It's too expensive and a pain to assemble. It's easier to just mod a regular slotket. And there's no need to drill anything - that's a barbaric solution. Instead of drilling, you just stick a thin enamel-coated wire into the hole - for example, from earbuds.

The issue with AG1 raised in the video is way overblown - it'll work just fine even at 1.6V. Besides, some slotkets already have a linear voltage regulator on that line anyway.

What an amazing project. Life changing. It doesn’t look complicated to assemble, just a bit time consuming. Will be interesting to know what an assembled one will cost.

Holy cow looks like Celeron 1200’s will soon be unobtainium https://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_nkw=Intel … ete=1&LH_Sold=1

zuldan wrote on Yesterday, 08:49:

It doesn’t look complicated to assemble, just a bit time consuming. Will be interesting to know what an assembled one will cost.

Even socket transplant takes way longer than just modifying a couple old slotkets.

I applaud and welcome this initiative by Bits und Bolts. 👍

The more the options available to us enthusiasts, the merrier.

Without some gadgetry of this kind, the tinkering needed to run Tualatins on Slot-1 440BX boards is hazardous and not for the faint of heart. Here your servant managed to perpetrate it successfully, but it was a hairy affair that might as well have gone wrong.

Not sure why people are drilling sockets, you can just desolder contacts.

HAWK-Tua indeed
Im not that jazzed about no ground plane under half the cpu signals, but since he tested it at 150MHz FSB then who am I to argue 😀
This wont be cheap. TH soldering when assembled by fabricators is expensive, they usually charge per pin and s370 has kinda lot of those, plus either shitty enig or once again expensive hard gold. On top of that PCBWay is expensive (thus advertizes and sponsors a lot) to begin with. But if it works as advertised you will be paying for quality. Fingers crossed.

This is some seriously impressive work. ...even support for adding SC's ThrottleBlaster, this community collaboration is fantastic. Kudos BuB.

I think it's pretty awesome, but I am afraid it will be a little too expensive!

Looks nice on paper, but made and assembled by the sponsors of the video - this will be too expansive.

I would assume the most expensive part would be 370 Pin ZIF PGA Socket, I mean after all Upgradeware Slot-T sold for $20 USD new in 2002-2003 and I assume they made a profit so that would be around $50 USD in 2026 money.

Good on BuB, I'm interested to see how the price shakes out but as for someone that has rarely ever spent more than $50 USD on any of my retro hardware this is not for me. I do commend all those that introduce new hardware for the retro community it helps a lot.

This is a cool project and I'm surprised we haven't seen a bespoke slot key adapter come before this. Especially given the rarity and cost of slotkey adapters for running lower voltage processors like the Via C3.

The cost of this will likely determine its utilitarian value.

To me the most interesting application is use of Via C3 processors for their throttling capabilities. While they do have limits on the upper end of performance, they can dial down to 286 levels.

On the other hand, I don't really see the appeal of trying to run higher end performance such as the overclocked Celeron 1200 in the video. If the goal is to have high end performance with backwards compatibility (such as native ISA slots for DOS gaming), then a P4 + industrial motherboard just seems a better option.

He does mention the capability of running any AGP card on a 440BX board, which is a limitation P4 industrial boards have when it comes to supporting the earlier AGP standard. So I guess if you want to run an older AGP video card with a faster processor you could... but I don't know why you would want to?

It will be interesting to see where this goes and what the ultimate price point for this slot key ends up being.

Grem Five wrote on Yesterday, 15:21:

I would assume the most expensive part would be 370 Pin ZIF PGA Socket, I mean after all Upgradeware Slot-T sold for $20 USD new in 2002-2003 and I assume they made a profit so that would be around $50 USD in 2026 money.

Current price of 370 Pin socket is about $10 USD from what I've seen not including shipping, tax, etc.

The challenge with any project like this is cost of low-volume electronic parts, especially when factoring in shipping and tariffs depending on which country one is in. Costs can rapidly add up.

Shponglefan wrote on Yesterday, 15:30:

On the other hand, I don't really see the appeal of trying to run higher end performance such as the overclocked Celeron 1200 in the video. If the goal is to have high end performance with backwards compatibility (such as native ISA slots for DOS gaming), then a P4 + industrial motherboard just seems a better option.

It was something that many loyal intel customers wanted in 2001. They didn’t want hot pentium 4 computers with rambus. They just wanted cool fast cpu upgrades for thier existing computers. Everyone knew intel engineers could make them. Instead they were stuck with a marketing driven product.

“So that thing you always wanted but couldn’t buy at the time” is always a great start for a retro adventure.

douglar wrote on Yesterday, 16:30:

It was something that many loyal intel customers wanted in 2001. They didn’t want hot pentium 4 computers with rambus. They just wanted cool fast cpu upgrades for thier existing computers. Everyone knew intel engineers could make them. Instead they were stuck with a marketing driven product.

Oh I get that from a historical perspective.

I'm thinking more from a contemporary utilitarian perspective given the HAWK 370 is a contemporary product.

Shponglefan wrote on Yesterday, 16:34:

douglar wrote on Yesterday, 16:30:

It was something that many loyal intel customers wanted in 2001. They didn’t want hot pentium 4 computers with rambus. They just wanted cool fast cpu upgrades for thier existing computers. Everyone knew intel engineers could make them. Instead they were stuck with a marketing driven product.

Oh I get that from a historical perspective.

I'm thinking more from a contemporary utilitarian perspective given the HAWK 370 is a contemporary product.

Maybe you meant aesthetic? Not sure much about retro computing is utilitarian. Practically speaking, not a lot of people do day to day work on a retro PC. Well, except for my Aunt, but that's another story.

I think a contemporary slot key is not that far off from putting a coin cell on a 486. But then I've met people that strongly feel that I should have put a new varta back on those boards. That's fine too. But how far does it go? Do I need period correct colors on my replacement capacitors? Is using an ATX case for an AT board unacceptable? Hmm. I'm one to talk though. I have picked through my jar of screws looking for period correct ones before. And not even for the ones on the out side of the case.

I've been looking for a good affordable slot key for like 20 years, so I'd happily pick one up if the price ends up being reasonable.

douglar wrote on Yesterday, 18:55:

Maybe you meant aesthetic? Not sure much about retro computing is utilitarian. Practically speaking, not a lot of people do day to day work on a retro PC.

Not aesthetic, but practical utilitarian value.

I think a contemporary slot key is not that far off from putting a coin cell on a 486.

I wouldn't really put these in the same category.

Modding a 486 motherboard to replace a Varta battery with a coin cell holder is a practical utilitarian solution to the issue of a CMOS battery on a 486. It's relatively low-cost, not overly difficult to implement (assuming basic soldering skills) and makes for easy ongoing maintenance for battery replacement.

Whereas constructing a bespoke slot key is neither a low-cost nor simple endeavour.

My question was also in regards to the use-case in the video which talks about overclocking Tualatin Celeron processors. Sure, I guess you can overclock a Celeron processor and stick it in a 440BX motherboard... Aside from doing it just for the sake of it, is there any practical value is there in such a setup? Does it make for a good retro gaming rig? Is there some other benefit or usage I'm not seeing?

If I may say my opinion, I want to congratulate Alex (BuB), the project is definitely very interesting, and if the final price is not too high, I would also like at least one.
Among my PCs in my collection, I have a Slot1 adapter for Tualatin, on an ASUS P3B-F with Celeron 1300@1430, and I would say that it is very interesting, because it could be pushed even higher, I tried it at almost 1500 MHz, but I prefer to keep it at 110 MHz FSB, in theory I could have reached and exceed 1700 MHz, with the FSB 133, I remember trying it without success, but it was just a test performed with a few tricks, maybe it was necessary to raise the VCORE to 1.6V for example.
I follow the YouTube channel BuB, and I have often seen it working on old motherboards, many really interesting, among those I prefer there are the S.7 and the Slot1 ones, unfortunately I do not have any Slot A, I know that for these motherboards, there were adapters for CPU S.462, but unfortunately it seems that they do not work well, or that in any case create various problems, I hope that in the future I can make such an adapter card, solving the operating problems.
I hope you can read us, and write here about any updates to your project, I would be available to try one of your S.1-370T adapters, I have some CPUs that I keep, both Celeron and P3 (including S).

Shponglefan wrote on Yesterday, 15:50:

Current price of 370 Pin socket is about $10 USD from what I've seen not including shipping, tax, etc.

afaik PCBWay charges $0.05 per tht wave soldered pin = ~$20 just for soldering the socket

I'm not knowledgeable enough to know what's the point of this setup. Can someone educate me here? The way I see it is that Socket 370 mobos are newer than Slot 1 mobos, so why go for the older ones if perf is the goal? The newer mobos have native Tualatin support and newer chipsets, and many still have ISA slots, so why stick to slot 1 for something like a Tualatin? Is it just the challenge for making something so powerful work on a mobo that wasn't really made for it?

Pardon my noob-ness, and thanks!

wbahnassi wrote on Today, 00:39:

The newer mobos have native Tualatin support and newer chipsets

You have whole one of chipsets to choose from 😀 maybe 3 if are feeling particularly lucky and adventurous. Intel 815, VT82C694T, SiS 635T. Only the bad ones support ISA. "good" one tops out at 512MB ram.

> and many still have ISA slots

bad ones