I wanted to try to recreate the experience of my first computer, a Gateway 2000 386SX-25. I don't have a 386 board, but I do have a Intel Classic R 486 board.

I bought an Intel 486sx-33, and set the bus to 25 MHz. That coupled with disabling the external cache results in 4,100 Dhrystones. I think that's pretty close to a 386SX-25. It certainly feels slow enough.

For good measure, I also configured a 40GB IDE hard drive as 60MB in the BIOS. With DOS 6.2's Double Space enabled, I feel like I'm computing in 1993 again.

The battery compartment is the speaker/mic unit and no signs of corrosion on the terminals, which is a good thing.

Needs some TLC and I'll take a gander inside to see which chips it utilizes.

bjwil1991 wrote on 2022-03-18, 00:59:

Bought this Logitech Audio man AM-1 parallel port sound card.

Unable to find info about it, sadly.

It's Win 3.1 device, you don't need specialized software to use with it - it will work with any digital audio recording/playback software allowing you to record 8-bit 11kHz mono and playback 8-bit 22kHz mono audio in WAV format. It was meant mostly as digital voice recorder to embed audio in text documents and so on using OLE... In the VOGONS driver section you will find drivers for it.

So yeah, it's a "sound card" or more precisely ADC/DAC connected via LPT port - similar to Covox, just more advanced.

There is actually quite a lot info about it - just google "Logitech Audioman" without space or AM-1 which is just a model/part number.

Bought this SoundBlaster Live today for 20 quid (delivered) but I didn't buy it for the card itself .. the CT4660 it came with I have never seen before, Anyone able to identify the ports on it, it looks like some kind of external midi interface but I could be wrong.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-18, 03:10:

Bought this SoundBlaster Live today for 20 quid (delivered) but I didn't buy it for the card itself .. the CT4660 it came with I have never seen before, Anyone able to identify the ports on it, it looks like some kind of external midi interface but I could be wrong.

s-l1600 (1).jpg

s-l1600 (2).jpg

"This card, which takes up another slot, adds a MIDI In and MIDI Out port, but uses those extremely hard to come by these mini-DIN adapters, also used by the Roland SCC-1 and MPU-401/AT. The CT4660 also had two coaxial input jacks, one for S/PDIF in and one for S/PDIF out, and a 9-pin proprietary S/DPIF output port intended for Creative Labs' or Cambridge Soundworks' speakers."
Source: https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2013/03/ … am-machine.html

HanSolo wrote on 2022-03-18, 03:27:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-18, 03:10:

Bought this SoundBlaster Live today for 20 quid (delivered) but I didn't buy it for the card itself .. the CT4660 it came with I have never seen before, Anyone able to identify the ports on it, it looks like some kind of external midi interface but I could be wrong.

s-l1600 (1).jpg

s-l1600 (2).jpg

"This card, which takes up another slot, adds a MIDI In and MIDI Out port, but uses those extremely hard to come by these mini-DIN adapters, also used by the Roland SCC-1 and MPU-401/AT. The CT4660 also had two coaxial input jacks, one for S/PDIF in and one for S/PDIF out, and a 9-pin proprietary S/DPIF output port intended for Creative Labs' or Cambridge Soundworks' speakers."
Source: https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2013/03/ … am-machine.html

The Midi in and out ports will be good, same for S/Pdif, not sure about the speaker pin .. might come across a speaker set for it one day, never seen a creative set with that cable tho.

Meatball wrote on 2022-03-17, 21:17:

Recently bought: […]
Show full quote

Recently bought:

...
Xpert 2000 Pro (Rage 128 Pro)
3Dfx Velocity 100 (basically a Voodoo3 2000 w/RAM sliced in half)
...

I think I have the exact same Rage 128 Pro with its Video IN Video Out ports.
Bought it back in the days to digitalize old VHS tapes to some divx files. What a torture on the limited CPU power that was standard back then. Must have been some Pentium 3 system.
But the Rage Theater chip did its best to get the job done. Later on it was part of my casual gaming machine for university (didn't want to carry my main machine around from home to university twice a week).
So far I have this card in good memory.

Around the end of last year I also got a Velocity 100 for something around 35 euros. It's not too bad a card considering you can enable the second TMU with a simple registry hack to turn it into a "real" V3 2000, however, the restriction to 1024x768 in 3D due to the restricted RAM is a bit of a limiting factor.
I thought about if it may be possible to change the RAMs to larger ones, giving it 16 MB instead of 8 MB, but since I also own a real V3 with 16 MB there's no need to touch a working card making it unattractive for some collectors in the far future.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-18, 03:10:

Bought this SoundBlaster Live today for 20 quid (delivered) but I didn't buy it for the card itself .. the CT4660 it came with I have never seen before, Anyone able to identify the ports on it, it looks like some kind of external midi interface but I could be wrong.

s-l1600 (1).jpg

s-l1600 (2).jpg

http://www.oldschooldaw.com/forums/index.php?topic=4569.0

With the addition of an HD 2900XT and a Radeon 8500LE, i've almost completed my ATI collection today ! (At least for the era i'm interested in)
A family picture to celebrate !

(And a close up montage based on multiple pictures here. Warning, the picture is > 20Mb)

From top to bottom :
(and roughly the price i paid for each for information)

1. Rage 128 Pro (~7€)
2. Radeon SDR (~10€)
3. Radeon 8500LE (~15€)
4. Radeon 9700Pro (~20€)
5. Radeon X850XT (~20€)
6. Radeon X1950XTX (~10€)
7. Radeon HD2900XT (~50€)
8. Radeon HD3870 X2 (~10€)
9. Radeon HD4870 X2 (~40€)

The most difficult to find were a *WORKING* 9700 Pro (i got 2 others with problems) and the HD 2900XT.

Of course, there still some room for improvement.

• I don't have (yet ?) a Rage fury maxx (and quite not ready to pay $300+ for it) But the Rage 128 pro use the same chip
• I chose to pick a Radeon SDR which i find more relevant than a 7500. (Even if i have a 7500 too)
• The 8500 is a LE (Llama edition ?) But supports the "normal" 8500 freqs (and even more) using PowerStrip.
• Like for the "Radeon SDR vs 7500", i found a 9700Pro more relevant than a 9800XT... And i don't have a 9800XT (only a pro)
• My X850XT is not a PE (Pimp edition ?)
• The X1950XTX is a nice looking paperweight (But i have a working X1950XT)

But i'm still really happy to have found most of the card i wanted as a teenager/young adult.

Today I bought a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook in like new, open box condition. 26 Euro shipped...

It will be a really nice companion to my newest retro laptop, the Compaq Evo N620c, bought a while back...

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-03-17, 18:31:

Interesting, are they freely available relatively inexpensively, or is it a $$$ special run or something? I ask because I've got a couple of N64 controllers with tired sticks, and also because I'm looking for a "nice" thumbstick for a project, so wondering also if they are 10k ohm pots or whether they have built in ADC or something and send a processed signal.

Someone may have more info on these but to the best of my knowledge only Hyperkin officially distributes these although the product itself seems to be produced by your typical random manufacturer in Shenzhen and under license/agreement to Hyperkin. Either way, they are a $8-$12 item and you can find them all over the place in online retail.

https://www.hyperkin.com/n64-replacement-joys … -repairbox.html

For those of you who have one, see https://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=5803.0
I've built a few of these over the past few years for myself and friends. They are awesome for original Nintendo controllers.

Bought a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS (SB0350) from a friend for NT$400 (US$14) as he has two more extra ones. Got three Live! series cards (a value, a Platinum, and a 5.1) and an X-Fi but never had an Audigy before.

acl wrote on 2022-03-18, 12:50:

With the addition of an HD 2900XT and a Radeon 8500LE, i've almost completed my ATI collection today ! (At least for the era i'm […]
Show full quote

With the addition of an HD 2900XT and a Radeon 8500LE, i've almost completed my ATI collection today ! (At least for the era i'm interested in)
A family picture to celebrate !

IMG_20220317_180928.jpg
(And a close up montage based on multiple pictures here. Warning, the picture is > 20Mb)

From top to bottom :
(and roughly the price i paid for each for information)

1. Rage 128 Pro (~7€)
2. Radeon SDR (~10€)
3. Radeon 8500LE (~15€)
4. Radeon 9700Pro (~20€)
5. Radeon X850XT (~20€)
6. Radeon X1950XTX (~10€)
7. Radeon HD2900XT (~50€)
8. Radeon HD3870 X2 (~10€)
9. Radeon HD4870 X2 (~40€)

The most difficult to find were a *WORKING* 9700 Pro (i got 2 others with problems) and the HD 2900XT.

Of course, there still some room for improvement.

• I don't have (yet ?) a Rage fury maxx (and quite not ready to pay $300+ for it) But the Rage 128 pro use the same chip
• I chose to pick a Radeon SDR which i find more relevant than a 7500. (Even if i have a 7500 too)
• The 8500 is a LE (Llama edition ?) But supports the "normal" 8500 freqs (and even more) using PowerStrip.
• Like for the "Radeon SDR vs 7500", i found a 9700Pro more relevant than a 9800XT... And i don't have a 9800XT (only a pro)
• My X850XT is not a PE (Pimp edition ?)
• The X1950XTX is a nice looking paperweight (But i have a working X1950XT)

But i'm still really happy to have found most of the card i wanted as a teenager/young adult.

GDDR3 or GDDR4 2900 XT?

mastergamma12 wrote on 2022-03-18, 21:56:

GDDR3 or GDDR4 2900 XT?

Unfortunately 512 Mb GDDR3. I think that the later models were 1Gb GDDR4. (GPU-Z)

(All my parts are listed with doc/drivers/screenshots/pictures on my server (link in my signature) : https://retro.user-unfriendly.net)

I didn't look at it too closely, but it seems to be in decent shape. Does anyone remember how those ramsinks are attached? Are those a "do not touch" part? From what I remember, the ram didn't get very hot on these cards anyway.

HanJammer wrote on 2022-03-18, 01:28:

It's Win 3.1 device, you don't need specialized software to use with it - it will work with any digital audio recording/playback […]
Show full quote

bjwil1991 wrote on 2022-03-18, 00:59:

Bought this Logitech Audio man AM-1 parallel port sound card.

Unable to find info about it, sadly.

It's Win 3.1 device, you don't need specialized software to use with it - it will work with any digital audio recording/playback software allowing you to record 8-bit 11kHz mono and playback 8-bit 22kHz mono audio in WAV format. It was meant mostly as digital voice recorder to embed audio in text documents and so on using OLE... In the VOGONS driver section you will find drivers for it.

So yeah, it's a "sound card" or more precisely ADC/DAC connected via LPT port - similar to Covox, just more advanced.

There is actually quite a lot info about it - just google "Logitech Audioman" without space or AM-1 which is just a model/part number.

Found this site: http://dosdays.co.uk/topics/Manufacturers/covox.php and it mentions that it's basically a clone to the Covox Sound Master.

I think I bought my 9800 SE from this guy. I hope he's okay. I'm reminded of how I sold a motherboard on Ebay the day of the Camp Fire, and I had to message the buyer that I couldn't get to it, I didn't know when I would be able to get to it, and I might find that it (and everything else I owned) had been destroyed by the fire. Anyway, yeah, doesn't seem like a prudent time to try and buy something from that part of the world.

Quantum3D Obsidian 200SBi has arrived.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-03-19, 00:55:

I think I bought my 9800 SE from this guy. I hope he's okay. I'm reminded of how I sold a motherboard on Ebay the day of the Camp Fire, and I had to message the buyer that I couldn't get to it, I didn't know when I would be able to get to it, and I might find that it (and everything else I owned) had been destroyed by the fire. Anyway, yeah, doesn't seem like a prudent time to try and buy something from that part of the world.

or russia
many cards are sold from russia too
i think paypal banned them

SETBLASTER wrote on 2022-03-19, 04:31:

or russia many cards are sold from russia too i think paypal banned them […]
Show full quote

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-03-19, 00:55:

I think I bought my 9800 SE from this guy. I hope he's okay. I'm reminded of how I sold a motherboard on Ebay the day of the Camp Fire, and I had to message the buyer that I couldn't get to it, I didn't know when I would be able to get to it, and I might find that it (and everything else I owned) had been destroyed by the fire. Anyway, yeah, doesn't seem like a prudent time to try and buy something from that part of the world.

or russia
many cards are sold from russia too
i think paypal banned them

Yeah, I bought a 6800GS AGP from an Ebay seller in Dzerzhinsk in 2020 for a good price. He even threw in a chocolate bar! It took forever to get here, he said it was mistakenly sent on a ship and he even offered to give me a refund, but I was willing to wait. He shipped it on September third, I finally got it the end of November. Crazy times we live in.