If you're doing disk intensive stuff, it can be that even slow swap drives help, but memory intensive stuff favors putting swap on fastest drive. However, on balance, using something down to half as fast as your main drive is a speed up overall.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 05:01:

BetaC wrote on 2023-01-25, 02:57:

pete8475 wrote on 2023-01-25, 02:41:

Awesome, the worst one!

Are there socket 423 SD-RAM boards? 🤣

Why would I want anything but RDRAM for a 1.3?

To experience just HOW slow the slowest of NetBurst could be 🤣

That title would belong to the 1.7GHz Celeron. The small cache *really* hurts Netburst, and it will be slower than a 1.3GHz full blown Willy in most tasks outside of audio or video encoding.
Plus, being a S478 chip, the Celeron can easily be paired up with PC133 memory, further amplifying the pain of only having 128K of 2-way set associative L2. 😜

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2023-01-25, 17:08:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 05:01:

BetaC wrote on 2023-01-25, 02:57:

Why would I want anything but RDRAM for a 1.3?

To experience just HOW slow the slowest of NetBurst could be 🤣

That title would belong to the 1.7GHz Celeron. The small cache *really* hurts Netburst, and it will be slower than a 1.3GHz full blown Willy in most tasks outside of audio or video encoding.
Plus, being a S478 chip, the Celeron can easily be paired up with PC133 memory, further amplifying the pain of only having 128K of 2-way set associative L2. 😜

Well, there's a 1.5 Celeron Willy too

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Celeron/Intel- … 31RC021128.html

[Edit]: Willeron? Willyron?

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 19:12:

[Edit]: Willeron? Willyron?

Willery? Ok, ok, I'll stop now 🤣

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 19:52:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 19:12:

[Edit]: Willeron? Willyron?

Willery? Ok, ok, I'll stop now 🤣

Celery 😜

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 19:52:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 19:12:

[Edit]: Willeron? Willyron?

Willery? Ok, ok, I'll stop now 🤣

Interesting, I didn't know they had a 1.5GHz/128K desktop variant! Must be an OEM part? I always thought that the 1.5 was a mobile-only CPU with 256KB!

Yeah, that would be one slug of a CPU.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 19:52:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 19:12:

[Edit]: Willeron? Willyron?

Willery? Ok, ok, I'll stop now 🤣

I think Willyron (pronounced Willy Ron) has a nice ring to it. 🤣

Also, I'm pretty pleased with this purchase (sellers photos)...

Sticker on the computer says the system has a Paradise SVGA card of some sort. And that top card definitely looks like a mid-90s Sound Blaster...

Soo... after spending a little time comparing this photo to photos online...

I determined that this computer absolutely has an AWE32 CT2760 (Rev. 1).
(pic from batyra.pl)

... and the VGA card looks to be identical to this fantastic Paradise WD-90C31 card, which is also an awesome score. I believe these do 16bit color, unlike the older models.

I'm sure the board has battery damage and will need some work, but for the price I paid (especially after the shipping was adjusted by the seller) it was well worth it for these really nice parts, plus a really neat 486 ISA system that runs.

This detective work was a lot of fun. 😁

Good catch. You'll like the WD video card so much, as good as fast Tseng but much more compatible and can do CGA or EGA emulation via VGA port iirc. You might have either WD90c30 or 31 as this shares same PCB, with no mods.

While on prowl, I found a reasonable but bit expensive Megatrends American pentium board, has 3.3V connector that I'm looking for long time, Most likely SiS chipset but well made board and 10W or more linear regulator in a monster TO-247 package bolted to an large heatsink, flat to the PCB surface, not the little T220 package on equally too small heatsink.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-outline_t … nsbauformen.jpg

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-01-25, 23:03:

Good catch. You'll like the WD video card so much, as good as fast Tseng but much more compatible and can do CGA or EGA emulation via VGA port iirc. You might have either WD90c30 or 31 as this shares same PCB, with no mods.

Yeah, it should be a great card! I'm about 90% sure it's a WD90C31 though, because all of the examples of WD90C30 I have seen have either a large SMD tantalum cap near the top right corner of the card or have a large through hole (tear drop shaped) tantalum there. Also, the C30s that look closest to this (with the long rectangular clock crystal and small square RAMDAC) are, I believe, made by DFI and aren't Paradise branded. The ones I have seen that say Paradise that have this exact layout are all C31.

I could certainly be wrong... but either one is fine for a fast DOS ISA card. 😀

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-01-25, 22:09:

I think Willyron (pronounced Willy Ron) has a nice ring to it. :lol: […]
Show full quote

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 19:52:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 19:12:

[Edit]: Willeron? Willyron?

Willery? Ok, ok, I'll stop now 🤣

I think Willyron (pronounced Willy Ron) has a nice ring to it. 🤣

Also, I'm pretty pleased with this purchase (sellers photos)...

1.jpg
2.jpg

Sticker on the computer says the system has a Paradise SVGA card of some sort. And that top card definitely looks like a mid-90s Sound Blaster...

Soo... after spending a little time comparing this photo to photos online...
6a.jpg

I determined that this computer absolutely has an AWE32 CT2760 (Rev. 1).
(pic from batyra.pl)
Sound-Blaster-CT2760-AWE32-Awers (Custom).jpg

... and the VGA card looks to be identical to this fantastic Paradise WD-90C31 card, which is also an awesome score. I believe these do 16bit color, unlike the older models.
wdc_wd_90c31_lr_f (Custom).jpg
I'm sure the board has battery damage and will need some work, but for the price I paid (especially after the shipping was adjusted by the seller) it was well worth it for these really nice parts, plus a really neat 486 ISA system that runs.

This detective work was a lot of fun. 😁

Nice find! The thrill of the hunt and the investigative work is definitely a big part of it for me.

I don't know if it's like this everywhere, but as soon as you get any older than pentium era, I can't find anything like that around me. Well done.

danieljm wrote on 2023-01-26, 02:35:

Nice find! The thrill of the hunt and the investigative work is definitely a big part of it for me.

I don't know if it's like this everywhere, but as soon as you get any older than pentium era, I can't find anything like that around me. Well done.

Yep, my favorite part is the investigative work. The more years I do this the fewer surprises there are of course (both because of dwindling supply and just getting used to finding certain things).

Also, this wasn't local. It is pretty rare for me to find anything locally.

That's a really nice haul. I hope you got it for a good price. If you're this excited, I expect that it's true. You earned it!

There is a sharp kink in the adoption curve though, ~75% of 20th century PCs were sold between 1995 and 2000, the remaining ~25% was pre 1995. If 486 production had cut off sharp at release of socket 5 Pentium, then we'd probably only see as many of those as 386s, but they were selling as low end into the first couple of years of the boom. Also they remained useable until the web got java and flash heavy in the first years of millenium so were not junked super quick. 56k modems acted as enough of a bottleneck to hold back heavier web pages and keep it from being real obvious a 1Ghz PIII could browse the web much faster than a DX4-100 until mass broadband rollouts. In my estimate it kept 486es around 3 years longer than they might have been, affecting scrappage rate.

Anyway, what I'm saying is pre-pentium systems were only a third as common as post pentium, excluding the apparent visibility of 486es which had extended life into boom, so had their numbers bumped disproportionately and suffered less severe attrition at "EOL".

Each generation going back from there is also a smaller trapezoid in the area of the curve, 286 less common than 386 etc. Though numbers that were contemporary to the mid 80s get tricky because nobody had really really realised that IBM-PC compatible was it's own thing so masses of commodore 64s or Apple IIs might have got thrown in various statistics of "personal computer" sales, and it's not altogether sure that commodore didn't fudge their numbers outrageously.

devius wrote on 2023-01-25, 21:59:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 19:52:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 19:12:

[Edit]: Willeron? Willyron?

Willery? Ok, ok, I'll stop now 🤣

Celery 😜

Celerette.

appiah4 wrote on 2023-01-26, 07:46:

devius wrote on 2023-01-25, 21:59:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 19:52:

Willery? Ok, ok, I'll stop now 🤣

Celery 😜

Celerette.

🏆

That's it, right there.

🤣

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-01-26, 04:26:

There is a sharp kink in the adoption curve though, ~75% of 20th century PCs were sold between 1995 and 2000, the remaining ~25% was pre 1995. If 486 production had cut off sharp at release of socket 5 Pentium, then we'd probably only see as many of those as 386s, but they were selling as low end into the first couple of years of the boom. Also they remained useable until the web got java and flash heavy in the first years of millenium so were not junked super quick. 56k modems acted as enough of a bottleneck to hold back heavier web pages and keep it from being real obvious a 1Ghz PIII could browse the web much faster than a DX4-100 until mass broadband rollouts. In my estimate it kept 486es around 3 years longer than they might have been, affecting scrappage rate.

Anyway, what I'm saying is pre-pentium systems were only a third as common as post pentium, excluding the apparent visibility of 486es which had extended life into boom, so had their numbers bumped disproportionately and suffered less severe attrition at "EOL".

Each generation going back from there is also a smaller trapezoid in the area of the curve, 286 less common than 386 etc. Though numbers that were contemporary to the mid 80s get tricky because nobody had really really realised that IBM-PC compatible was it's own thing so masses of commodore 64s or Apple IIs might have got thrown in various statistics of "personal computer" sales, and it's not altogether sure that commodore didn't fudge their numbers outrageously.

That's an interesting analysis, thanks for sharing. It's true that some of us were probably still using some DX4 machines at the turn of the millenium

Bought yesterday some stuff for my upcoming 486DLC-40 -system 😎

Just got for free this beautiful mainboard:

Couple caps are gone bad, otherwise seems to be in good condition.

MMaximus wrote on 2023-01-26, 10:09:

That's an interesting analysis, thanks for sharing. It's true that some of us were probably still using some DX4 machines at the turn of the millenium

I don't know enough about it too be sure, but I think that the Company Deskpro that I continued to use as my personal computer in my bedroom was a 486. I don't recall exactly, because I didn't know enough about computers at the time to open it up, and I don't recall the exact model.

It was pretty basic, and may have had Windows 95 initially. I don't know if it ever had Windows 98. It never felt slow at all. Although, time went on, I did run into problems with the tiny hard drive (250MB) and the video card (256 colors only) when I bought and tried to play Age of Empires. I had to delete everything I could find on my computer, even some of the larger junk files in my Windows folder, to meet the disk space requirement. I was so excited from watching the tiny little guys walking across the progress bar during installation. It crushed me when I got a dialog informing me that it would not run without a 16-bit graphics card.

I ended up installing and playing it on the family computer, which was a Pentium 2, I think with a Rage XL.

If my computer was a 486, I think I used it up through late 2000, if I recall correctly.

dj_pirtu wrote on 2023-01-26, 10:55:

Bought yesterday some stuff for my upcoming 486DLC-40 -system 😎

Nice choice of video card and sound card. 😁