More stuff I got last week. I knew nothing about the card but it had 'Yamaha OPL' written on it and came with box, so for 15 Euro shipped I had to take it 😀

A2630 with BigRAM expansion for one of my A2000s. Now all three of them will have some acceleration (A2620, SupraTurbo 28 and now A2630).

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-03-07, 20:53:

The lasting trauma of a horror childhood experience haunts us all for a lifetime.

"Keyboard error. Press F1 to continue."

Now, even though it costs us greatly, never, never, shall we face that dire beast again. <looks around room at 10 diverse keyboards secreted in various nooks and crannies> Oh yes, nod, we will have keyboards. We will have many keyboards.

Haha greatest error of all time!

Tetrium wrote on 2022-03-07, 13:39:

Unknown_K wrote on 2022-03-07, 07:11:

I like SCSI cards mostly for all the old vintage tape and MO drives I have lying around.

Which MO drives do you have laying around?

A bunch of 5.25" 1.3GB internal and external drives, a couple 3.5" Fujitsu external 130MB? drives, a few 2.6GB 5.25" drives, and a 20+ disk 5.25" HP jukebox. I also have some IBM PS/2 WORM drives and media (rare).

Tetrium wrote on 2022-03-07, 19:03:

The model number is SK-2885 btw.

That's a nice looking basic keyboard. I see why you picked them up. I would have been tempted as well, if in the same position.

HanJammer wrote on 2022-03-07, 21:35:

A2630 with BigRAM expansion for one of my A2000s. Now all three of them will have some acceleration (A2620, SupraTurbo 28 and now A2630).

I have a GVP 68030/40 with 16MB of that special GVP RAM (4x4MB) in one of my A2000's and its nice. Any Amiga CPU upgrades are pretty expensive these days.

pete8475 wrote on 2022-03-07, 22:28:

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-03-07, 20:53:

The lasting trauma of a horror childhood experience haunts us all for a lifetime.

"Keyboard error. Press F1 to continue."

Now, even though it costs us greatly, never, never, shall we face that dire beast again. <looks around room at 10 diverse keyboards secreted in various nooks and crannies> Oh yes, nod, we will have keyboards. We will have many keyboards.

Haha greatest error of all time!

Maybe ima correct that next time I have to mod a BIOS myself..... "Keyboard not found. Mentally project an F1 keystroke to the controller by ESP to continue."

Unknown_K wrote on 2022-03-07, 22:49:

HanJammer wrote on 2022-03-07, 21:35:

A2630 with BigRAM expansion for one of my A2000s. Now all three of them will have some acceleration (A2620, SupraTurbo 28 and now A2630).

I have a GVP 68030/40 with 16MB of that special GVP RAM (4x4MB) in one of my A2000's and its nice. Any Amiga CPU upgrades are pretty expensive these days.

I looked at GVP card some time ago, but this fancy RAM modules were missing and I let it go (although you can order some PCBs and made some retro modules). Perhaps best option nowadays is PiStorm, it's an CPU emulator, but it has best price to value ratio... but I will wait until they integrate it with RGB2HDMI...

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-03-07, 14:20:

Unless they are particularly interesting, used keyboards are a hard sell. They are often super gross, take hours to clean, and most are rubber domes in various states of decay.

Agreed - although that is precisely what makes it possible to get some jewels in the rough for very nice prices. I'm typing this on a Dell Bigfoot (with black Alps switches that really, really need cleaning...) I found in an thrift shop for EUR 2.50, dumped in between the usual crappy decaying rubber domes. Now when am I going to find something with Space Invader switches in a situation like that...? 😉

HanJammer wrote on 2022-03-07, 23:14:

Unknown_K wrote on 2022-03-07, 22:49:

HanJammer wrote on 2022-03-07, 21:35:

A2630 with BigRAM expansion for one of my A2000s. Now all three of them will have some acceleration (A2620, SupraTurbo 28 and now A2630).

I have a GVP 68030/40 with 16MB of that special GVP RAM (4x4MB) in one of my A2000's and its nice. Any Amiga CPU upgrades are pretty expensive these days.

I looked at GVP card some time ago, but this fancy RAM modules were missing and I let it go (although you can order some PCBs and made some retro modules). Perhaps best option nowadays is PiStorm, it's an CPU emulator, but it has best price to value ratio... but I will wait until they integrate it with RGB2HDMI...

A friend in Canada sent me the card because he could not get it to work in his A2000 but it worked fine in mine. I snagged most of my Amiga equipment in the early 2000's when the most fanatic users were dumping it. Prices are a bit nuts these days but back then they were reasonable and shipping was much cheaper. I still remember buying a Blizzard 030/50 with FPU + boxed SCSI add-on for my A1200 around $100 US from somebody in Canada when the CA dollar was much cheaper then the US one.

I totally understand people were throwing out 90s clone PCs in the early 2000s - I don't understand same applied to Amigas as these were less popular, mostly used by fanatics as you called them and Commodore was already dead so they should be rather sought after even them... It's not like they could replace them with anything else...

I saw a GF2 Ultra listed on eBay today. I put in a $75 bid, knowing it probably wouldn't hit, and indeed it probably isn't even close. From what I remember, everyone just bought a GTS back then, so they are probably a little on the rare side. I'd never chase something like that, so I'll just leave it be. Any guesses where it ends up selling?

Commodore died out in the early 90's so by early 2000 people who used Amigas either went Apple, PC, or Unix of some kind. It probably had something to do with needing an internet PC more than anything else.

People were dumping older machines in that time period for free because they were not internet ready (both old 68K macs and old PCs) but I never seen an Amiga on freecycle, just the ones on ebay.

I was lucky enough to get a bunch of Amiga boxed games back then.

I won a Creative SoundBlaster AWE32 CT3990 on eBay for about $100 after shipping. It is in excellent condition and comes with lots of goodies. This particular card has the CT1748 CMS chip which, oddly, not all CT3990s have.

This isn't necessarily the best model to be made and suffers from a couple of drawbacks compared to others, but it is the last one to be made and has all of the features to be had in an AWE32.

I already have a couple of much more desirable models without bugs and genuine Yamaha OPL, but none of them have the wavetable header, so the rounds out my collection nicely.

HanSolo wrote on 2022-03-07, 20:56:

I knew nothing about the card but it had 'Yamaha OPL' written on it and came with box, so for 15 Euro shipped I had to take it 😀

That appears to be a YMF-719 based card. Those are supposed to be pretty good:
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/audician-32-plus.html

Nice find at any price, for 15 all the better. Kleinanzeige?

HanJammer wrote on 2022-03-08, 00:50:

I totally understand people were throwing out 90s clone PCs in the early 2000s - I don't understand same applied to Amigas as these were less popular, mostly used by fanatics as you called them and Commodore was already dead so they should be rather sought after even them... It's not like they could replace them with anything else...

As I see it, the AMD 386-40 killed off all the home computers, pretty much on its own. That and later ones made up by raw power-per-buck what they lacked in media capabilities or usability.
There were TV ads for Atari in the 80s. Amiga 500 were very common in Germany. A Friend of mine was one of those fanatics who swore by his Amiga 2000. But he dropped it like it's hot for his parent's 486 DX2-66.

So let's face it - somewhere towards the late 90, compared to what was readily available, those machines simply stunk.

I was the very last idiot to buy an Atari ST "for real use" for a musician friend who wanted a midi rig for composing. Some time 2nd half of the 90s.
Had bad advice - the Atari having native midi port. And bought a combo of Atari, monochrome monitor, external hard disk and Steinberg software. Small fortune, I think over 500 if not 1000 DM back then.

Well, it worked and anything from back then will seem shitty today but... I remember vividly that already then, that Atari was a generation behind the outdated 486 my parents had at that time.

HanSolo wrote on 2022-03-07, 20:56:

More stuff I got last week. I knew nothing about the card but it had 'Yamaha OPL' written on it and came with box, so for 15 Euro shipped I had to take it 😀

It's a very solid card. Absolutely perfect for OPL synthesis. There is a wavetable header as well.

The box will probably have value to a collector if you don't want it.

HanSolo wrote on 2022-03-07, 20:56:

More stuff I got last week. I knew nothing about the card but it had 'Yamaha OPL' written on it and came with box, so for 15 Euro shipped I had to take it 😀
Harmony3DS719.jpg

Solid cards for 486s and such. This one likely didn't come with the IDE interface for CD-ROM (judging by the picture on the box).
Also I do have A-Trend Harmony 3DS724 card (PCI, YMF-724) in the box like this which I bought in the late 90s/early 00s.

HanSolo wrote on 2022-03-07, 20:56:

More stuff I got last week. I knew nothing about the card but it had 'Yamaha OPL' written on it and came with box, so for 15 Euro shipped I had to take it 😀
Harmony3DS719.jpg

I have this exact card as well, a very similar card (Best Union MF-719) with the same chipset is currently in use inside my 486-33 PC as the best SB Pro card Creative never made.

For DOS, I would advise you use Tiido's fantastic SETYMF drivers (http://www.tmeeco.eu/TKAYBSC/) with this card instead of Yamaha's own. I guess UNISOUND would also have no trouble initializing it.

Unknown_K wrote on 2022-03-07, 22:44:

Tetrium wrote on 2022-03-07, 13:39:

Unknown_K wrote on 2022-03-07, 07:11:

I like SCSI cards mostly for all the old vintage tape and MO drives I have lying around.

Which MO drives do you have laying around?

A bunch of 5.25" 1.3GB internal and external drives, a couple 3.5" Fujitsu external 130MB? drives, a few 2.6GB 5.25" drives, and a 20+ disk 5.25" HP jukebox. I also have some IBM PS/2 WORM drives and media (rare).

I think that strange or uncommon media could deserve a thread of their own. Most of us know there's more out there than just 3.5in and 5.25in floppy drives, but there's countless more obscure ones. The subject does feel a little bit under-exposed here on vogons even though it could be seen as part of the retro experience.