Nexxen wrote on 2026-05-15, 14:22:

One Imation LS-120 reader.

It's a struggle, it works but to have it recognized is a head banging experience.
And I already had one, but 2 is better anyway. I know, my fault but price was so low...

One is kinda pointless, but with two, sneakernet is upgraded to 120MB packet size 🤣

zuldan wrote on 2026-05-15, 10:11:

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-05-14, 15:05:

well.. time is short right now 😁

However, a first look at it here: Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

I missed that post. Thanks for the update! Hopefully she can come alive again.

Fitting to the topic and the card:

3 x NOS memory ICs:

Shader_BiH wrote on 2026-05-15, 13:21:

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-05-13, 20:57:

Wow, it's real, new Pentium MMX in 2026... […]
Show full quote

Wow, it's real, new Pentium MMX in 2026...

I ordered these half expecting they'd either be out of stock, due to listing that was stale, or they would turn out to be reclaimed, but nope, look brand shiny new, no heatsink scuff, shipped in antistatic eggbox style CPU holder, so no whining about outer bubblewrap.

These might be a Canadian only deal on Amazon dot ca .Turn up with a search for MMX CPU I think, just under $25CDN each with free ship in Canada. There was only 9 left last I saw. Came out of Mississauga apparently so ship to me was just a couple of business days. I wasn't actually expecting them until Friday.

Edit: guess I should say NOS, New old stock, they're not making them still.. I suck at intel date codes so not sure when they rolled out the plant.
EditII: 13th week of 1999 if my quick and lazy lookup was right.
EditIII: Stock level showing as 10 at 6:30 not sure if they are just topping up their amazon storefront as required or had an order cancelled or what.
Edit numero quatro: So turns out it isn't the best value MMX in Canada at the moment maybe, the same vendor AmberCnE seem to have beat themselves on newegg dot ca with an 18 CDN free ship option that has refurbished P233MMX listed. Mine do not look refurb, "dirt" in pic appears to be a little bit of crumb/dust from tray cutting. IDK if they are the same stock and they couldn't enter new on a SKU that old or whether they are refurb stock.

Wow... that's a really cool find. I can just imagine the feeling of have brand new hardware that old 😁

Yah, sweet feeling. Though I did get a new ULSI 387 a while back that is 3 years older, but it might have been enough of a while back that they were the same age when I got them.

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-05-15, 15:19:

Nexxen wrote on 2026-05-15, 14:22:

One Imation LS-120 reader.

It's a struggle, it works but to have it recognized is a head banging experience.
And I already had one, but 2 is better anyway. I know, my fault but price was so low...

One is kinda pointless, but with two, sneakernet is upgraded to 120MB packet size 🤣

Price was so low I couldn't skip... At least I have a good 1.44MB floppy reader.
IIRC you got one recently, or at least it was a pack of disks.

I'd like to find a LS-240, just out of curiosity.
Units and/or disks are rare in the EU. I'd like to go to Japan but I'd get lost in Tokyo.

Shader_BiH wrote on 2026-05-15, 13:21:

Wow... that's a really cool find. I can just imagine the feeling of have brand new hardware that old :D […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-05-13, 20:57:

Wow, it's real, new Pentium MMX in 2026... […]
Show full quote

Wow, it's real, new Pentium MMX in 2026...

I ordered these half expecting they'd either be out of stock, due to listing that was stale, or they would turn out to be reclaimed, but nope, look brand shiny new, no heatsink scuff, shipped in antistatic eggbox style CPU holder, so no whining about outer bubblewrap.

These might be a Canadian only deal on Amazon dot ca .Turn up with a search for MMX CPU I think, just under $25CDN each with free ship in Canada. There was only 9 left last I saw. Came out of Mississauga apparently so ship to me was just a couple of business days. I wasn't actually expecting them until Friday.

Edit: guess I should say NOS, New old stock, they're not making them still.. I suck at intel date codes so not sure when they rolled out the plant.
EditII: 13th week of 1999 if my quick and lazy lookup was right.
EditIII: Stock level showing as 10 at 6:30 not sure if they are just topping up their amazon storefront as required or had an order cancelled or what.
Edit numero quatro: So turns out it isn't the best value MMX in Canada at the moment maybe, the same vendor AmberCnE seem to have beat themselves on newegg dot ca with an 18 CDN free ship option that has refurbished P233MMX listed. Mine do not look refurb, "dirt" in pic appears to be a little bit of crumb/dust from tray cutting. IDK if they are the same stock and they couldn't enter new on a SKU that old or whether they are refurb stock.

Wow... that's a really cool find. I can just imagine the feeling of have brand new hardware that old 😁

Today one of my more humble orders from e-bay arrived. MSI MX 4000 T128

I actually ordered it because of cool looking passive cooler and because I already got the best of this line, the MX 460, so I though, let's go for the worst one now.
My recent luck however seems to have ran out 😁 The card was advertised as 64MB, which I didn't find odd at first because I didn't check the exact model, which is T128. It was supposed to be a 128MB DDR1 card, with 64-bit bus. Pictures of this one however are showing Aida32 info with 64MB and 32-bit memory bus. Now it's hard to really blame the seller as the card really was advertised as 64MB

This model has 4 memory chips K4D551638F-TC50, which should really equal to 128MB.... so I guess some of these chips died at some point or something.... The card however works without crashes or artifacts.... it's just halfed in memory and bandwith... I guess I got the absolute worst of MX4000 by accident. I will be testing it today to see if there's anything I can do about it.

Cool passive cooler, indeed!

Just yesterday, I ordered a fan shroud for a passive cooler device. Not retro, it's a LSI 9300-16i HBA that was generating nearly all the heat in the system and was so hot I couldn't remove it for a while. I expect it'll be fine, but I've been copying 1-3 full drives at a time to repartition and reformat all the drives. Meanwhile, I dug out some fans from the retro box. They're a bit noisy but keepin' it cool.

PS. For those who've seen my other thread, I moved it from the pcie2 slot to the pcie3 slot and that LBA card went from copying 2 drives at a time to 3. Looks like It can saturate 4 drives going full blast.

Nexxen wrote on 2026-05-15, 15:38:

Price was so low I couldn't skip... At least I have a good 1.44MB floppy reader. IIRC you got one recently, or at least it was a […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-05-15, 15:19:

Nexxen wrote on 2026-05-15, 14:22:

One Imation LS-120 reader.

It's a struggle, it works but to have it recognized is a head banging experience.
And I already had one, but 2 is better anyway. I know, my fault but price was so low...

One is kinda pointless, but with two, sneakernet is upgraded to 120MB packet size 🤣

Price was so low I couldn't skip... At least I have a good 1.44MB floppy reader.
IIRC you got one recently, or at least it was a pack of disks.

I'd like to find a LS-240, just out of curiosity.
Units and/or disks are rare in the EU. I'd like to go to Japan but I'd get lost in Tokyo.

Yes I have two now, plus some disks to use with them. I joke about one being pointless, they are a fast floppy drive and read erratic disks well.

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-05-15, 15:42:

Nexxen wrote on 2026-05-15, 15:38:

Price was so low I couldn't skip... At least I have a good 1.44MB floppy reader. IIRC you got one recently, or at least it was a […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-05-15, 15:19:

One is kinda pointless, but with two, sneakernet is upgraded to 120MB packet size 🤣

Price was so low I couldn't skip... At least I have a good 1.44MB floppy reader.
IIRC you got one recently, or at least it was a pack of disks.

I'd like to find a LS-240, just out of curiosity.
Units and/or disks are rare in the EU. I'd like to go to Japan but I'd get lost in Tokyo.

Yes I have two now, plus some disks to use with them. I joke about one being pointless, they are a fast floppy drive and read erratic disks well.

I tried them to read bad floppies, hoping it was just a bad drive in my machine but, alas, nothing. After 30 years it happens.
I bought a Master of Magic box, in bad shape, and 5 disks out of 7 are unreadable.
All stuff is inside in very good shape though, not complaining in the end.

Our hobby 😀 We gotta love it!!
Have a good one in Canada!

For the unloved cheapos. IBM ValuePoint 486SX

$70 Marketplace impulse (felt cheap, saw an ordinary Pentium AST go on auction for $170 and a PS/2 for $200 recently)

Was told to work perfect, but were some struggles to it. First I had to get in - no key and did not notice it was locked (swift purchase). So had to do it professionally...

Next, HDD turned out to be seized. Not sure whether this happened on the bus ride home (drove like speed bumps were purely fictional) or earlier.

After manual head repositioning, the drive powered on and revealed its original factory installation. Windows 3.1 and only one personal file, a document dated 1993 (but the drive is from 1997)

Of course, the drive is now bombarded with delays, but I managed to image it. Replacement in place tomorrow.

Soldered SX-25, lovely 487 upgrade slot and a mysterious ISA card...

nuno14272 wrote on 2026-05-08, 16:23:

Cuttoon wrote on 2026-05-07, 17:59:

Socket 3 PCI boards have become rather rare / expensive. So this seemed worth a gamble. […]
Show full quote

Socket 3 PCI boards have become rather rare / expensive.
So this seemed worth a gamble.

I may be a fool and it might turn out to be utterly useless yet.

Intel Aries chipset with CL onboard VGA. 2 PCI, 3 ISA via riser.

Searching those numbers so far hints at some rather proprietary embedded controller of industrial cnc machinery...
(no documentation whatsover in sight...)

just one IDE channel ?
Do you have the Raiser ? sometimes we think its a plain ISA raiser and its not. its proprietary.

Only the one IDE channel, yes. Well, "enhanced IDE" was considered quite the feature back in around 1994.
You'll see the silkscreen of the second port and a second chip nex to it. Might be possible to add it, but I'm not the one who will try that particular soldering stunt.
(I happen to have an early VLB controller with two channels, but it requires drivers in DOS to access the second channel, at least on any board I tested.)

I do have the riser card. It provides two PCI and three 16 bit ISA slots.

Shader_BiH wrote on 2026-05-15, 13:21:

Wow... that's a really cool find. I can just imagine the feeling of have brand new hardware that old :D […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-05-13, 20:57:

Wow, it's real, new Pentium MMX in 2026... […]
Show full quote

Wow, it's real, new Pentium MMX in 2026...

I ordered these half expecting they'd either be out of stock, due to listing that was stale, or they would turn out to be reclaimed, but nope, look brand shiny new, no heatsink scuff, shipped in antistatic eggbox style CPU holder, so no whining about outer bubblewrap.

These might be a Canadian only deal on Amazon dot ca .Turn up with a search for MMX CPU I think, just under $25CDN each with free ship in Canada. There was only 9 left last I saw. Came out of Mississauga apparently so ship to me was just a couple of business days. I wasn't actually expecting them until Friday.

Edit: guess I should say NOS, New old stock, they're not making them still.. I suck at intel date codes so not sure when they rolled out the plant.
EditII: 13th week of 1999 if my quick and lazy lookup was right.
EditIII: Stock level showing as 10 at 6:30 not sure if they are just topping up their amazon storefront as required or had an order cancelled or what.
Edit numero quatro: So turns out it isn't the best value MMX in Canada at the moment maybe, the same vendor AmberCnE seem to have beat themselves on newegg dot ca with an 18 CDN free ship option that has refurbished P233MMX listed. Mine do not look refurb, "dirt" in pic appears to be a little bit of crumb/dust from tray cutting. IDK if they are the same stock and they couldn't enter new on a SKU that old or whether they are refurb stock.

Wow... that's a really cool find. I can just imagine the feeling of have brand new hardware that old 😁

Today one of my more humble orders from e-bay arrived. MSI MX 4000 T128

I actually ordered it because of cool looking passive cooler and because I already got the best of this line, the MX 460, so I though, let's go for the worst one now.
My recent luck however seems to have ran out 😁 The card was advertised as 64MB, which I didn't find odd at first because I didn't check the exact model, which is T128. It was supposed to be a 128MB DDR1 card, with 64-bit bus. Pictures of this one however are showing Aida32 info with 64MB and 32-bit memory bus. Now it's hard to really blame the seller as the card really was advertised as 64MB

This model has 4 memory chips K4D551638F-TC50, which should really equal to 128MB.... so I guess some of these chips died at some point or something.... The card however works without crashes or artifacts.... it's just halfed in memory and bandwith... I guess I got the absolute worst of MX4000 by accident. I will be testing it today to see if there's anything I can do about it.

That Intel P233 MMX, there appear to have been certain stacks of those. Probably because it was the final model, so when the platform turned obsolete, some remained.
I got three NOS for 14 € a piece in 2020. Not a steal, but looked legit.

The MSI card, those logo themed heatsinks are really fancy, huh?
My FX5200-TD128LF arrived this week:

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2026-05-13, 16:48:

I got this assortment of stuff recently. […]
Show full quote

I got this assortment of stuff recently.

First, SB Pro 2 CT1600 and I think the last revision on of the card. I think CT1600 is easily one of the best if not the best Creative cards they made in ISA era. For around 50€ I couldn't pass this.

The attachment CT1600.jpg is no longer available

These pop up extremely rarely locally, a Music Quest MQX-32M Midi interface card. This even has the breakout cable with it, these cards often seem to be sold without them as they get lost. For 30€ it wasn't a bad deal either.

The attachment MQX32.jpg is no longer available

The SB pro, is that the one with the "Mitsumi" interface?
I got mine in 2016 for € 10.50 in a normal auction.
Different times. 😀

The MIDI card - 30 € is a steal. Even the newly build ones are more expensive, IIRC.

This just arrived. The Steinberg MIDI PC-1 interface.

NOS and sold as "now" for 40 €.
Including a (very basic) manual in German and "update registration" post card to Hamburg.

Couldn't quite resist, although, does this bugger do the "intelligent mode" or not?
The fine print on the box says:

*UART mode
That is the non-intelligent mode, right? Does it exclude the other? Any experience, anyone? I don't intend to use it, but would be nice to know...

Edit: There used to be a concise line up of all fully compatible cards on oldschooldaw.com, but I couldn't find it again.
Thanks to chrisNova777, I found a link to the manufacturer's page, though.
It reads "MIDI PC-1" on the box but "PC MIDI-1" on the card. Same thing.
The site claims it to be fully compatible. But I'd hesitate to install the brand new card to confirm. It looks so pristine. 😉

Wanting an early 2000s PSU that would be better for heavy 5V cards than a modern one, picked up this 550W Antec for (what seemed like) a good price:

I don't really know what to look for from that era, but Antec seemed like a known good brand and this one appeared to have low miles.
Anyway, plugged it in to my cheapo "PSU Tester" which immediately complained about 0ms PG and the 3.3V rail reading high at 3.8V. Then after about 3 power cycles it stopped turning on, no magic smoke, no drama. Not trusting the PSU tester, I gave it a rest then tried it on some sacrificial hardware. Same behaviour, including my POST card's 3.3V LED not lighting up (and the system not POSTing).

Is this thing toast? Just return to seller?

Cuttoon wrote on Yesterday, 12:38:

The SB pro, is that the one with the "Mitsumi" interface?
I got mine in 2016 for € 10.50 in a normal auction.
Different times. 😀

It is actually Panasonic (Matsuhita) interface, but yeah, not IDE. Good luck getting these nowadays for those prices. You probably could secure CT4170/80 for that price at best 😀

The MIDI card - 30 € is a steal. Even the newly build ones are more expensive, IIRC.

It was very good deal indeed. I have bunch of modern ones and clones and they do cost considerably more. PicoGUS provides on too, but we are talking about around 60€ in that case too. Of course it offers much more too.

This puppy is now in my 286 for that MT-32 goodness.

This just arrived. The Steinberg MIDI PC-1 interface. […]
Show full quote

This just arrived. The Steinberg MIDI PC-1 interface.

IMG_1078.JPG

NOS and sold as "now" for 40 €.
Including a (very basic) manual in German and "update registration" post card to Hamburg.

steinberg.jpg

Couldn't quite resist, although, does this bugger do the "intelligent mode" or not?
The fine print on the box says:

steinberg_specs.jpg

*UART mode
That is the non-intelligent mode, right? Does it exclude the other? Any experience, anyone? I don't intend to use it, but would be nice to know...

Edit: There used to be a concise line up of all fully compatible cards on oldschooldaw.com, but I couldn't find it again.
Thanks to chrisNova777, I found a link to the manufacturer's page, though.
It reads "MIDI PC-1" on the box but "PC MIDI-1" on the card. Same thing.
The site claims it to be fully compatible. But I'd hesitate to install the brand new card to confirm. It looks so pristine. 😉

If it says specifically UART mode, then I would think it doesn't support intelligent mode. It also doesn't seem to have the necessary hardware, intelligent mode requires a bit CPU oomph and that is the reason intelligent mode cards usually have Z80 or even two like the Music Quest card I have. Your card seems to lack those, although PCB80C31BH-3 seems to be some sort of micro controller.

Why wouldn't you test that? It would be the easiest way to find out what it can do.

Cuttoon wrote on Yesterday, 12:18:

That Intel P233 MMX, there appear to have been certain stacks of those. Probably because it was the final model, so when the platform turned obsolete, some remained.
I got three NOS for 14 € a piece in 2020. Not a steal, but looked legit.

Yes, there was a lot around for a while. I didn't think I wanted any 5 or 10 years ago though. I think there are some government and other contracts where supplier has to guarantee spare parts for 10, 20 or however many years, and then when that's done, sudden flood of parts on market. Some things seem really plentiful and then they're gone, just like that, and I was feeling that the MMX are getting to that stage. I missed out on the "stacks" of PODP 83mhz for socket 2/3/6 when they were plentiful a few years ago. These low end model nVidia cards had a go round with that as well, lots of NIB ones a few years back, now they are done.

Have been finding strange things about Intel boards recently, how some seem to have been license manufactured by others in the 90s, so I guess doesn't completely rule out a Siemens connection for the one you have. I don't know what they were doing exactly, making custom version to OEM spec, shipping them PCBs, or just the designs and they got them built wherever.

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on Yesterday, 20:18:

Cuttoon wrote on Yesterday, 12:38:

This just arrived. The Steinberg MIDI PC-1 interface. […]
Show full quote

This just arrived. The Steinberg MIDI PC-1 interface.

The attachment IMG_1078.JPG is no longer available

NOS and sold as "now" for 40 €.
Including a (very basic) manual in German and "update registration" post card to Hamburg.

The attachment steinberg.jpg is no longer available

Couldn't quite resist, although, does this bugger do the "intelligent mode" or not?
The fine print on the box says:

The attachment steinberg_specs.jpg is no longer available

*UART mode
That is the non-intelligent mode, right? Does it exclude the other? Any experience, anyone? I don't intend to use it, but would be nice to know...

Edit: There used to be a concise line up of all fully compatible cards on oldschooldaw.com, but I couldn't find it again.
Thanks to chrisNova777, I found a link to the manufacturer's page, though.
It reads "MIDI PC-1" on the box but "PC MIDI-1" on the card. Same thing.
The site claims it to be fully compatible. But I'd hesitate to install the brand new card to confirm. It looks so pristine. 😉

Why wouldn't you test that? It would be the easiest way to find out what it can do.

Yeah, well - that's the whole point. Up to now, it's a collectible. Once I install it, it's used hardware. Remember that revolver in "Lord of War"?
As a matter of principle, I do own a humble CMS-401 II for mere functionality.
U sure there's a tiny Zilog CPU hidden there?

BitWrangler wrote on Yesterday, 21:06:

Cuttoon wrote on Yesterday, 12:18:

That Intel P233 MMX, there appear to have been certain stacks of those. Probably because it was the final model, so when the platform turned obsolete, some remained.
I got three NOS for 14 € a piece in 2020. Not a steal, but looked legit.

Yes, there was a lot around for a while. I didn't think I wanted any 5 or 10 years ago though. I think there are some government and other contracts where supplier has to guarantee spare parts for 10, 20 or however many years, and then when that's done, sudden flood of parts on market.

There used to be tons of NOS AMD K6-III-400 CPUs around, the heat-friendly variety. About a tenner, when I got one. For many years, until there weren't and they went to "half a spare kidney" over night.

I remember some lore about certain parts for medical or space tech that had been approved and tested for certain very narrowly defined specs somewhere way back, hence the need for exact spare parts. Which is why NASA had ppl scouting for original legacy x86 CPUs on friggin eekbay, whole decades later. 😁

And then my brother and/or I broke the grip of that generic POS joystick clean off, playing Tie-Fighter in about 1994-95ish.
So, having done some mature house-sitting that time, we went ahead and bought an original Logitech Wingman for a whopping 39.90 Marks, youthful renagades that we were.
Little did we know of the pinnacle of that very product line. But today I went for groceries and took a detour on a weekly flea marked. Which I usually would dismiss as being dominated by professional travellers.
However, lo and behold, they had a surprise for 15 Euro, after some haggeling:

What is really dating these things?
Sure, there's the DB-9 plug. And the sheer bulk of that monster.
But also, the bloody power supply. Is there half a ton of iron in there, surrounded by a considerable length of copper wire? What were we thinking?

Cuttoon wrote on Yesterday, 22:45:

Yeah, well - that's the whole point. Up to now, it's a collectible. Once I install it, it's used hardware. Remember that revolver in "Lord of War"?
(...)

Honestly, we're talking about a relatively obscure midi interface here, not a shrinkwrapped LAPC-I 😀

So even if it is slightly sought-after by a very, very small demographic, how much value in absolute terms do you think it would lose if you were to actually install it in a system momentarily?

So go ahead and do some tests, you know you want it! 🤣

MMaximus wrote on Yesterday, 23:01:

Honestly, we're talking about a relatively obscure midi interface here, not a shrinkwrapped LAPC-I :) […]
Show full quote

Cuttoon wrote on Yesterday, 22:45:

Yeah, well - that's the whole point. Up to now, it's a collectible. Once I install it, it's used hardware. Remember that revolver in "Lord of War"?
(...)

Honestly, we're talking about a relatively obscure midi interface here, not a shrinkwrapped LAPC-I 😀

So even if it is slightly sought-after by a very, very small demographic, how much value in absolute terms do you think it would lose if you were to actually install it in a system momentarily?

So go ahead and do some tests, you know you want it! 🤣

I vividly remember finding a LAPC-I on the greedbay and going "meh, I'm not going to pay next to half the original retail for that fossil".
It was not exactly shrinkwrapped, granted. And next to it was a Voodoo 5.

That obscure MIDI interface card - IIRC, uh, someone was selling a redundant, slightly more obscure CMS-401 to a _very_ happy Taiwanese user for 290 € some years ago.
In contrast, Steinberg is a major brand, at least in Europe.

So, facing substantial cost for self storage space for spare full tower cases down the road, forgive me for thinking strategically now and then. 😜

You know, If, god forbid, the card fell victim to the sneak Martian EMP attack of 2007, then, up to now, I enjoy plausible deniability...

I worked out once it is something like $3 per year per square foot of shelf storage in your home. That is besides the value that you would otherwise put on the enjoyment of that space. So keeping a motherboard for 20 years cost you $60, even if you didn't feel it. To save it, you'd probably have to move somewhere smaller where everything else was decreased in proportion, but some costs would be the same... so it might be $2.50 with half the space, BUT, that space would be far more precious to you to enjoy otherwise. Goes the other way too, massive place in the middle of nowhere with cheap utilities, insurance, and low taxes and you've probably got tons of space to waste at $1.50 a square foot. I guess my $3 applies in average medium city for 1500-2000 sqft.

Anyway, commercial warehousing might be far more expensive, it has no other purpose than to be there for that, and requires paid employees, so pretty crazy to think of sunk cost of surplussed items. $300 when new, then $20 a year to store it... but I guess it gets to a point where it's "Get rid of it before it costs us another $20.". Gets even crazier when it's sales floor space, then full patch accountants will tell you about opportunity costs and how much of another thing you could have taken a profit on a few times while that was sitting there hogging the spot. Handy thing to remind car dealers of though... "It's costing you a few hundred monthly to sit and look at it...."

ubiq wrote on Yesterday, 16:23:

550W Antec

The attachment IMG_3477.jpeg is no longer available

0ms PG and the 3.3V rail reading high at 3.8V. Then after about 3 power cycles it stopped turning on, no magic smoke, no drama. Not trusting the PSU tester, I gave it a rest then tried it on some sacrificial hardware. Same behaviour, including my POST card's 3.3V LED not lighting up (and the system not POSTing).

Record video with the tester, send to seller, ask for partial/full refund. If seller doesnt want it back it could be easy fix, 99% its just caps (including the small one powering switch mode controller)

Cuttoon wrote on Yesterday, 22:45:

Yeah, well - that's the whole point. Up to now, it's a collectible. Once I install it, it's used hardware. Remember that revolver in "Lord of War"?
As a matter of principle, I do own a humble CMS-401 II for mere functionality.
U sure there's a tiny Zilog CPU hidden there?

Tiny, what do you mean by that? Obviously none of the chips are Z80, it is not like they are somehow invisible.

Thinking that some NOS electronics is some huge collectible is just... plain weird IMO. I don't get it. I've gotten countless of NOS components, software and games throughout my retrocomputing years and every single one I've bought for one reason only: to use them and getting fun tinkering time out of them. Zero regrets, zero anxiety. I personally don't see a point in hoarding boxes of components on the shelves just for the sake of having them sitting there. I don't get it, it is just hoarding for the sake of it IMO. But you do you ofc.

Silliest example I've seen about this was one guy in Reddit who posted a photo of his vintage Mac collection, all in NOS in the original brown and white cardboard boxes. People posted that the batteries and caps are leaking in those things and they are already if not completely ruined, then well on their way to be so. But the anxiety this guy had about his stuff was unreal, he didn't want to take those out and fix or maintain them and I think that he never did, he just left the thread. I bet he has corroding junk in those boxes to this day and he or anyone else never got to enjoy those machines.