Was at the Science Museum in London today and saw some great retro items. Should have taken pictures but I was carrying my heavy 2-year old (who was asleep, no appreciation for old computers).

Apple I & Lisa
Next Cube
IBM PC
Various 80s micros and mainframes

Also there was a rack of the original Google servers, just bare components and motherboards (Slot 1) on a corkboard tray for insulation. Their new Information Age exhibit is really good and would recommend it.

Did some old fashion IRCing on my OS/2 box.

I listened to Ghostbusters and Up on Cripple Creek on a jukebox.

Mucked around with Some Athlon XP stuff. Built myself a Live USB stick with Windows 7 Starter on it. Took forever to install all the drivers, and ages to boot, but it works. Allows you to run modern benchmarks and other utilities that don't run on XP Live CDs 😀

Also tested my SATA to IDE adapters with a SSD drive on newer P4 and Athlon 64 boards, they all seem to "max out" at 100 MB/s. The AMD board with Nvidia chipset is meant to be ATA133, but the adapters still "max out" at 100 MB/s.

So not sure if the adapters are simply up to ATA100, or if there is something else going on.

Not that 100 MB/s is too slow for a Pentium 4 😀

And both boards have native SATA anyway, so not a big deal. Just wanted to "max out" these SATA to IDE adapters.

Also put put together a S754 Athlon 64 setup with a 3400 chip, Venice core and 7900 GTX. A nice machine for XP gaming.

Played N64 and 486 (Well, POD83) at the same time;

I fixed the SPEA ShowTime Plus, though it has no CS4920 anymore and the installer thus fails to detect the card meaning I have to do horrible things to it to make it work.

I also solved several issues with the system and made a compromise. The PAS and Mobo weren't playing nice, so I cleaned up an AWE64 and installed that, I will replace it with an AWE32 when my Xeon is built, but for now I am not spending money like that. It actually works out better than the PAS because the case has two speaker mounts. I thus connected the two speakers to the jumper on the card, the speakers mute if something is in the jack so I will probably dongle a spare connector which does nothing in case I need to mute them and use the Line-Out at the back. The PC Speaker now comes through the AWE64. The SoundScape also feeds into it (Similar hijacking of the signal via jumpers on the card) so both cards will play through the internal speakers.

The system isn't playing many SB only games, most support the SoundScape natively if not the AWE. Otherwise they use Windows APIs and don't care. It is mostly there as a fall-back so I can fire Keen6E or Nukem2 up if I so desire.

I grabbed two new Kingston CF cards and a dual adapter. I need a new 95 install anyway as this one is not entirely stable after the many different configurations it has been through and the System.INI and registry are barely human readable at this stage so I can't fix it anymore. I want to use a boot manager (Would GAG work?) and have DOS/3.11 on the second drive to use the ShowTime as the drivers weren't written for 95, the Generic TSeng driver is fine for 95. I will use 95B this time as 95A is too shaky with this system for some reason.

I added an IDE CD-ROM and the audio cable connects to the SoundScape. This means I cannot have four hard drives in the end... Heh, 8GB is adequate.

The system has made it to a state where completion and use are guaranteed (So some of the alternative parts will be sold, the PAS will be kept, maybe it will be used in place of the SBPro which is in Hooker - which I consider to be this machine's little sister) so the system has earned its right to a name other than "PODBOX", the spec label on the bottom will now read "Priscilla" as will the name on the network... Assuming I can get that working, the mobo PCI implementation is a bit funny about PCI NICs. a 10Mbit ISA one would be adequate though. Don't ask me why that name, I always just use the first one that comes into my head so there's a right mixture. For example, today alone the Workgroup Computers window has contained; Hooker, Melanie, Katyusha, Alyssa, Guile, Tania, Dave and Vikki... Strangely Callisto keeps appearing, the old naming scheme used Jupiter's moons, but this has always been a mystery because Callisto was the Opteron which was stolen in 2004, perhaps some other system still remembers it somehow and adds it to the list? Who knows.

I am exhausted.

transcribing sad music to .mod format

@Phil: Just be careful with those SATA->IDE adaptors and SSDs. The IOPS for SSDs are so high that you will actually burn the chip on the circuit out. I'd rather use a SATA PCI card, they seem to handle it better, that or my Promise SATA300 TX4 just handles anything and everything.

Evert wrote:

@Phil: Just be careful with those SATA->IDE adaptors and SSDs. The IOPS for SSDs are so high that you will actually burn the chip on the circuit out. I'd rather use a SATA PCI card, they seem to handle it better, that or my Promise SATA300 TX4 just handles anything and everything.

Fascinating. I don't use SSD on an ongoing basis, it was just for testing the throughput of the adapter 😀

Disassembled and cleaned 7 systems I got in the last few weeks. Removed all expansion boards from other systems. Cleaned everything! Monitors, cases, the motherboards, expansion cards, cables, etc. Ordered 100 ESD bags in various sizes to store everything. Now all I need is a tray for the CPU's and a box for the harddrives and CDROMs. And then I'll probably make a list and start testing and building a few systems.

I had forgotten how damaged your hands get when doing this work. Especially when taking apart AT systems that have been together for 15-20 years.

Cyrix200+ wrote:

Disassembled and cleaned 7 systems I got in the last few weeks. Removed all expansion boards from other systems. Cleaned everything! Monitors, cases, the motherboards, expansion cards, cables, etc. Ordered 100 ESD bags in various sizes to store everything. Now all I need is a tray for the CPU's and a box for the harddrives and CDROMs. And then I'll probably make a list and start testing and building a few systems.

I had forgotten how damaged your hands get when doing this work. Especially when taking apart AT systems that have been together for 15-20 years.

Been there - ISA cards can be a bitch to remove, and old AT cases tend to have rather sharp inner edges 🙁

Yesterday evening I tested some games from my collection with my Tualatin PIII 1400-S @1575 + Geforce 5900 Ultra win9x system. I focused on games from year 2000 such as "Enemy Engaged RAH-66 vs KA-52" and "Midtown Madness 2". Everything ran perfectly at 1280x960/1024 with max details. Im pretty confident that the Tualatin system is fast enough for all games that works best in Windows 9x 😀

Finally installed XP Home on a thrift store desktop. Couldn't miss this Gateway FX4710 from halfway across the store. It was marked "For Parts Only" and priced at $12.99. I couldn't resist.

The spec sticker on the side of the case says that it has a Core 2 Q9300 Quad core and a Geforce 9800GT. It turns out that this was a refurbished model, and Best Buy replaced the stock MB with a Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H with a Phenom II x4 940. I don't know much about "modern" motherboards, but this one looks like all of the overclocking options are unlocked. Not a typical OEM mobo. The 9800GT was there, along with some TV capture card. 4GB of DDR2. No hard drive.

I threw in an old SATA drive and successfully installed Windows 7.

Today, I used the IDE interface and installed XP Home. I may use this as my high-end XP build.

Nice find on that tower boxpressed.

Played with various parts donated to me by a friend. P4 board in an old Cyberpower tower.

boxpressed wrote:

Finally installed XP Home on a thrift store desktop. Couldn't miss this Gateway FX4710 from halfway across the store. It was mar […]
Show full quote

Finally installed XP Home on a thrift store desktop. Couldn't miss this Gateway FX4710 from halfway across the store. It was marked "For Parts Only" and priced at $12.99. I couldn't resist.

The spec sticker on the side of the case says that it has a Core 2 Q9300 Quad core and a Geforce 9800GT. It turns out that this was a refurbished model, and Best Buy replaced the stock MB with a Gigabye GA-MA785GM-US2H with a Phenom II x4 940. I don't know much about "modern" motherboards, but this one looks like all of the overclocking options are unlocked. Not a typical OEM mobo. The 9800GT was there, along with some TV capture card. 4GB of DDR2. No hard drive.

I threw in an old SATA drive and successfully installed Windows 7.

Today, I used the IDE interface and installed XP Home. I may use this as my high-end XP build.

[/img]http://i1081.photobucket.com/albums/j349/boxp … ed/P1110380.jpg[/img]
[/img]http://i1081.photobucket.com/albums/j349/boxp … ed/P1110385.jpg[/img]

What kind of store sells a Phenom II X4, 4GB DDR2, a 9800 GT and a GA-MA785GM-US2H for $13 ? Man, that's a nice system. The board runs a 785G chipset and SB710, which supports up to Phenom II X6, 16GB DDR2, and SATA2. And what is the CPU cooler, an Arctic Freezer or something? It looks like it was a pre-built tower that someone decided to build a new system inside. Right now you got 2 dimm slots free so you could simply add another 4GB DDR2 so it has 8GB, and an SSD. Then go to EVGA's B-stock store and get a GTX 960 for like $150 and have a nice gaming system.

Or just keep it how it is right now and use it as your high end XP machine as mentioned 😜

But that thing has potential, that's for sure. I love free/nearly free systems like that. People throw out some of the weirdest things sometimes.

HighTreason wrote:

I will replace it with an AWE32 when my Xeon is built, but for now I am not spending money like that.

You been talking about building this Xeon system for ATLEAST a year now as I recall, make it happen for christ sake!

boxpressed wrote:

Finally installed XP Home on a thrift store desktop. Couldn't miss this Gateway FX4710 from halfway across the store. It was marked "For Parts Only" and priced at $12.99. I couldn't resist.

What a bargain! Very nice XP machine indeed. Especially when playing at 1920 x 1080, the 9800GT should handle it.

fyy wrote:

What kind of store sells a Phenom II X4, 4GB DDR2, a 9800 GT and a GA-MA785GM-US2H for $13 ? Man, that's a nice system. The board runs a 785G chipset and SB710, which supports up to Phenom II X6, 16GB DDR2, and SATA2. And what is the CPU cooler, an Arctic Freezer or something? It looks like it was a pre-built tower that someone decided to build a new system inside. Right now you got 2 dimm slots free so you could simply add another 4GB DDR2 so it has 8GB, and an SSD. Then go to EVGA's B-stock store and get a GTX 960 for like $150 and have a nice gaming system.

Or just keep it how it is right now and use it as your high end XP machine as mentioned 😜

But that thing has potential, that's for sure. I love free/nearly free systems like that. People throw out some of the weirdest things sometimes.

Thanks for the advice. I started buying OEM around 2006, so I don't know much about builds since then. My last build was a Shuttle SS51G back in the early 2000s! 1.8GHz Northwood, Radeon 9500 Pro. 😀

I almost didn't buy the thing because I'm trying to get rid of stuff at home, not add it, but it was too cheap to pass up. I figured there would be something inside I could salvage if it was broken. The heatsink and fan is Rocketfish brand, which makes me think that Best Buy refurbished this model and may have even sold it to begin with. There's a "Reconditioned" sticker on the back. I'll may have to replace the stock PS. Does +12V1 (16A) and +12V2 (16A) mean that the +12V rail is getting 32A max? That seems like it should be enough for the 9800GT.

boxpressed wrote:

fyy wrote:

What kind of store sells a Phenom II X4, 4GB DDR2, a 9800 GT and a GA-MA785GM-US2H for $13 ? Man, that's a nice system. The board runs a 785G chipset and SB710, which supports up to Phenom II X6, 16GB DDR2, and SATA2. And what is the CPU cooler, an Arctic Freezer or something? It looks like it was a pre-built tower that someone decided to build a new system inside. Right now you got 2 dimm slots free so you could simply add another 4GB DDR2 so it has 8GB, and an SSD. Then go to EVGA's B-stock store and get a GTX 960 for like $150 and have a nice gaming system.

Or just keep it how it is right now and use it as your high end XP machine as mentioned 😜

But that thing has potential, that's for sure. I love free/nearly free systems like that. People throw out some of the weirdest things sometimes.

Thanks for the advice. I started buying OEM around 2006, so I don't know much about builds since then. My last build was a Shuttle SS51G back in the early 2000s! 1.8GHz Northwood, Radeon 9500 Pro. 😀

I almost didn't buy the thing because I'm trying to get rid of stuff at home, not add it, but it was too cheap to pass up. I figured there would be something inside I could salvage if it was broken. The heatsink and fan is Rocketfish brand, which makes me think that Best Buy refurbished this model and may have even sold it to begin with. There's a "Reconditioned" sticker on the back. I'll may have to replace the stock PS. Does +12V1 (16A) and +12V2 (16A) mean that the +12V rail is getting 32A max? That seems like it should be enough for the 9800GT.

You have two 12v rails at 16Amps for a total of 32. Perfect for the setup that you mentioned and should even provide a bit of headroom for overclocking etc. My 450watt Antec Value Plus has similar specs and ran a 3.8ghz p4 + 8800GT's in SLI for a week no sweat!

Tried, unfortunately unsuccessfully, to power up the Panasonic CF-580 486SL laptop I was recently given. Seems to be a motherboard or internal DC converter problem, which I currently lack the parts or knowledge to repair. Oh well...

Today I completed my transition to my "new" win98se gaming platform, the AthlonXP 3200+ machine, installed my voodoo2 in it and removed from the other (old) machine, and planning to play almost all night in diablo2 in win98.