ux-3 wrote on 2024-06-16, 12:12:

I bought a Gigabyte GA-586STX2 mainboard, P233mmx with cooler, an ATX PSU with -5V line, an ATI charger 3D pci, a Soundblaster Live 5.1 (SB0060), 64 MB ram PC100, working 3.5 black floppy drive, NIC, and a small currently available black ATX case. Got it for double digit $. I guess that is OK.

Yeah staying below three digits for just board and case is good going these days. Have fun.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-06-15, 23:47:

I need to stop buying boxes of junk at yard sales, got one with 4 random ODD, 2 external HDD, ext drive PSU, 2 floppy, (preceding unpictured) then pics, 4 lame VGA cards, firewire and USB cards, junky RAM, and a sound card that doesn't even have DOS drivers or a SoundBlaster mode....

On the other hand...

Heh yeah that's a Roland RAP-10 AT with excellent general MIDI playback, approximating SC-7 on a card, digital sound in windoze, it is very much the cherry/peach of the bunch. The GFX are a bit yawnworthy, there should be a woman in a Turtleneck on that 2600Pro if you were having trouble recognising it, I've got another, so crossfire may be on the cards, as may SLI with the other 7600GT I've got. The PCI Trio 64V+ is a pretty solid card for DOS compatibility, this one is solid physically, feels a tad heavier than cheapy Trios, by STB for Dell with their BIOS it looks like, 45ns memory so might not be a slouch for 2D either. I was a bit bummed by the other card (AGP), first glance I thought it was another Savage, but it's a Radeon 7000, I may yet like it if I can get it to put out composite at boot. Drives aren't to bad either really, LiteOn DVD and DVDRW which I think are good for ripping, and a modern SATA DVDRW with all the bells and whistles, and a "stealth" 48x Samsung, plain front, so it don't gonna look out of place in a 486 or early pent screaming FOURTY EIGHT, I'M TOO FRIGGIN' FAST, off it's facia. Floppies are internal ODD bay ones for Dell laptops, think one will work in the latitude I got ages back, and the other might got with the parallel cable kit I randomly had. There's also an IR dongle of some sort, zoltrix, not sure whether that's in or out or remote clone or what ATM.

So the "whoops I accidentally a RAP-10" incident is causing a bit of a kerfuffle in planning it's place of belonging. As far as I can determine, general MIDI stuff that is likely to benefit runs the gamut from late 386 speeds to top end of Pentium classic, with a couple of outliers that will soak up all the cycles you can throw at them. Several may be speed sensitive. Then there's the 179 or so that Mobygames say have specific RAP-10 support, which seem to skew to 3rd quarter of 90s.

So... don't think I wanna go the "good old DX2-66" route for release date higher end, or even put it in the Pentium 60 for highest end, though that would do fairly well for the '95ish ones. So I am thinking it's gotta be a P233 MMX several in one deally with setting manipulation to get you down to 386ish. What is coming to mind at the moment then is my Micron ClientPro MTA which has the Intel Tucson board with 430HX, Virge DX and Yamaha YMF-701 onboard. Unfortunately it is not the prettiest of systems, got a bit "battle" scarred... it is actually a "veteran" being ex USAF through a contract with Hughes Data Systems... for some reason Micron put plastic all over the real chassis, so that took scuffs and scratches kinda bad. Not sure at the moment whether that will be the final word for sound and graphics in that, or whether it will need another 16bit card and more 3D ... like a V2 if I ever find that 8MB one... or Rage Pro Turbo PCI if I don't... a little slot limited though, only has 3 PCI installed and 3 ISA... and I'll want NIC at minimum as well. IDK whether to call it a pure DOS machine though as it will want W95 for Descent II

Might have to dig thru all the weird and wonderfuls and test them for noise, like DSP16 and thought I had an Oak or Mwave chipset on a multi function card with modem. Yeah, ignoring the soundblasters for this mostly, guess because the good ones are spoken for for other builds in my head.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-06-17, 03:13:

So the "whoops I accidentally a RAP-10" incident is causing a bit of a kerfuffle in planning it's place of belonging. As far as […]
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BitWrangler wrote on 2024-06-15, 23:47:

I need to stop buying boxes of junk at yard sales, got one with 4 random ODD, 2 external HDD, ext drive PSU, 2 floppy, (preceding unpictured) then pics, 4 lame VGA cards, firewire and USB cards, junky RAM, and a sound card that doesn't even have DOS drivers or a SoundBlaster mode....

On the other hand...

Heh yeah that's a Roland RAP-10 AT with excellent general MIDI playback, approximating SC-7 on a card, digital sound in windoze, it is very much the cherry/peach of the bunch. The GFX are a bit yawnworthy, there should be a woman in a Turtleneck on that 2600Pro if you were having trouble recognising it, I've got another, so crossfire may be on the cards, as may SLI with the other 7600GT I've got. The PCI Trio 64V+ is a pretty solid card for DOS compatibility, this one is solid physically, feels a tad heavier than cheapy Trios, by STB for Dell with their BIOS it looks like, 45ns memory so might not be a slouch for 2D either. I was a bit bummed by the other card (AGP), first glance I thought it was another Savage, but it's a Radeon 7000, I may yet like it if I can get it to put out composite at boot. Drives aren't to bad either really, LiteOn DVD and DVDRW which I think are good for ripping, and a modern SATA DVDRW with all the bells and whistles, and a "stealth" 48x Samsung, plain front, so it don't gonna look out of place in a 486 or early pent screaming FOURTY EIGHT, I'M TOO FRIGGIN' FAST, off it's facia. Floppies are internal ODD bay ones for Dell laptops, think one will work in the latitude I got ages back, and the other might got with the parallel cable kit I randomly had. There's also an IR dongle of some sort, zoltrix, not sure whether that's in or out or remote clone or what ATM.

So the "whoops I accidentally a RAP-10" incident is causing a bit of a kerfuffle in planning it's place of belonging. As far as I can determine, general MIDI stuff that is likely to benefit runs the gamut from late 386 speeds to top end of Pentium classic, with a couple of outliers that will soak up all the cycles you can throw at them. Several may be speed sensitive. Then there's the 179 or so that Mobygames say have specific RAP-10 support, which seem to skew to 3rd quarter of 90s.

So... don't think I wanna go the "good old DX2-66" route for release date higher end, or even put it in the Pentium 60 for highest end, though that would do fairly well for the '95ish ones. So I am thinking it's gotta be a P233 MMX several in one deally with setting manipulation to get you down to 386ish. What is coming to mind at the moment then is my Micron ClientPro MTA which has the Intel Tucson board with 430HX, Virge DX and Yamaha YMF-701 onboard. Unfortunately it is not the prettiest of systems, got a bit "battle" scarred... it is actually a "veteran" being ex USAF through a contract with Hughes Data Systems... for some reason Micron put plastic all over the real chassis, so that took scuffs and scratches kinda bad. Not sure at the moment whether that will be the final word for sound and graphics in that, or whether it will need another 16bit card and more 3D ... like a V2 if I ever find that 8MB one... or Rage Pro Turbo PCI if I don't... a little slot limited though, only has 3 PCI installed and 3 ISA... and I'll want NIC at minimum as well. IDK whether to call it a pure DOS machine though as it will want W95 for Descent II

Might have to dig thru all the weird and wonderfuls and test them for noise, like DSP16 and thought I had an Oak or Mwave chipset on a multi function card with modem. Yeah, ignoring the soundblasters for this mostly, guess because the good ones are spoken for for other builds in my head.

From my memory, most of the games I remember selecting the RAP-10 in were from 1994-1996, and a lot of games from that time period ran quite poorly on computers from that time period. So, in my opinion there's no shame in going a bit newer on the CPU. A 233MMX would be a good fit in my opinion. 😀

I was playing games from that period on my Gateway with a PII-400 once I had that in 1999, or my brother's 200mmx before that.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-06-15, 19:06:

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-06-14, 00:46:

I got a big lot of about 30cards in the mail from ebay 🤓, I didn't know what all was in it. Many surprises!

Part of a job lot?

Have you figured out what it is yet?

Yep! Its a Matrox Millennium G200 with a M1-D(P&D) Daughter board.

It came in a big lot from Ebay, here is the rest of the stuff. Nothing super exciting, but did get four GeForce 256's .

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-06-14, 05:32:

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-06-14, 00:01:

Just got this in the mail, it looks like a matrix G200, but it has an addin card memory card and a DVI connection mini board??

Maybe you will have better luck than me.

Has anyone managed to get the Matrox G200 flat panel add-on to work?

I purchased a M1-D (P&D) to DVI-D cable, as i didn't have one. I'll let you know as soon as it comes in and I give it a try! The 2D VGA out worked perfectly, and it ran 3DMark2001SE as well as a G200 could be expected.

Ahrle wrote on 2024-06-16, 02:06:

#1. […]
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#1.

$100 Marketplace ad. No idea what it was, given only crappy pics from behind. There wasn't even certainty how many computers there were, just "old computers and keyboard". Could however see the connectors were too old to be post-2000 (no USB). Decided to go for it.

20240610_012955.jpg

Turned out as 4x Fujitsu-ICL Pentium Pro's (180-200MHz), a Fujitsu-Siemens Athlon system with Win98 stickers, and an Asus XP mini computer. Also a bunch of CRT's and a Casio WK-1200 keyboard. These were all from an old driving school, defunct since 20 years. The family seriously considered throwing it all away due to no interest for the ad.

nice items and that pic for #1 is, somehow, an art installation making some 90's social commentary or something! 😀

as for the actual machines, those pentium pros! thats great, nice rescue considering the fate had you not got them!

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-06-17, 17:37:

It came in a big lot from Ebay, here is the rest of the stuff. Nothing super exciting, but did get four GeForce 256's .

user name checks out 😀 that is a veritable mattress of cards! are you going to test each and every one? quite a job there but some nice examples i'd guess, 4 geforce 256's already

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-06-17, 17:37:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-06-15, 19:06:

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-06-14, 00:46:

I got a big lot of about 30cards in the mail from ebay 🤓, I didn't know what all was in it. Many surprises!

Part of a job lot?

Have you figured out what it is yet?

Yep! Its a Matrox Millennium G200 with a M1-D(P&D) Daughter board.

It came in a big lot from Ebay, here is the rest of the stuff. Nothing super exciting, but did get four GeForce 256's .

Tremendous variety, one up from the bottom right corner, is that a Voodoo Banshee?

Anything interesting in the PCI pile? Looks like a Rage or Mach64 on top.

From the last couple of weeks, nothing too special but I'd like to share it anyway.

gerry wrote on 2024-06-18, 09:52:

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-06-17, 17:37:

It came in a big lot from Ebay, here is the rest of the stuff. Nothing super exciting, but did get four GeForce 256's .

user name checks out 😀 that is a veritable mattress of cards! are you going to test each and every one? quite a job there but some nice examples i'd guess, 4 geforce 256's already

Hahah, Yep Agp is my vice. This is actually the working pile! Everything in the picture was tested good in 2D & 3D. 😁 The discard/repair pile was relatively small about 6 cards, although there was some nice ones in the discard pile including a X850 XT 🙁

Tremendous variety, one up from the bottom right corner, is that a Voodoo Banshee?

Anything interesting in the PCI pile? Looks like a Rage or Mach64 on top.

Yep, good eye! There was a couple Voodoo Banshee's. Rage/S3 Cards I believe. Unfortunately I don't really remember the PCI cards, but I can check when I get the chance 😀 .

Received this XT-IDE Deluxe - Bootable ISA CF+IDE Interface Card from Monotech today. Solved the IDE issue on my 386sx project that Im working on.

Bought an AGP Matrox G200, which I fired up last night, confirming operation.

Not quite sure, why I wanted it, though 🤣

The G200 is pretty lackluster, and I can't think of any reason to use it in Windows 9x. The G400 was still disappointing for me, but at least it had better driver support for 3D features.

The G200 might be a better fit for DOS and Windows 3.1.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-06-19, 06:11:

Bought an AGP Matrox G200, which I fired up last night, confirming operation.

Not quite sure, why I wanted it, though 🤣

I just got one just now because it had the upgraded memory on riser and it was PCI and I like weird and the PCI bus.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-06-16, 04:20:

The PII P2b-D is a very nice setup, totally worth making your main rig, there will be a few here that will be happy to see the s […]
Show full quote

Ahrle wrote on 2024-06-16, 02:06:

So much drooling over this thread that I just had to contribute... […]
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So much drooling over this thread that I just had to contribute...

I decided to gamble.

$775 on vintage computing in 7 days scored me the following:

-------------------

#1.

$100 Marketplace ad. No idea what it was, given only crappy pics from behind. There wasn't even certainty how many computers there were, just "old computers and keyboard". Could however see the connectors were too old to be post-2000 (no USB). Decided to go for it.

20240610_012955.jpg

Turned out as 4x Fujitsu-ICL Pentium Pro's (180-200MHz), a Fujitsu-Siemens Athlon system with Win98 stickers, and an Asus XP mini computer. Also a bunch of CRT's and a Casio WK-1200 keyboard. These were all from an old driving school, defunct since 20 years. The family seriously considered throwing it all away due to no interest for the ad.

-------------------

#2.

$200 Marketplace ad. The two Librettos caught my attention. Already had two Libretto 100's in parts (with extra RAM and such) and always wanted an older one.

20240610_022010 - kopia.jpg

Indeed a Libretto 50 and unfortunately another 100, now have three of the latter (had hoped for a 110CT).

Drive was 520 miles back and forth, so took a full day, but still felt worth it. Last week a Libretto 50 went on our national "eBay" (Tradera) for $199.

Also got some old beepers and telephones. Will keep computers and Hotline (coolest useless item of all time!) and sell off the rest.

-------------------

#3.

$195 PowerColor V2 12MB off Tradera

20240614_191030.jpg

This was no "gamble" at all, just an ordinary ad. But I'm proud and wanna share 😁! For 13 years I've lusted for a Voodoo again. Last one was also a PowerColor, CiB, which I got for free. I was so dumb I sold it.

Nevertheless. Weirdly performed hugely better than the 8MB CT6670 previously in the IBM 6862 (PIII-750). Is PowerColor's card better?

-------------------

#4.

$280 Marketplace ad of dual PII, V2 SLi 12MB setup:

20240615_212813 - kopia.jpg

This was even further away. 745 miles back and forth! The old sleeper Saab bravely crossed through rain and flies, but not even 300hp got it done in less than 16 hours. Petrol included though, I still only paid for the two V2 cards.

Came also with around 100 original CD/DVD games, and a lot of extras like CPU's, GFX'es, additional new PSU etc. Some games are still unopened.

Possibly my new main retro rig due to its fantastic motherboard (ASUS P2B-D 1.06)

-------------------

Hell of some enjoyable holidays, but with 59 computers it might soon be time to put in reverse...

The PII P2b-D is a very nice setup, totally worth making your main rig, there will be a few here that will be happy to see the silly amount of Pentium Pros you scored in the hands of a collector they are worth cleaning up and selling off to other collectors.

Nothing to say about the V2's we all know they are stupidly over priced currently due to the "3DFX" tax but its nice to see them with someone who will appreciate and actually use them and not shove them into their collection to never be used.

745 miles .. that's ~1200Kms or the distance from Adelaide to Canberra that's one hell of a drive, worth it for that system however ! bet the fuel cost added another 150 - 200 bucks. Had to look up Tradera and considering the country .. hope it didnt involve too many mountains to make that trip.

Thank you! Sadly crap hit the fan as I took the beaut apart and...

Yep, nowhere near the P2B-D 1.06 seller promised. That also explains why a PII-450 and PIII-500 came aside. Thought this was the starting point but it rather appears to be maxed out. I know it's still a good deal paying only for 3dfx cards, yet a massive disappointment (66MHz only)

On the positive, I found out one of my donation PIII's has a Tyan Trinity 400 board in it. I.e. Slot 1 + socket 370 in the same package. Quite an interesting board. Wonder if it can run a dual CPU setup.

Pentium Pros sadly usually get sent to gold collectors for scrapping due to the high amount of gold in the CPUs so fingers crossed they all still work !

I agree, I honestly have no use for a P.Pro but always wanted to save one from gold salvage. Seems at least one is getting into new hands of a member here 😀

Tyan Trinity 400 is socket or slot CPU not both.

Unknown_K wrote on 2024-06-20, 04:51:

Tyan Trinity 400 is socket or slot CPU not both.

Thanks!

PD2JK wrote on 2024-06-18, 14:40:

From the last couple of weeks, nothing too special but I'd like to share it anyway.

DSC_0181.JPG

That Yamaha sound card is a good card.

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-06-19, 15:31:

The G200 is pretty lackluster, and I can't think of any reason to use it in Windows 9x. The G400 was still disappointing for me, but at least it had better driver support for 3D features.

The G200 might be a better fit for DOS and Windows 3.1.

I wouldn't be so harsh with a G200. It managed to beat an ATI Rage Pro Turbo at running NFS Porsche 2000 under 98SE a few years ago in my Gateway GP6-400. The Rage Pro Turbo would run at nearly 3fps while the G200 was pretty playable (with very slightly noticeable lag, if at all. Think of ~ 20-25fps.)