Wow, been on a bit of an adventure digging in a neglected stack, tight spot in basement, so just have to take a quick look at stuff and put it back or I block myself in. It's teasing me as much as you guys, but I wanna know what I can arrange to make room for ...

Micron ClientPro MTA ex USAF, HX chipset Virge DX onboard and a yamaha OPL chip, nice high end pent box.. Compaq deskpro, also containing a Virge DX compaq edition, no sound though boo, slot load CD is a little interesting, 233MMX, (Series 3546) be top end MMX with a graphics transplant and you know, some noise makey bits. Empty horizontal box, thought it lost the front but I stuck it inside, "Primax Panther III" it used to be, can't remember if I got it empty or with something in it.

Mid tower AT, did I put this one together? Seems too dusty, like I got it in like this and didn't do much. P5F76, CT1600, Bali32 PCI, yiss, now we're finding the good stuff.

AEG Olympia Desktop AT case, what the heck was this "Model D212" whatever that was, don't look like one any more. Crack it and what do we have, M919 v 3.2? or something real close.... PODP5V... ATI Mach64 VLB 109-30100-00, again "oddly" dusty, like I don't remember running a POD for more than testing in the past and it has a little too much in the sink like it was ran a few months at least. Is this THE POD I thought I had or another?? IDK.

Now we have an AT clone desktop case, styled like a 5170 but for baby AT. It's by a region builder "CAD/CAM Center" wooo... a CAD box, crack it, devoid of HDD so won't know what they ran 5.25 drive, tape controller with hardware compression and a Porsche... 86c911, Diamond Stealth VRAM (ISA) on an Asus 486-ISA board, 486dx33, think this was a few thousand bucks worth in 1992. I/O card didn't look too special, normal ISA looking, didn't clock the P/N.

Is it seeming like there's some weird stuff in this pile to you? Well I was trying to get to the prince of weird..

Patriot Computer Company (That one, the one most famous for going bankrupt while selling hotwheels/barbie machines due to their PSU supplier screwing them over) Patriot Personal model SL4100 ... mine is missing 5.25 drives/covers, front of floppy and turbo switch cap, might have been a freebie/pickup not sure. Contains an NLX style board supplied by IBM, Cyrix Fasmath visible, onboard CPU under HSF, empty socket 3, this coulllld be, a clock tripled IBM blue lightning! 256kb cache, 16MB RAM installed, GL5428 onboard but someone put a trident 8900C in it??? hmmm might be that there's only 512MB onboard, or onboard needs attention, ISA card is 1MB.
Anyhoo, can't see any difference to this one https://twitter.com/dougberner/status/1374543210626740224 but that dude thinks he has a normal/full DX4-100 which I don't think it is. But apparently the highlight for Xmas 94 in Canada was these beasties being $1000 CDN in the run up. I thought my ISA riser was an odd one because it leans in a bit, but I see his is the same. Looks like it maybe had a VLB riser option too. Maybe PS/1 stuff fits.

edit: probably more like LPX form factor, I never did get all the whackass ones straight.

editII: Hah yeah it was just early this month I found my "original" P5F76 Re: What retro activity did you get up to today? that one must have come in that case. It's either one offs or stuff starts breeding on me.

editIII: some vague memories are creeping back about that AEG Olympia case PODP M919 ... Some 20+ years ago, was during a period of being hard to find computer stuff in the area, but also, 486 class were "done" and value was somewhere between free and $100 realistically, kinda where P4 to Core2 is now.... I think this is the system I was at a yard sale, and he started high and kept saying "but it's a Pentium" and I kept saying it was 90% 486, and I think I ended up paying $40 or $50 for it, because I did recognise that the Mach64 was higher end and wanted one, but I think I still felt like I paid a bit much. The irony of this is that I think it was shortly after this I hit some kind of strike/seam/run of VX and HX pentium boards and forgot about this, with faster hardware to play with/build up and pass around the fam.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-02-28, 22:20:

Patriot Computer Company (That one, the one most famous for going bankrupt while selling hotwheels/barbie machines due to their PSU supplier screwing them over) Patriot Personal model SL4100 ... mine is missing 5.25 drives/covers, front of floppy and turbo switch cap, might have been a freebie/pickup not sure. Contains an NLX style board supplied by IBM, Cyrix Fasmath visible, onboard CPU under HSF, empty socket 3, this coulllld be, a clock tripled IBM blue lightning! 256kb cache, 16MB RAM installed, GL5428 onboard but someone put a trident 8900C in it??? hmmm might be that there's only 512MB onboard, or onboard needs attention, ISA card is 1MB.
Anyhoo, can't see any difference to this one https://twitter.com/dougberner/status/1374543210626740224 but that dude thinks he has a normal/full DX4-100 which I don't think it is. But apparently the highlight for Xmas 94 in Canada was these beasties being $1000 CDN in the run up. I thought my ISA riser was an odd one because it leans in a bit, but I see his is the same. Looks like it maybe had a VLB riser option too. Maybe PS/1 stuff fits.

My good friend got a Patriot computer for Christmas '94. I can't remember the exact price paid, but definitely under $1000 for a setup that included a 14" "MegaImage" monitor.
It was a 50MHz Leopard/Opal LX board with Trident 9000i and winbond I/O. It was housed in a nice Enlight minitower case. Very good value for the money! I didn't know that Patriot had better equipped systems with the IBM BL chips, nor that they had anything to do with those crappy hotwheels PCs. Do you have any links to the story about their PSU supplier? I'm sure even if it hadn't been that, they would have folded anyway like everybody else.

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2023-03-01, 05:58:

My good friend got a Patriot computer for Christmas '94. I can't remember the exact price paid, but definitely under $1000 for a setup that included a 14" "MegaImage" monitor.
It was a 50MHz Leopard/Opal LX board with Trident 9000i and winbond I/O. It was housed in a nice Enlight minitower case. Very good value for the money! I didn't know that Patriot had better equipped systems with the IBM BL chips, nor that they had anything to do with those crappy hotwheels PCs. Do you have any links to the story about their PSU supplier? I'm sure even if it hadn't been that, they would have folded anyway like everybody else.

Not really got specific details, https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/news-not-goo … tomers-1.266989

In 2000 they were knocking out the Hotwheels/Barbie box with large software bundle for $699 with cel 500/64MB win98, Gateways business basic had 400/32 for $779, but Tiger Direct had a noname K6-2/500 64, and MicroWarehouse a Presario K6-2/500 for just under $700 so while it was a sucktastic spec from a high end/gamer POV it was a competitively value priced system.

They were direct sales and had limited retail partnerships with Staples etc for some ranges and there's very little info around, that Hotwheels/Barbie thing being a search black hole which sucks up all more nuanced attempts.

Finally getting to a point in getting the house and storage room organized enough that I can start going through some equipment which I've acquired over the past year or so in more detail. Tonight I opened up a HP Vectra VL 6/350 to check out the internals, then fired it up to make sure it's still working fine and it is. I have no idea what I'm going to use it for yet, but it was basically free so I may as well do something with it. Maybe a high powered Windows 95/DOS machine. The built in VGA chip is a Matrox MGA G100A-E. The case and main mainboard are an odd proprietary design, and the expansion slots are provided via a riser card. The power supply is a proprietary design as well, so hopefully it doesn't die on me.

Brawndo wrote on 2023-03-02, 05:43:

Finally getting to a point in getting the house and storage room organized enough that I can start going through some equipment […]
Show full quote

Finally getting to a point in getting the house and storage room organized enough that I can start going through some equipment which I've acquired over the past year or so in more detail. Tonight I opened up a HP Vectra VL 6/350 to check out the internals, then fired it up to make sure it's still working fine and it is. I have no idea what I'm going to use it for yet, but it was basically free so I may as well do something with it. Maybe a high powered Windows 95/DOS machine. The built in VGA chip is a Matrox MGA G100A-E. The case and main mainboard are an odd proprietary design, and the expansion slots are provided via a riser card. The power supply is a proprietary design as well, so hopefully it doesn't die on me.

While the psu works, I'd check voltages at the pins and make note. You can always make an adapter if the PSU dies and having the pinout for the voltages will make it easier to do.

Veeb0rg wrote on 2023-03-02, 06:04:

Brawndo wrote on 2023-03-02, 05:43:

Finally getting to a point in getting the house and storage room organized enough that I can start going through some equipment […]
Show full quote

Finally getting to a point in getting the house and storage room organized enough that I can start going through some equipment which I've acquired over the past year or so in more detail. Tonight I opened up a HP Vectra VL 6/350 to check out the internals, then fired it up to make sure it's still working fine and it is. I have no idea what I'm going to use it for yet, but it was basically free so I may as well do something with it. Maybe a high powered Windows 95/DOS machine. The built in VGA chip is a Matrox MGA G100A-E. The case and main mainboard are an odd proprietary design, and the expansion slots are provided via a riser card. The power supply is a proprietary design as well, so hopefully it doesn't die on me.

While the psu works, I'd check voltages at the pins and make note. You can always make an adapter if the PSU dies and having the pinout for the voltages will make it easier to do.

Wow, that's a fantastic idea. I never would have thought to do that on systems with proprietary power supplies, but it seems so obvious now that you mention it. Hopefully I remember to do this if the need ever arises.

Veeb0rg wrote on 2023-03-02, 06:04:

Brawndo wrote on 2023-03-02, 05:43:

Finally getting to a point in getting the house and storage room organized enough that I can start going through some equipment […]
Show full quote

Finally getting to a point in getting the house and storage room organized enough that I can start going through some equipment which I've acquired over the past year or so in more detail. Tonight I opened up a HP Vectra VL 6/350 to check out the internals, then fired it up to make sure it's still working fine and it is. I have no idea what I'm going to use it for yet, but it was basically free so I may as well do something with it. Maybe a high powered Windows 95/DOS machine. The built in VGA chip is a Matrox MGA G100A-E. The case and main mainboard are an odd proprietary design, and the expansion slots are provided via a riser card. The power supply is a proprietary design as well, so hopefully it doesn't die on me.

While the psu works, I'd check voltages at the pins and make note. You can always make an adapter if the PSU dies and having the pinout for the voltages will make it easier to do.

Yeah that's a good idea. I was already thinking about that, since all PCs use the same voltages, it would be easy enough to adapt another PSU of needed, and I would probably just cut off the proprietary connector with the wires and splic them into another PSU.

Can also maybe get the new PSU inside the old PSU shell if it bolts up weird, but any particularly tiny, thin stick or pretzel form factors may be hard for that. HP however generally had reliable PSUs but you never know where you are on the death clock countdown with old stuff.

I always do a visual inspection of old power supply capacitors. They tend to be old, abused, and stuck in hot about environments. It's usually a good idea to open them up anyways, just to get some compressed air into them for cleaning.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-03-02, 17:32:

I always do a visual inspection of old power supply capacitors. They tend to be old, abused, and stuck in hot about environments. It's usually a good idea to open them up anyways, just to get some compressed air into them for cleaning.

Yes, a thorough disassembly and cleaning of all components is next in the list, now that I've verified it's working. I always open up old power supplies and blow them out, or just replace them with a new unit.

Fiddled with the poor IBM Thinkpad 770. I dont want to completely go down the rabbit hole of upgrading it, but so far it has 288mb of ram (still has the 32 pc66 in the hidden slot with a 128mb 100 + 128mb 133mhz chugging at 66mhz). Def have a 256mb stick somewhere and a 512mb 16 chip stick handy that would be neat to get working in it, but no luck with the factory 32mb stick still installed.

Loose keyboard connector + trackpoint error, but after forcing it to boot, and a scrub it looks mighty regal.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-03-02, 17:32:

I always do a visual inspection of old power supply capacitors. They tend to be old, abused, and stuck in hot about environments. It's usually a good idea to open them up anyways, just to get some compressed air into them for cleaning.

To back this up while fiddling with the 770 I found a half decent Geforce 2 MX 200. It still posts, but the old bad series Teapos on that GPU are now burst. While 2 years ago before being put away it fully worked, and was my go test card for older AGP motherboards.

I just installed a Matrox G450 in the dual themed rig.
It's more fitting than the Geforce256 which was overkill anyway... The G450 still is, but I wanted some good 2D quality and DualHead.

IBM 5170 board from scrap lot..
Bought these (retro) hardware today
...alive again. Only needed to add a CPU and one of the ROMs 😀

Doing battle with the Prince of Weird, that Patriot SL4100, got 08h code on the POST card thus far, think we're on the Phoenix code list because with no RAM I get the 1-3-1 beep code... https://www.rigacci.org/docs/biblio/online/fi … mware/beep3.htm ... not sure if I'm cleaning the socket well enough, damn thing seems delicate though, broke a clip on one of the others. Anyone in ontario got a deoxit tank i can boil the whole thing in? 🤣 Maybe gonna have to get a magnifying glass and a dental probe and clean it's teeth like I'm a dental hygienist.

Edit: So I drenched the think in straight IPA and scrubbed at it's teeth with a brush. Wanted to give it a while to dry, so grabbed a SFF Compaq Deskpro and fired it up..
After the HDD going clackaclack a few times while it was complaining options no set, no keyboard, etc and so forth I thought HDD was gonna be dead, but maybe that's the noise it made when it detects... because after connecting keyboard and reboot, say yah whatevs to setups and...
It boots into Win98... wooo
says no mouse, okay, have a *grab anything* mouse, old MS serial that's so yellow it's brown... detects..
poke around, nothing much on there apart from
Worms Armageddon, yisssssssssssssssss
Fire it up.
There's sound.
wat
There's sound
It's coming from the monitor.... NEC Multisync LED 17" it's got speakers, DVI and an audio jack, but I only have the VGA cable connected and
There's sound
This is a friggin' new one on me...
I am 90% sure it's coming from the monitor, but ima have to check now that the system unit hasn't got PC Speaker round back corner.

EditII: Okay false alarm, never attribute to the supernatural that which is easily explained by Compaq weirdness, apparently the Soundmax digital integrated audio is hooked up to the internal speaker also. Not FM/Midi, just digital playback. That speaker was pointed toward the monitor at the time, hence my confusion.

EditIII: Aww crap I broke it, or the HDD was iffy... Some crap proggy froze up on uninstall... waited ages... forced reboot, hung on the shutdown screen no disk activity... powered it off, next boot scandisk comes up, saying a FAT problem it can't fix, and now it can't get into winders... will try chkdisk on it after supper.

EditIV: BTW when that happened I was just planning on retiring the mouse I was using to keep the miles off it, turned it up and it said serial and mouse port mouse, and I thought wait a sec, I've got 4 ports for 1 other mouse, Ima see if there's an adapter for this one around. Got Logitech card and mouse, and MS card, ATI Graphics Ultra with mouse port and a AST 386 with a mouse port.

Saw one of these a couple of weeks ago, didn't cross my mind at the time it was a mouse adapter, was thinking RS232 to Apple Serial port, derp.

So yesterday I've been approached by my colleague at work who asked me if I can help her make some pretty old scientific program (FSSR-1D/2D spectrometer software) running on her modern notebook because she had some old laptop borrowed by somebody else but it wasn't possible to run it correctly (it was some old Toshiba with 32-bit XP and the software kind of work there but the graphics are glitchy).

So a 5 minute DOSbox deployment and voila - everything works beautifully 😁

Predator99 wrote on 2023-03-03, 21:24:

IBM 5170 board from scrap lot.. Bought these (retro) hardware today ...alive again. Only needed to add a CPU and one of the ROMs […]
Show full quote

IBM 5170 board from scrap lot..
Bought these (retro) hardware today
...alive again. Only needed to add a CPU and one of the ROMs 😀

IMG_1407r.jpg
20230303_221421.jpg
20230303_221444.jpg

Had one. Died when I tried to run at 10MHz. Leave it be. Or change CPU and clock generator when changing from 8MHz.

Cheers,

Houston, we have a solid confirm, Lighning is Blue, repeat, Lightning is Blue, over.

Today was the first day of the local old junk market. This month it's extended to 2 days as part of a seasonal festival. It was very chilly and this first day wasn't all that good regarding vintage electronics and games. For PC hardware all I've seen was a generic networking card and a Creative AudioPCI. Though I found a guy selling some games. He said he only brought a sample to gauge interest and he said he'll bring the rest tomorrow. At other places I found AvP2 of which I already have 2 copies and Total Annihilation of which I already own one copy.

I also found a very tasteful bottle opener.

And she was here too.

I was criticized last time for not taking a photo.

This first day what I ended up buying was a The Planet of the Apes, hardcover and the Hair OST.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-03-04, 01:48:

Predator99 wrote on 2023-03-03, 21:24:

IBM 5170 board from scrap lot.. Bought these (retro) hardware today ...alive again. Only needed to add a CPU and one of the ROMs […]
Show full quote

IBM 5170 board from scrap lot..
Bought these (retro) hardware today
...alive again. Only needed to add a CPU and one of the ROMs 😀

IMG_1407r.jpg
20230303_221421.jpg
20230303_221444.jpg

Had one. Died when I tried to run at 10MHz. Leave it be. Or change CPU and clock generator when changing from 8MHz.

Cheers,

Why should one overclock a 286? If its too slow I take a faster PC. I didnt have a ceramic CPU in spare therefore I took this one.