Then graphics (29 cards) :

I will try to add motherboards, IO and Hard drives next.

I am so jealous of some of those sound cards, great haul man!

So glad to see these in the hands of a collector and not in some E-Waste scrapper or gold collector, it feels comforting to know they will be cleaned, tested and cared for and even possibly sent off to new homes.

acl wrote on 2023-07-17, 07:08:

Fortunately, there is a French website that make a lot of old magazines available as "abandonware" (even if this is not software).

Please add an NSFW notice. There are some scantily clad women on that page. 😬

appiah4 wrote on 2023-07-17, 11:30:

I am so jealous of some of those sound cards, great haul man!

Thanks !
For my use, I think the highlight is the Pro Audio Spectrum 16. Will probably replace my SB16 with this one.

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-07-17, 11:37:

So glad to see these in the hands of a collector and not in some E-Waste scrapper or gold collector, it feels comforting to know they will be cleaned, tested and cared for and even possibly sent off to new homes.

That's months of testing and cleaning. Literally.
I will trade some with some local collectors because 30 sound cards are too much for me.

digger wrote on 2023-07-17, 12:21:

acl wrote on 2023-07-17, 07:08:

Fortunately, there is a French website that make a lot of old magazines available as "abandonware" (even if this is not software).

Please add an NSFW notice. There are some scantily clad women on that page. 😬

Sorry for that.
The text in the article talks about a computer company in Singapore that used these pictures in their advertising in the 90's.

You have excellent haul of goodies.

How can I find those ESS with dream chipset and 72 pin sound cards? How's the DOS compatibility for these and any known information or review about these?

Very little is found with this general description.

Cheers,

acl wrote on 2023-07-17, 15:01:

appiah4 wrote on 2023-07-17, 11:30:

I am so jealous of some of those sound cards, great haul man!

Thanks !
For my use, I think the highlight is the Pro Audio Spectrum 16. Will probably replace my SB16 with this one.

May I ask why? Don't get me wrong, the PAS16 is a cool card, I have a few myself, and unless you're going the Windows route, but under DOS not a lot of software supports it and the Sound Blaster compatibility is just that, the Thunder chip is compatible with Sound Blaster 1.5 only.

https://dosdays.co.uk/topics/retro_review_pas16_pt1.php

Several items

Just snagged a Apple PC Compatibility card (7in, PCI w/ 100MHz 5x86) on fleabay for a couple hundred (480€ with shipping... ouch!).

I wish it was one of those OrangePC 530 cards (speaking of which, there's one right now on ebay, but with an asking prices of around a few grands figures) or one of the higher end 12in models with the Pentium CPU, but since I don't have a 486-class CPU in my collection.. That'll work nicely.

I don't know if my M1212 monitor will cause issues with it, as it's a fixed frequency unit.

acl wrote on 2023-07-17, 15:01:

appiah4 wrote on 2023-07-17, 11:30:

I am so jealous of some of those sound cards, great haul man!

Thanks !
For my use, I think the highlight is the Pro Audio Spectrum 16. Will probably replace my SB16 with this one.

The PAS16 is a neat card, but I don't think you'd really be upgrading going from an SB16 to a PAS16. You'll lose features and compatibility in a lot of situations.

Personally, it'd be a no-brainer to use the four cards with Dream wavetable synth for any systems they work in. Seriously, those are excellent cards. You'll get great digital audio from the ESS Audiodrive, plus ESFM synth, high quality wavetable AND the ability to load sound banks into RAM. And you have four of them (3x SC8600 V2.0 + one SC8600 Lite). And, unless I'm mistaken, you have RCA breakout boards for all three of the SC8600 V2.0 cards in those ESD bags. Super cool! 😀

The whole lot you posted is fantastic, but the most stand-out (valuable\rare\useful) cards for me would be:
Four SC8600 cards
Sound Blaster Pro 2.0
Crystal sound card with the volume wheel and missing back plate (I believe this is a very old SB 2.0 compatible model, with a single YM3812 clone at the top for FM. EDIT: Yep, I have seen one of these before. It's a Media Vision Thunderboard clone with additional features. Nice!)
Guillemot Maxi Gamer Voodoo (with manual, nice!)
Orchid Pro Designer II (ET4000AX)
Cirrus Logic CL GD510/520 (somewhat rare and apparently has great compatibility for CGA games).

That particular PAS16 is definitely a less common variant, so that's neat too, but they're all functionally pretty similar as far as I can tell.

Very nice lot! Thanks for sharing! 😁

Repo Man11 wrote on 2023-07-16, 19:08:

"Old computer magazines"

Some of the more mundane things that I lost in the fire were old issues of PC magazines, and a number of TigerDirect catalogs from the early 2000s, paper catalogs which captured a moment frozen in amber. It would always be a fun trip down memory lane.

I would actually love to get my hands on some old Computer Shopper catalogs from back in the 90s. I used to peruse those all the time and dream of the PCs I would love to have but couldn't afford because I was a kid. I get such a cool feeling of nostalgia seeing those old brand names and stylish beige cases. So many unique options back then.

Brawndo wrote on 2023-07-18, 03:27:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2023-07-16, 19:08:

"Old computer magazines"

Some of the more mundane things that I lost in the fire were old issues of PC magazines, and a number of TigerDirect catalogs from the early 2000s, paper catalogs which captured a moment frozen in amber. It would always be a fun trip down memory lane.

I would actually love to get my hands on some old Computer Shopper catalogs from back in the 90s. I used to peruse those all the time and dream of the PCs I would love to have but couldn't afford because I was a kid. I get such a cool feeling of nostalgia seeing those old brand names and stylish beige cases. So many unique options back then.

Yeah, that's why I'm glad I never threw away the gaming magazines I read back in elementary school. All the ads and reviews are very nostalgic. On top of all, I got another stack left at the place I live from the previous owner. It's a different one, I had a PC focused magazine and this one for Playstation.

Bought this shredder just for $20:

https://youtu.be/c1__lYF-V7U

Bought this New Old Stock for the Move in My New Case A New Cooler For My X800 XT PE

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-07-17, 15:37:

How can I find those ESS with dream chipset and 72 pin sound cards? How's the DOS compatibility for these and any known information or review about these?

pan069 wrote on 2023-07-17, 20:47:

May I ask why? Don't get me wrong, the PAS16 is a cool card, I have a few myself, and unless you're going the Windows route, but under DOS not a lot of software supports it and the Sound Blaster compatibility is just that, the Thunder chip is compatible with Sound Blaster 1.5 only.

https://dosdays.co.uk/topics/retro_review_pas16_pt1.php

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-07-18, 02:43:

The PAS16 is a neat card, but I don't think you'd really be upgrading going from an SB16 to a PAS16. You'll lose features and c […]
Show full quote

The PAS16 is a neat card, but I don't think you'd really be upgrading going from an SB16 to a PAS16. You'll lose features and compatibility in a lot of situations.

Personally, it'd be a no-brainer to use the four cards with Dream wavetable synth for any systems they work in. Seriously, those are excellent cards. You'll get great digital audio from the ESS Audiodrive, plus ESFM synth, high quality wavetable AND the ability to load sound banks into RAM. And you have four of them (3x Gallant SC8600 V2.0 + one Gallant SC8600 Lite). And, unless I'm mistaken, you have RCA breakout boards for all three of the SC8600 V2.0 cards in those ESD bags. Super cool! 😀

The whole lot you posted is fantastic, but the most stand-out (valuable\rare\useful) cards for me would be:
Four SC8600 cards
Sound Blaster Pro 2.0
Crystal sound card with the volume wheel and missing back plate (I believe this is a very old SB 2.0 compatible model, with a single YM3812 clone at the top for FM. EDIT: Yep, I have seen one of these before. It's a Media Vision Thunderboard clone with additional features. Nice!)
Guillemot Maxi Gamer Voodoo (with manual, nice!)
Orchid Pro Designer II (ET4000AX)
Cirrus Logic CL GD510/520 (somewhat rare and apparently has great compatibility for CGA games).

That particular PAS16 is definitely a less common variant, so that's neat too, but they're all functionally pretty similar as far as I can tell.

Very nice lot! Thanks for sharing! 😁

Hi

About the PAS16, i wanted to test one because iirc it was the first 16bit sound card and is kind of a 2-in-1 card.
I also thought the PAS16 was a bit better than the SB16 but i'm probably wrong. I'm a bit out of my comfort zone with DOS sound cards TBH.
I've never been down this rabbit hole. But i'm tempted.
As a kid, i think i really thought that all games had poor sound... while it was probably my poor soundcard instead. During most of my gamer's life, i never paid much attention to how differently games could sound with different cards.

For the Guillemot MaxiSound cards, i was not sure about what to expect. (same question as @pentiumspeed : what is the compatibility)
I have a later (similar) card, Guillemot Maxi Studio ISIS (PCI) and information about it is not super available/contradictory (still not sure if it works on pure DOS).
But i will definitely try the MaxiSound ISA ones if a driver is available !

@Ozzuneoj yes, the RCA breakouts are part of the lot. And probably documentation and CD too (i just had a quick look, so not 100% sure) . Thank you very much for the link about the Thunderboard Clone. I was wondering why it had CD connectors while the original design don't.

I bought this big lot almost blindly so it's like treasure hunting. You open a box... awesome... full of IDE ribbons. Next box. Yay, full of sound cards.
I got a few pictures before from the seller and decided that it was interesting enough to buy all (and it was really cheap).
I met the seller in his apartment, 10 min away from where i live. And i'm quite sure the guy was subject to a compulsive hoarding condition. His appartments rooms were full of computer and audio/HiFi parts, stacked to the ceiling, with just "clear paths" around the stuff to walk from a room to another. I've never seen that before. And apprently, he needed to make room because the owner needed to do some repair work and the place was too crowded. Some things were very carefully sorted (like driver CDs) and some were just here and there, like 90's hard drives in a kitchen closet. Very very strange moment.

I've spend one or two hours to sort things this afternoon. I will not post pictures of the IO boars because they are... IO boards. Nothing special. Same for the kilos of SIMM/DIMM
I've some shots of the motherboards and HDDs :

Motherboards :

Motherboards again. And i promiss i'll stop spamming this thread (5 pictures/post limit is ... limiting)
I really hope these two ALI SS7 boards are working. I only had bad experiences with SS7 with super unstable boards. I hope to change my mind with these.

Do not try to slave or master the conner hard drives. They have SHD206 chipset from early days, which is not ATA compliant.
Tandon, the rack screws that bolts onto head assy tend to loosen with use and give error. Same issue with Miniscribe that use rack gear system.

IBM hard drives are very nice to have, quick, compatible.

WD hard drives are also nice to have as well.

Fujitsu slow and works. Maxtor works if they work, and they have the funny personality, they chirp like a bird when spindle starts.

Seagate hard drives HH height tends to stick due to their hot running, very rarely I see them cooled properly. 1" ones are usually ok.

Cheers,

Any HDD prior to 1994 really, don't just assume Master/Slave done, they have all kinds of jumper recipes according to whether you're using same manufacturer drive or other, and can need up to 3 jumper settings per drive altered. Best to pull the spec sheets, or look up info. There was a DOS HDD database prog like TotalHardware that was good for all the old stuff.

acl wrote on 2023-07-18, 23:05:

Motherboards again. And i promiss i'll stop spamming this thread (5 pictures/post limit is ... limiting)
I really hope these two ALI SS7 boards are working. I only had bad experiences with SS7 with super unstable boards. I hope to change my mind with these.

Very nice lot of boards! That was a fantastic haul. If I were you, I would have no shame in contacting that guy in a couple weeks to see if he has found any more stuff. People like that probably have more than they even know until they start digging.

Boards that stand out to me:

ALi SS7 boards... nice!
Leadtek Winfast K7N420DA (nForce 2 + Geforce 2 MX IGP... pretty uncommon board, but looks like the caps are all bulged on top. Not surprising! 🙁)
Gigabyte GA-7IXE4 (Socket A AMD 750 chipset board with two ISA slots! Neat!)
DFI AK34 (Socket A KT133 micro-ATX with an ISA slot... neat!)
Soltek SL-75KAV (Socket A KT133A with an ISA slot... neat again!)

... and I'm sure there's more. Quite a nice lot of interesting boards. 😀