I have been waiting for the better part of a year scouring local deals hoping a 486 PC would show up and I've seen nothing other than some either overly expensive ebay options or really cruddy low profile 486 33sx compaq-ish types.

So I bit the bullet and bought a Socket 3 VLB motherboard with an AMD DX4 100, 16MB ram, a controller card and a 512KB Trident video card. If I find that the motherboard is working nicely I may consider a VLB video card and faster VLB controller card as I've never used or had VLB before.

The controller card has a Winbond chip, are these decent and reliable? Should I have any issues with a master CF card or maybe SD card adapter with a slave CD rom on the same cable? The oldest I have is a 48x Creative CD drive.

It's going to go into an AT case (no mhz LED or turbo button sadly) and probably going to put in my big ass SB16 CT2830. Maybe the CD drive can connect to this? I've also got an ESS Audiodrive that has a CDROM header.

CrFr wrote on 2020-12-02, 12:47:

This was in a computer I bought. Nothing special, just a token ring card, but the PCB looks interesting. I wonder why it was built like this? It almost looks like some hobbyist prototype made on strip board.

IMG_1040.JPG
IMG_1041.JPG

That is 100% a prototype board and from the looks of it a non-functional prototype. There is nothing connecting anything to each other... the ISA slot is not even connected to anything.

@foil_fresh

You got some good kit there. M912 with real cache, along with that CT2830. As long as the CF/SD adapter supports Master/Slave modes, you should be OK. Winbond, OPTi, and Goldstar all made good Multi I/O cards back in the day, so I don't foresee any issues with it. You would definitely benefit from having a higher end VLB graphics card, either the ET4000/W32 or the W90C33-ZZ.

Dmetsys wrote on 2020-12-02, 15:35:

@foil_fresh

W90C33-ZZ.

Wow I really had no idea WD made video cards. Thats cool, I will keep an eye out for one.

Thanks for the info about the I/O card, I can't wait for it all to arrive.

Cheers

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-12-02, 15:26:

That is 100% a prototype board and from the looks of it a non-functional prototype. There is nothing connecting anything to each other... the ISA slot is not even connected to anything.

Personally I'm not sure about the "non functional" part. I see there small "fibers" across the board, like these small microwires IBM used to interconnect their processor mainframe components. Anyways, wouldn't be the first time IBM had used unusual PCBs (or unusual manufacturing processes by extension).

foil_fresh wrote on 2020-12-02, 15:49:

Wow I really had no idea WD made video cards. Thats cool, I will keep an eye out for one. […]
Show full quote

Dmetsys wrote on 2020-12-02, 15:35:

@foil_fresh

W90C33-ZZ.

Wow I really had no idea WD made video cards. Thats cool, I will keep an eye out for one.

Thanks for the info about the I/O card, I can't wait for it all to arrive.

Cheers

They were more well known as Paradise branded graphics cards. The 90C33 was either the Accelerator VL Plus, or the Ports O'Call.

Got a beige Afreey 50x IDE cdrom drive for $1 🤣

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-12-02, 15:26:

CrFr wrote on 2020-12-02, 12:47:

This was in a computer I bought. Nothing special, just a token ring card, but the PCB looks interesting. I wonder why it was built like this? It almost looks like some hobbyist prototype made on strip board.

IMG_1040.JPG
IMG_1041.JPG

That is 100% a prototype board and from the looks of it a non-functional prototype. There is nothing connecting anything to each other... the ISA slot is not even connected to anything.

That was what I was wondering about too. There is solder in every joint and no visible wires on either side of the PCB. It looks like it doesn't do much more than hold the chips in place. Still really cool looking though.

foil_fresh wrote on 2020-12-02, 15:05:

I have been waiting for the better part of a year scouring local deals hoping a 486 PC would show up and I've seen nothing other […]
Show full quote

I have been waiting for the better part of a year scouring local deals hoping a 486 PC would show up and I've seen nothing other than some either overly expensive ebay options or really cruddy low profile 486 33sx compaq-ish types.

So I bit the bullet and bought a Socket 3 VLB motherboard with an AMD DX4 100, 16MB ram, a controller card and a 512KB Trident video card. If I find that the motherboard is working nicely I may consider a VLB video card and faster VLB controller card as I've never used or had VLB before.

The controller card has a Winbond chip, are these decent and reliable? Should I have any issues with a master CF card or maybe SD card adapter with a slave CD rom on the same cable? The oldest I have is a 48x Creative CD drive.

It's going to go into an AT case (no mhz LED or turbo button sadly) and probably going to put in my big ass SB16 CT2830. Maybe the CD drive can connect to this? I've also got an ESS Audiodrive that has a CDROM header.

Also consider looking for VLB I/O. With a CF card, you'll definitely notice the difference vs ISA.

As for VLB VGA - yes, the WD90C33 is nice, but pretty much any VLB card will beat the pants off any ISA card, and this isn't a fast one either.

In both cases it's mainly about raw bandwidth, so chipset is less relevant. Note that dual IDE is more common on VLB than on ISA, so you could run the CD off one of those on its own interface. I haven't tried running a very fast CD-Rom drive on a very slow old ISA interface, would be interesting to see what happens there.

That ibm "prototype" board look is typical of early IBM's board design. I see this all the time with IBM boards from 390, other boards IBM made for anything and other boards including quietwriter's has that type of board
too.

Every solder spot is a through hole. Literally grid of holes.

Cheers,

Yes, it is clear that it isn’t a prototype. It came out of a IBM Model 30 which was probably used at steel factory to control some production machinery. I didn’t post a pic of the 30 yet, because it is absolutely filthy. It needs a good cleaning, before I dare to show it to anyone.

I was just wondering what is the point in designing board like this, it feels silly. But still, it is very good looking board. It is not often a network card gets this much attention here 😀

I think I’ll frame it and hang it on the wall, like suggested earlier.

foil_fresh wrote on 2020-12-02, 15:49:

Wow I really had no idea WD made video cards. Thats cool, I will keep an eye out for one. […]
Show full quote

Dmetsys wrote on 2020-12-02, 15:35:

@foil_fresh

W90C33-ZZ.

Wow I really had no idea WD made video cards. Thats cool, I will keep an eye out for one.

Thanks for the info about the I/O card, I can't wait for it all to arrive.

Cheers

Oh yeah, they were pretty well known for the early/mid-90s. It’s too bad WD sold the Paradise graphics hardware division to Phillips to concentrate on hard drives, and Paradise/Philips sank without a trace. Not even a survivor firm in the greater computing industry like S3 and Via, Rendition and Micron, or C&T and Intel Graphics.

In an interesting parallel, Silicon Motion (SMI) used to make VGA chips (SM721/731 series) before they switched to SSD controllers.

CrFr wrote on 2020-12-02, 23:03:

Yes, it is clear that it isn’t a prototype. It came out of a IBM Model 30 which was probably used at steel factory to control some production machinery. I didn’t post a pic of the 30 yet, because it is absolutely filthy. It needs a good cleaning, before I dare to show it to anyone.

I was just wondering what is the point in designing board like this, it feels silly. But still, it is very good looking board. It is not often a network card gets this much attention here 😀

I think I’ll frame it and hang it on the wall, like suggested earlier.

So all the traces are on internal layers? That seems like a really lame design decision. What is the point of having the huge grid of holes then? Seems like it would be a lot more costly to manufacture the boards this way.

More difficult to reverse engineer? (/edit/ these holes would probably also block x-rays)

Munx wrote on 2015-05-09, 17:39:

just got this today. Intel pba 689512 201t (socket 7) + 32MB ram + P100.

Dusty and overall messy, but it works just fine and will look great after some cleaning and general maintenance. Gonna put a K5 PR133, Ati Mach64 VT2, Voodoo 1 and SB Awe64 in it later.

CAM00176.jpg

How did this board turn out? How’s the bios?

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-12-02, 23:31:

So all the traces are on internal layers? That seems like a really lame design decision. What is the point of having the huge grid of holes then? Seems like it would be a lot more costly to manufacture the boards this way.

No one is really sure. IBM did many odd things like this one (so I was right about the micron-wiring on this board), or these aluminum metallic/ceramic chip packages also found in this card. After all, back then they had all the money to spend in esoteric things and experiments.
http://ummr.altervista.org/ibmtechviews.htm

The whole thing ceramic-metallized-chip/odd-pcb combo is called MST. As he says in this page, people seems to mistake these micron traces as copper vias.... Them aren't vias, but wires, and the frame material can be ceramic or epoxy. Some people even doubt to call these PCBs, because them aren't printed, but wired with specific IBM machinery. Interesting enough, them are done in 4 "layers".

foil_fresh wrote on 2020-12-02, 15:05:

I have been waiting for the better part of a year scouring local deals hoping a 486 PC would show up and I've seen nothing other […]
Show full quote

I have been waiting for the better part of a year scouring local deals hoping a 486 PC would show up and I've seen nothing other than some either overly expensive ebay options or really cruddy low profile 486 33sx compaq-ish types.

So I bit the bullet and bought a Socket 3 VLB motherboard with an AMD DX4 100, 16MB ram, a controller card and a 512KB Trident video card. If I find that the motherboard is working nicely I may consider a VLB video card and faster VLB controller card as I've never used or had VLB before.

The controller card has a Winbond chip, are these decent and reliable? Should I have any issues with a master CF card or maybe SD card adapter with a slave CD rom on the same cable? The oldest I have is a 48x Creative CD drive.

It's going to go into an AT case (no mhz LED or turbo button sadly) and probably going to put in my big ass SB16 CT2830. Maybe the CD drive can connect to this? I've also got an ESS Audiodrive that has a CDROM header.

Motherboard looks like the good version of the pcchipw m912 that has real cache. Id try the Audiodrive out and hook the cdrom up to that, I have liked the Audiodrive chips alot better than the SB16.

Bought a parts laptop (Austin PN312/TFT) for my AMS NotePro Plus laptop (going to take the screen out and connect it to the AMS to see if it has power and if it works from the parts laptop so I can have a better display than the dreaded DSTN, the floppy drive to test out, and a few other things).

Dmetsys wrote on 2020-12-02, 16:20:

They were more well known as Paradise branded graphics cards. The 90C33 was either the Accelerator VL Plus, or the Ports O'Call.

The ebay prices on these tho... 😱

are the cirrus logic ones ok? they seem a bit more reasonable in price.

ODwilly wrote on 2020-12-03, 02:08:

Motherboard looks like the good version of the pcchipw m912 that has real cache. Id try the Audiodrive out and hook the cdrom up to that, I have liked the Audiodrive chips alot better than the SB16.

the second comment about real cache, seems like i dodged a bullet if there is fake stuff around 😟 🤣

yeah i might try to see if it's possible to use the audiodrive and sb16 at the same time, use one for audio and one as the cd interface without.

Cheers

foil_fresh wrote on 2020-12-02, 15:05:

I have been waiting for the better part of a year scouring local deals hoping a 486 PC would show up and I've seen nothing other […]
Show full quote

I have been waiting for the better part of a year scouring local deals hoping a 486 PC would show up and I've seen nothing other than some either overly expensive ebay options or really cruddy low profile 486 33sx compaq-ish types.

So I bit the bullet and bought a Socket 3 VLB motherboard with an AMD DX4 100, 16MB ram, a controller card and a 512KB Trident video card. If I find that the motherboard is working nicely I may consider a VLB video card and faster VLB controller card as I've never used or had VLB before.

The controller card has a Winbond chip, are these decent and reliable? Should I have any issues with a master CF card or maybe SD card adapter with a slave CD rom on the same cable? The oldest I have is a 48x Creative CD drive.

It's going to go into an AT case (no mhz LED or turbo button sadly) and probably going to put in my big ass SB16 CT2830. Maybe the CD drive can connect to this? I've also got an ESS Audiodrive that has a CDROM header.

Winbond, OPti, Acer, Goldstar are all perfectly compatible with CFIDE in my experience.

That sound card can control an IDE CD-ROM.