Another random eBay SFF purchase arrived - a "Kiosk PC KP3 - B72" - which I found in a search looking around for badly described PCs. The tiny size really appealed to me - basically the same size as two normal 5.25" drives side by side!

This model is the Celeron M 1.5Ghz, and it comes with a 512Mb SODIMM of DDR-266 RAM, a 40Gb 2.5" HDD, and a slim DVD-ROM (both on the secondary IDE channel, which has a 44-pin header).

I've never seen a legacy PC like this quite so small! Clearly it was intended for public kiosks - the manual talks about optional wall mounting kits etc., but although there is some grime under the CPU fan, it is relatively clean inside, so can't have seen that much use. (In fact I think most of the dark visible dust came from the wool packaging the seller had used - it looked like the compostable wool insulation you get in some mail order meat / meal deliveries). It also seems interesting that it came with a not just the power brick but manual and driver CD - but the seller seemed to be private and mainly dealing in homewares, so I'm intrigued where it came from and what it had been doing for the last 20 years ... someone had clearly been looking after it. The HDD is unfortunately wiped and not even partitioned.

(I can't find the manual anywhere online at all, so I'll happily scan it to add to theRetroWeb if wanted?)

The Intel i852 chipset looks like it has official Win98 iGPU drivers, so it seems like a great candidate to replace my VIA EPIA as a super compact Win98 system ...

It looks like there might JUST be enough room to fit an ESS Solo-1 into the PCI riser for DOS sound (max size 124.5x81mm, according to manual) - is that likely to play nicely with the i852/ICH4 chipset combination? Or would SBEMU be a better bet?

What kind of reputation does the Celeron M have? Pentium M was pretty well regarded, I think? The Intel Extreme Graphics 2 on the i852 is going to be pretty poor though?

Found these for a little over $1 total and couldn't leave without buying. Never know when they might be useful. I don't know if I'll ever have a use for the XT-style hard drive plate, but they look so cool.

justin1985 wrote on 2024-02-05, 12:38:

What kind of reputation does the Celeron M have? Pentium M was pretty well regarded, I think? The Intel Extreme Graphics 2 on the i852 is going to be pretty poor though?

The Celeron M was a good chip and is only slightly modified from the Pentium M. Half the cache, slower FSB, and fewer power saving features that are only important for laptops. It's still a very low powered chip with excellent performance.

The Pentium M was a huge step up in performance per clock from the Pentium 4, so much that a few manufacturers even made compatible motherboards for enthusiasts.

Celeron M 1.5 is gonna be around the same speed as a Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, Athlon XP 2500+, or AMD64 of same clock. Got one in a laptop, fairly pleasant to use on WinXP, DOSbox gets to slow pentium speeds on it.

edit: don't go planning for more than 1GB RAM, since you can only put one DDR SODIMM in it. 512 should be okay though, unless you want SP3 XP,

I ordered a motherboard complete with CPU, audio and video card (included in the lot), the MB is Siemens model D1217, I will look for useful information and anything else that is available, the card according to the seller seems to be working, there is a BIOS screen, but I can't say which CPU is present, I imagine a P3 Coppermine, if there was a Celeron, I think I'll replace it.
The PLCC32 sockets for BIOS chips arrived today, I ordered 10 of them, but 11 arrived, I really appreciated the free gift, one or maybe two, I will use them to build an MF extension, to be used for reprogramming the soldered BIOS chips, I should do some soldering, a total of 64 (32+32), once the work is finished I will show the result, the most important thing is that if it works, you don't need to desolder the chip for reprogramming.
A little old purchase, but useful for recovering the Keyboard and Mouse, a wireless mouse and keyboard kit, bought today at a low price.

I was very lucky on this one.
An old ad on the classifieds french site "leboncoin" dating from February 2023 and entitled "11 computer sticks" appeared in my search results when I was looking for any type of Diamond Multimadia hardware.
It appeared because the seller mentioned "a Diamond plate and a Matrox plate" that would come with the RAM sticks and an intriguing photo that you can see here (the ad has since been removed).

The price was 10€ + 4,40€ shipping so I just bought it.

Here is what it turned out to be :

I know nothing about Matrox cards but it sure looks intriguing :

JustJulião wrote on 2024-02-06, 18:04:

I was very lucky on this one. An old ad on the classifieds french site "leboncoin" dating from February 2023 and entitled "11 co […]
Show full quote

I was very lucky on this one.
An old ad on the classifieds french site "leboncoin" dating from February 2023 and entitled "11 computer sticks" appeared in my search results when I was looking for any type of Diamond Multimadia hardware.
It appeared because the seller mentioned "a Diamond plate and a Matrox plate" that would come with the RAM sticks and an intriguing photo that you can see here (the ad has since been removed).
Capture.PNG
The price was 10€ + 4,40€ shipping so I just bought it.

Here is what it turned out to be :

cards.jpg
cards2.jpg

I know nothing about Matrox cards but it sure looks intriguing :
MATROX.jpg

The Matrox card looks interesting but getting a Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo 1 card for just a few euros is pretty good!! Hope it works still, it looks tidy. I'm on the lookout for one to go into a P200MMX build.

Shadzilla wrote on 2024-02-06, 18:29:

JustJulião wrote on 2024-02-06, 18:04:

I was very lucky on this one. An old ad on the classifieds french site "leboncoin" dating from February 2023 and entitled "11 co […]
Show full quote

I was very lucky on this one.
An old ad on the classifieds french site "leboncoin" dating from February 2023 and entitled "11 computer sticks" appeared in my search results when I was looking for any type of Diamond Multimadia hardware.
It appeared because the seller mentioned "a Diamond plate and a Matrox plate" that would come with the RAM sticks and an intriguing photo that you can see here (the ad has since been removed).
Capture.PNG
The price was 10€ + 4,40€ shipping so I just bought it.

Here is what it turned out to be :

cards.jpg
cards2.jpg

I know nothing about Matrox cards but it sure looks intriguing :
MATROX.jpg

The Matrox card looks interesting but getting a Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo 1 card for just a few euros is pretty good!! Hope it works still, it looks tidy. I'm on the lookout for one to go into a P200MMX build.

Yes I've been lucky, I also wonder if the Monster 3D overclocks better than the one I already have, which doesn't go higher than 54MHz on Q2 (I mention the game because it seems to be very game dependant, I don't get artifacts on most games).

JustJulião wrote on 2024-02-06, 18:04:

I know nothing about Matrox cards but it sure looks intriguing :
MATROX.jpg

Looks like a Matrox Millennium. Solid mid-90s card with good 2D performance and visual quality.

Not sure what the attached daughterboard is though.

That looks like the WRAM expansion. I have one of those, but I don't recall ever seeing large QFP chips on the back. And mine definitely does not have a bodge wire.

Here is what the memory expansion card normally looks like from the back:

JustJulião wrote on 2024-02-06, 18:04:

I know nothing about Matrox cards but it sure looks intriguing :
MATROX.jpg

That matrox card has one of the rainbow runner add ons attached to it.

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-02-06, 19:45:

And mine definitely does not have a brodge wire.

Good one 🤣 half way between a bridge and a bodge.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-02-06, 20:57:

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-02-06, 19:45:

And mine definitely does not have a brodge wire.

Good one 🤣 half way between a bridge and a bodge.

I noticed that too just now. 😅

It seems to be an MPEG1 decoder. I only skimmed through this thread, but it seems that a special cable is required for it to work?

About that DB-26 port on Matrox Millennium/Mystique video adapters..

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-02-06, 21:26:

I noticed that too just now. 😅 […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-02-06, 20:57:

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-02-06, 19:45:

And mine definitely does not have a brodge wire.

Good one 🤣 half way between a bridge and a bodge.

I noticed that too just now. 😅

It seems to be an MPEG1 decoder. I only skimmed through this thread, but it seems that a special cable is required for it to work?

About that DB-26 port on Matrox Millennium/Mystique video adapters..

mpeg 1 encoder for video capture.

Got an 80 GiB 2.5' Seagate Momentus for my ThinkPad G41, whose disk had failed fatally with bad blocks enough to not be able to start a Windows installation. Cost less than US$20, though 2.5" IDE is not something that lies around every corner these days ...

justin1985 wrote on 2024-02-05, 12:38:

Another random eBay SFF purchase arrived - a "Kiosk PC KP3 - B72" - which I found in a search looking around for badly described […]
Show full quote

Another random eBay SFF purchase arrived - a "Kiosk PC KP3 - B72" - which I found in a search looking around for badly described PCs. The tiny size really appealed to me - basically the same size as two normal 5.25" drives side by side!

IMG20240205114438.jpg

This model is the Celeron M 1.5Ghz, and it comes with a 512Mb SODIMM of DDR-266 RAM, a 40Gb 2.5" HDD, and a slim DVD-ROM (both on the secondary IDE channel, which has a 44-pin header).

IMG20240205114456.jpg

I've never seen a legacy PC like this quite so small! Clearly it was intended for public kiosks - the manual talks about optional wall mounting kits etc., but although there is some grime under the CPU fan, it is relatively clean inside, so can't have seen that much use. (In fact I think most of the dark visible dust came from the wool packaging the seller had used - it looked like the compostable wool insulation you get in some mail order meat / meal deliveries). It also seems interesting that it came with a not just the power brick but manual and driver CD - but the seller seemed to be private and mainly dealing in homewares, so I'm intrigued where it came from and what it had been doing for the last 20 years ... someone had clearly been looking after it. The HDD is unfortunately wiped and not even partitioned.

(I can't find the manual anywhere online at all, so I'll happily scan it to add to theRetroWeb if wanted?)

The Intel i852 chipset looks like it has official Win98 iGPU drivers, so it seems like a great candidate to replace my VIA EPIA as a super compact Win98 system ...

It looks like there might JUST be enough room to fit an ESS Solo-1 into the PCI riser for DOS sound (max size 124.5x81mm, according to manual) - is that likely to play nicely with the i852/ICH4 chipset combination? Or would SBEMU be a better bet?

What kind of reputation does the Celeron M have? Pentium M was pretty well regarded, I think? The Intel Extreme Graphics 2 on the i852 is going to be pretty poor though?

Wow, are there any more for sale? Is the CPU removable?

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-02-06, 21:26:

I noticed that too just now. 😅 […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-02-06, 20:57:

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-02-06, 19:45:

And mine definitely does not have a brodge wire.

Good one 🤣 half way between a bridge and a bodge.

I noticed that too just now. 😅

It seems to be an MPEG1 decoder. I only skimmed through this thread, but it seems that a special cable is required for it to work?

About that DB-26 port on Matrox Millennium/Mystique video adapters..

Indeed, it’s the Media XL MPEG expansion - https://retronn.de/imports/hwgal/hw_matrox_mi … mpeg_front.html - seems to have a breakout box that goes with it.

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-02-06, 19:45:

That looks like the WRAM expansion. I have one of those, but I don't recall ever seeing large QFP chips on the back. And mine definitely does not have a bodge wire.

Here is what the memory expansion card normally looks like from the back:

unnamed.gif

Its not a ram expansion card, looks like one of their video capture daughter cards

wirerogue wrote on 2024-02-06, 21:35:

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-02-06, 21:26:

It seems to be an MPEG1 decoder.

mpeg 1 encoder for video capture.

Decoder. The best encoding you could get at the time, probably including dedicated Avid/Premiere workstation hardware, was fast hardware jpeg encoders. Encoding was soo expensive and out of reach in mid nineties to 2000, and you wanted quick panning across the timeline so jpeg was perfect.
Things like FAST AV Master/AV Master 2000 were typical. https://retronn.de/imports/hwgal/hw_video_gra … ster_front.html Full NLE on a card, bundled with Ulead. $750 when introduced at CeBIT'99, down to ~$550 in 2000.
Retrospective in Italian "Acquisire un VHS come negli anni '90 con Fast AV Master" - MVVblog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqD9iOrbPyI
Classic instructional VHS from Fast AV (in German, has nice shot of dual socked PPRO setup) explaining how to use their cards:
AV Master Fastmultimedia gmbh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j22tfa2jr4k

Good condition and working Toshiba 3100e...