Bought a few ARCnet NICs and a HGC adapter sold as a gameport card. I'm quite fond of these old network adapters and nobody wants them in the retro community anyway so these are always cheap. Might build an ARCnet network to see how it fares compared to IBM's token-ring solution.

ARCnet is actually useful though. It works with most things from Amigas, DataPoints, IBM ATs to Windows NT and PCI bus. And, what a 2025 hacker going to do if they encounter an obscure protocol on ARCnet devices? Join Vogons and ask for help? 😉

AlessandroB wrote on 2025-12-14, 10:11:

Lostdotfish wrote on 2025-12-13, 15:29:

I finally found the unobtainium board I've been looking for! […]
Show full quote

I finally found the unobtainium board I've been looking for!

I mean, ok, it's not quite the one... but it's close enough.

The attachment ezgif.com-crop.jpg is no longer available

DFI NF2 Infinity.

I really want the DFI NF2 Ultra B Lanparty board, but I've only seen it fleetingly 2 or 3 times in the past few years.

Caps are cooked on this one but I have a set of polymers on the way to bring it back.

Why is so special???

DFI LAN Party boards have always been a special breed, and back in the day were probably mostly only bought by the most "leet" of the enthusiast community, so compared to other mainstream boards, not many were sold. Also they are generally far more flexible and capable when tweaking settings to push your system to extremes. They were always the gold standard for ultra high performance boards.

As a Christmas gift to myself, I ordered an Amiga 2000. Which of course also necessitated getting an accelerator, among some other Amiga things.

OKAY NO MORE COMPUTERS, SERIOUSLY THIS TIME!

(though I don't have a Macintosh...)

Mandrew wrote on Yesterday, 09:48:

Bought a few ARCnet NICs and a HGC adapter sold as a gameport card. I'm quite fond of these old network adapters and nobody wants them in the retro community anyway so these are always cheap. Might build an ARCnet network to see how it fares compared to IBM's token-ring solution.

This might be a CGA card and not HGC, as it has an RCA connector

Mandrew wrote on Yesterday, 09:48:

Bought a few ARCnet NICs and a HGC adapter sold as a gameport card. I'm quite fond of these old network adapters and nobody wants them in the retro community anyway so these are always cheap. Might build an ARCnet network to see how it fares compared to IBM's token-ring solution.

I think the last one might be a sound card - it has game port on the silkscreen and an internal mono RCA that could be for an internal speaker. That's something I'd like to have!

It fits perfectly with the desktop design constraints of a 286/386: Audio on a desk dominated by noisy 5.25" disk drives and magnetically sensitive CRT. When noisy disks faded away, small stereo desktop speakers emerge. When magnetically sensitive CRTs faded away, extra channels and bigger subwoofers appear.

In other words, that old sound card brings audio to an environment that was hostile to it and without adding any new worries. In my world, that is collectable.

MattRocks wrote on Today, 00:13:

I think the last one might be a sound card - it has game port on the silkscreen and an internal mono RCA that could be for an in […]
Show full quote

Mandrew wrote on Yesterday, 09:48:

Bought a few ARCnet NICs and a HGC adapter sold as a gameport card. I'm quite fond of these old network adapters and nobody wants them in the retro community anyway so these are always cheap. Might build an ARCnet network to see how it fares compared to IBM's token-ring solution.

I think the last one might be a sound card - it has game port on the silkscreen and an internal mono RCA that could be for an internal speaker. That's something I'd like to have!

It fits perfectly with the desktop design constraints of a 286/386: Audio on a desk dominated by noisy 5.25" disk drives and magnetically sensitive CRT. When noisy disks faded away, small stereo desktop speakers emerge. When magnetically sensitive CRTs faded away, extra channels and bigger subwoofers appear.

In other words, that old sound card brings audio to an environment that was hostile to it and without adding any new worries. In my world, that is collectable.

There is absolutely nothing about that card that indicates that it is a sound card. It is a combination CGA + parallel card with a VDL branded controller. The RCA jack being internal is unusual but RCA jacks are a common feature on CGA cards because they provide composite video output. This may have been from a specialized system that had a built in composite display. Possibly something industrial.

A gameport header (which is missing here because the supporting ICs are also not included on this card) was often added to multifunction cards any time there was space.

Ozzuneoj wrote on Today, 00:51:

There is absolutely nothing about that card that indicates that it is a sound card. It is a combination CGA + parallel card with a VDL branded controller. The RCA jack being internal is unusual but RCA jacks are a common feature on CGA cards because they provide composite video output. This may have been from a specialized system that had a built in composite display. Possibly something industrial.

The chip logo looks similar to this, noted as UDL and Hercules-only but not this exact card so it's probably quite rare.

jtchip wrote on 31 minutes ago:

Ozzuneoj wrote on Today, 00:51:

There is absolutely nothing about that card that indicates that it is a sound card. It is a combination CGA + parallel card with a VDL branded controller. The RCA jack being internal is unusual but RCA jacks are a common feature on CGA cards because they provide composite video output. This may have been from a specialized system that had a built in composite display. Possibly something industrial.

The chip logo looks similar to this, noted as UDL and Hercules-only but not this exact card so it's probably quite rare.

Right, these chips are labeled as UDL or VDL depending on the site you find them on, and it seems that very few people are actually testing them so sites seem to arbitrarily mark them as Hercules, MDA or CGA. It's possible they are compatible with all three standards.

Here are other similar cards:
https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/unkn … vdl-215-mda-cga
https://www.dosdays.co.uk/topics/retro_review … cga_hgc_pt1.php
https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/fida … ration-fida-mix

I have a few VDL\UDL cards myself but I haven't messed with them much and I only have CGA and EGA monitors that function currently. I have a multisync but it is not working, sadly.

I can't find another picture of a card like this with an internal composite video jack, so I agree that it is a rare card. It is a video + parallel (optionally gameport) card though, not a sound card as MattRocks claimed.