Here is what roughly $20 got me from the flea market today:

- a semi-complete PC for $7, with the case in useless state... but I pulled the following out of it:
--- AsRock K7VT4A+ socket 462 mobo with unknown CPU (have not removed HS yet to see what I got) and a stick of PC2100 DDR RAM.
--- GeForce MX440 64M 128-bit, DDR RAM
--- 2x 3.5" Seagate HDDs (1x 7200.7, the other a little older)
--- standard beige floppy drive (TEAC, I think.)

- an 80 GB 3.5" Seagate 7200.7 HDD and another GF MX440... both for around $2.50

- 160 GB 3.5" Hitachi Deskstar SATA HDD for $0.50
- 160 GB 3.5" Maxtor Diamondmax 9 PATA HDD for either $1 or $0.50, I forget which.
... all in all, good day for HDDs 😀

- low profile Radeon HD3450 AGP for about $2.50. I just couldn't pass this one up. Granted it's too new of a card for a retro PC, yet also too slow for a "high-end" AGP system.

- slim SATA laptop optical drive and a slightly smashed PATA desktop optical drive - both free.

- HP Compaq DC6005 SFF desktop PC, incomplete (no HDD, RAM, or optical drive) for $5. Probably Athlon II X2 -based.

- black & silver HP keyboard (from the P4 era) with a ripped power cord - free.

- V-rally PC game for $0.80 and F1 2012 for free.
Also found several cake boxes full of CDs and DVDs - some blanks, most written with something. Between them were some driver CDs, DVD movies... and a few games too. Mainly, I got another copy of Need For Speed Porsche Unleashed.
...

and from a few weeks back:

- slot 1 to socket 370 conversion card (not sure what type, but it only has passive elements on it, so I don't presume it would be anything special.) Still, the fact that I found it for free / as abandoned in between a bunch of clothes and other trash is just too cool. When I found it would have been the absolute last place I would have thought to look.

- GT630 2 GB DDR3 video card for roughly $2.

- a couple of free cheapo beige cases... but better than the slightly more modern cheapo black cases I see all the time.

And I think that's about all in terms of retro PC hardware.
Otherwise, I got just about as much (if not more) electronics and electrics -related junk - lights, light bulbs, wires, plugs and sockets, and etc.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-06-06, 15:53:

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-06-06, 15:44:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-06-06, 15:32:

Nice! It's a pretty rare thing to find either of those in working order these days without having to do some SMD repairs at least.

The passively cooled 9800 Pro is really nice as well. I would make sure it still has at least some airflow from the case fans, but it should perform like any other 9800 Pro if it has the same clocks. These cards don't dynamically adjust clocks based on temperature like modern ones. Also, it probably goes without saying, but I wouldn't try overclocking any Radeon from that time period... whether cooling is passive or active. 😮 😀

Yup no overclocking that card, I'm well versed on the history of the 9700 Pro and 9800 Pro cards and their flaws 😁 . Thankfully Sapphire made the cooler on this card really robust ...its certainly attached well, the only thing I'm not sure of is the age of the paste on the card. Ill monitor the temps when benching and if they climb too high Ill stop and figure out how to go about removing the cooler to repaste it.

The 6800 ultra wont be OCed either, its too hard/expensive to replace that card and having a working AGP version at this point is a gift so itll be looked after !

Glad to hear it. I only mentioned overclocking because you hoped the passive cooler wouldn't hold the card back. I just wanted to be sure you weren't intended to push the clocks up.

And yes, none of these cards should be overclocked these days unless someone is trying to set some kind of weird record or do some big, well organized experiment that they're planning to document. Anytime I see talk of overclocking vintage gear for general use I think "Why not just use something newer? You have 20+ years of options..." . 🤣

After a bit of testing the passive 9800 Pro is going to be shelved till I can repaste it or get it some active cooling, it gets too hot to touch and far too warm even at idle. It works beautifully aside from the heat, managed some 21600 points in 3dmark2001, not sure how good that is but the system is totally unoptimized for benching. (2.4Ghz single core Athlon on AGP AM2)

But yeah, to the shelf it goes till I can find a bit of time to tear it down without damaging it.

I've been having a bit of a dry spell, both for retro playtime and also for finding anything on my regular jaunts to regular haunts. Was out yard saling today tho and holy heck there was a bit of a weird stuff.

Got a plastic toolbox, quite a sturdy one, stuffed full of odds and ends, it was 80% cables and adapters, boring cat5, floppy cable couple of port cables, gender changers, spare mouse ball, spare keys, and the prizes...

This was a bag of chips, got an AMD DX2-80 with an intel dx33 stuck the other side, AMD might be a secret dx4 will have to check, got the right die. Fujitsu 8088 10mhz, Intel ceramic 8088 8mhz, 64kb and 256kb DRAMs, 3 EProms, peripheral chips... from the Turbo label on ROMs and such gives me the impression that a Turbo XT motherboard might have been de-chipped into that bag 2 PALS there too.

Then some RAM, 4MB 30s, and 16mb 72s, and a ULSI 387 for SX, guess my ActionNote might get that, didn't intend to spend money on it for one, but here we go.

Then robolegs for a system unit, heh weird CPU stand, split keyboard, Goflex 1.5TB

Then a super quirky little netbook, think it's a tad under the "regular" netbook size, some places call it a UMPC, some form of Geode in it, not sure it's the "500" model or actually 500mhz. Runs XP, battery seems to be taking a charge, very little wear on it.

Not shown, some HP tablet thing, TouchPad, got it's own OS apparently, not sure it's gonna take charge, but has several modes of semi-bricked you can coax it out of, so unsure if it will come alive or not.

BitWrangler wrote on Today, 00:45:

I've been having a bit of a dry spell, both for retro playtime and also for finding anything on my regular jaunts to regular hau […]
Show full quote

I've been having a bit of a dry spell, both for retro playtime and also for finding anything on my regular jaunts to regular haunts. Was out yard saling today tho and holy heck there was a bit of a weird stuff.

Got a plastic toolbox, quite a sturdy one, stuffed full of odds and ends, it was 80% cables and adapters, boring cat5, floppy cable couple of port cables, gender changers, spare mouse ball, spare keys, and the prizes...

This was a bag of chips, got an AMD DX2-80 with an intel dx33 stuck the other side, AMD might be a secret dx4 will have to check, got the right die. Fujitsu 8088 10mhz, Intel ceramic 8088 8mhz, 64kb and 256kb DRAMs, 3 EProms, peripheral chips... from the Turbo label on ROMs and such gives me the impression that a Turbo XT motherboard might have been de-chipped into that bag 2 PALS there too.

Then some RAM, 4MB 30s, and 16mb 72s, and a ULSI 387 for SX, guess my ActionNote might get that, didn't intend to spend money on it for one, but here we go.

Then robolegs for a system unit, heh weird CPU stand, split keyboard, Goflex 1.5TB

Then a super quirky little netbook, think it's a tad under the "regular" netbook size, some places call it a UMPC, some form of Geode in it, not sure it's the "500" model or actually 500mhz. Runs XP, battery seems to be taking a charge, very little wear on it.

Not shown, some HP tablet thing, TouchPad, got it's own OS apparently, not sure it's gonna take charge, but has several modes of semi-bricked you can coax it out of, so unsure if it will come alive or not.

Wow, that's an interesting assortment!

Pretty cool you found an HP Touchpad! I actually still have one sitting in it's original box... with the battery removed because it swelled up and nearly destroyed the whole tablet.

Funny story about the HP Touchpad... it uses WebOS, which HP bought from Palm. HP built what was in 2011 a really nice tablet... but by the time it was released Android had already been established as the go-to alternative to iOS, so it wasn't selling. There were some leadership changes at that exact time and less than one month after the thing was released at $500 they put it on a massive fire-sale... most people were getting them for $99 or less. I was working retail at the time and had heard about the craziness and I managed to actually get one. Gotta say, it kind of blew my mind. Prior to that I had SEEN a couple of smart phones (my at the time girlfriend, now wife, had a Droid Incredible and that was really nice) and I had a Nintendo DS Lite, but I was still using a cheap flip phone myself... this was by far the most high tech mobile device in my possession.

After messing with the few interesting WebOS apps and games that were available though... it was obvious that the OS was holding it back. HP had apparently experimented with putting Android on it, and this build actually accidentally made it to customers (wikipedia says it shipped on some retail devices by mistake... 🤣!), which allowed the community to get Android support working on it. This ended up being the first device I ever flashed Android to (4.0, Cyaongenmod 9) and really the first Android device I owned personally. I used it for years for various things and it did the job just fine. My daughter used it a lot to play games and take pictures.

... then one day I read about the battery bloating and breaking the screen on some of them, so I dug it out of wherever I'd put it and sure enough it was starting to swell up. I tore the thing a part (I hate mobile devices) and got the battery out of it before it destroyed the screen or anything vital. I'm hoping that some day I'll be able to power it some other way or get a replacement battery that isn't junk. I'm sure my daughter would love to see her old Minecraft worlds and old games, as well as any pictures or other things. Till then, it's a useless brick of a time capsule.

I bought a bunch of equally-marked-down accessories for it too. Lots of nice USB chargers with good quality cables that I still use for micro-USB devices and a bluetooth keyboard. It also fit in original iPad cases.

After the whole HP WebOS thing ended, they sold WebOS to LG, and... now I have WebOS on my television, which was made 10 years after the tablet. They are nothing alike... 🤣

tl;dr : make sure the battery isn't swelling and ready to pop... it's a neat look at what the tablet landscape was like before the Google + Apple duopoly had fully taken hold.

So the ULSI was meant to be speed stamped and I didn't see it, so took another look... yeah it's got a 33 on it but can only see it at certain angles to the light.

The DX33 is an SX419 which I guess predates SX existing because there's some around with no DX on. Tryna remember now if I had any old ISA boards I assumed dead because nothing happened with later CPU, will have to bear this "OG 486" in mind to test boards like that with.

The Vye was apparently a rebranded for western market Kohjinsha https://mykohjinsha.blogspot.com/2007/ a bit confusingly, my model the S37 is AMD whereas the S37B has an intel cpu. Not currently sure if this one is supposed to have touchscreen or not, has a kind of joystick on left of screen and a touchpad. Will be looking to see if anyone managed to get Win98 on them.

Edit: Oh crap, I am confused, it came in a box marked S37 but the sticker on the bottom says it's an S18P (or +) so yah, that's only an AMD it appears.

Ozzuneoj wrote on Today, 01:49:

Wow, that's an interesting assortment! […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on Today, 00:45:

I've been having a bit of a dry spell, both for retro playtime and also for finding anything on my regular jaunts to regular hau […]
Show full quote

I've been having a bit of a dry spell, both for retro playtime and also for finding anything on my regular jaunts to regular haunts. Was out yard saling today tho and holy heck there was a bit of a weird stuff.

Got a plastic toolbox, quite a sturdy one, stuffed full of odds and ends, it was 80% cables and adapters, boring cat5, floppy cable couple of port cables, gender changers, spare mouse ball, spare keys, and the prizes...

This was a bag of chips, got an AMD DX2-80 with an intel dx33 stuck the other side, AMD might be a secret dx4 will have to check, got the right die. Fujitsu 8088 10mhz, Intel ceramic 8088 8mhz, 64kb and 256kb DRAMs, 3 EProms, peripheral chips... from the Turbo label on ROMs and such gives me the impression that a Turbo XT motherboard might have been de-chipped into that bag 2 PALS there too.

Then some RAM, 4MB 30s, and 16mb 72s, and a ULSI 387 for SX, guess my ActionNote might get that, didn't intend to spend money on it for one, but here we go.

Then robolegs for a system unit, heh weird CPU stand, split keyboard, Goflex 1.5TB

Then a super quirky little netbook, think it's a tad under the "regular" netbook size, some places call it a UMPC, some form of Geode in it, not sure it's the "500" model or actually 500mhz. Runs XP, battery seems to be taking a charge, very little wear on it.

Not shown, some HP tablet thing, TouchPad, got it's own OS apparently, not sure it's gonna take charge, but has several modes of semi-bricked you can coax it out of, so unsure if it will come alive or not.

Wow, that's an interesting assortment!

Pretty cool you found an HP Touchpad! I actually still have one sitting in it's original box... with the battery removed because it swelled up and nearly destroyed the whole tablet.

Funny story about the HP Touchpad... it uses WebOS, which HP bought from Palm. HP built what was in 2011 a really nice tablet... but by the time it was released Android had already been established as the go-to alternative to iOS, so it wasn't selling. There were some leadership changes at that exact time and less than one month after the thing was released at $500 they put it on a massive fire-sale... most people were getting them for $99 or less. I was working retail at the time and had heard about the craziness and I managed to actually get one. Gotta say, it kind of blew my mind. Prior to that I had SEEN a couple of smart phones (my at the time girlfriend, now wife, had a Droid Incredible and that was really nice) and I had a Nintendo DS Lite, but I was still using a cheap flip phone myself... this was by far the most high tech mobile device in my possession.

After messing with the few interesting WebOS apps and games that were available though... it was obvious that the OS was holding it back. HP had apparently experimented with putting Android on it, and this build actually accidentally made it to customers (wikipedia says it shipped on some retail devices by mistake... 🤣!), which allowed the community to get Android support working on it. This ended up being the first device I ever flashed Android to (4.0, Cyaongenmod 9) and really the first Android device I owned personally. I used it for years for various things and it did the job just fine. My daughter used it a lot to play games and take pictures.

... then one day I read about the battery bloating and breaking the screen on some of them, so I dug it out of wherever I'd put it and sure enough it was starting to swell up. I tore the thing a part (I hate mobile devices) and got the battery out of it before it destroyed the screen or anything vital. I'm hoping that some day I'll be able to power it some other way or get a replacement battery that isn't junk. I'm sure my daughter would love to see her old Minecraft worlds and old games, as well as any pictures or other things. Till then, it's a useless brick of a time capsule.

I bought a bunch of equally-marked-down accessories for it too. Lots of nice USB chargers with good quality cables that I still use for micro-USB devices and a bluetooth keyboard. It also fit in original iPad cases.

After the whole HP WebOS thing ended, they sold WebOS to LG, and... now I have WebOS on my television, which was made 10 years after the tablet. They are nothing alike... 🤣

tl;dr : make sure the battery isn't swelling and ready to pop... it's a neat look at what the tablet landscape was like before the Google + Apple duopoly had fully taken hold.

Yeah I've seen PDAs, tablets and other cheaply made shit like macbooks bloat with the battery before so anything like that I'm always eyeballing it for flatness, this seemed good.

I didn't know this webOS was the one that went to TVs, I think Nokia had one too with same fate, and there was a third, spinoff of a spinoff of some Digital Research stuff... though linux happens too...

... which I think is what might happen to this if it gets going, I hear there was one around for it, when I get bored of webOS, which since the store is dead I take it, may not take long if it's got next to nothing on it.

weedeewee wrote on Yesterday, 20:18:

Major Jackyl wrote on Yesterday, 19:00:

I found a sweet 486 board today! It has 3 VLB slots! I can finally test my VLB Trident (if THIS board works, 🤣)

The attachment 20250607_130007.jpg is no longer available

The attachment 20250607_130105.jpg is no longer available

Looks like a 386 board with VLB.

That's what I thought at first. Could be, I suppose.

I knew instantly that would be a IBM "486" chip before the heatsink came off, but I was still surprised to see it. It might SAY its a 486, but really its just an overclocked 386.

I'm really interested to see more of that board. how it performs, etc. Also, please make sure to dump the bios!

BitWrangler wrote on Today, 03:30:

Yeah I've seen PDAs, tablets and other cheaply made shit like macbooks bloat with the battery before so anything like that I'm always eyeballing it for flatness, this seemed good.

I didn't know this webOS was the one that went to TVs, I think Nokia had one too with same fate, and there was a third, spinoff of a spinoff of some Digital Research stuff... though linux happens too...

... which I think is what might happen to this if it gets going, I hear there was one around for it, when I get bored of webOS, which since the store is dead I take it, may not take long if it's got next to nothing on it.

Apparently there has been a fair amount of work done to make a third party app store that can be side-loaded onto a Touchpad:
https://www.webosarchive.org/docs/appstores/

If I ever get mine fixed I'll probably get all of the personal stuff off of it and flash it back to WebOS and give this app "museum" a try.

From what I remember WebOS itself and the apps that were available were quite nice. I can't remember the details now, but I think they had a free or discounted app every week or every few days or something. I remember getting all sorts of things that I thought I might use some day because... I mean... I could have apps? On the go? And I could like... identify birds and stuff? So high tech... 🤣

Got the Media Vision Pro Movie Spectrum 2.0