TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-09, 14:13:

God . .old Seagate drives ...the bane of every IT professionals job back in the day, same for a particular batch of IBM HDDs that failed if you sneezed in their direction. I have a soft spot for MFM drives after owning an IBM 286 machine (The big gray/beige box type with the red clacky switch on the side) with one, that old brick was very reliable and to this day I dont like seeing them die, so if I find one in working order im reluctant to use it as a daily driver in a retro build.

I can understand you point of view about keeping old hdds in use as a way of catching issues early or for diagnosis but with how old MFM drives are im not sure how easy it would be to actually repair one that has failed.

Unless it's a serious mechanical issue (ie. heads falling off 😉 they are relatively easy to fix - on Seagate ST-2** drive electronics is mostly THT and not much going on on it because controller sits in the ISA slot. Even mechanical things can be relatively easy to fix (like head replacement) because they are simply huge compared to later drives. On the other hand - I value my time more than hardware so I don't really bother fixing them (unless it's a simple electronic repair) because they are still somewhat easily available here in Poland. Also if you want good, reliable MFM HDD - look for NEC drives. Those are bullet proof. I have around 10 and every single one works perfectly fine (not a single bad sector too!).
This type: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintag … 6913-1885861518
Although when I first time turned one of them on I almost had a heart attack (heads servo is mechanically blocked by a wedge moved by the electromagnet which makes a horribly loud clunk noise - almost like exploding capacitor). Downside is they are not quite as loud as Seagates.

I'm looking at possibly getting one or both of these Laptops, I feel that having both would give me a complete setup with the worst of the two being a spare parts machine.

Toshiba Tecra 520-CDT (Pentium 166 MMX, 32 meg, 4gb HDD, TFT, Yamaha OPL3) This one comes with the external floppy.
Toshiba Tecra 720-CDT (Pentium 133, 16meg, 1.2gb HDD, TFT, Yamaha OPL3) This one comes with the Base Station/Port Replicator.

Both are in excellent condition cosmetically but will need new bios batteries and main batteries and some TLC, they both look like they could be great little DOS machines, anyone have any thought about the Toshiba Tecra models ?

@Hanjammer, as much as I want another MFM drive I dont think I can spare the space 🤣, and knowing me I wouldn't want just one, I wouldn't mind a RLL drive however.

Edit - I could also just get a Satellite 4000-CDT if that would be better.

A mixed bag of a bit of everything and I’m seriously beginning to wonder where I’m going to start storing everything but here goes, photos coming once everything arrives:

• 3DFX Voodoo 5 5500 PCI
• Windows 95 full box set
• IBM Thinkpad 755CD
• Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti 4600
• Compaq Armada 1750 (broken, for parts and crucially with HDD bay)
• XFX GeForce 6200 WANG (for G4 Cube upgrade project)
• Super Nintendo Donkey Kong bundle NIB
• Outlaws big box
• The Secret of Monkey Island big box
• The Curse of Monkey Island big box
• Intel LGA 1366 CPU cooler
• Sound Blaster AWE32 CT3900

Don't worry. You'll find a way to store your stuff. 😁 We all do! 😁

Got some "new" stuff

Asus P5KPL-AM SE
Radeon X1550
2x Nvidia Quadro4 NVS400 PCI

Mobo is for the W98 775 build which I plan to do with Xeon Quad and GF7900.
I feel that the Quadro4 should in theory behave like a FX5200, so for a PCI card that would be great. I'll test it during the week under DOS and W98.

Robert B wrote on 2022-01-09, 21:37:

Don't worry. You'll find a way to store your stuff. 😁 We all do! 😁

Cup hooks in the ceiling and dangle it from the mounting holes. 🤣

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-09, 23:03:

Robert B wrote on 2022-01-09, 21:37:

Don't worry. You'll find a way to store your stuff. 😁 We all do! 😁

Cup hooks in the ceiling and dangle it from the mounting holes. 🤣

Might have to consider that. I'm running out of shelf space and space for more shelves. Still organising my collection, and got more motherboards on the way 😀

HanJammer wrote on 2022-01-09, 13:41:

Hardware is meant to be used like cars are meant to be driven. Again - those are not museum-grade unique pieces. Old hardware dies just from lying on the shelf (applies to HDDs too) - I recently had a machine which I wanted to sell - it was working couple months ago but when I finally decided to sell it - it no longer even POSTed (same happened to my beloved ASUS K7M I bought it was brand new - last time it was regularly used in the PC like 10 years ago - it was working perfectly time, but now - after a period in the box on the shelf - it's no longer stable). I have a strong suspicion that more hard drives died from not being used at all (happens to old Seagate MFM and RLL drives all the time) than from being used from time to time... In fact if it's dies during regular use - it's usually way easier to find the cause and repair it (and again - same with cars). Personally I would regret more never using a motherboard or a hard drive which died just sitting on the shelf more than one that served me well for couple of years/months or even weeks.

I have several machines and other pieces of equipment sitting in a closet waiting for me to have room to bring them out and play with them again (hopefully in a month or so), and my big worry is how many of them have died sitting in the closet, especially since in this drafty old apartment, if the temperature outside drops below freezing, the temperature in one of the closets isn't much better.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-09, 14:47:

I'm looking at possibly getting one or both of these Laptops, I feel that having both would give me a complete setup with the wo […]
Show full quote

I'm looking at possibly getting one or both of these Laptops, I feel that having both would give me a complete setup with the worst of the two being a spare parts machine.

Toshiba Tecra 520-CDT (Pentium 166 MMX, 32 meg, 4gb HDD, TFT, Yamaha OPL3) This one comes with the external floppy.
Toshiba Tecra 720-CDT (Pentium 133, 16meg, 1.2gb HDD, TFT, Yamaha OPL3) This one comes with the Base Station/Port Replicator.

Both are in excellent condition cosmetically but will need new bios batteries and main batteries and some TLC, they both look like they could be great little DOS machines, anyone have any thought about the Toshiba Tecra models ?

@Hanjammer, as much as I want another MFM drive I dont think I can spare the space 🤣, and knowing me I wouldn't want just one, I wouldn't mind a RLL drive however.

Edit - I could also just get a Satellite 4000-CDT if that would be better.

Either one of those Toshiba Tecra laptops should be excellent, but the parts from one aren't going to be useful on the other, except for the HD and maybe the LCD panel. The 520CDT is the newer of the two and is quite a lot slimmer than the 720CDT. The Tecra 7xx laptops were Toshiba's top of the range back then, but those laptops are comically thick and heavy - it does have the better battery of the two. IT's also got a strong magnesium internal frame with plastic over it, but weaknesses in the 720CDT's design means . The 520CDT is all plastic.
The NIMH bios batteries definitely need removing. That's comparatively easy to do on the 520CDT.
The 720CDT is a bit older so it's more likely to have leaked and corroded things, it's also a really complex laptop internally, stacked PCBs, super awkward to remove some parts. I've got a similar 730CDT which must have been stored in a shed. The keyboard controller / RTC board needed replacing, and I had to strip the laptop entirely to get to the magnesium frame and clean off the corrosion on that. Somehow getting the motherboard out required dismantling the LCD panel to free up enough slack on the display harness. After restoration though, I quite like the look & feel of the 730CDT.

The port replicator is quite a find too. When plugged in, that activates the game port on either one of those laptops for midi / joystick use. Or if you ever find a DeskStation V, that gives you a full PCI & ISA dock - that was the real special feature of the Tecra series.
The Satellite laptops are limited to just port replicators, but the Satellite 4000CDT has no port replicator capability, instead you get floppy drive + CD-rom drive all in one. I'd look out for a Satellite 320CDT instead though, that's just a pentium MMX instead of the Pentium-II, but that's just my preference.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2022-01-10, 02:55:

Either one of those Toshiba Tecra laptops should be excellent, but the parts from one aren't going to be useful on the other, ex […]
Show full quote

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-09, 14:47:

I'm looking at possibly getting one or both of these Laptops, I feel that having both would give me a complete setup with the wo […]
Show full quote

I'm looking at possibly getting one or both of these Laptops, I feel that having both would give me a complete setup with the worst of the two being a spare parts machine.

Toshiba Tecra 520-CDT (Pentium 166 MMX, 32 meg, 4gb HDD, TFT, Yamaha OPL3) This one comes with the external floppy.
Toshiba Tecra 720-CDT (Pentium 133, 16meg, 1.2gb HDD, TFT, Yamaha OPL3) This one comes with the Base Station/Port Replicator.

Both are in excellent condition cosmetically but will need new bios batteries and main batteries and some TLC, they both look like they could be great little DOS machines, anyone have any thought about the Toshiba Tecra models ?

@Hanjammer, as much as I want another MFM drive I dont think I can spare the space 🤣, and knowing me I wouldn't want just one, I wouldn't mind a RLL drive however.

Edit - I could also just get a Satellite 4000-CDT if that would be better.

Either one of those Toshiba Tecra laptops should be excellent, but the parts from one aren't going to be useful on the other, except for the HD and maybe the LCD panel. The 520CDT is the newer of the two and is quite a lot slimmer than the 720CDT. The Tecra 7xx laptops were Toshiba's top of the range back then, but those laptops are comically thick and heavy - it does have the better battery of the two. IT's also got a strong magnesium internal frame with plastic over it, but weaknesses in the 720CDT's design means . The 520CDT is all plastic.
The NIMH bios batteries definitely need removing. That's comparatively easy to do on the 520CDT.
The 720CDT is a bit older so it's more likely to have leaked and corroded things, it's also a really complex laptop internally, stacked PCBs, super awkward to remove some parts. I've got a similar 730CDT which must have been stored in a shed. The keyboard controller / RTC board needed replacing, and I had to strip the laptop entirely to get to the magnesium frame and clean off the corrosion on that. Somehow getting the motherboard out required dismantling the LCD panel to free up enough slack on the display harness. After restoration though, I quite like the look & feel of the 730CDT.

The port replicator is quite a find too. When plugged in, that activates the game port on either one of those laptops for midi / joystick use. Or if you ever find a DeskStation V, that gives you a full PCI & ISA dock - that was the real special feature of the Tecra series.
The Satellite laptops are limited to just port replicators, but the Satellite 4000CDT has no port replicator capability, instead you get floppy drive + CD-rom drive all in one. I'd look out for a Satellite 320CDT instead though, that's just a pentium MMX instead of the Pentium-II, but that's just my preference.

Would the LCD panel from the 720CDT fit the 520CDT?, they appear to be the same size and the 520 looks like it might have some fading in the lower part of the screen. The fading isnt a huge issue for me as I will likely be using the 520 via a external monitor but changing out the fading LCD would be a nice project.

I could also just go all out and replace it with a backlit IPS panel assuming I can get a 12.1 4:3 IPS panel.

Still mulling it over if I want to take on a laptop restoration.

Ligend wrote on 2022-01-08, 23:32:

vad4r wrote on 2022-01-07, 22:31:

Nope. I only know an old report in German https://www.computerbase.de/2008-01/mushkin-m … 0-gt-im-handel/ https://www.computerba […]
Show full quote

Ligend wrote on 2022-01-07, 20:32:

Never heard about Falcon 64 before, and STB Horizon 64 seems to be the only card based on that chipset. Compatibility with DOS games seems to be good, and not that slow either. I have to get one someday, but for definitely less than 80 EUR. 😉

Nope.
I only know an old report in German
https://www.computerbase.de/2008-01/mushkin-m … 0-gt-im-handel/
https://www.computerbase.de/preisvergleich/eu … 01-a307213.html

Checked those links, including comments, but unsure how they are related to STB Horizon 64. Do I miss something?

omg sorry, I quote the wrong post. My answer was for

debs3759 wrote on 2022-01-07, 19:09:

vad4r wrote on 2022-01-07, 10:39:

The graphic card had a special surprise for me, because it´s a card from mushkin!

I can't find any graphics cards from mushkin.com on the wayback machine. Any idea whether they had another url?

Had a pretty crazy ewaste haul:

Me and a friend picked up 5 PS/2's between us - I got 2 55sx's and a 70. (There were 3 55sx's and two 70s in total) Also a Mac IIfx which I have fixed up since then.

The 70 was pretty normal, it did have an aftermarket DBA hard drive.

Both 55sx's had the Reply planar upgrade (486bl based, IDE, better VGA) and one had a Reply MCA sound card as well 😉 There were actually two 55sx's in the lot with MCA sound cards, I let my friend have the other one.

Also picked up a bunch of boards from the place at the same time (lots of older dual CPU boards), as well as some nicer cards (bunch of Aureal sound cards and two matching 12mb V2s, a Diamond V2 and a V1)

Very happy I took the time to come last week to say the least!

Sometimes it's unbelievable what people throw away without having a look at Ebay first.
How much did you pay for this?

PS: The Voodoo1 is missing a cap! Same as mine. xD

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-01-10, 21:26:

Sometimes it's unbelievable what people throw away without having a look at Ebay first.
How much did you pay for this?

PS: The Voodoo1 is missing a cap! Same as mine. xD

Yeah, geographic location helps a lot (California) but this place is near my work, so I try and get over there as often as I can.

We paid $40 per ps/2, $60 for the IIfx, $13 each for the boards, and $7 per card. More than I wanted to for the boards (and in general this place charges pretty high for scrap, that's just how it's always been unfortunately) but for this batch I didn't mind as much.

Won auction for a lot of five motherboards, they are from the late 90s and early 2000s, among the cards there are interesting ones (at least for me), one is slot1 from Compaq with Intel 440bx chipset, I think it could be a basis for a PII o PIII from about 500MHz more or less.
The second board is ECS P6VXA skt370, this one needs to change some capacitors, I already have an identical pair with PIII 1000MHz, I will fix it as soon as I get it if I have the spare capacitors.
A weird card with no expansion slot, it is barebones I guess and it is I think very integrated, the chipset looks intel and the socket looks like a 370, I don't know what card it is, if you have any idea what it is I would like to know.
There is an MSI socket 370, chipset away, but it is the latest version with the final letter T, this indicates support for Tualatin cpu, of these I have some both Celeron and Pentium, I hope it works because I would like to put a PIII-S , or a Celeron 1200 @ 1600 with FSB 133, this would be an alternative idea.
Finally there is an ASUS A7V333-X SKT462, interesting card that I hope it works, here it is possible to use CPU with FSB 333, so I choose an Athlon Barton up to 3000+, besides I don't have any.

Voodoo 1/2 Video pass-through cable
Pentium III Cooler
Pentium III 1000/133 Slot 1 CPU w/passive heatsink.
3com 3CR990-TX-87 10/100 NIC (My irrationally favorite NIC of all time)

mtgmackid wrote on 2022-01-10, 21:21:

Both 55sx's had the Reply planar upgrade (486bl based, IDE, better VGA) and one had a Reply MCA sound card as well 😉 There were actually two 55sx's in the lot with MCA sound cards, I let my friend have the other one.

I never knew about those before <Dean Pelton> this better not awaken anything in me </Dean Pelton> <Gollum> We has a 55SX yes we does, nasty little 386 sixteensies, we hates it, we hates it forever. </Gollum> ... like I need any more temptations.

Awesome haul congrats.

PC@LIVE wrote on 2022-01-10, 22:50:

A weird card with no expansion slot, it is barebones I guess and it is I think very integrated, the chipset looks intel and the socket looks like a 370, I don't know what card it is, if you have any idea what it is I would like to know.

That's an ECS BookPC BKi810. Most of the information online seems to be in Japanese. I've got one but haven't done anything with it yet because the wierd SFF form factor makes it a pain to put in any case other than the original one. Also the tiny 100W PSU had a non-standard 6-pin connector (I'm plan to use a PicoPSU, an ATX breakout board, and a cut PCIe 6-pin connector).

kolderman wrote on 2022-01-09, 04:31:

HanSolo wrote on 2022-01-09, 02:18:

Sound Blaster 32 PnP CT3670. Supports FM-routing through EMU8000.
SB32_CT3670.jpg

Just a pity that FM is CQM.

That's true. But I don't think CQM is as bad as some people make it. I'm not an expert on this topic but some music that I've heard sounded very similar to me. 'Different' but not 'bad'. And I consider the FM-routing as a very nice enhancement. So the CT3670 comes closest to being the optimal card for me (I hope)
I'd say the worst thing about CQM is its name 😁
Now I only have to figure out if the 2 x 4MB that I already have are enough or if I should invest in 2 x 16MB

Big Pink wrote on 2022-01-11, 01:30:

PC@LIVE wrote on 2022-01-10, 22:50:

A weird card with no expansion slot, it is barebones I guess and it is I think very integrated, the chipset looks intel and the socket looks like a 370, I don't know what card it is, if you have any idea what it is I would like to know.

That's an ECS BookPC BKi810. Most of the information online seems to be in Japanese. I've got one but haven't done anything with it yet because the wierd SFF form factor makes it a pain to put in any case other than the original one. Also the tiny 100W PSU had a non-standard 6-pin connector (I'm plan to use a PicoPSU, an ATX breakout board, and a cut PCIe 6-pin connector).

Thanks friend, the card will arrive in two or three days, in fact I thought the chipset was an i81X, I will look for some info on this card, the info you provided will be very useful.
I had never seen similar power supplies, I have some strange power supply, but I think that maybe you need to adapt a common ATX, remove the PINs of the + 3.3V and 5V plus the others that are not needed, for the 6 pin connector I hope it is not particular, maybe are there any online, or are adapters found?
For the CPU I think a Celeron is fine, if you want the PIII FSB 100 could also be used, but first you have to see if the card works, being used there is a possibility that it has been disassembled because it does not work.