VOGONS


First post, by jasenr

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Hello, does anyone happen to have or know where the driver disks/restore disks can be found? I found one of these systems but and would like to load it like it came!

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Reply 1 of 18, by Horun

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You need to open it up and post good (not those micro sized you did) pictures of the motherboard. It could have had many options so with out more info it could be futile searching for drivers as the motherboard, sound and video could be different between versions of that computer. Cyrix never built computers for sale retail AFAIK, just CPU's (and many were built in an TI or VIA factory) so... we need more info !

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. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 3 of 18, by Anonymous Coward

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Not only is your PC from 1996, you take pictures like it's 1996 too.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 6 of 18, by jasenr

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I also never realized that Cyrix sold a line of computers. I’ll attach a few pics.

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Reply 7 of 18, by jasenr

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And a couple more.

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Reply 10 of 18, by Anonymous Coward

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The motherboard is made by AMI. The chipset is a pretty rare one too...almost vapourware.

Looks like this system was built by Cyrix themselves. I wouldn't modify much of anything. This could be worth something.

*edit*

I take that back. The board is definitely NOT made by AMI. I just got confused because of the name "SCREAMER", the VLSI chipset and the big square AMI IC in the back corner. There is no way in hell AMI would use an AWARD BIOS!!! The other poster is probably correct about it being DFI.

Last edited by Anonymous Coward on 2020-08-10, 02:10. Edited 2 times in total.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 13 of 18, by Horun

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Thanks for the better pictures ! It is a great old machine ! Appears Cyrix contracted some companies to build some "flagship" models for retail sale much like NexGen did back then in the 90's. And you happen to have one, that is way cool ! That is what we called a contract build way back when companies did that sort of thing. It was not actually built by Cyrix but through a second party under contract which assembled/built them to Cyrix specs using subcontracted boards and peripherals. The label with Cyrix was supplied by them along with the cpu thru the contract. Proof of that lies in the the fact they did not even build their own cpu's: nearly all were contracted. Have stumbled on a few AMD hard logo cases w/cpu and AMD board with similar AMD built stickers (though AMD did not build computers).
You have an excellent piece of history !
Am sure it came with some Win OS disk and probably a driver disk As far as some sort of restore disk ? Doubt it.

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. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 15 of 18, by Anonymous Coward

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Yeah, WTF. System memory is 32MB, but 64MB on the SCSI controller?!?

Also, it's interesting the system is called "P200" and not "P200+".

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 16 of 18, by feipoa

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I've never seen one of these Cyrix branded cases before. I have a pretty large list of questions after seeing the photos.

Where/how did you score this gorgeous piece of Cyrix memorabilia? Is the floppy drive in a proprietary format? It looks non-standard from the outside view. It's really neat how they put some 3D into their Cyrix logo. Did Cyrix stop at the 6x86 series for outsourced systems? Was there an MII or MX?

Is the CPU the Cyrix 6x86L-PR200+ or the Cyrix 6x86-P200+ ?

Perhaps they borrowed the "Screamer" name from AMI's product branding.

The pricing scheme is curious - the $5,000 P200 system has only 16 MB more RAM than the cheaper $2300 system, but also includes a SCSI HDD and 64 MB SCSI caching controller. Did an additional 16 MB of EDO RAM and a SCSI HDD/controller cost $2700 in mid-1996?

Was the heatsink on the chipset standard issue?

What's inside the aluminum box with SOLOMON Technology Corp written on it?

Is there any other notable board with a VLSI Lynx chipset?

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Reply 17 of 18, by PC Hoarder Patrol

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Their PC Systems support pages still exist on archive.org (tho sadly not the driver files)

https://web.archive.org/web/19960926234053/ht … stem/system.htm

This confirms (bios links on the drivers page) DFI for the P200 Screamer-based systems and perhaps suggests ECS for the P166 / P150 based systems.

Reply 18 of 18, by Anonymous Coward

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It's almost certainly a 6x86 not 6x86L. The P200+ was only a hot product for a few months at best. P200+ was announced in June 1996 and there were serious availability problems. By the time the L version came out (I think it was in December) it was already over for Cyrix. I honestly don't think anyone would make a high-end setup based around an L. I think the only way the L version would be in this system is if the buyer sent it back to the seller for CPU replacement under warranty.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium