Took a field trip to a Ham Fleamarket... most disappointing for a couple of years... I got a few bits and pieces. The tables that were there weren't all that packed with Ham stuff even, compared to some. It was also a little odd that it was quite skewed to antique and pre-90s kind of gear, which seemed to be dying off in others I've been to in last couple of years. Very few components to pick through, for stocking up repair parts, little test equipment, some high priced very niche things. Almost completely devoid of computer stuff, apart from a few keyboards and the bits I found. Often there's hardware I just don't want/need at the time, and even that wasn't the case. I think what happened though, is that two more fleamarkets were on this Saturday, one a few hundred miles one way, one a few hundred down in the US... they sound a bit far away, but I think the catchment areas overlap such that 15% of shoppers and vendors went to one and another 15% to the other. Rain may have kept some home too, though it was indoor.
Anyway, what I ended up with, junkbox finds were two A/B switchboxes, 9 pin, hoping they work for TTL video, will have to check how they are wired, if they are "serial" switchboxes they might only have 5 pins switched. Also a HD6350, another one of those card for ppl who find the full throbbing power of a 6450 too much 🤣 I might have left the thing but dude had discounted the bundle so I was getting it for 50c or something, I wonder if I've got enough cedar cards for 4 way crossfire yet 🤣 Got two free floppy boxes with some disks, the dark red Dysan 10 capacity ones, I like those, got a few. Then secret stuff, they'll appear when they appear on a project, two small speaker grilles that are raypunk/dieselpunk/fallout-ish
The "big" purchases, first was another USB hard drive adapter with PATA 2.5 and 3.5 and SATA on it. One of the ones I have got I have discovered is very flaky. The other one I hate disconnecting from a given machine as though it appears 100% reliable, it had a hard life previous and seems mechanically delicate, so that one is only partially useful. Hopefully this one will be all the way useful, it looks a bit better quality. Secondly a "console" project case, shelfworn, but got it for a steal due to that I think, these can easily be $50 up. It is about the footprint of a 17" laptop, and 3" at back, 1" at front... pondering 80s themed build on/in it. A "wedge" keyboard computer, unsure at the moment how new or old to go with the guts. mATX or ITX near modern and emulators, mATX win98ish, mATX earlier DOS Tandy tribute. CP/M or 8 bit... Damn that will make 4 custom enclosure builds in planning and two I haven't pushed across the finish line yet, better start planning to live another 2 decades 'coz I'm slow as shit.
That's it for the fleamarket, but that's not everywhere I went today... more to follow later.
Edit: Weirder thought about that console enclosure. I have one more s754 board than I have plans for, and the Athlon 64 3000s run at just 35W so can use a compact HSF... I wonder if either have decent enough graphics for up to 2k games and amiga emulation.
EditII: Switchboxes, took a peek, 6 pins are definitely switched, one of the pushbuttons is longer than the other, and the other 3 seem taken to that, so not sure if it's a double throw thing, or whether they're just getting commoned there. Might have to bleep it because can't see what contacts are being made.
Yeah, think it's a Via Unichrome in a K8N800 which would be the 754 board kicking around. Though it's got PCIe, so I could fold a low power GPU over on a riser, maybe get me back to finding out if that 6600LE Mac card can be flashed to intel, and have infs modded for 98, because then it's decent late 98 stuff/early XP too, and glide wrapper.
Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.
