Is T60 one of the ones you can get upgrade motherboards for if you are so inclined? So there's etiher that option, or maybe larger than normal availability of take-out motherboards.

Grabbed this little gem of a Cyrix CPU today, its a gold top Cyrix MIIv GP400 95Mhz bus @ 2.2v, going to add it to my socket 7 test bench, not everyday you see one of these so its a nice late Xmas present !

Today's find is a GIGABYTE GA-M61PME-S2 motherboard (without I/O shield) with 2x 2GB Mushkin Enhanced DDR2-800 in dual channel (it have heat spreaders) and a AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Windsor CPU (part number ADA3800IAA5CU) with a Spire CPU Cooler. This kit I got it mostly for the CPU that will go into my forthcoming 2006 ASUS M2N-E rig. Any opinions?

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-01-07, 06:42:

Grabbed this little gem of a Cyrix CPU today, its a gold top Cyrix MIIv GP400 95Mhz bus @ 2.2v, going to add it to my socket 7 test bench, not everyday you see one of these so its a nice late Xmas present !

Nice! Yah those don't come up every day. I'm a little jelly. Enjoy.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-01-07, 15:36:

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-01-07, 06:42:

Grabbed this little gem of a Cyrix CPU today, its a gold top Cyrix MIIv GP400 95Mhz bus @ 2.2v, going to add it to my socket 7 test bench, not everyday you see one of these so its a nice late Xmas present !

Nice! Yah those don't come up every day. I'm a little jelly. Enjoy.

I’m curious to find out if it can run at 100 fsb without needing to increase the voltage.

got myself Olivetti PCS 33 (386SX) in good condition. I'll transfer the files from the harddrive before it dies and then reinstall dos and add a soundcard. I could go with SB16 (CT2800) from '95 or ESS1868 AudioDrive from '97.

vellu wrote on 2023-01-07, 18:06:

got myself Olivetti PCS 33 (386SX) in good condition. I'll transfer the files from the harddrive before it dies and then reinstall dos and add a soundcard. I could go with SB16 (CT2800) from '95 or ESS1868 AudioDrive from '97.

For a 386 the SB16 does seem a better fit but ESFM is also really good but I think the Sb16 would have much better compatibility with the era of games a 386SX is able to handle.

A Soundblaster Pro 2.0 would be an even better fit for a 386SX but they can be rather expensive and hard to source.

libby wrote on 2023-01-05, 09:18:

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-01-04, 22:17:

That intel copper heatsink is spendy still on ebay.

Cheers,

I think that's because it weighs like 1.5 pounds and is pure copper, so the metal alone is worth a good $7 nowadays and people have long since recycled almost all of them.

More like 60 to 80 per purchase on ebay for intel server copper heatsink, so not about the recycling for copper value.

Compaq Business Wavetable card for my Deskpro 4000. I'll be replacing a perfectly good Crystal 4237b that I've been using, but I can't resist the temptation of an actual Compaq part.

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-01-07, 15:54:

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-01-07, 15:36:

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-01-07, 06:42:

Grabbed this little gem of a Cyrix CPU today, its a gold top Cyrix MIIv GP400 95Mhz bus @ 2.2v, going to add it to my socket 7 test bench, not everyday you see one of these so its a nice late Xmas present !

Nice! Yah those don't come up every day. I'm a little jelly. Enjoy.

I’m curious to find out if it can run at 100 fsb without needing to increase the voltage.

I'll cross my fingers for you, I do remember some others being super frigging stubborn about going over 290... not sure what kind of wall that is, the process goes past there in theory.

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-01-07, 20:42:

vellu wrote on 2023-01-07, 18:06:

got myself Olivetti PCS 33 (386SX) in good condition. I'll transfer the files from the harddrive before it dies and then reinstall dos and add a soundcard. I could go with SB16 (CT2800) from '95 or ESS1868 AudioDrive from '97.

For a 386 the SB16 does seem a better fit but ESFM is also really good but I think the Sb16 would have much better compatibility with the era of games a 386SX is able to handle.

A Soundblaster Pro 2.0 would be an even better fit for a 386SX but they can be rather expensive and hard to source.

it certainly hurts the wallet to go period correct with this one. I might go SB16 because it has the OPL but I'm also curious to hear what ESS can do.

vellu wrote on 2023-01-07, 18:06:

got myself Olivetti PCS 33 (386SX) in good condition. I'll transfer the files from the harddrive before it dies and then reinstall dos and add a soundcard. I could go with SB16 (CT2800) from '95 or ESS1868 AudioDrive from '97.

Very nice set, congrats!

vellu wrote on 2023-01-08, 07:33:

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-01-07, 20:42:

vellu wrote on 2023-01-07, 18:06:

got myself Olivetti PCS 33 (386SX) in good condition. I'll transfer the files from the harddrive before it dies and then reinstall dos and add a soundcard. I could go with SB16 (CT2800) from '95 or ESS1868 AudioDrive from '97.

For a 386 the SB16 does seem a better fit but ESFM is also really good but I think the Sb16 would have much better compatibility with the era of games a 386SX is able to handle.

A Soundblaster Pro 2.0 would be an even better fit for a 386SX but they can be rather expensive and hard to source.

it certainly hurts the wallet to go period correct with this one. I might go SB16 because it has the OPL but I'm also curious to hear what ESS can do.

ESSFM when used correctly sounds amazing, sadly there are few games that implemented it correctly and the ones that do likely won’t run on a 386sx.

The SB16 has the compatibility win here.

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-01-08, 10:41:

The SB16 has the compatibility win here.

In theory...
In practice, with 386SX software, it's usually OPL3 vs. ESFM in OPL3 mode (I'm unable to tell it apart from genuine OPL3), and SB Pro DAC in mono vs. SB Pro DAC in stereo.
Also, the MIDI interface on CT2800 is known to be buggy.

Grzyb wrote on 2023-01-08, 12:00:

it's usually OPL3 vs. ESFM in OPL3 mode (I'm unable to tell it apart from genuine OPL3),

The differences are noticeable with trackers made for OPL3, games barely used the additional capabilities as developers didn't have the proper talent to get the most of it.

and SB Pro DAC in mono vs. SB Pro DAC in stereo.

SBPro compatibility is completely overblown IMO, it is actually with few early games (Wolfenstein 3-D doesn't count as it really uses the mixer to get that stereo immersion) that many people are unable to name and Future Crew demoscene stuff which never supported the SB16. Some non-Vibra models of the SB16 has the CSP chip which is useful on slower computers like the 386SX when running Windows.

To be fair though, the ESS sound card doesn't have the single-cycle DMA clicking bug that non-Vibra SB16 has and comes with a bugfree UART MPU-401 implementation (this was never used back then due to MIDI devices being horrendously expensive for a regular consumer).

Bought a Gainward GeForce2 TI 64MB for $21.

Now the only GF2 I'm missing is the GF2 Pro

Thrift bits nothing great, but got a Toshiba laptop/monitor supply that puts out a whopping great 6.3 amps so ready for anything now... gonna try that Goldstar 386 clamshell again and if really really no life, gotta dig into internal power board.

Pretty pleased about this one since I haven't found any rare sound cards in a long time. I have never seen one of these before and only found a handful of references to it online after looking it up tonight:

(seller's photo)

Apparently this is called a Media Vision Pro Audio Wavetable with an ID of IXW-JAZZWAVE. It is a Media Vision Jazz16, OPL3 and an ICS Wavefront wavetable synth.

I seem to have gathered a decent amount of interesting Media Vision hardware over the years, so this will be a nice addition.

So far I have managed to find:
Thunderboard (with disks)
Pro Audio Spectrum Plus (falls between original PAS and PAS16)
Several PAS16 and Jazz16 variants
Memphis (card, cable and multimedia speaker system\monitor stand with working SCSI CDROM drive)
Logitech Soundman
Logitech Soundman Wave (with manual and disks I think)

The PAS Plus was probably my least common card before, but I think this Pro Audio Wavetable would be the least common one of my collection now, since it isn't mentioned on any of the usual sources for Media Vision devices.

... still have yet to track down that elusive original Pro Audio Spectrum though. 😀

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-01-09, 06:31:

Pretty pleased about this one since I haven't found any rare sound cards in a long time. I have never seen one of these before a […]
Show full quote

Pretty pleased about this one since I haven't found any rare sound cards in a long time. I have never seen one of these before and only found a handful of references to it online after looking it up tonight:

jazzwave.jpg
(seller's photo)

Apparently this is called a Media Vision Pro Audio Wavetable with an ID of IXW-JAZZWAVE. It is a Media Vision Jazz16, OPL3 and an ICS Wavefront wavetable synth.

I seem to have gathered a decent amount of interesting Media Vision hardware over the years, so this will be a nice addition.

So far I have managed to find:
Thunderboard (with disks)
Pro Audio Spectrum Plus (falls between original PAS and PAS16)
Several PAS16 and Jazz16 variants
Memphis (card, cable and multimedia speaker system\monitor stand with working SCSI CDROM drive)
Logitech Soundman
Logitech Soundman Wave (with manual and disks I think)

The PAS Plus was probably my least common card before, but I think this Pro Audio Wavetable would be the least common one of my collection now, since it isn't mentioned on any of the usual sources for Media Vision devices.

... still have yet to track down that elusive original Pro Audio Spectrum though. 😀

Nice one! The MV Jazz Wave (aka MediaVision PAW-200 Pro Audio) looks like a pretty complete sound card, would be interesting to see how wavetable sounds.

However, the driver for the wavetable might be hard to find - the DOS Reloaded guys were looking for it (https://dosreloaded.de/forum/index.php?thread … -1995/&pageNo=3). From magazine reviews, the driver file seems to be called "MVLITE.EXE" (https://archive.org/details/Pcmania36/page/n43/mode/2up and https://archive.org/details/PC-Player-German- … de/2up?q=mvlite). I've got one of these without the backplate, but haven't been able to start the wavetable. Been on the lookout for random MediaVision floppies but nothing so far.

And coincidentally this arrived at mine today ...

JidaiGeki wrote on 2023-01-09, 07:40:

And coincidentally this arrived at mine today ...

IMG_7731.jpg

Oh, nice. A beauty. Looks new, but there is quite a bit of corrosion on the ISA connector.