From what I gather, cards that combine video and sound are mostly full length.
Here's another : http://www.ebay.ca/itm/ISA-Sound-Card-ATI-VGA … y4AAOSwys5WVKQA

What does the computer look like from behind? Is there one or two expansion slots?

I'm inclined to think that the Matrox is one of those oldskool VGA plus Decoder cards that were around for a while, like the SPEA ShowTime Plus.

Beegle wrote:

From what I gather, cards that combine video and sound are mostly full length.
Here's another : http://www.ebay.ca/itm/ISA-Sound-Card-ATI-VGA … y4AAOSwys5WVKQA

What does the computer look like from behind? Is there one or two expansion slots?

Yeah I figured they were going to be pretty large unfortunately I doubt there is a way I could fit them then 😒 oh well I might just have to go the PCI extension route, haha which will look crazy. I own two of these, on my other I have an IDE cable and power cable snaked through the back with a cd drive sitting on top 🤣.

Here are a couple of pics from my extra one (the back and inside),

http://imgur.com/EotDuXT

http://imgur.com/d10HqfL

http://imgur.com/DLK6Ign

HighTreason wrote:

I'm inclined to think that the Matrox is one of those oldskool VGA plus Decoder cards that were around for a while, like the SPEA ShowTime Plus.

Hah just looked up the SPEA ShowTime Plus... that thing competes with current gen video cards in length really interesting though! Might have to get one for one of my larger retro machines.

I have one... You are missing nothing. Plus if you want Sound Blaster compatibility you won't want one, because it makes them (the sound cards) cease to function for some reason. Probably why SPEA pushed the Sound Scape and even made their own version of it. The TSeng chip is also unusually slow on the SPEA board and I have never figured out why, because the onboard CS4920 (Some kind of DSP i think) failed and I was already tired of it ruining my OverDrive rig by that point, so I removed it and have no idea where I stored it.

Perhaps if you extend the ISA slot, you can put your sound card where the hard drive used to be and extend the jacks - you could easily add panel mount ones to the case if you didn't mind making a small hole. You would then free up the slot for a PCI video card. Not sure there would be enough room for certain, but some of the faster PCI cards, like the Trio 64V+, were surprisingly small sometimes.

HighTreason wrote:

I have one... You are missing nothing. Plus if you want Sound Blaster compatibility you won't want one, because it makes them (the sound cards) cease to function for some reason. Probably why SPEA pushed the Sound Scape and even made their own version of it. The TSeng chip is also unusually slow on the SPEA board and I have never figured out why, because the onboard CS4920 (Some kind of DSP i think) failed and I was already tired of it ruining my OverDrive rig by that point, so I removed it and have no idea where I stored it.

Perhaps if you extend the ISA slot, you can put your sound card where the hard drive used to be and extend the jacks - you could easily add panel mount ones to the case if you didn't mind making a small hole. You would then free up the slot for a PCI video card. Not sure there would be enough room for certain, but some of the faster PCI cards, like the Trio 64V+, were surprisingly small sometimes.

That is a really good idea, I actually was looking for a way to extend the ISA but could only find extenders for the PCI. Any idea what to look for? ISA extender or expander bring up very few results.

I think the only way you'll be able to do it is to make it yourself. You can either strip off the ISA slot (Probably more trouble than it is worth) or make a connector for it. I suppose you would need double sided strip board or prototyping board to do this and I'm actually not sure this can be bought anymore. Either way, to cut a long story short, you'll need ribbon cable and a load of soldering time.

Actually, there were these; https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/cG4aZUEg which I think are still made, though it will cost you a few dollars. You can see how these would work, you would plug one into the ISA slot and an IDC ribbon connector would be provided, the ribbon cable would be connected to an ISA slot at the other end (you can still find ISA slot connectors with relative ease) thus moving the slot.

You could be adventurous and add another ISA slot if you had the room (ISA is parallel, all slots are electrically connected to one another pin-for-pin) but I doubt it's worth it and the case looks too cramped anyway.

Edit; You may find this thread useful the OP is essentially doing the same thing on a larger scale - Short on ISA slots? Try this.

Thanks for the info, that last link is really helpful, hah the project is also really badass!

I wonder if you could use the pci extender and route it through that round punch out looking thing to the right of the expansion slot and mount the pci card externally?

If you can find a PCI video card with HDMI output, you might find you can route the audio out of the HDMI connector.

Otherwise if you want to stick to VGA, you could look for one of those cards that has the VGA connector attached via a ribbon cable. You could then take the card bracket off and run the VGA connector to one of those holes (if you have them) where serial ports are meant to mount so they don't use up a slot.

Nvidia NV1? Apocalypse 5D Sonic?

Unfortunately, you'll have to rob Artex to get your hands on one of them.

Malvineous wrote:

If you can find a PCI video card with HDMI output, you might find you can route the audio out of the HDMI connector.

Erm... Anything before Fermi (from nVidia) relies on a sound card with an SPDIF output header to route sound through HDMI.... And I don't think anything Fermi+ would have drivers for anything you might want to run on a Pentium Classic.

I guess anything from the era may not work, but sometimes you see PCI versions of later cards, so I was thinking you might have some luck if you can find one of those. But yes, it won't be the easiest/quickest option.

Malvineous wrote:

If you can find a PCI video card with HDMI output, you might find you can route the audio out of the HDMI connector.

Otherwise if you want to stick to VGA, you could look for one of those cards that has the VGA connector attached via a ribbon cable.

Some versions of the Radeon VE (AKA, the Radeon 7000) had a second VGA connector on the end of a ribbon. I have an AGP one but it isn't unlikely a PCI version was made and exists somewhere. Some Matrox cards had a kind of daughterboard with the VGA connector on, but the board-to-board connector might be a non-standard pinout and it was a smaller pin pitch which would make it harder to find new cable. Still, you're onto an idea there.

You also reminded me I should return the ribbon to the card as I borrowed it to test my Itox Star's onboard VGA.

In your situation I would probably use the ISA slot for a sound card and put a PowerVR PCX2 card (sans bracket) in the PCI slot.
The PCX2 is really small and thin so it can fit alongside many ISA cards in a shared shot. Use some plastic as an insulator if necessary.
It doesn't have any ports so no problems there.

I did this on my Socket 7 build so I know it works 😎
The PCX2 won't exactly scream with a P166, but it should be good enough for Quake 1 and 2, Ultimate Race etc.