Tease.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

A package that was supposedly (as per the sellers words) lost in the mail nearly 2 and a half months ago containing a GeForce2 MX 64MB and a 3DFX Voodoo3 3000 AGP mysteriously showed up. Now we get to see if something can survive 2 months in the mail. I still have absolutely no idea what this package was doing during its 2 months in transit with USPS with an inactive tracking number. I was refunded for this as well so in practice it's essentially free.

This also, however, means I need to pull out my socket 370 board for testing which I don't really feel like doing today. I enjoy retro-computing, I don't enjoy fucking around with what amounts to a motherboard, power supply, RAM, and CPU sitting ontop of a cardboard box sitting ontop of whatever random table happens to be available for component testing.

Is this the package you went on a huge mad rant about? The one where you basically accused the seller of lying to you and the world of conspiring to make it impossible for you to find a 3dfx card for cheap?

If so, you need to give the seller a big, big apology.

And return the refund, or the package, one of either I would hope. Because you know, right now you have basically stolen from the guy.

appiah4 wrote:

Is this the package you went on a huge mad rant about? The one where you basically accused the seller of lying to you and the w […]
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TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

A package that was supposedly (as per the sellers words) lost in the mail nearly 2 and a half months ago containing a GeForce2 MX 64MB and a 3DFX Voodoo3 3000 AGP mysteriously showed up. Now we get to see if something can survive 2 months in the mail. I still have absolutely no idea what this package was doing during its 2 months in transit with USPS with an inactive tracking number. I was refunded for this as well so in practice it's essentially free.

This also, however, means I need to pull out my socket 370 board for testing which I don't really feel like doing today. I enjoy retro-computing, I don't enjoy fucking around with what amounts to a motherboard, power supply, RAM, and CPU sitting ontop of a cardboard box sitting ontop of whatever random table happens to be available for component testing.

Is this the package you went on a huge mad rant about? The one where you basically accused the seller of lying to you and the world of conspiring to make it impossible for you to find a 3dfx card for cheap?

If so, you need to give the seller a big, big apology.

And return the refund, or the package, one of either I would hope. Because you know, right now you have basically stolen from the guy.

+1 Anything less is completely dishonorable in my eyes. If he filed an insurance claim and got his money and got his money that way, then that's okay.

hard1k wrote:

As you see, the beast came with both tri-CPU cards, but fitted with only 2 of the PPro's per each one, totalling for 4 instead of 6. I haven't found another couple of SL25A (yet),.

Try CPU-World.com forums for the CPUs.

Thanks, I will!

Gered wrote:

An S3 805 VLB video card arrived today which I will be using in a 486 build (obviously). :) […]
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An S3 805 VLB video card arrived today which I will be using in a 486 build (obviously). 😀

Those cards are wonderfull. Well I can not speak for each maker, yet the S3-805 chip is a great one for the price.
I have one in my 80486 Dx2-80 and paired with an S3-805-vlb, it will run Doom extremely well.
Dx2-66's are great and all that and everyone wants one, yet I feel the 80 hits the spot just a bit better.
My experience with an S3-805 is that it is faster than a CL-5428/29/30 and it gives nearly no vertical spaghetti
lines on a TFT/LCD monitor. Something that an Cirrus Logic Vlb card will do. (at least those 3 CL cards I tested)

brostenen wrote:

Those cards are wonderfull. Well I can not speak for each maker, yet the S3-805 chip is a great one for the price. I have one in […]
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Those cards are wonderfull. Well I can not speak for each maker, yet the S3-805 chip is a great one for the price.
I have one in my 80486 Dx2-80 and paired with an S3-805-vlb, it will run Doom extremely well.
Dx2-66's are great and all that and everyone wants one, yet I feel the 80 hits the spot just a bit better.
My experience with an S3-805 is that it is faster than a CL-5428/29/30 and it gives nearly no vertical spaghetti
lines on a TFT/LCD monitor. Something that an Cirrus Logic Vlb card will do. (at least those 3 CL cards I tested)

That's good to hear. I did a bunch of searching around for posts where people mentioned S3 805's before buying this one as I didn't really know anything about them (back in those days I was a bit too young and didn't have any money to be able to get a new card anyway, even if my dad would have let me change it out to begin with, heh). Seems like most people have only good things to say about them and from the few benchmarks I've seen they seem to do very well. Looking forward to seeing it in action! I'll be using it with a DX2-66 (I definitely hear you regarding an 80, but DX2-66 feels more "classic" to me so that's why I'll be going that route).

Found a Music Quest PC Midi Card (8-bit that is MPU-401 intelligent mode compatible) on eBay for a great price and snatched it up as fast as I could. I was afraid somebody else was going to buy it before I could complete Paypal checkout.

Seller's photo:

Boguht a ThinkPad 600E from a thinkpad forum user the other day... and a genuine charger for it + a Xircom PCMCIA ethernet/modem combo card. Anyone used one of these bad boys?

oeuvre wrote:

Boguht a ThinkPad 600E from a thinkpad forum user the other day... and a genuine charger for it + a Xircom PCMCIA ethernet/modem […]
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Boguht a ThinkPad 600E from a thinkpad forum user the other day... and a genuine charger for it + a Xircom PCMCIA ethernet/modem combo card. Anyone used one of these bad boys?

Way back in the day I had a huge pile of those cards. Didn't have any use for them, so I got rid of them. Probably sent them to the thrift store or something.

cyclone3d wrote:

oeuvre wrote:

Boguht a ThinkPad 600E from a thinkpad forum user the other day... and a genuine charger for it + a Xircom PCMCIA ethernet/modem […]
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Boguht a ThinkPad 600E from a thinkpad forum user the other day... and a genuine charger for it + a Xircom PCMCIA ethernet/modem combo card. Anyone used one of these bad boys?

Way back in the day I had a huge pile of those cards. Didn't have any use for them, so I got rid of them. Probably sent them to the thrift store or something.

Those are great for the ealyy wifi laptops since the mpci modems and NICs are sacrificed. I've got at least three or four stashed away for my latitude collection.

@Hard1k

Did you remember to buy a forklift with that monster? I expect nothing less than a multi axis 3d flight simulator driven with this!

I've got one in my Toshiba Satellite 210CDS. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to make the ethernet to work ... yet

I don't really know what's wrong here, but I'll find it maybe.

Gered wrote:

brostenen wrote:

Those cards are wonderfull. Well I can not speak for each maker, yet the S3-805 chip is a great one for the price. I have one in […]
Show full quote

Those cards are wonderfull. Well I can not speak for each maker, yet the S3-805 chip is a great one for the price.
I have one in my 80486 Dx2-80 and paired with an S3-805-vlb, it will run Doom extremely well.
Dx2-66's are great and all that and everyone wants one, yet I feel the 80 hits the spot just a bit better.
My experience with an S3-805 is that it is faster than a CL-5428/29/30 and it gives nearly no vertical spaghetti
lines on a TFT/LCD monitor. Something that an Cirrus Logic Vlb card will do. (at least those 3 CL cards I tested)

That's good to hear. I did a bunch of searching around for posts where people mentioned S3 805's before buying this one as I didn't really know anything about them (back in those days I was a bit too young and didn't have any money to be able to get a new card anyway, even if my dad would have let me change it out to begin with, heh). Seems like most people have only good things to say about them and from the few benchmarks I've seen they seem to do very well. Looking forward to seeing it in action! I'll be using it with a DX2-66 (I definitely hear you regarding an 80, but DX2-66 feels more "classic" to me so that's why I'll be going that route).

If you look at the Dx2-66 "sleeper-pc" that is on Phils Computerlab (not dissing Phil here, it's just the way it performs), you will see that Doom is a bit like walking when you are really drunk. I think it gave some 29fps with his CirrusLogic/Dx2-66-setup. To me, it is just way too slow for that game, and it just need that last umpff... You know... You will see that in all other Dx6-66 setup's, unless of course it is the most powerfull 66 that can be build. You know... I am only talking out from the perspective of gaming what can be found these days, and not some 1000 dollar powerhouse. That is why I went for the Dx2-80/S3-805 system in the end, and sold off nearly all the other VLB cards that I had. Still have a 5424-VLB somewere that will not be sold, as it is my sparecard. Just in case the S3 craps out on me. Ummm.... Why did we ever settle on playing Doom with a dx-33/ET4000-isa back in the days? 😮

hard1k wrote:

Well, quite a nice "addition" to my collection - a monstrous ALR Revolution 6x6 😀
It arrived in parts, I don't have immediate access to all of them, so I can't provide the complete set of good pictures - only the seller's ones as well as some others made by my mom who was extremely happy to receive this 60kg beast while I'm 13000km away 😁

P.P.S. Hey guys, am I crazy and obsessed enough to enter the elite geek force of VOGONS?..

Really, really, nice!

I do like my ALR servers... and own one myself in the form of the dual 386 capable Powerpro.

Looking at at this monster though... and being 386 oriented.... I really would not know where to start with it. 🤣

You have hours... and nights of fun ahead of you!

brostenen wrote:

If you look at the Dx2-66 "sleeper-pc" that is on Phils Computerlab (not dissing Phil here, it's just the way it performs), you will see that Doom is a bit like walking when you are really drunk. I think it gave some 29fps with his CirrusLogic/Dx2-66-setup. To me, it is just way too slow for that game, and it just need that last umpff... You know... You will see that in all other Dx6-66 setup's, unless of course it is the most powerfull 66 that can be build. You know... I am only talking out from the perspective of gaming what can be found these days, and not some 1000 dollar powerhouse. That is why I went for the Dx2-80/S3-805 system in the end, and sold off nearly all the other VLB cards that I had. Still have a 5424-VLB somewere that will not be sold, as it is my sparecard. Just in case the S3 craps out on me. Ummm.... Why did we ever settle on playing Doom with a dx-33/ET4000-isa back in the days? 😮

For a lot of us, our preferences for what hardware we choose to use in our builds these days are going to be primarily rooted in what we remember using most often back in those days. For me, anything faster than a DX2-66 is not something I ever saw in person so it would probably feel "wrong" to me (playing Doom on DOSbox or even on my P233MMX PC also feels similarly wrong ... it's too smooth for my eyes which is a strange thing to write, but it's true). I think everyone can appreciate faster framerates, but if I'm not trying to build a 486 that is true to what I had and used back in the day, then I might as well just keep using my P233 for DOS games and get better framerates then a DX2-80 would ever give me. For me, that's not the goal, so a DX2-80 is out, and is why I choose a DX2-66 instead of even a DX4-100. 😀

luckybob wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

Is this the package you went on a huge mad rant about? The one where you basically accused the seller of lying to you and the w […]
Show full quote

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

A package that was supposedly (as per the sellers words) lost in the mail nearly 2 and a half months ago containing a GeForce2 MX 64MB and a 3DFX Voodoo3 3000 AGP mysteriously showed up. Now we get to see if something can survive 2 months in the mail. I still have absolutely no idea what this package was doing during its 2 months in transit with USPS with an inactive tracking number. I was refunded for this as well so in practice it's essentially free.

This also, however, means I need to pull out my socket 370 board for testing which I don't really feel like doing today. I enjoy retro-computing, I don't enjoy fucking around with what amounts to a motherboard, power supply, RAM, and CPU sitting ontop of a cardboard box sitting ontop of whatever random table happens to be available for component testing.

Is this the package you went on a huge mad rant about? The one where you basically accused the seller of lying to you and the world of conspiring to make it impossible for you to find a 3dfx card for cheap?

If so, you need to give the seller a big, big apology.

And return the refund, or the package, one of either I would hope. Because you know, right now you have basically stolen from the guy.

+1 Anything less is completely dishonorable in my eyes. If he filed an insurance claim and got his money and got his money that way, then that's okay.

Yeah, somebody fucked us both with this 2.5 month shipping delay though. I suspect the person she called her courier who brings her packages to the mail.

Anywho, I'll send the seller the money as soon as I have $15 dollars to send.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Yeah, somebody fucked us both with this 2.5 month shipping delay though. I suspect the person she called her courier who brings her packages to the mail.

Anywho, I'll send the seller the money as soon as I have $15 dollars to send.

That's good karma mate.

hard1k wrote:

...

How much juice does that take? Or is that like redundancy for the redundancy... ya' know, just in case 🤣

So, like what's happening here o.0 thats 6x Socket8 & 2x Slot1? (Edit: Slot1 ram 😵 !) What connector between processor boards and mobo? Win2k I presume 😀. Someone should start a behemoth thread (>2 cpu systems, WinNT/Win2k). I wouldn't mind seeing what other WinNT/2K SMP systems there are.... no dual allowed!

spiroyster wrote:

hard1k wrote:

...

How much juice does that take? Or is that like redundancy for the redundancy... ya' know, just in case 🤣

So, like what's happening here o.0 thats 6x Socket8 & 2x Slot1? (Edit: Slot1 ram 😵 !) What connector between processor boards and mobo? Win2k I presume 😀. Someone should start a behemoth thread (>2 cpu systems, WinNT/Win2k). I wouldn't mind seeing what other WinNT/2K SMP systems there are.... no dual allowed!

What's the actual benefit of having a dual or quad CPU retro system for the purpose of playing retro games?

IIRC Dual-threading support for games didn't come along until 2003ish (Aquanox 2 has HT support IIRC) and it wasn't mainstream until 2006 and wasn't really mature for a further 2 years in around 2008. Not to mention most games right up until 2012 or 2013 had no Quad/Hexa-thread support at all. It was my understanding that back in the day multi-proccesing benefits were exclusive to workstation tasks such as video editing.