soviet conscript wrote:

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e385/0blivi0n1/100_8301_zpsb3bd72a5.jpg […]
Show full quote

picked this up from another forum. just an interesting machine and as far as I know the only non IBM machine to use MCGA. I was mostly interested in it because of the 8 bit IDE controller card though that may end up seeing a new home.

Congrats that’s one fast 8086 (NECv30-10Mhz) and probably among the fastest/latest ever manufactured by a major vendor, beating even the IBM PS/2 model-30 by about 25% and also with one more expansion slot. The “Speed” is the “turbo” (8/10Mhz) switch.

Is it supposed to be a NEC v30 stock? I only looked at it briefly inside but the chip was an AMD I think.

soviet conscript wrote:

Is it supposed to be a NEC v30 stock? I only looked at it briefly inside but the chip was an AMD I think.

Oops, You are right. The only stock v30 Equity was the previous generation Equity II (NEC v30 at 4.77/7.16Mhz). (Not to be confused with the Equity II+ that came after with a 286-12) I got my Equity Ie with the NECv30-10 already installed; so, I guess that was an upgrade from the previous owner. Sorry for the confusion. That comparison against the IBM model-30 was made with the AMD CPU, so with the v30 upgrade that computer is even faster. Those NECv30-10 CPUs are easy to find and usually very cheap.

Man! You guys find all this cool stuff and all I found was this little word processor. 🤣
I didn't even want a word processor but I mistook it for an 80's laptop and grabbed it off of a pile of junk that was going to be destroyed on the off chance that it might be something. 🤣
It totally fooled me, but at any rate it's kinda cool I guess and now (in true hoarder fashion) I'm certainly not going to just throw it out. 😜

It's a 1995 Canon StarWriter and it's thoroughly useless these days. It can only save to 3.5" floppy diskettes (which in itself might actually be a plus), features no battery for mobile use, has a GIANT wallwart PSU, has it's own proprietary Operating system and only saves documents in it's own special format (it can export to TXT but the formatting gets all messed up) and to top it all off it uses a really crappy early 90's style monochrome LCD with pretty slow response time.

So naturally as a fan of the quirky and proud Packard Bell and PCjr owner I'm keeping it. 😜

(This is after much cleaning btw, it was pretty grimy)

What cools my Tualatin best? A big block of copper:

One downside: i have to mod my motherboard because a cap interferes with the heatpipes

Great cooler! One thing more ultimate than a good copper Tualatin cooler is a good copper Athlon cooler (as I think you know, they are compatible with each other). There are a lot of great models, this one is currently on its road to my system:

When I hunted it down, my list of ultimate socket A coolers included:
Cooler Master Aero 7+ (above)
Gigabyte 3D cooler (below)

Thermaltake Silent Tower

I like Aero 7+ and 3D Cooler better because they are more compact, do not look threatening to the fragile Athlon crystal and are simply awesome. All the info here is on the rights of IMHO.

I found a Dell 433/L 486DX 33 desktop for $2 at a thrift store yesterday.

MrTentacleGuy wrote:

I found a Dell 433/L 486DX 33 desktop for $2 at a thrift store yesterday.

You lucky man. Does it actually work?

You lucky man. Does it actually work?

It boots up, but the hard drive seems to be bad. I should have another one I can use in a pinch. It has of 15MB ram and it looks like a 1MB onboard S3 VGA card. It has a non-ZIF socket CPU, but for $2 I really can't complain. I still need to look for the BIOS battery so I can make sure it isn't leaky.

MrTentacleGuy wrote:

You lucky man. Does it actually work?

I still need to look for the BIOS battery so I can make sure it isn't leaky.

I guess it has an external alkaline BIOS battery. It was huge and towards the front so I must have assumed it was the switch.

Those are cool coolers!

I wish you could get 486 systems around here. It seems all I can get is mostly just P4s with some Athlons mixed in

smeezekitty wrote:

I wish you could get 486 systems around here. It seems all I can get is mostly just P4s with some Athlons mixed in

This is the second 486 I've gotten in this area. The first was a Packard Bell Legend that had a bad motherboard due to battery leakage. I see some P3,P4,Athlon systems in my area but I mostly see socket 7 systems for some reason. The system I'm using now is a core2quad w/6GB of ram that I bought for $25 at a thrift store.

For my collection i found a lot of 5 3dfx cards at a reasonable price:

v2 12mb
banshee agp
v3 2000 pci
v3 3000 agp
v3 3500 agp

They will be on their way to my house for 47 euro wich isn`t a bad price 😎

When these arrive i have more than 30 3dfx cards so i will finally stop buying these things 😵 Then i only need to find a 4500 to make the series complete....oh, and a banshee pci, and....

Am i a hoarder??? 😢

meljor wrote:

Am i a hoarder??? 😢

You're probably not the only one here. 🤣 I've personally got a little bit of excess I've been meaning to get rid of for some time now.

Sutekh94 wrote:

meljor wrote:

Am i a hoarder??? 😢

You're probably not the only one here. 🤣 I've personally got a little bit of excess I've been meaning to get rid of for some time now.

Hoarder here, the old stuff is getting hard to come by anymore. And yes, I have been talking for about a year or two of getting rid of some of it but have not got around to it.

You are not alone. 5000+ posts on this thread

I am definitely a hoarder

Sutekh94 wrote:

meljor wrote:

Am i a hoarder??? 😢

You're probably not the only one here. 🤣 I've personally got a little bit of excess I've been meaning to get rid of for some time now.

Same here. I can't resist buying when I see something that I know is undervalued or underappreciated. I tell myself I will resell it or trade it off for something I REALLY want one day but that day never seems to come.

sliderider wrote:

I tell myself I will resell it or trade it off for something I REALLY want one day but that day never seems to come.

I tell the missus that all the time, it'll be worth money one day!! Although deep down I think I have no intention of selling any of it!

dacow wrote:

sliderider wrote:

I tell myself I will resell it or trade it off for something I REALLY want one day but that day never seems to come.

I tell the missus that all the time, it'll be worth money one day!! Although deep down I think I have no intention of selling any of it!

I just say that I could sell it if I really needed the money (but with the sidenote that it'll be a lot of hassle for little money).

-