Saw a Guillemot Maxi Studio ISIS pop up on eBay for cheap and grabbed it immediately.

It is missing the daughterboard so I won't be able to hook up the external box but for the price I couldn't pass it up.

Seller also said it comes what he thinks is the original shipping box even though it wasn't pictured.

Supposedly this card also has DOS support, so we will see how it fares once I get it.

The chipset is an ESS Maestro 2-EM and the wavetable is a Dream 9707.

It has 4MB onboard RAM and the official specs say it can be upgraded to 36MB RAM. I saw somewhere that the chipset supports up to 64MB so I may try a larger stick IF I can get one cheap enough.

Sellers pic:

Google archived magazine article that has a mini review along with some other cards.
https://books.google.com/books?id=0QEAAAAAMBA … s%20DOS&f=false

cyclone3d wrote:

Saw a Guillemot Maxi Studio ISIS pop up on eBay for cheap and grabbed it immediately. […]
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Saw a Guillemot Maxi Studio ISIS pop up on eBay for cheap and grabbed it immediately.

It is missing the daughterboard so I won't be able to hook up the external box but for the price I couldn't pass it up.

Seller also said it comes what he thinks is the original shipping box even though it wasn't pictured.

Supposedly this card also has DOS support, so we will see how it fares once I get it.

The chipset is an ESS Maestro 2-EM and the wavetable is a Dream 9707.

It has 4MB onboard RAM and the official specs say it can be upgraded to 36MB RAM. I saw somewhere that the chipset supports up to 64MB so I may try a larger stick IF I can get one cheap enough.

Sellers pic:

Guillemot.png

Google archived magazine article that has a mini review along with some other cards.
https://books.google.com/books?id=0QEAAAAAMBA … s%20DOS&f=false

That is one interesting card.

It is, I also got one recently, bare card only though.
Maestro is not that useful for DOS, bit it should work nicely in Windows. OPL3 is out, the Solo1 was the last ESS with it.

Spiffy... squinting at the article, doesn't look like the daughterboard is much more than buffer chips and a passthrough for the cable.

BitWrangler wrote:

Spiffy... squinting at the article, doesn't look like the daughterboard is much more than buffer chips and a passthrough for the cable.

Yeah, that's what it looks like to me as well. I wonder how hard it would be to make an interface board for it. I couldn't care less if it was on a printed circuit board or not.

BitWrangler wrote:

Heh, I had to zoom in on that, Siemens Nixdorf Scenics also had a socket 5 board with virtually identical layout. I wouldn't really call it a high quality board though.

What are your experiences with similar board?
I judge it by PCB stability, how many capacitors, simplicity of design and performance. The board is currently running with 60 mhz and did pretty well. Only downside is slow memory write speed which has had no real impact in the real life tests though.

bjwil1991 wrote:

The Pentium II board must be a server board hence the weird power connector.

A typical AT or early atx server psu will work. The kind that ae abit taller then standard desktop psu's

I bought a Gateway M685-E 17" Notebook off eBay for 42ish shipped.

1440x900 or 1680x1050 Screen (No way to tell which until it gets here)
Core2 Duo T5500 @ 1.66GHZ
1GB DDR2 RAM
80GB SATA Hard Disk
GeForce Go 7600 128MB
Audio System that SUPPOSEDLY is SB Pro 2.0 compliant.

I'll double the RAM when it gets here and switch that GPU out for the Go 7900 option if I can actually find one cheap enough to justify it. The Gateway MXM version of that card isn't super common but I'm sure one will crop up for the right price eventually. I had another of these in the past but it had serious electrical issues. All the USB ports reported constant over voltage and never worked and eventually it stopped charging. It was a great laptop and I loved it when it worked but once it started having issues it wasn't that fun and it wasn't feasible to repair it. I'm glad to have another of these. They have great screens (literally one of the best matte TN screens I've ever seen second only to IPS LEDs) and make very nice 9.0c era gaming laptops even with the Go 7600 (which is somewhere in between a desktop 6600 and 6800 in terms of performance). I saved the battery, GPU, CPU, and hard drive cover from my old one so I'm good if the infamous bumpgate bug takes a shot at me. They feel well built. I think mine just sat too long before I got it (It supposedly hadn't been turned on in over 5 years) and developed electrical issues from storage conditions. It worked fine for a month and was dead by the end of month 2.

I've also managed to summon forth from the void a GTX 470 for free. At least I'll be warm this winter.

EDIT: Found my own Video Review of the M685E: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLmXXjwJkyA&t=298s

amadeus777999 wrote:

BitWrangler wrote:

Heh, I had to zoom in on that, Siemens Nixdorf Scenics also had a socket 5 board with virtually identical layout. I wouldn't really call it a high quality board though.

What are your experiences with similar board?
I judge it by PCB stability, how many capacitors, simplicity of design and performance. The board is currently running with 60 mhz and did pretty well. Only downside is slow memory write speed which has had no real impact in the real life tests though.

The one I got was supposed to be brand new factory stock overrrun or something, back early this century, it was also locked at 60mhz intended for a P90... put a P100 chip on it though for trying it out, I only got 3 boots out of it while I tried various things then it went "dead" and refused to do anything.

Finally found a Lian Li case a new motherboard a few CPU coolers and a lifetime supply of jumpers

Groovy wrote:

Finally found a Lian Li case a new motherboard a few CPU coolers and a lifetime supply of jumpers https://i.imgur.com/FVvvkNP.jp […]
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Finally found a Lian Li case a new motherboard a few CPU coolers and a lifetime supply of jumpers

The Noctua NH-D14. I have 1 in use and 2 more new boxed ones. One of the best heatpipe coolers ever made.

I love Lian-Li cases as well.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

I bought a Gateway M685-E 17" Notebook off eBay for 42ish shipped.

That's barely retro considering the poor excuses for CPUs they put in ~$300 laptops now, like tablet class celerons that are atoms in disguise, same thing with the pentium label on that aren't any better. That can probably run rings around them with a bit of tweaking.

cyclone3d wrote:

The Noctua NH-D14. I have 1 in use and 2 more new boxed ones. One of the best heatpipe coolers ever made.

+1. Have one in my main rig right now. Love it.

BitWrangler wrote:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

I bought a Gateway M685-E 17" Notebook off eBay for 42ish shipped.

That's barely retro considering the poor excuses for CPUs they put in ~$300 laptops now, like tablet class celerons that are atoms in disguise, same thing with the pentium label on that aren't any better. That can probably run rings around them with a bit of tweaking.

It's the GPU that makes it retro IMO. I plan it to be a middle ground between my XPS with a 9800 Pro and my Elitebook with an HD3650. I prefer to play my games on hardware that's at least SOMEWHAT period correct.

BitWrangler wrote:

amadeus777999 wrote:

BitWrangler wrote:

Heh, I had to zoom in on that, Siemens Nixdorf Scenics also had a socket 5 board with virtually identical layout. I wouldn't really call it a high quality board though.

What are your experiences with similar board?
I judge it by PCB stability, how many capacitors, simplicity of design and performance. The board is currently running with 60 mhz and did pretty well. Only downside is slow memory write speed which has had no real impact in the real life tests though.

The one I got was supposed to be brand new factory stock overrrun or something, back early this century, it was also locked at 60mhz intended for a P90... put a P100 chip on it though for trying it out, I only got 3 boots out of it while I tried various things then it went "dead" and refused to do anything.

Sucks, but I wouldn't gauge its worth by a fallout sample. It is more than solid, "build"- and speedwise.

Went thrifting today, and I got the following:

1Maxtor 60GB Hard drive (possibly new)
2IBM Model M keyboard from 1987 (SDL to PS/2 missing)
3Adaptec CardPark PCMCIA kit for a desktop computer (new)

Funnily enough I got a Maxtor 80GB "maybe new" at a thrift a little while back. Diamondmax 10, didn't realise until I got it home, just thought AS bag would be taped up, realised it was sealed and label on it matched model number etc.

Well some fellow Vogoners told me that I should make a new post when new stuff arrived... So here it is. The Intergraph TD-220.

Funny story time: I had previously arranged with the seller to go to his town to pick it up (20km away) but instead I gave him an extra €5 and a google maps pointer and he came to my house instead since I was stuck with my 3 year old (kid, not computer) and my card doesn't have AC or air anything...
Well... he parked to the other side of the road, a good 300m away from my front door, calls me, tells me he is right on top of the google maps marker and so I get my 3 year old and walk off to find him. We exchange pleasantries, he opens up the trunk, and instantly I saw the Pentium Pro Inside sticker. I give him the money and as he was counting the coins (was all I had at the time) my kid says "I need to poop, like now". He hears it as well as I did, so I pick up 10kg of hardware under one arm, 15kg of meat on top of the other arm and I just say/yell "It's all there, I'll give you a call as soon as I can" as I dash to my house and as he stands there a bit flabbergasted. Happy ending tho, the money was all there, Kid didn't shit on his pants, and the computer got safely home.

Onwards to the pictures (click for full-res-hardware-porn):

First thing I noticed when he opened the trunk

At home:

The back, notice the lack of screws. It seems he went on a dust cleaning spree before delivering it...

The innards...

He even tried to clean inside the PSU it seems 😒 No wonder it's marked as not working...

So let's see what I got for €15...

A Pentium Pro 200

An yet unknown Intel 440FX Motherboard (with 128MB of EDO RAM not shown in this picture, also this was taken after cleaning)

Full of "cotton" (how do you call this in English?)

More "cotton"

Sadly, the floppy drive didn't survive my machine disassembly...

It had a very stuck screw, so I had to go borrow a drill...

All cleaned up...

It had a very stuck screw, so I had to go borrow a drill...

Got a Maxtor 9.1GB IDE HDD (I was hoping SCSI.. but oh well)

Matrox Millennium with RAM Expansion

Sound Blaster 16 PnP CT2980

And a couple more cards which weren't really worth photographing... A VIA-Based USB 2.0 2-port card and a Realtek 8139 Ethernet PCI Card.

Oh well, let's see what's wrong with this computer... *power button push*

* JAW DROP *

Let's see the BIOS...

Surely it won't boot...

And that's the story of how I got a Pentium Pro 200 Machine for 15€....

Few more pictures here: https://imgur.com/a/alJjI

luckybob wrote:

ill beat myself looking at the pics... *wink wink*

Have a good one, luckybob!

w00t, anything less than $50 is a great deal on those, considering the CPU is meant to have a gram of gold in it.

Sadly that's also one of the main reasons you don't get these as easily. In my 20 something years of fiddling with computers, this was the first one I saw, used and bought.

Sadly I forgot about taking a photo of the Riva 128ZX that I also got the other day...