It's amazing to see ISA, VLB, and PCI on a 486 motherboard

Apparently VLB is linked directly to a CPU too:

Mmm...was given an IBM Thinkpad 600E on Sunday, needs the CMOS Battery replaced, and the BIOS screen has a weird flying bird cursor, and came with an original Windows XP on it from 2002, which was nice, but I much prefer SP3, so installed that, works perfectly, just need ethernet, so it will likely be cardbus PCMCIA rather than USB to NIC through the single USB 1 socket.

^XP on a 600E? I sure hope it was upgraded from its stock ~64MB of memory.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

It's amazing to see ISA, VLB, and PCI on a 486 motherboard

Apparently VLB is linked directly to a CPU too:

ASUS PIV-486SP3 back.jpg

Interesting. Another thing that's mind blowing is the PS/2 mouse port connection on the board that'll allow you to hook up a PS/2 mouse instead of the serial mouse, and possibly you can solder on a PS/2 port in place of the connector as well (don't know if the PS/2 mouse connector is programmed for the board, but it wouldn't hurt to test it).

bjwil1991 wrote:

[...]

Interesting. Another thing that's mind blowing is the PS/2 mouse port connection on the board that'll allow you to hook up a PS/2 mouse instead of the serial mouse, and possibly you can solder on a PS/2 port in place of the connector as well (don't know if the PS/2 mouse connector is programmed for the board, but it wouldn't hurt to test it).

This is a late 1995 board design, one of the last mainstream 486 boards, with near enough feature parity with an early i430FX (or more relevantly given the chipset vendor: SiS5501) board (and added VLB) - by then PS/2 was by no means a rarity. The only "mind-blowing" thing is the how late Asus was still making high-end (as opposed to absolutely minimal budget) 486 boards. This is a contemporary of the P55TP4XE (which also featured a PS/2 port 😉 )

All these 486 boards remind me that I got this in the mail earlier in the month and forgot to post it:

Apparently PCPartner 486CV, no idea if it's a good board or not, but I guess it will enable me to build a decent high end 486 if the VLB card I bought ends up never reaching me (lost in mail for 2 months now 🙁 )

Purchased a Sony Vaio PCV-MXS20 supposedly in mint condition from an avid Sony collector (also worked for Sony) today on Ebay.. without seeing any pictures, 🤣. We'll see how it is once it arrives. With Ebay bucks and 10% cash back, I nabbed it for under $200 (US), so I figured it was worth the gamble if it pans out. I spoke with the seller thoroughly before the purchase (he's in in mid 70's) The Minidisc drive, front panel LCD, and proprietary amplifier board are in working condition from what he says, with the OS loaded to factory new condition. I remember seeing these computers brand new at Circuit City for over $3000. 😜

Original listing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/MINTSONY-VAIO-PCV-MX … 353.m1438.l2649

Wireless wrote:

Mmm...was given an IBM Thinkpad 600E on Sunday, needs the CMOS Battery replaced, and the BIOS screen has a weird flying bird cursor, and came with an original Windows XP on it from 2002, which was nice, but I much prefer SP3, so installed that, works perfectly, just need ethernet, so it will likely be cardbus PCMCIA rather than USB to NIC through the single USB 1 socket.

These are great little laptops - how is the rubbery coating on the outside? On mine, it's all turned into a sticky mess.

You can replace the Mini PCI modem with a Mini PCI wireless card if you need wireless. Also you can get the Xircom Realport cardbus NIC / Modem cards very cheap now, those work well on the 600 series.

Wiretap: That's really cool, I love the weird Sony Vaio desktops (while they were still sort of ATX format), with that one looking especially unique

Today I got a large, well packed and very heavy parcel, containing what I think is a near ideal AT case (with the rest of the computer included):

LED MHz displayer in green and Baby AT form factor 😀

This PC seems pretty untouched since maybe 1996, though it came with no hard drive / IDE cables, there's not too much dust and no rust - very different from my recent 486 purchase.

It reminds me of my family's old Cyrix 5x86 PC in terms of design / layout, the lack of a PS2 mouse port is annoying

Buried within is a PCPartner MB520N Socket 7 430VX
Pentium 166MMX
48MB of EDO RAMs
8x CD-Rom drive (I like the noise of this, much quieter than a later/more modern drive)
Matrox Mystique 4MB
Creative Sound Blaster 16 - CT2900 with a YMF289 OPL3 chip 😀

I'm not quite sure what to do with it just yet, I bought the PC to use the case for my SS7 build, but it seems a shame to mess it up - though I am still upset about the pretend turbo button.
With this though, I really need to stop buying / finding computers for a bit, I'm running out of space.

Thermalwrong wrote:

Today I got a large, well packed and very heavy parcel, containing what I think is a near ideal AT case (with the rest of the co […]
Show full quote

Today I got a large, well packed and very heavy parcel, containing what I think is a near ideal AT case (with the rest of the computer included):

IMG_9729 (Custom).jpeg

LED MHz displayer in green and Baby AT form factor 😀

IMG_9739crop.jpg

This PC seems pretty untouched since maybe 1996, though it came with no hard drive / IDE cables, there's not too much dust and no rust - very different from my recent 486 purchase.

IMG_9745crop.jpg

It reminds me of my family's old Cyrix 5x86 PC in terms of design / layout, the lack of a PS2 mouse port is annoying

IMG_9735 (Custom).jpeg

Buried within is a PCPartner MB520N Socket 7 430VX
Pentium 166MMX
48MB of EDO RAMs
8x CD-Rom drive (I like the noise of this, much quieter than a later/more modern drive)
Matrox Mystique 4MB
Creative Sound Blaster 16 - CT2900 with a YMF289 OPL3 chip 😀

I'm not quite sure what to do with it just yet, I bought the PC to use the case for my SS7 build, but it seems a shame to mess it up - though I am still upset about the pretend turbo button.
With this though, I really need to stop buying / finding computers for a bit, I'm running out of space.

That's the more uncommon 4MB version of the Matrox Mystique. That's a good bonus right there. There are a few games that specifically have a Mystique mode that will only function with 4MB.

Thermalwrong wrote:

Today I got a large, well packed and very heavy parcel, containing what I think is a near ideal AT case (with the rest of the computer included).

I'm not quite sure what to do with it just yet, I bought the PC to use the case for my SS7 build, but it seems a shame to mess it up - though I am still upset about the pretend turbo button.
With this though, I really need to stop buying / finding computers for a bit, I'm running out of space.

I got the same case I think 😀

Yup:

"Gotta stop buying hardware", he said. "I have everything I need", he said. Yeah, right.

AWE32 became my favourite sound card/wavetable device as soon as I added 32MB RAM to it. I love EMU soundfonts, I really think this card just looks very cool and it's just so feature packed that it's fun to mess with. However, until now I only had two CT3990s and a CT3670.

This here is CT3900. It's non-PnP, has CT1747 for true OPL3 and it should have no more bugs than my "best" SB16, the CT2230. At the same time it should be less noisy than the original CT2760 revision which is why I often hear people on Vogons call CT3900 "the best" AWE32.

Gotta wait till evening to test it on my Socket 7, though. Hope everything works well.

No pics, but I have a couple of unopened PC Symphony adlib clones on the way. I'll probably keep one and sell the other.
I already have a boxed one, but the box is in really, really bad shape. I also have another loose one that I got from the same place I just bought the last two unopened ones from. The PC Symphony was the first sound card I ever had so that is part of the reason I got another.. and then found a few more on accident.

@Batyra - Pretty sure this is one of the adlib clones you have marked on your collection site as 8 bit clone #2.. but I will verify once I pull out one of my current cards again.

Also have some more unknown ISA sound cards on the way from the same place. Think I have finally cleared them out of all their ISA sound cards.

jheronimus wrote:

"Gotta stop buying hardware", he said. "I have everything I need", he said. Yeah, right. […]
Show full quote

"Gotta stop buying hardware", he said. "I have everything I need", he said. Yeah, right.

AWE32 became my favourite sound card/wavetable device as soon as I added 32MB RAM to it. I love EMU soundfonts, I really think this card just looks very cool and it's just so feature packed that it's fun to mess with. However, until now I only had two CT3990s and a CT3670.

This here is CT3900. It's non-PnP, has CT1747 for true OPL3 and it should have no more bugs than my "best" SB16, the CT2230. At the same time it should be less noisy than the original CT2760 revision which is why I often hear people on Vogons call CT3900 "the best" AWE32.

Gotta wait till evening to test it on my Socket 7, though. Hope everything works well.

If you use just pure dos, it isnt better than the ct3910.

arncht wrote:

jheronimus wrote:

"Gotta stop buying hardware", he said. "I have everything I need", he said. Yeah, right. […]
Show full quote

"Gotta stop buying hardware", he said. "I have everything I need", he said. Yeah, right.

AWE32 became my favourite sound card/wavetable device as soon as I added 32MB RAM to it. I love EMU soundfonts, I really think this card just looks very cool and it's just so feature packed that it's fun to mess with. However, until now I only had two CT3990s and a CT3670.

This here is CT3900. It's non-PnP, has CT1747 for true OPL3 and it should have no more bugs than my "best" SB16, the CT2230. At the same time it should be less noisy than the original CT2760 revision which is why I often hear people on Vogons call CT3900 "the best" AWE32.

Gotta wait till evening to test it on my Socket 7, though. Hope everything works well.

If you use just pure dos, it isnt better than the ct3910.

I'm using it in Win9x, though, so I do need RAM. I've noticed later that the SIMM sockets got a bit damaged during transportation, though 🙁

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

That's the more uncommon 4MB version of the Matrox Mystique. That's a good bonus right there. There are a few games that specifically have a Mystique mode that will only function with 4MB.

Cool, thanks for spotting it, I didn't notice that, I seem to recall some games having acceleration with the Matrox Mystique that I had to stick with software mode for 😁 It looks like that may have been destruction derby 2. Mechwarrior 2 looks like it would look quite good on this card as well, I'll have to give that a go.

Murugan wrote:

I got the same case I think 😀

Yup:

It is the same case 😀 though my one needs a clean and is missing the keylock (oh no!) - I thought the writing of "Turbo" and "Reset" etc would bother me but I'm too charmed by the fact that it has a turbo button and LCD speed indicator to mind.

It arrived today.. the Sony Vaio PCV-MXS20. Exterior is in excellent shape, and the interior is just a little dusty. It has the full OEM factory load on it, untouched. All components are working, and it looks like the Minidisc drive was replaced in 2013 with a new one. The original owner told me he has had it in storage since around that time. This should be a great collector's item in the future. It has an upgraded 200GB hard drive, and upgraded to 1GB of RAM.

^Wow, weird. Is the MD drive hooked up using IDE? Or some sort of proprietary interface? Somehow I imagine it being attached to one of the USB headers on the motherboard.

Kinda looks like the minidisc setup is a self contained unit where you can play them without having to use any sort of software on the computer. Is that what the amp is for as well?

The minidisc drive goes to a controller that's attached to the bottom of it, which then connects to a USB header on the motherboard. It's essentially like a portable NetMD drive that's inside the PC. It looks like it also has some other direct digital I/O which I haven't traced down yet -- it either goes to the rear of the PC, the integrated amp, or connects directly for SPDIF to the onboard sound. I am still waiting on some new Minidiscs to arrive, so I don't quite know how it works yet. I do know that you use the Sony Sonicstage software to transfer music and play it back.