Were you shocked from the lack of cleanliness of my "workspace"??? well... a few weeks ago i've gathered with some friends and gave the place a good spruce up!!!
I spy a Shuttle XPC in there - what's its specs? They're neat little machines. 😀
Yes, its a XPC!
I started with the bare chassis, an SS51G
them bided on the mobo (that came with the CPU and CPU Cooler) on ebay and won them for us$15, not noticing that the postage would be us$25 because they were on the other side of the Atlantic...
Its a i865G based, socket 478 motherboard, with all-onboard components.
Then, added a ASUS ATI Radeon 9600XT and a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 1394 in there for good measure... but have yet to find a power supply for it. I've tested it with a standart ATX power supply and it works great!
Shuttle actually built an upgrade PSU for the XPC, called the SilenX, and it is very quiet as advertised. It's only rated for like 225-250W though. Pretty sure this is it by itself: http://www.ebay.com/itm/350555422398
It looks like mine at least, and it should fit the case. I doubt you'd have a problem with the 9600 - mine seems fine with Radeon X1600 and Quadro FX 700, but I haven't tried any more powerful cards like 6800 Ultra (I hooked up a 450W Antec to test that and the board had no issues with it).
Hello fellow retronaughts...
I've been building my "Dream Rig" circa 1998-2001 over the past couple weeks & have come here many times for advice & techniques, so I thought I should introduce myself.
Here's Retro in the building phase:
And two shots of his face, drive cover up and down:
The decals on the front show many of the brands of tech that have lived in this case for the last 20 years... I started on this project with this case in mind; my favorite full-tower (25" tall) server case. Lots of room & looks impressive.
What's inside?
Asus CUV4X (VIA Apollo 133z chipset) - PIII Coppermine EB @866MHz - 1.5GB SDRAM PC-133
ATI 9800 Pro AGP 4x - Sound Blaser Audigy2 Platinum Pro [with breakout box]
1x Western Digital Caviar 40GB (system) & 1x Western Digital Caviar 80GB (apps)
2x MS Sidewinder Force Feedback Pros on a Y-split game port cable.
[Looking for a PCI USB2 controller card & a dvd player/burner]
What's running?
Dual booting with System Commander 8:
Windows 98se/Me hybrid OS - Unofficial SP3 Autopatcher, SP 2.1a, 98se2ME, HIMEMX & Rloew's patch.
Windows XP SP3 with DirectX 9c.
Retro will never be on the internet so I skipped a lot of the security patches; I'll use my main machine for that & transfer game patches & etc via USB/CD/DVD.
Thanks go to all the informative & helpful posts from Vogon(eers?) I have come here for over the last 2 weeks!
Forgot to brag about my keyboards... 2 Model Ms (1391401) AUG1989. The first has been in continuous use since 1990; currently used in my main online computer and carries the grey IBM logo. It takes 2 boots to get into Windows, as the machine is too fast for it to register the first time 😁 Made in the US.
A second Model M (139401) from the Mexico plant (marked with blue logo) 1994; kept for parts:
Finally, a misc. keyboard: Model KB-7953 from 1998 from the Thai plant for Canadian rigs:
Have a matching one in black but can't attach more pixs 🤣. The black one is from 1996, the Thai plant, shipped to Canadian outlets.
I love my clickety Model M and would never give it up. I like that it's heavy and stays in place during wild typing sprees. It could kill a man.
Last edited by relayer on 2015-01-18, 22:10. Edited 1 time in total.
relayer wrote:Forgot to brag about my keyboards... 2 Model Ms (1391401) AUG1989. The first has been in continuous use since 1990; currently us […] Show full quote
Forgot to brag about my keyboards... 2 Model Ms (1391401) AUG1989. The first has been in continuous use since 1990; currently used in my main online computer and carries the grey IBM logo. It takes 2 boots to get into Windows, as the machine is too fast for it to register the first time 😁 Made in the US.
A second Model M (139401) from the Mexico plant (marked with blue logo) 1994; kept for parts:
Finally, a Model KB-7953 from 1998 from the Thai plant for Canadian rigs:
I love my clickety Model M and would never give it up. I like that it's heavy and stays in place during wild typing sprees.
Very nice! I just posted my purchases of some IBM Model M's a couple months ago and I since have picked up a few more. I now have about a dozen working Model M's and started to clean them all up. I suggest using Mr. Clean Magic eraser cleaning pads on the stains that are tough to get out. I even got out black marker stains with it. It is a bit tedious to clean all the keys and take it apart to clean the case, but these keyboards are worth it. It's very satisfying to have a clean Model M 😀 .
It certainly is! Model Ms were fantastically designed to assist in typing, with the buckling spring design. One thing I'd caution you on is using a solvent on the keycaps themselves; the silkscreening is VERY good but will fade if using a solvent (found this out firsthand, which is why the Mexican one has faded ASDWE keys). Warm water and a soak is good for them.
You also might want to drill a few drainage holes on the bottom front for safety.
Yeah, cleaning the keys is a long, slow job but it's like a keyboard Zen, and is well-worth the bragging rights 😁 Where's your pix?
Seeing Thraka's post over here reminded me that I have yet to show off my latest eBay find. For $55, I bought...
Specs:
Intel Pentium 100MHz
24MB RAM
810MB IBM HDD
C&T 65550 with 2MB VRAM
ESS 688 AudioDrive with genuine YMF262 OPL3
Windows 95
I spent the last day or so reloading Windows and trying out a couple of games. Also, the original Li-Ion battery holds a charge! I have yet to see for how long, though.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that this is in really good shape! Also came with a few goodies: the original external floppy drive, a copy of Windows 95 (like I didn't already have a million copies of Win95 already 🤣), and a Microsoft PS/2 mouse.