dogchainx wrote:

Stojke wrote:

Do you even use 80% of them?

I only have three that I use, and they aren't pictured (they're in my office hooked up).

Better stored than goldscrappers. Did you take out the batteries if possible?

Cyrix200+ wrote:

dogchainx wrote:

Stojke wrote:

Do you even use 80% of them?

I only have three that I use, and they aren't pictured (they're in my office hooked up).

Better stored than goldscrappers. Did you take out the batteries if possible?

Batteries taken out/removed from all of the motherboards. 2-3 packs of silica gel packs thrown in each case.

That is true, but sitting there doing nothing is almost the same.
People like to do a lot of things but lack resources, maybe you could make somebody happy by donating a few.

dogchainx wrote:

All of these were between $5 and $15 each at my local thrift store.

Ah, DI finds...? 😉

Stojke wrote:

That is true, but sitting there doing nothing is almost the same.
People like to do a lot of things but lack resources, maybe you could make somebody happy by donating a few.

Donate to whom? The scrappers? Maybe my local kindergarten school will want one, because, ya'know, they know how to run DOS and Windows 3.1? Whats the difference between this and people's software collection? 😒 😎

I did make a few people happy by buying them. They're now in the hands of someone who can share them with the rest of the vintage community (me). It made me happy to get them from someone who will just scrap them for the gold, and I bought them from a thrift store (Deseret Industries), who employees a lot of people.

And they're laying there now, not used...however, I do work on a few of them here and there. My goal on a lot of these systems is to restore them and sell them off (not $400-ebay shit prices.....like $100-150 price...reasonable).

Instead of being critical of it, you should be thanking me. Who knows, I might have THE EXACT CASE you have been looking for for the past decade. 😎

Cloudschatze wrote:

dogchainx wrote:

All of these were between $5 and $15 each at my local thrift store.

Ah, DI finds...? 😉

Oh yes....of course. Who else sells these things with arbitrarily-decided low pricing like that? 😎

Don't let it consume you 😀

One day we will move onto brand new retro motherboards recreated with old stock chips or FPGA which will be much more flexible and satisfy wide masses. I guess even with hoarding its all about enjoying it while it lasts.

Long time lurker, first time poster here. Love this forum. 😀

I usually don't buy stuff that often. My local recycling area provides me with plenty of nice old (and new...) stuff. I consider myself more of a curator of nice things that otherwise would have gone to waste, rather than the one buying stuff others might be wanting to buy. But when I saw this little puppy:

I couldn't help myself. A fair price and it being available locally sealed the deal for me, I was the only bidder and today I lugged it home. What's inside then?

A Tyan Tomcat IV dual socket 7 motherboard, twin P200 MMX, and a smooth 128 MB RAM. I just noticed that it seems to have the dreaded Dallas RTC, not too happy about that, but whatevs. All for the price of ~15 EUR, a local transport fare and some muscle labor.

Neat. 😀

Oh, and when I got to the seller, he also happened to have a room full of cool stuff that he wanted to get rid of. Among other things, I saw a full height 5.25 SCSI HDD, a bunch of old Matrox cards, some fancy looking S3 card with a mezzanine memory upgrade, some 3dfx etc.
The hoarder inside me started twitching, but I held him back. 🙁 😀 <-- That right there is a mixed emotion smiley...
But yeah not entirely though, I did get this:

two Matrox cards (~5 EUR) that I have yet to identify properly. The PPro with bent pins was for free. 😀
The seller seemed like a real nice guy, appreciating that there were people like us out there and taking the time and trouble to put it up for auction for peanuts instead of taking it to the dump. Kudos.

He now has this up for auction, which might be one of the coolest things ever: the PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 200, supposedly the meanest PSU for the PC/XT and first product from the legendary manufacturer. Too bad I don't have a case to put it in.

Cheers! *scuffles back in to lurking*

Stojke wrote:

Don't let it consume you 😀

One day we will move onto brand new retro motherboards recreated with old stock chips or FPGA which will be much more flexible and satisfy wide masses. I guess even with hoarding its all about enjoying it while it lasts.

Oh yes. My plan is to slowly sell of each system as I restore them. Not ebay-shit prices either ($500? pffft). I'm talking about $75-$100 each or so, depending upon hardware,etc.

Also to have some in reserve just in case someone needs a particular piece of hardware or case style, or one of my systems blows up.

I can't wait when we can 3D print our own motherboards...would be nice to keep retro alive with a simply 30-minute print job and a few components soldered. 😎

stoof wrote:

Long time lurker, first time poster here. Love this forum. 😀

A Tyan Tomcat IV dual socket 7 motherboard, twin P200 MMX, and a smooth 128 MB RAM. I just noticed that it seems to have the dreaded Dallas RTC, not too happy about that, but whatevs. All for the price of ~15 EUR, a local transport fare and some muscle labor.

That's a beauty! Does it work?

I purchased a bunch of K6-2s!

The most interesting to me is the K6-2 300MHz. Why? I really want to see how a Pentium MMX vs K6-2 goes in FPU performance (Quake 2, Quake 3 etc).

Also I want to test 66 vs 100MHz FSB

mwdmeyer wrote:

I purchased a bunch of K6-2s!

The most interesting to me is the K6-2 300MHz. Why? I really want to see how a Pentium MMX vs K6-2 goes in FPU performance (Quake 2, Quake 3 etc).

Also I want to test 66 vs 100MHz FSB

The MMX is quite a bit slower then the K6 at the same frequency, and about 10-12% slower at the same FSB / frequency (~30fps for the P1 and 33.5 for the K6). I tested this myself a couple of months ago on a VIA MVP3 board + riva TNT2. K6-2 450 underclocked to 200MHz (set multi to 2.5x, FSB 100) and a pentium 166MMX overclocked to 200 (2x100MHz) and slightly overvolted. The P MMX does keep up with the K6 nicely, but the K6's FPU is faster - substantially faster when making use of 3D now.

The K6-2 maintains it's lead at 66Mhz FSB as well. Tested on the same board, pentium MMX 233MHz vs K6-2 450 underclocked to 233MHZ (3.5 x 66). The gap is even bigger at 233Mhz - 12-14% in favor of the K6.

I used Quake 2 Timedemo 1 for testing. I'll open a thread and post pictures if anyone is interested.

I'd be interested in seeing that.

I'm pretty sure the MMX will be faster clock for clock than a K6 or K6-2, at least for 3D games. I think integer performance is supposed to be faster on K6 CPUs, but FPU performance leaves a lot to be desired. Remember, the K6 has a weaker FPU than a K5 even!

Of course, Quake 2 with 3Dnow! will be much faster!

kanecvr wrote:

I'll open a thread and post pictures if anyone is interested.

Yes please! I haven't tested myself but I still believe that a Pentium MMX is faster than a K6-2 at pure FPU clock for clock without 3dnow. Were there any FPU improvements in the K6 vs the K6-2?

Cool 😁 - time to whip out my K6 rig and do some tests 😁 I'll post results in a new thread entitled "Pentium MMX vs K6-2 FPU performance Benchmarks". Can you guys recommend any other software to use for these tests? I was thinking I'd also try 3D Mark 99 alongside Quake 2. Would the Voodoo Banshee AGP be enough for CPUs running at 200/233Mhz or should I use a Voodoo 3? Maybe a TNT2?

kanecvr wrote:

Cool 😁 - time to whip out my K6 rig and do some tests 😁 I'll post results in a new thread entitled "Pentium MMX vs K6-2 FPU performance Benchmarks". Can you guys recommend any other software to use for these tests? I was thinking I'd also try 3D Mark 99 alongside Quake 2. Would the Voodoo Banshee AGP be enough for CPUs running at 200/233Mhz or should I use a Voodoo 3? Maybe a TNT2?

Half-life is quite FPU heavy so I would suggest using that.

Cyrix200+ wrote:

stoof wrote:

Long time lurker, first time poster here. Love this forum. 😀

A Tyan Tomcat IV dual socket 7 motherboard, twin P200 MMX, and a smooth 128 MB RAM. I just noticed that it seems to have the dreaded Dallas RTC, not too happy about that, but whatevs. All for the price of ~15 EUR, a local transport fare and some muscle labor.

That's a beauty! Does it work?

Oh yes, as advertised, although the HDD is making funny noises...
Otherwise it's very quiet, but I don't know if I want to run the processors fanless for long.

Something essential:

My retro hardware for this week:

AMD 486DX2-66MHz

&
Goldstar RT-1201 Controller Card\

I tested it, and the FDD controller doesn't work 😢
But i ordered another one from ebay last week, so i hope that one works 100%

Bought this nice looking pII system for only 7,50 euro. It was a prop in the thriftshop i got it from. Owner seemed a bit surprice i was intrested in it asking me what i would pay for it.
He also invited me to look into his recycled pc stuff next time i visit.
It's a P-II 350mhz 100fsb onto a Asus P2B motherboard, 64mb memory, daimond speedstar a50 8mb agp, sblive ct4670, 40x cdrom no hdd.