I agree with you, but there are people who are willing to pay these prices. From what I've seen lately, $110 is reasonably low for a 5500.

brostenen wrote:

I can't justify paying more than 15 US Dollars for a vga card.

For $15 you can get a fan from the Voodoo5 5500.

Hi, it's been a long time since I've gotten some retro hardware (and posted in the forums), but this week I got lucky and wanted to share it here. I bought a bunch of cards as junk, and there were two interesting items:

1) Roland LAPC-I
Looks complete but unfortunately it has a blown-off ceramic capacitor. I didn't dare testing it like this, I think I'll look into replacing it (I can't solder but I'll see if I can find someone that does it for me).

Without knowing much about electronics, I think the rest of the card look ok-ish (besides the dirt and a couple of bent pins), what do you guys think?

2) Willow Peripherals VGA-TV GE/O
After some googling I learnt that this is some sort of a video titler card, from around 1990. It has an ET3000AX Tseng chip, composite in/out and an s-video out. The output combines whatever it's being sent through the in with the vga image.

I hope this one still works, I find it really interesting! Although finding the programs/drivers/documentation is surely going to be a pain.

Oh crap, who would do something like this to a LAPC-I?

It's definitely worth trying to repair.

stamasd wrote:

Also if anyone is interested, there is a Voodoo 5500 AGP listed freshly for $110 on ebay right now. I have one, don't need another.

So that's the Voodoo5 that I just picked up....

More processing power for Deus Ex over my Voodoo4 4500 I suppose.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3dfx-HAMMERHEAD-FX-Ra … g-/162164142227?

So I saw this and had to jump on it. 30USD shipped. I never knew 3DFX made game controllers. I might have overpaid for it but no regrets.

fantasma wrote:

1) Roland LAPC-I Looks complete but unfortunately it has a blown-off ceramic capacitor. I didn't dare testing it like this, I th […]
Show full quote

1) Roland LAPC-I
Looks complete but unfortunately it has a blown-off ceramic capacitor. I didn't dare testing it like this, I think I'll look into replacing it (I can't solder but I'll see if I can find someone that does it for me).

Without knowing much about electronics, I think the rest of the card look ok-ish (besides the dirt and a couple of bent pins), what do you guys think?

Congrats!

It looks like that card has been at the bottom of a pile for awhile. While it is perfectly normal to have those components leaning over or flattened, it seems like the ones on your card are doing so due to other items stacked on top of them. That cap you mentioned basically had its back broken by being smashed into another component. Also note that your IRQ selection pins are bent. One area that concerns me just a little bit is IC7 - it looks like you might have a bit of pin corrosion - probably just enough that it needs to be cleaned up slightly (in other words - no leg damage).

But really that board first needs to be cleaned! Hopefully you have someone local that can help you out with component testing/replacement. I am jealous! 😀

Rhuwyn wrote:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3dfx-HAMMERHEAD-FX-Ra … g-/162164142227?

So I saw this and had to jump on it. 30USD shipped. I never knew 3DFX made game controllers. I might have overpaid for it but no regrets.

Hmm. I had one of these back when it was new. The original version gave me some issues (15 pin joystick port) when I was using a PCI sound card's joystick port vs an ISA sound card's joystick port. I *think* it had something to do with voltages. I ultimately took it back (even a year or two later) as defective and got a replacement Hammerhead that came with a 15 pin to USB adapter. I don't know if there were any internal changes, but the gamepad remained useful until my PC gamepad needs disappeared in later years.

Got Covox clone today for 2 USD to complement my collection of soundcards. Looks like this (right bottom corner):

CkRtech wrote:

Congrats!

It looks like that card has been at the bottom of a pile for awhile. While it is perfectly normal to have those components leaning over or flattened, it seems like the ones on your card are doing so due to other items stacked on top of them. That cap you mentioned basically had its back broken by being smashed into another component. Also note that your IRQ selection pins are bent. One area that concerns me just a little bit is IC7 - it looks like you might have a bit of pin corrosion - probably just enough that it needs to be cleaned up slightly (in other words - no leg damage).

But really that board first needs to be cleaned! Hopefully you have someone local that can help you out with component testing/replacement. I am jealous! 😀

Thanks for the insight! I don't even want to think what this poor card went through. It certainly was at the bottom of the box when I received it.

I will clean it this weekend with compressed air and q-tips, and inspect if there's some further damage. Then I'll look into replacing that cap, I hope it's still salvageable!

stamasd wrote:

I agree with you, but there are people who are willing to pay these prices. From what I've seen lately, $110 is reasonably low for a 5500.

True that. It's just not me, who are buying. 😁
Shure V5 would be nice to play with, yet the price alone, tells me that V5 is not my kind of hardware.

It's a bit like the same with GUS cards.
Just too darn expensive.

If I had one of eighter right now, they would probably not be sold. 50℅ chance they would not be. If selling them, the money would be spend on 486 stuff.

Personally I did sell a boxed GUS ACE last year. And I used half of the money on 486 stuff and the last half on my daughters burthday present.

Following the trend that has everything Apple >3yrs old called "vintage", I'll have to post this here 🤣 Received a replacement fan for a MacBook 13" unibody late 2008 model, my first and only bought-as-new Apple hardware. The old one was slightly ringing after nearly 8 years of constant use (bearings going bad probably). New one is a Sunon MagLev, which I got from eBay from some seller in Hong Kong. Was a pretty straightforward replacement (just three screws), noise levels are almost like the stock one's. Pretty happy with this laptop still being my everyday go-to machine, despite its age.

p.s.: why is it that I don't feel confident considering anything s775++++ as "vintage"/"retro"? 😕

psychz wrote:

p.s.: why is it that I don't feel confident considering anything s775++++ as "vintage"/"retro"? 😕

You are not the only one here... S775 are just old, not retro/vintage by far.
It will be in 10+ years from now.

Right. Apart from that, I think we can all agree that these platforms are, even by today's standards, too usable for everyday cases to be called vintage...

brostenen wrote:

110 for a vga card. I know it is a rare card and everyone wants.... You know... Things like that. I can't justify paying more th […]
Show full quote

stamasd wrote:

Also if anyone is interested, there is a Voodoo 5500 AGP listed freshly for $110 on ebay right now. I have one, don't need another.

110 for a vga card. I know it is a rare card and everyone wants.... You know... Things like that.
I can't justify paying more than 15 US Dollars for a vga card.
I gave 4 US Dollars for my Radeon-9800-XXL (the Medion model) this year.

Really depends on the card. I wouldn't pay much more than £15 for an AGP or PCI GPU unless I was going for the best of the best (or needed another Voodoo and got impatient, then I might spend a little more). But if I was buying for a rarer platform, like ISA, EISA (if there are many such GPUs), VLB or MCA - then I might expect to pay a fair chunk more. Mind you, I have a couple of TNT2s and a Radeon 9550 in my spares bin, so I'm not in dire need of them anyway (at least on the AGP front).

Got this Asus AGP-V3200 card for free. It's a 16 MB Voodoo Banshee for the AGP slot:

Well, guess I am about to build a Slot I machine (or two): I now have both Pentium II and Pentium III, a Voodoo Banshee, a Voodoo 3 3000 AGP, an Aureal Vortex-based card and two empty AT cases with PSUs. The only thing I'm missing seems to be an AT 440BX motherboard for a Slot I.

Another score is a 4x Creative (Panasonic) CD-ROM:

That's the oldest drive I have. I'll have to see if it can read CD-R (not to mention CD-RW which I use a lot), but chances are, it's gonna be useless. Still cool in its own way.

jheronimus wrote:

Another score is a 4x Creative (Panasonic) CD-ROM:

anyone made these run off a battery? i often thought of it, but im just too lazy

mrau wrote:

anyone made these run off a battery? i often thought of it, but im just too lazy

What's the point? You want to use it as an audio CD player?

jheronimus wrote:

The only thing I'm missing seems to be an AT 440BX motherboard for a Slot I.

Those are ATX, not AT.

jheronimus wrote:

What's the point? You want to use it as an audio CD player?

y not?

stamasd wrote:

jheronimus wrote:

The only thing I'm missing seems to be an AT 440BX motherboard for a Slot I.

Those are ATX, not AT.

Not necessarily, but I do get the feeling that ATX is much more common for Slot 1 in general. But still there are things like Asus P2B-B. The article says that many "Chinese" manufacturers have done Slot 1 mobos for baby AT. I guess the implication is that big-name brands like Asus weren't likely to make products like this.

It's just that I already have some AT cases, PSUs and keyboards, so I really don't want to use ATX.