Got this old KVM (data switch). I've never come across one that does Serial + DIN + VGA. Perfect for controlling 4 of my DOS machines. Will only be switching while the machines are off.

This can be quite handy, as long as the switch is cooperating. I have one such for LPT and the switch needed cleaning before devices worked reliably and I still have to wiggle the switch every now and then...

Video quality may be poor though, I have doubts it has any kind of impedance matching etc. going on.

Some moar boards from the recycler. The list so far got to these:

- ABIT VL6
- MSI MS-6309 (the standard 694x version, no ISA but pads are there)
- ECS P6ISA-II
- Shuttle AE22v11
- Gigabyte GA-6BXC r1.7
- Gigabyte GA-5AA r2.2
- MSI MS-6168 rev2 (yes, I'm fortunate to get a 2nd 6168 😀 )

As well as the VIA counterpart to the 6156 I got (MS-6156VA), except that's from a different source.

PcBytes wrote on 2025-03-30, 13:57:

Some moar boards from the recycler. The list so far got to these: […]
Show full quote

Some moar boards from the recycler. The list so far got to these:

- ABIT VL6
- MSI MS-6309 (the standard 694x version, no ISA but pads are there)
- ECS P6ISA-II
- Shuttle AE22v11
- Gigabyte GA-6BXC r1.7
- Gigabyte GA-5AA r2.2
- MSI MS-6168 rev2 (yes, I'm fortunate to get a 2nd 6168 😀 )

As well as the VIA counterpart to the 6156 I got (MS-6156VA), except that's from a different source.

Man, if I had a source like this local to me I'd have even less space in my home.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-03-30, 14:04:

PcBytes wrote on 2025-03-30, 13:57:

Some moar boards from the recycler. The list so far got to these: […]
Show full quote

Some moar boards from the recycler. The list so far got to these:

- ABIT VL6
- MSI MS-6309 (the standard 694x version, no ISA but pads are there)
- ECS P6ISA-II
- Shuttle AE22v11
- Gigabyte GA-6BXC r1.7
- Gigabyte GA-5AA r2.2
- MSI MS-6168 rev2 (yes, I'm fortunate to get a 2nd 6168 😀 )

As well as the VIA counterpart to the 6156 I got (MS-6156VA), except that's from a different source.

Man, if I had a source like this local to me I'd have even less space in my home.

I'm already downsizing 🤣, I almost lost track of how many mobos I have in my home.

Speaking of which, is there any place I can find the restore CD used for the Packard Bell Bora Pro? I'd like to recreate such a kind of machine (not 100% accurate due to the case likely being too hard to find for cheap) and I'd want the OS to be authentic. I had success with Dell and HP/Compaq previously (Armada E500, Optiplex GX1, Pavilion zt1180) but Packard Bell seems to be quite the hard to find disc.

Got this old KVM (data switch). I've never come across one that does Serial + DIN + VGA.

The upper port looks like old MGA/CGA/EGA video. Ordinary serial port should be male.

POPEYE wrote on 2025-03-30, 15:12:

Got this old KVM (data switch). I've never come across one that does Serial + DIN + VGA.

The upper port looks like old MGA/CGA/EGA video. Ordinary serial port should be male.

Good point, even if it were a "but they supplied straight through extension cables" the input should still be female if intended for mouse. There was a point in time where the mouse wouldn't have got much consideration.

Edit: as a consequence of that, those sockets might be twinned with the VGA sockets, unless they intended you could plug in two monitors and have a mix of vid standards... if they are independent, then mouse might still work with gender changers.

Lostdotfish wrote on 2025-03-29, 21:09:

G-X wrote on 2025-03-29, 21:07:

Lostdotfish wrote on 2025-03-29, 20:11:

Today I tried to buy but got outbid on... […]
Show full quote

Today I tried to buy but got outbid on...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/396351001291

Only the 2nd time in many years that I've seen this board in the wild....

The attachment Screenshot 2025-03-29 201108.png is no longer available

That would be an awesome board to have ... what did it end up selling for?

about £150 - I sniped in at that and was outbid by a couple of pounds...

Sounds reasonable but then again .. the fun in buying vintage hardware is there only if you can get for cheap. Everything can be found and bought at top dollar but where is the fun in that. Although i must admit i've gotten carried away more than once and overspending quite alot. But the majority of stuff i got (way) below current market price.

come to think of it i have a deal for 5 AGP GPU's coming up and while paying more than "thrift store" prices it is still way beyond what you'd find on EBAY for example. ( I need to quit this hobby seriously :p )

G-X wrote on 2025-03-30, 19:28:

Sounds reasonable but then again .. the fun in buying vintage hardware is there only if you can get for cheap.

Depends on the buyer. Some of us are happy to pay higher prices for rare items we really want, even if it leaves us short for other things 😀

G-X wrote on 2025-03-30, 19:28:

Sounds reasonable but then again .. the fun in buying vintage hardware is there only if you can get for cheap. Everything can be found and bought at top dollar but where is the fun in that. Although i must admit i've gotten carried away more than once and overspending quite alot. But the majority of stuff i got (way) below current market price.

come to think of it i have a deal for 5 AGP GPU's coming up and while paying more than "thrift store" prices it is still way beyond what you'd find on EBAY for example. ( I need to quit this hobby seriously :p )

I've said it many times before, and I will stick to my guns.

I would rather have things be AVAILABLE and EXPENSIVE than scrapped/recycled.

to clarify for the literacy-challenged, i dont WANT things to be expensive. I just want the items made available for purchase/re-use before getting sent off to the smelter.

debs3759 wrote on 2025-03-31, 13:48:

G-X wrote on 2025-03-30, 19:28:

Sounds reasonable but then again .. the fun in buying vintage hardware is there only if you can get for cheap.

Depends on the buyer. Some of us are happy to pay higher prices for rare items we really want, even if it leaves us short for other things 😀

Bull's eye. Both of you.
Cheap is nice but a little gift sometimes is nice too.

Nexxen wrote on 2025-03-31, 16:36:

debs3759 wrote on 2025-03-31, 13:48:

G-X wrote on 2025-03-30, 19:28:

Sounds reasonable but then again .. the fun in buying vintage hardware is there only if you can get for cheap.

Depends on the buyer. Some of us are happy to pay higher prices for rare items we really want, even if it leaves us short for other things 😀

Bull's eye. Both of you.
Cheap is nice but a little gift sometimes is nice too.

Totally. It's frustrating for this board in particular as I've been after one for so long.... But I hate bidding wars, so always stick to my top price and snipe that in when it's too late to go mad... I probably would have paid more for it....

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-03-28, 09:16:

Bought a couple of AGP cards. […]
Show full quote

Bought a couple of AGP cards.

Recently bought a Radeon 9600 passively cooled for my P2B-DS, not thinking about AGP x8 coding 🤣

So in stead, I now found a 9250 which has the right coding, and should be BX compatible according to other posts here.

The really cool thing is, it has 8 memory chips, so it could be a 128-bit memory version (at least, that's what Phil found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDdA0d8f6uQ and it is the excact same version as far as I can tell)
Auction started at 0.99€, no reserve. Got a snipe for 4€50 - happy 😁
The reason I wanted a Radeon over a GeForce is that it according to this forum, GeForce drivers really fogs up PowerVR drivers, and I do have a Matrox m3D in the same rig ..

Same seller did, however, have a passively cooled FX5200, which also had 8 memory chips, so betting on it being a 128-bit (or crossing fingers at least)
Same starting price, no reserve. No other bidders, so got it for 0.99€ 😎

I do have an FX5200 in the build now, but a 64-bit. If I decide to move the PowerVR elsewhere, it might be pretty cool with a 128-bit FX5200 (Yes, I know there are way faster alternatives, but the key-word here being "passive")

Combined shipping, all in all a real good catch. On their way with UPS now.

All untested, so off course, some risk 🤣

Both duds 🙁 one long, three short beeps on the p2b-ds. The Radeon looks like it has some corrosion damage (which I can actually see on seller's photos now that I know) tough luck, that's the gambles one takes 🤷‍♂️

Finally got my hands on a nice, clean, working and not ancient looking 5.25 floppy drive…

However, I was hoping it would be more floppy-sounding… It’s almost dead silent!

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-04-01, 14:28:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-03-28, 09:16:

Bought a couple of AGP cards. […]
Show full quote

Bought a couple of AGP cards.

Recently bought a Radeon 9600 passively cooled for my P2B-DS, not thinking about AGP x8 coding 🤣

So in stead, I now found a 9250 which has the right coding, and should be BX compatible according to other posts here.

The really cool thing is, it has 8 memory chips, so it could be a 128-bit memory version (at least, that's what Phil found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDdA0d8f6uQ and it is the excact same version as far as I can tell)
Auction started at 0.99€, no reserve. Got a snipe for 4€50 - happy 😁
The reason I wanted a Radeon over a GeForce is that it according to this forum, GeForce drivers really fogs up PowerVR drivers, and I do have a Matrox m3D in the same rig ..

Same seller did, however, have a passively cooled FX5200, which also had 8 memory chips, so betting on it being a 128-bit (or crossing fingers at least)
Same starting price, no reserve. No other bidders, so got it for 0.99€ 😎

I do have an FX5200 in the build now, but a 64-bit. If I decide to move the PowerVR elsewhere, it might be pretty cool with a 128-bit FX5200 (Yes, I know there are way faster alternatives, but the key-word here being "passive")

Combined shipping, all in all a real good catch. On their way with UPS now.

All untested, so off course, some risk 🤣

Both duds 🙁 one long, three short beeps on the p2b-ds. The Radeon looks like it has some corrosion damage (which I can actually see on seller's photos now that I know) tough luck, that's the gambles one takes 🤷‍♂️

Try them on a different AGP board, BX boards were well known for being particular about which early AGP cards they would post with. When I'm testing older AGP cards 1x/2x or 2x/4x ones I always try them on a Super 7 K6 board a P2B-DS and an Apollo 266 P3 board. (Worst known offender for not posting in a lot of BX boards is the ATI Fury MAXX..card is damn picky)

If it fails to work in all three only then will I declare it dead, more often than not it'll work in the Super 7 and 266 boards and not the p2B board, pretty sure its the wonky early AGP implementation of BX boards that does this.

I do the same when testing PCI VGA cards, I have a really nice TX board that has been a very reliable test board and has a good track record of posting with the PCI cards I have thrown at it so if I cant get them working in my main test rig then I throw them at the TX board, if the TX cant post them then they get shelved till I can throw them in a 486 PCI board ...seems like a lot of effort but if the 486 cant post with them then they are indeed dead.

Ok, apparently I jumped the gun, the FX5200 actually works after a thorough cleaning of the edge connector. Seems to run 3DMark2001 fine now. Won't have time to finish before tomorrow though. The Radeon, I don't have much hope for, due to the corroded pads under missing components. From what I've read here, Radeon 9250 and BX should play together pretty nice, though.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-04-01, 16:11:

Ok, apparently I jumped the gun, the FX5200 actually works after a thorough cleaning of the edge connector. Seems to run 3DMark2001 fine now. Won't have time to finish before tomorrow though. The Radeon, I don't have much hope for, due to the corroded pads under missing components. From what I've read here, Radeon 9250 and BX should play together pretty nice, though.

Run some vinegar over the corroded parts, then tin them a little bit. Should work afterwards IMO.

PcBytes wrote on 2025-04-01, 16:16:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-04-01, 16:11:

Ok, apparently I jumped the gun, the FX5200 actually works after a thorough cleaning of the edge connector. Seems to run 3DMark2001 fine now. Won't have time to finish before tomorrow though. The Radeon, I don't have much hope for, due to the corroded pads under missing components. From what I've read here, Radeon 9250 and BX should play together pretty nice, though.

Run some vinegar over the corroded parts, then tin them a little bit. Should work afterwards IMO.

Yeah, but there was some residue, probably from a component on one of them 🤷‍♂️ will do off course, and hope to find an image to check values from

PcBytes wrote on 2025-03-30, 13:57:

Some moar boards from the recycler. The list so far got to these: […]
Show full quote

Some moar boards from the recycler. The list so far got to these:

- ABIT VL6
- MSI MS-6309 (the standard 694x version, no ISA but pads are there)
- ECS P6ISA-II
- Shuttle AE22v11
- Gigabyte GA-6BXC r1.7
- Gigabyte GA-5AA r2.2
- MSI MS-6168 rev2 (yes, I'm fortunate to get a 2nd 6168 😀 )

As well as the VIA counterpart to the 6156 I got (MS-6156VA), except that's from a different source.

Another MS-6168? Wow, that's one great computer recycler you've found 😀 I wonder if it'll be V1 or V2 of the board?
I realised the other day I might have got the original ATX back plate for an MS-6168 since it's got the top USB port blocked off, which packard bell did because they routed that to the front of the case instead.

The other week I got a Toshiba T1850C laptop because the seller gave me an offer I couldn't refuse, which needed a new hard drive and floppy drive and the screen still doesn't work. Glad to finally have the blobby Toshiba in my collection though, the T19xx series really toned down the blobby-ness but this one has so many rounded profiles that I feel it was inflated like a balloon in the CAD program. Horrid connection for the screen as well, the cable is just way too short and hard to deal with.

Today's get was this wonderful Veridata Xtra Pro 486s/50 laptop! I've never seen or heard of a Veridata before but when I saw in the seller's pictures that it had a cyrix cx486SLC2 in there I had to have it. It was rather cheap too:

Mainboard:

The only other information I've seen on this laptop was someone in russia that thankfully subtitled the videos in English and their one has a colour display and SCSI, of which mine has neither 😒

All together:

It's got the same LM64P83 LCD panel as my AST Bravo NB used to have (before it broke) but this LCD looks pretty immaculate. The laptop cleaned up so well, still rough on the underside but it's a nice grey-brown semi-rubberised plastic stuff that apparently can turn all oily like thinkpads but this one has not.
It needed:
- keyboard repair
- bios battery - a DS1287 soldered to the board. I broke off the + terminal trying to disconnect it from the original battery and had to grind away the underside of the DS1287. Works though, CR2032 holder now sits in the big empty space where the hard drive went
- hard drive - the BIOS lets you enter custom size settings so it works with 256MB compactflash 😀
- power supply - figuring out the pinout required tracing connections on the power board. This one has a physical power switch so I just followed that back to the connector and it worked.
To ASCII it - looking at the female connector on the laptop, not the power supply:

1   _____
2  /1   2\
3 |       |
4  \_3_4_/
5  

Pin 1 or upper left on the laptop's connector is the power input. The shield is the ground connection.

I love that the expansion memory is just a 72-pin SIMM slot rather than the usual custom RAM modules. Gonna have to make up some kind of cover for that and a tray for the hard drive cover. This one's a keeper

It's a v2, although I can tell it being the PB OEM variant (and it will be somewhat rebuilt as such, except I won't leave that USB blocked off) since that one has the USB header populated, unlike the factory 16MB variant I have here that is missing it.
(which not only came factory with Award BIOS, but also has the Coppermine sticker on it.)