VOGONS


Bought these (retro) hardware today

Topic actions

Reply 33281 of 52337, by Horun

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

I do not think so...

Last edited by Horun on 2020-04-06, 13:15. Edited 1 time in total.

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 33282 of 52337, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Bought me my childhood motherboard that I haven't seen or used in 8 years (old one lost the BIOS chip and wasn't Y2K compliant with many other issues). PCChips M912 V1.7 with real L2 cache and AMI BIOS (might be the WinBIOS). Has a broken latch for the CPU socket, but works otherwise, however, I have a spare from a beyond repair board, so that'll be an easy fix, plus I have 2 CPUs to use and some RAM, VLB I/O card, sound card, and video card (ISA Trident card). Might get a VLB video card that'll work with both MS-DOS and Windows 95, as long as it has good acceleration (CL-GD5428 won't do justice, but a Diamond Stealth 24VL would be).

s-l1600.jpg
Filename
s-l1600.jpg
File size
341.73 KiB
Views
1380 views
File comment
Board
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 33283 of 52337, by liqmat

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-04-05, 18:38:

I want to find the sweet spot between the CPU speeds of the 286-10mhz thru Pentium class CPU.
Using just ONE Pentium CPU.

If you really want that range in speed the closest thing you're going to get, in my experience, is an early Socket 5 board with a "turbo" toggle. Usually it was CTRL-ALT-(+,-). The toggle, I believe and someone correct me if I'm wrong, was just disabing/enabling L2 cache on the board which had a dramatic effect on speed. I had a stack of these boards at one time and still may have a few, but I wont have access to them until the fall. With a Pentium 75 installed and de-turbo inititated it was about slow 486 to mid range 386 speeds. Just an idea.

Reply 33284 of 52337, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

I have cache control programs I wrote using DEBUG and that makes my 486 go from 133MHz to 33MHz or 40MHz 386 speeds (some games are speed sensitive for the Roland MT-32) and the cacheoff command is called when I choose the MT-32 for the music, especially for Wing Commander 2 (use it for the Sound Blaster one as well) and calls the cacheon command to get it back to speed since pressing the Ctrl-Alt-(+/-) on my 486, but the key command on the Socket 5 board that you gave me works with the key press. Also, Ctrl-Alt-\ also toggles it as well, if my memory serves.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 33285 of 52337, by liqmat

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

That's right, I gave you one of those boards. I think that type of board would serve his purpose. I think it's the Intel Zappa board iirc.

This is the board >> http://tulrich.com/tectrixvr/intel_pba-638995_manual.pdf

Page 26 - deturbo = similar to 25MHz AT speeds.

Reply 33286 of 52337, by PC Hoarder Patrol

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Finally got round to opening the (quarantined!) box on my Data General AViiON 2300 dual P3 server. Weirdly, it seems to have been packaged separately in bits (case frame, case bezel, board/cpus/memory & PSU). Sadly there's more issues with the bezel on the Astor II case than I had expected - I knew there was bad pillar damage but it turns out the outer hinged door, which covers the hot-swap SCSI drive bays, is a bit of a write-off as it's missing a chunk and the rest has some nasty cracks, so I'll either have to leave the case front open or consider making my own door.

Anyway, enough of the downers and onto the core of the system - the L440GX+. The board was pretty clean but the PSU needed quite a bit of cleaning. Once I've checked these fully I'll decide what to do about the case.

L440GX.JPG
Filename
L440GX.JPG
File size
1.37 MiB
Views
1339 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 33287 of 52337, by brostenen

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

I bought this board, for my SixyClone project. It is cheaper to buy a complete board for parts, than it is to buy every connectors seperately.Especially the cartridge connector is really hard to come by, and the shield over the connector is impossible to source anywere these days. Yup... Going to build my own Commodore64 from scratch. 😁

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Commodore-64-motherb … ordt=true&rt=nc

(If anyone is interested, I can post the link to the SixtyClone again)

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

001100 010010 011110 100001 101101 110011

Reply 33288 of 52337, by Cyrix200+

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
brostenen wrote on 2020-04-06, 06:58:

I bought this board, for my SixyClone project. It is cheaper to buy a complete board for parts, than it is to buy every connectors seperately.Especially the cartridge connector is really hard to come by, and the shield over the connector is impossible to source anywere these days. Yup... Going to build my own Commodore64 from scratch. 😁

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Commodore-64-motherb … ordt=true&rt=nc

(If anyone is interested, I can post the link to the SixtyClone again)

Ah cool! You're going to build a SixtyClone #250466 then?

They're reasonably priced I think. Looks like a cool project!

1982 to 2001

Reply 33289 of 52337, by brostenen

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
Cyrix200+ wrote on 2020-04-06, 14:42:
brostenen wrote on 2020-04-06, 06:58:

I bought this board, for my SixyClone project. It is cheaper to buy a complete board for parts, than it is to buy every connectors seperately.Especially the cartridge connector is really hard to come by, and the shield over the connector is impossible to source anywere these days. Yup... Going to build my own Commodore64 from scratch. 😁

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Commodore-64-motherb … ordt=true&rt=nc

(If anyone is interested, I can post the link to the SixtyClone again)

Ah cool! You're going to build a SixtyClone #250466 then?

They're reasonably priced I think. Looks like a cool project!

Yup. I am going to build my self a brand new Commodore64, with the use of as many new parts possible. Of course there is a limit in terms of money, hence I will be using old ports like cartridge connector and DB9 ports. However, what is saved on ports, can be used on other stuff or even get the absolute best SID revision out there. There are actually only a few things that have not been replicated/made from new.

The main reason why I am building one, is of course to build it, and see the machine running for the first time.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

001100 010010 011110 100001 101101 110011

Reply 33290 of 52337, by Horun

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
bjwil1991 wrote on 2020-04-06, 05:36:

Bought me my childhood motherboard that I haven't seen or used in 8 years (old one lost the BIOS chip and wasn't Y2K compliant with many other issues). PCChips M912 V1.7 with real L2 cache and AMI BIOS (might be the WinBIOS). Has a broken latch for the CPU socket, but works otherwise, however, I have a spare from a beyond repair board, so that'll be an easy fix, plus I have 2 CPUs to use and some RAM, VLB I/O card, sound card, and video card (ISA Trident card). Might get a VLB video card that'll work with both MS-DOS and Windows 95, as long as it has good acceleration (CL-GD5428 won't do justice, but a Diamond Stealth 24VL would be).

s-l1600.jpg

Nice ! Those are actually very good motherboards. I could be wrong be think all with the black ISA slots had real cache and many with the white ISA were the ones with fake cache (of the v1.7's) but am sure that just a rumor.

Does it have 256k cache ? Some of them came with 256k as either a 9 chip or a 5 chip set (cannot read your cache chips). Any chance of a better pic of the cache chips ? Just curious because I have seen the 5 chip 256k but not the 9 chip 256k in detail on a v1.7. Thanks !

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 33291 of 52337, by gdjacobs

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
liqmat wrote on 2020-04-06, 05:44:
Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-04-05, 18:38:

I want to find the sweet spot between the CPU speeds of the 286-10mhz thru Pentium class CPU.
Using just ONE Pentium CPU.

If you really want that range in speed the closest thing you're going to get, in my experience, is an early Socket 5 board with a "turbo" toggle. Usually it was CTRL-ALT-(+,-). The toggle, I believe and someone correct me if I'm wrong, was just disabing/enabling L2 cache on the board which had a dramatic effect on speed. I had a stack of these boards at one time and still may have a few, but I wont have access to them until the fall. With a Pentium 75 installed and de-turbo inititated it was about slow 486 to mid range 386 speeds. Just an idea.

There are a few unicorns out there that allow some amazing things to happen. Of course, that does require you to go unicorn hunting.
WIP 2: The 6-in-1 Turbo-switched Socket 7 - from XT to 500MHz; dual Tseng powered...

I'm not 100% clear what the board is altering. The chipset may be adding wait states or other sources of delay. Deturbo for this guy is clearly independent of cache configuration.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 33292 of 52337, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
Horun wrote on 2020-04-07, 00:38:

Nice ! Those are actually very good motherboards. I could be wrong be think all with the black ISA slots had real cache and many with the white ISA were the ones with fake cache (of the v1.7's) but am sure that just a rumor.

Does it have 256k cache ? Some of them came with 256k as either a 9 chip or a 5 chip set (cannot read your cache chips). Any chance of a better pic of the cache chips ? Just curious because I have seen the 5 chip 256k but not the 9 chip 256k in detail on a v1.7. Thanks !

Toshiba TC55V328AP-15 28-pin PDIP SRAM (3.3V 32Kx8), 9 of them, so 256KB L2 cache altogether. The board can take up to 1MB L2 cache, which was a lot for a 486 board.

s-l1600-cache.jpg
Filename
s-l1600-cache.jpg
File size
323.33 KiB
Views
1139 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 33293 of 52337, by pan069

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Very happy to have acquired a Sound Blaster 2.0 CT1350B. I never had this one growing up, I had a Sound Blaster 1.5 with the add on CMS chips instead, but that one is loooong gone unfortunately.

I have been taking this one for a test drive the past day or two. It's in my 286/16, replacing my Blasterboard (sorry Blasterboard, you're awesome but the CT1350B is awesomerer...).

The card is is good condition, sounds great and the CMS chips are also working as expected. All in all, a great addition my collection of Creative cards.

nSKtRvD.jpg

Last edited by pan069 on 2020-04-07, 23:27. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 33298 of 52337, by dionb

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
mpe wrote on 2020-04-07, 14:30:

Love the CMS beeps!

Bought ET4000 VGA for my 386 build

DSC_6327.jpeg

Nice - I have the exact same card. An ET3000, as imi already states. On a fast machine it's slower than an ET4000, but the native CGA&EGA support compensates nicely - and a 386 is hardly a 'fast' machine.

Reply 33299 of 52337, by imi

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

a few little things :3

SDL cable for my Model M that got shipped without one 😒
got a somewhat good deal on it considering what they usually sell for.

hardware38_01.jpg
Filename
hardware38_01.jpg
File size
322.09 KiB
Views
1624 views
File license
CC-BY-4.0

a few more SLC CF cards for builds in need of a bit more space.

hardware38_02.jpg
Filename
hardware38_02.jpg
File size
295.22 KiB
Views
1624 views
File license
CC-BY-4.0

Microsoft InPort card and a weird Z-NIX mouse card, I don't really know what the point of the cinch connector is yet but I have found a picture of a mouse with a cable that has one.
It almost looks like it goes from a DB25 serial port to cinch and then the mouse connects to the DB9 on the card.

hardware38_03.jpg
Filename
hardware38_03.jpg
File size
514.55 KiB
Views
1624 views
File license
CC-BY-4.0