuff. Among a bunch of game installs, like Hitman Contracts, Moto GP 3, Harry Potter games, etc., I found something! Shame it needs a CD to launch 😁

that's worth fixing, though sometimes criticised as lacklustre performers at the time those early p4s are just fine with most things of their era in practice such as those games you found

misi77 wrote on 2021-09-09, 22:48:

misi77 wrote on 2021-09-09, 17:08:

Found another 8088 XT clone. Label: TURBO-COLLEGE Only 3 ROM sockets. Does anyone know this board? […]
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Found another 8088 XT clone.
Label: TURBO-COLLEGE
Only 3 ROM sockets.
Does anyone know this board?

4 hours of fighting and now working fine 😀

hi, can u post a bios dump and a back board pic , i want tu add your board to http://www.win3x.org/uh19/

I’ve been wildly curious about these ever since reading about these whenever developers gave interviews between 1997-1999. Finally got my hands on one, though it cost a pretty penny.

Wonder if you can jerrryrig-SLI two of these together for a quad-SLI…

pixelatedscraps wrote on 2021-09-15, 11:44:

I’ve been wildly curious about these ever since reading about these whenever developers gave interviews between 1997-1999. Finally got my hands on one, though it cost a pretty penny.

Wonder if you can jerrryrig-SLI two of these together for a quad-SLI…

And you are going to test them, right?

Got these today.
2003 and 2006 editions.

Nice reading to learn some good basics.

I know there was some Ms-dos bible around, but can't find the issue. It was like 1000+ pages.

Nexxen wrote on 2021-09-15, 13:32:

pixelatedscraps wrote on 2021-09-15, 11:44:

Wonder if you can jerrryrig-SLI two of these together for a quad-SLI…

And you are going to test them, right?

Well, seeing as I only have the one Obsidian card I won’t be experimenting any time soon!

Testing the Obsidian and all the other goodies starts once my 2001fp arrives next week

Thought I remembered reading once that Quantum Obsidian's Helicopter Simulator, pilot training type, had 8 Voodoo "cores" employed, but I don't know if they were all SLIed together, or more likely just used 2 per display and rendered the view independently, like left and right front, and right side, left side.

Received 3 sweeties this morning <3