I think they're cool. The Permedia 2 is something different. Bit of an oddball.

I watched a yutube video and it seeems to handle games well. I think I wil use this in a pentium build ill be doing soon

Law212 wrote on 2023-12-16, 18:14:

I watched a yutube video and it seeems to handle games well. I think I wil use this in a pentium build ill be doing soon

I started to collect these early 3d cards.
They're fun to test... But performance and feature wise, not always great.

https://vintage3d.org/3dlabs3.php

I went to another thrift store yesterday and got a couple more items. One is a Dell Dimension Pentium 2 350.
AN Nvidia Vanta 16
and in the picture is the graphics blaster i got earlier in the day

Not long ago I found the exact same Dell but its a pentium 3

my Tekram's

Law212 wrote on 2023-12-16, 17:59:

I just got back from a thrift store and saw a creative labs box deep on the low shelf behind a bunch of other stuff so i grabbed it. It is a Graphics blaster exxtreme 4MB PCI card. It looks pretty complete. has the card , the cd, the manual and registration card.

Is this a good card?

Ill post pics when I take some

acl wrote on 2023-12-17, 00:22:

I started to collect these early 3d cards. They're fun to test... But performance and feature wise, not always great. […]
Show full quote

Law212 wrote on 2023-12-16, 18:14:

I watched a yutube video and it seeems to handle games well. I think I wil use this in a pentium build ill be doing soon

I started to collect these early 3d cards.
They're fun to test... But performance and feature wise, not always great.

https://vintage3d.org/3dlabs3.php

For some reason it was the chipset I wanted back in 96-97 or so. I was in the UK at the time and Voodoo seemed a) hard to get b) too expensive c) fussy d) proprietary and was in the catch 22 that voodoo games weren't getting UK release because there were barely any cards sold, and cards weren't selling and coming down in price because the games weren't available. This is prior to the time that you could just skip the middlemen and order direct from the US if you were okay with shipping cost, more open internet commerce. The UK magazines seemed to talk up the Permedia 2 more than the others also. It's also easy to say the "winner" was obvious in retrospect, but going through the times all info, much of which was advertorial seemed equally valid. We also knew back then of how the Beta/VHS thing had played, so were cautious ... (and wondered how come MPEG1 VideoCD wasn't killing VHS yet in Europe and do we need a card supporting that???)

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-12-17, 15:13:

Law212 wrote on 2023-12-16, 17:59:

I just got back from a thrift store and saw a creative labs box deep on the low shelf behind a bunch of other stuff so i grabbed it. It is a Graphics blaster exxtreme 4MB PCI card. It looks pretty complete. has the card , the cd, the manual and registration card.

Is this a good card?

Ill post pics when I take some

acl wrote on 2023-12-17, 00:22:

I started to collect these early 3d cards. They're fun to test... But performance and feature wise, not always great. […]
Show full quote

Law212 wrote on 2023-12-16, 18:14:

I watched a yutube video and it seeems to handle games well. I think I wil use this in a pentium build ill be doing soon

I started to collect these early 3d cards.
They're fun to test... But performance and feature wise, not always great.

https://vintage3d.org/3dlabs3.php

For some reason it was the chipset I wanted back in 96-97 or so. I was in the UK at the time and Voodoo seemed a) hard to get b) too expensive c) fussy d) proprietary and was in the catch 22 that voodoo games weren't getting UK release because there were barely any cards sold, and cards weren't selling and coming down in price because the games weren't available. This is prior to the time that you could just skip the middlemen and order direct from the US if you were okay with shipping cost, more open internet commerce. The UK magazines seemed to talk up the Permedia 2 more than the others also. It's also easy to say the "winner" was obvious in retrospect, but going through the times all info, much of which was advertorial seemed equally valid. We also knew back then of how the Beta/VHS thing had played, so were cautious ... (and wondered how come MPEG1 VideoCD wasn't killing VHS yet in Europe and do we need a card supporting that???)

You're right. It's easy to say "x is better than y" 25y later. I was too young to buy a computer myself back then. Luckily my parents bougtht a good one. But from what i remember it was the jungle.
That's why i like the cards from that time. Early attempts to jump in the 3D market. CirrusLogic Laguna3D, Permedia1/2, i740, S3 virge, trident, SiS.

Even later less usual cards are interesting. Having HL2 to run on something else than ATI/Nvidia/Intel feels like you're in an alternate reality where Kyro II and Matrox Parhelia won the competition.

acl wrote on 2023-12-17, 15:39:

You're right. It's easy to say "x is better than y" 25y later. I was too young to buy a computer myself back then. Luckily my pa […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-12-17, 15:13:

Law212 wrote on 2023-12-16, 17:59:

I just got back from a thrift store and saw a creative labs box deep on the low shelf behind a bunch of other stuff so i grabbed it. It is a Graphics blaster exxtreme 4MB PCI card. It looks pretty complete. has the card , the cd, the manual and registration card.

Is this a good card?

Ill post pics when I take some

acl wrote on 2023-12-17, 00:22:

I started to collect these early 3d cards.
They're fun to test... But performance and feature wise, not always great.

https://vintage3d.org/3dlabs3.php

For some reason it was the chipset I wanted back in 96-97 or so. I was in the UK at the time and Voodoo seemed a) hard to get b) too expensive c) fussy d) proprietary and was in the catch 22 that voodoo games weren't getting UK release because there were barely any cards sold, and cards weren't selling and coming down in price because the games weren't available. This is prior to the time that you could just skip the middlemen and order direct from the US if you were okay with shipping cost, more open internet commerce. The UK magazines seemed to talk up the Permedia 2 more than the others also. It's also easy to say the "winner" was obvious in retrospect, but going through the times all info, much of which was advertorial seemed equally valid. We also knew back then of how the Beta/VHS thing had played, so were cautious ... (and wondered how come MPEG1 VideoCD wasn't killing VHS yet in Europe and do we need a card supporting that???)

You're right. It's easy to say "x is better than y" 25y later. I was too young to buy a computer myself back then. Luckily my parents bougtht a good one. But from what i remember it was the jungle.
That's why i like the cards from that time. Early attempts to jump in the 3D market. CirrusLogic Laguna3D, Permedia1/2, i740, S3 virge, trident, SiS.

Even later less usual cards are interesting. Having HL2 to run on something else than ATI/Nvidia/Intel feels like you're in an alternate reality where Kyro II and Matrox Parhelia won the competition.

Exactly my thoughts. Most retro hardware enthusiasts who don't make period correct rigs tend to associate CPUs with much newer graphic cards, or using new ways to overcklock them, or knowledge we have now to run it to its best, just to get the most out of vintage CPUs.
I'm on the other side, using much newer CPUs with old graphic cards, especially underdogs, to get it to run newer games or period correct games better than it did at the time (newer/modded drivers and pairing it with newer platforms also help). PowerVR architecture is especally interesting on that matter, since it relies heavily on the CPU's FPU. That's why I end up overclocking them and pairing them with overclocked Tua's. 😁

Got 3 PCI cards, an ATI Rage 3D, Matrox Mystique and Matrox Millenium II, all 4MB.
It would be nice to find the 4>6 or 4>8 MB extension for the Rage 3D!

Purchased a box of retro PC hardware couple days ago from local listing site. Among with other rather common retro PC stuff came an interesting Microsoft mouse. On common serial port it works fine with this converter.
The sticker on little box between cable says "for serial and IBM PS/2 mouse ports". But unfortunately the plugs that connect to this magic box are not pincompatible with PS/2 mouse port, so it cant be used as standard PS2 mouse. Where it was used such mouse or what mystery box between cable does?

This is a BUS mouse. Hence the converter. There are also plugs for PS2 and DB25 serial.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_mouse
https://deskthority.net/wiki/Bus_mouse
bus mouse --> PS/2 mouse converter

Bought this nice boxed Sound Blaster 1.5 CT-1320C . Will be a great upgrade for my 286 Olivetti.
Works fine and clean 😀

Just got this, it was cheap on eBay (£10) and listed as open box but unused. And yeah, turns out it's brand new and unused, everything is there in the box including the serial adapter and sealed floppy disk. Manufactured July 1999. Love it! It's so clean, and so so so white!

psychofox wrote on 2023-12-20, 07:28:

Purchased a box of retro PC hardware couple days ago from local listing site. Among with other rather common retro PC stuff came an interesting Microsoft mouse. On common serial port it works fine with this converter.
The sticker on little box between cable says "for serial and IBM PS/2 mouse ports". But unfortunately the plugs that connect to this magic box are not pincompatible with PS/2 mouse port, so it cant be used as standard PS2 mouse. Where it was used such mouse or what mystery box between cable does?

mm Microsoft InPort bus mouse, would love to reverse engineer ISA controller for it. I always assumed it was a brain dead bit banging implementation, but closer look changed my mind Re: PicoGUS: ISA sound card emulator with Raspberry Pi Pico (Gravis Ultrasound, AdLib, MPU-401, Tandy, CMS) There is some magic going on, on first glance there isnt enough hardware to allow it to do what it does 😮.

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-12-20, 14:47:

psychofox wrote on 2023-12-20, 07:28:

Purchased a box of retro PC hardware couple days ago from local listing site. Among with other rather common retro PC stuff came an interesting Microsoft mouse. On common serial port it works fine with this converter.
The sticker on little box between cable says "for serial and IBM PS/2 mouse ports". But unfortunately the plugs that connect to this magic box are not pincompatible with PS/2 mouse port, so it cant be used as standard PS2 mouse. Where it was used such mouse or what mystery box between cable does?

mm Microsoft InPort bus mouse, would love to reverse engineer ISA controller for it. I always assumed it was a brain dead bit banging implementation, but closer look changed my mind Re: PicoGUS: ISA sound card emulator with Raspberry Pi Pico (Gravis Ultrasound, AdLib, MPU-401, Tandy, CMS) There is some magic going on, on first glance there isnt enough hardware to allow it to do what it does 😮.

Dunno if the pic of the Logitech card here tells you much A pic to show the grandchildren, Logitech Bus Mouse and Card Together! all the magic is in the 40 pin doohickey. If you look up the part number you'll see someone has been sitting on a few thousand for years.

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Could not help myself (favouring Thinkpads) but i came across this Compaq LTE5300 and could not resist it. It was 30 US + shipping and is in mainly excellent condition (only snag is that the right screen "snap" is missing, but it does not affect the function as the left one is still there. Except for this, it is in almost pristine condition, not a scratch on it.

I'm going to replace the 2Gb unit (currently running W95) with a CF (running W98). Should be a decent retro-machine, perhaps minus any potential screen scaling issues (here i need to ask owners of this machine how good/bad scaling really is on this thing?)

download/file.php?mode=view&id=181149

Sorry about the duplicate posts. Each time i tried to submit this, i got an error page (but in the background it did create it anyway - quite confusing behaviour. How do one delete/remove posts on this forum? i can see a "delete this post" on this particular post, but that option is not there on the previous three attempts...)

my03 wrote on 2023-12-20, 16:23:

Sorry about the duplicate posts. Each time i tried to submit this, i got an error page (but in the background it did create it anyway - quite confusing behaviour. How do one delete/remove posts on this forum? i can see a "delete this post" on this particular post, but that option is not there on the previous three attempts...)

As long as your posts are the last posts in the thread, you can delete the last post by editing (it gives the option to delete), then you delete the one before, until only your first post remains. Not sure if that still works for posts before the last one.