The machine is a Tulip pc compact 2, a machine with a NEC V20 CPU, 2 floppy drives (5.25" and 3.5"), 20MB harddisk and EGA graphics. It is in pristine condition. No dust!!!! It looks like it was hardly used. It came with the EGA monitor, original keyboard and manuals. Everything still packed in the original boxes! There were 4 AA batteries inside, badlyh corroded but nowhere near electronics. I've taken those out and will find out what they are for and replace them.
Incredible find. I'd love to see a video on this. What capacity is the HDD? What I like about clones from this era is that they all did things slightly differently from the 5160, even though that's the machine they were ultimately seeking to be compatible with. The styling is fantastic! What software was loaded on it?
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TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:http://i.imgur.com/YRsNSzM.jpg […] Show full quote
Bought a mystery motherboard.
Does anybody here have any idea what it is?
I know it has a VIA chipset because it has 750MB of RAM and Intel top out at 512MB. Not sure if it's SDRAM or DDR or if it supports Tualatins or not (I hope it does). No clue what that brown slot above the AGP connector is either.
Gigabyte GA-6VX7-4X (or some very close revision)
Dip based configuration which sucks IMO but it's the fastest of TomsHardwares VIA Apollo 133 Roundup which doesn't suck.
Does anybody know off the top of there head if this board supports Tualatins?
EDIT: How many *bleep* revisions of this board did Gigabyte make? I must have just googled 20 different GA-6 boards and they all either are a different layout entirely or have either a yellow Parallel port or an ISA slot (both of which mine lacks). Someones head at Gigabyte Corporate must have rolled from this naming scheme at someone point.
Cyb3rst0rms Retro Hardware Warzone:https://discord.gg/jK8uvR4c I used to own over 160 graphics card, I've since recovered from graphics card addiction
By yellow parallel port you mean it has no onboard sound card? I think that tualatin support (at least the official one) came with VIA 694T chipset, so that would be a GA-6VTX* board.
By yellow parallel port you mean it has no onboard sound card? I think that tualatin support (at least the official one) came with VIA 694T chipset, so that would be a GA-6VTX* board.
Sadly it looks like odds are it will be a Coppermine board. Most of the later GA-6 versions have a blue PCB.
I still can't find any info on this specific revision. They all either have the yellow port OR an ISA slot.
Cyb3rst0rms Retro Hardware Warzone:https://discord.gg/jK8uvR4c I used to own over 160 graphics card, I've since recovered from graphics card addiction
TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:http://i.imgur.com/YRsNSzM.jpg […] Show full quote
Bought a mystery motherboard.
Does anybody here have any idea what it is?
I know it has a VIA chipset because it has 750MB of RAM and Intel top out at 512MB. Not sure if it's SDRAM or DDR or if it supports Tualatins or not (I hope it does). No clue what that brown slot above the AGP connector is either.
By yellow parallel port you mean it has no onboard sound card? I think that tualatin support (at least the official one) came with VIA 694T chipset, so that would be a GA-6VTX* board.
Sadly it looks like odds are it will be a Coppermine board. Most of the later GA-6 versions have a blue PCB.
I still can't find any info on this specific revision. They all either have the yellow port OR an ISA slot.
Many GA Tualalin boards had blue CPU sockets (and some of the other brands also had blue CPU sockets for their Tualatin boards, though I don't actually know the extend of this coloring scheme).
But imo it seems like a nice board, even though it's probably a Coppermine board without ISA slot. It's not BX or an older VIA, as it has an AGP 4x slot.
And one can tell it's a VIA chipsetted board due to the south bridge being VIA and not Intel, so definitely not an Intel chipsetted board 😜
I swore by MSI through the A/AM2 era and was never let down. Occasional Biostar was also used and still work. Today I use an Asus AM3+ board..
I even have an Abit AN7 thats still functional.
Maybe Im just that lucky.
Socket A MSI boards were OK, but suffered from capacitor plague like Abit. Cheap LGA775 MSI boards were horrid, but expensive ones were incredible (ex. MSI P35 NEO2). Same for mid-high end AM2/AM3 boards. Current MSI motherboards are very good. I use them in medical imaging equipment at work. For lower end PCs I use Biostar. I'd used them in high end machines as well but for some reason retailers here don't stock high end biostar models.
TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:http://i.imgur.com/YRsNSzM.jpg […] Show full quote
Bought a mystery motherboard.
Does anybody here have any idea what it is?
I know it has a VIA chipset because it has 750MB of RAM and Intel top out at 512MB. Not sure if it's SDRAM or DDR or if it supports Tualatins or not (I hope it does). No clue what that brown slot above the AGP connector is either.
Too blurry. Why not power it up and read the BIOS ID string?
TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:http://i.imgur.com/YRsNSzM.jpg […] Show full quote
Bought a mystery motherboard.
Does anybody here have any idea what it is?
I know it has a VIA chipset because it has 750MB of RAM and Intel top out at 512MB. Not sure if it's SDRAM or DDR or if it supports Tualatins or not (I hope it does). No clue what that brown slot above the AGP connector is either.
Too blurry. Why not power it up and read the BIOS ID string?
All I have is the sellers photo right now. Obviously once it gets here identification should be quite simple.
I'm really hoping its not a locked down OEM board. I specifically bought this to build a Ghetto Test Bench for AGP/PCI/Socket 370 stuff.
If the BIOS features are locked down in any way shape or form it would be useless for that task.
Cyb3rst0rms Retro Hardware Warzone:https://discord.gg/jK8uvR4c I used to own over 160 graphics card, I've since recovered from graphics card addiction
TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:http://i.imgur.com/YRsNSzM.jpg […] Show full quote
Bought a mystery motherboard.
Does anybody here have any idea what it is?
I know it has a VIA chipset because it has 750MB of RAM and Intel top out at 512MB. Not sure if it's SDRAM or DDR or if it supports Tualatins or not (I hope it does). No clue what that brown slot above the AGP connector is either.
Picked up a package full of SDR/DDR/DDR2 RAM modules yesterday. A guy was selling memory modules via local auction portal. He had about ten separate auctions for various memory modules, with very low starting price (0.04 EUR for an item) but of course the postage was bit high - 6.25 EUR for one item, which was expensive considering he was about twenty kilometers away and didn't offer local pickup. Clearly his intention was to earn some money on the shipping costs. As he had no good description and rather blurry photos, no wonder there were no bids. So I've bid on five auctions for modules, that interested me the most and won with the starting price. In the end he was kind enough to send me all won auctions in one package and even added the rest of items, that were not sold.
So I've paid him a little extra and ended up with 21 memory sticks for about 8.33 EUR total including shipping costs:
- 3x 32MB SDRAM - one module is double sided 16-chip, so I hope it would run in my VX mobo although it has no SPD chip (and there are no traced that it was unsoldered, but is simply non-existent ?!?)
- 1x 64MB PC100 and 1x 128MB PC133
- 2 sticks of 256MB PC100 CL2 kingston modules, which I was after in order to put in supersocket7 rig
- 5x 256MB and 3x 512MB DDR modules - various models from PC266 to PC400
- 2x 1024 MB of Kingston DDR333 modules (was surprise for me, pity that they aren't DDR400, but who knows, maybe will work at 400MHz speeds).
- 2x 1024 MB of Kingston DDR400 modules - tested and they work, these were my another point of interest
- and two pretty useless sticks of 512 MB DDR2-667 modules
Although I will use only few of those memory sticks, it is always good to extend my surplus, which I had to reorganize a bit (from SDR all the way up to DDR3 organized by capacity and speed):
mv_cz wrote:Picked up a package full of SDR/DDR/DDR2 RAM modules yesterday. A guy was selling memory modules via local auction portal. He ha […] Show full quote
Picked up a package full of SDR/DDR/DDR2 RAM modules yesterday. A guy was selling memory modules via local auction portal. He had about ten separate auctions for various memory modules, with very low starting price (0.04 EUR for an item) but of course the postage was bit high - 6.25 EUR for one item, which was expensive considering he was about twenty kilometers away and didn't offer local pickup. Clearly his intention was to earn some money on the shipping costs. As he had no good description and rather blurry photos, no wonder there were no bids. So I've bid on five auctions for modules, that interested me the most and won with the starting price. In the end he was kind enough to send me all won auctions in one package and even added the rest of items, that were not sold.
So I've paid him a little extra and ended up with 21 memory sticks for about 8.33 EUR total including shipping costs:
- 3x 32MB SDRAM - one module is double sided 16-chip, so I hope it would run in my VX mobo although it has no SPD chip (and there are no traced that it was unsoldered, but is simply non-existent ?!?)
- 1x 64MB PC100 and 1x 128MB PC133
- 2 sticks of 256MB PC100 CL2 kingston modules, which I was after in order to put in supersocket7 rig
- 5x 256MB and 3x 512MB DDR modules - various models from PC266 to PC400
- 2x 1024 MB of Kingston DDR333 modules (was surprise for me, pity that they aren't DDR400, but who knows, maybe will work at 400MHz speeds).
- 2x 1024 MB of Kingston DDR400 modules - tested and they work, these were my another point of interest
- and two pretty useless sticks of 512 MB DDR2-667 modules
DSC02599.JPG
Although I will use only few of those memory sticks, it is always good to extend my surplus, which I had to reorganize a bit (from SDR all the way up to DDR3 organized by capacity and speed):
DSC02605.JPG
And not to forget my "new" P4 Cedarmill CPU which came from Electromyne for total 6.98 EUR incl. shipping (thanks Phil for discount 😀 )
DSC02604.JPG
That Electromyne shit worries the hell out of me. I'm afraid that's site is the beginning of commercialized overpriced retro computing. They want nearly £100 for $40 dollar cards like V3 3000s. The idea for a site like that (I thought) should be to have the lowest prices on the net for that stuff. There are a couple of vintage PC YouTubers advertising for there shitty overpriced European only service too.
Cyb3rst0rms Retro Hardware Warzone:https://discord.gg/jK8uvR4c I used to own over 160 graphics card, I've since recovered from graphics card addiction
That Electromyne shit worries the hell out of me. I'm afraid that's site is the beginning of commercialized overpriced retro computing. They want nearly £100 for $40 dollar cards like V3 3000s. The idea for a site like that (I thought) should be to have the lowest prices on the net for that stuff. There are a couple of vintage PC YouTubers advertising for there shitty overpriced European only service too.
That Electromyne shit worries the hell out of me. I'm afraid that's site is the beginning of commercialized overpriced retro computing. They want nearly £100 for $40 dollar cards like V3 3000s. The idea for a site like that (I thought) should be to have the lowest prices on the net for that stuff. There are a couple of vintage PC YouTubers advertising for there shitty overpriced European only service too.
Exactly same as im thinkig!
Yeah. I'm hoping that site is short lived. I really wish YouTubers wouldn't advertise it too. They should realize the effect this will have on the hobby. I'm not about to start paying more money for vintage parts than I already do. Im already going to be hard pressed to complete my pre GeForce 8 collection at under $50 a card.
Cyb3rst0rms Retro Hardware Warzone:https://discord.gg/jK8uvR4c I used to own over 160 graphics card, I've since recovered from graphics card addiction
