liqmat wrote:

Your trip sounds way more exciting than my trip to the Windy City. Looking forward to your progress on this.

It was a fun road trip, apart from the couple times we almost hit the ditch. You know it's bad when the car starts to drift and all conversation stops and everyone is dead silent while letting off the gas and slowly nudging it back into the lane. It was also fun to ride a ferry to cross a lake to get to the seller. 😀 Then nerding with a couple friends over beers in the hotel room while poking at the computer. I didn't bring any tools or cables, but we found that the hotel television used the same power cable, which was honestly surprising.

I popped off both side panels, which both had slight signs of someone having removed before (a couple light gouges around the holes where the clips are and then one of the interior shields missing three screws and where there should be torx screws, everything was replaced with flathead screws). I've not dug any deeper than that.

Honestly, my next big project is still the Pentium Pro stuff. This just came up because I saw it for sale for dirt cheap and even with the seller not knowing if it still worked, it was worth it for the cost and how cheap the road trip was. (The cost was so low that even if I _knew_ it didn't work, I'd still have likely bought it.) In the end, the friends that came with chipped in enough for fuel and for the hotel room that the entire thing, including the computer itself, was less than what just the hotel would have cost on my own. So pretty reasonable. 😀

Thallanor wrote:

I popped off both side panels, which both had slight signs of someone having removed before (a couple light gouges around the holes where the clips are and then one of the interior shields missing three screws and where there should be torx screws, everything was replaced with flathead screws). I've not dug any deeper than that.

My least favorite thing to do is pop off clipped on plastic covers from vintage machines. The NEC Powermate Portable APC IV and a couple of VIC-20s come to mind. Plastics become brittle and on the NEC the keyboard needed some caps replaced, but some of the clips holding the keyboard together snapped right off even though I was extra careful. Luckily there were also screws that held everything solid in place without all the clips intact. The VIC-20s and early C64 models tend to lose their plastic screw threads when you first unscrew them from the mounting poles of the case due to being brittle. Then you have the opposite, a Kaypro 4/83 I cleaned up which had all metal parts and was built like a tank. One of the more enjoyable systems I've worked on.

dionb wrote:

meljor wrote:

[...] […]
Show full quote

[...]

Nothing wrong with having some luck 😎

[...]

On the other hand Asus boards are the ones I collect and use the most in my builds but none of my s7 and ss7 Asus boards boot with a tillamook with working cache, even after the mod.
So it wouldbe awesome to have that board and even greater if that one does work with a Tillamook with working L2 (with or without mod).

Some luck, yes, but not all of it. The board works (despite the PSU in the system it was in dying after three boots...), booting happily into Win98SE with the K6/266. No such luck with the Tillamook though, complete 00 on POST card.

Can't be sure who's to blame here, as I've never tested this Tillamook before now, so can't be certain it works at all... will have to look at what it does in say a P5A to know what this 00 means.

Tillamook will not post on a p5a or p5a-b, not even a Modded cpu works. Ga-5aa en Ga-5ax gigabyte boards do work so maybe you have one of those to check the cpu (working L2 only with a modded cpu on these boards). Or a mvp3 based board as most of these do at least post with a Tillamook...

But a working board is good enough, Tillamook compatibility would just be a bonus.

Arctic wrote:

if you are talking about the voodoo magazines, could someone please upload them as a pdf? Or could you send me a copy too? I am searching for over 10 years nlw and couldnt even find an ebook yet

thank you 😀

Haha yep those 😀 If I get ahold of them I'll def scan in for the archives at Retromags

That and the elusive Edge Magazine #0

liqmat wrote:

My least favorite thing to do is pop off clipped on plastic covers from vintage machines. The NEC Powermate Portable APC IV and a couple of VIC-20s come to mind. Plastics become brittle and on the NEC the keyboard needed some caps replaced, but some of the clips holding the keyboard together snapped right off even though I was extra careful.

That is what I was concerned about too. Fortunately, the Compaq has enough give that I was able to actually just use my hands to push the plastic in a little bit to pop the clips and then it lifted off. If it became any more difficult, I had to seriously weigh the pros and cons of the various means to open it up without breaking it. My old Tandy was more difficult to get into and I was expecting clips to break. Fortunately, none did.

Bought this 5V -> 3.3V voltage adaptor.

Finally I can install a DX4-100 in my favourite 5V-only 486 motherboard. The BIOS reports it as DX-50, but works fine.

mpe wrote:

Bought this 5V -> 3.3V voltage adaptor.

Finally I can install a DX4-100 in my favourite 5V-only 486 motherboard. The BIOS reports it as DX-50, but works fine.

DSC_7561.jpg

Where did you find that ?

mpe wrote:

Bought this 5V -> 3.3V voltage adaptor.

Finally I can install a DX4-100 in my favourite 5V-only 486 motherboard. The BIOS reports it as DX-50, but works fine.

DSC_7561.jpg

The alternative is to buy an Intel Overdrive CPU http://www.cpu-collection.de/?tn=0&l0=co&l1=I … =i486+OverDrive

SpectriaForce wrote:

mpe wrote:

Bought this 5V -> 3.3V voltage adaptor.

Finally I can install a DX4-100 in my favourite 5V-only 486 motherboard. The BIOS reports it as DX-50, but works fine.

DSC_7561.jpg

The alternative is to buy an Intel Overdrive CPU http://www.cpu-collection.de/?tn=0&l0=co&l1=I … =i486+OverDrive

Or an AMD or Cyrix 5x86 that are meant to work in both 5v only and newer 486 motherboards.

got it cheap from a local seller with a free DX4 that was actually dead.

I know about overdrives. I actually own a DX4ODPR75. The beauty of this is that it can convert a range of 3.3-3.45V CPUs, incl. potentially AMD DX4-120 or 5x86 P75 or DX2 variants with WB cache.

The fastest dual-voltage AMD chip is DX2-80 as far as I know.

meljor wrote:

[...]

Tillamook will not post on a p5a or p5a-b, not even a Modded cpu works. Ga-5aa en Ga-5ax gigabyte boards do work so maybe you have one of those to check the cpu (working L2 only with a modded cpu on these boards). Or a mvp3 based board as most of these do at least post with a Tillamook...

But a working board is good enough, Tillamook compatibility would just be a bonus.

I'm a bit new to the Tillamook stuff, bought one but never looked into it. Indeed it doesn't POST on my P5A, but it does on an MSI MS-5158 (i430TX) board. Not correctly identified of course, but definitely working (without L2). I did need to raise VCore to 2.2V for that, at 2.0V it hung half way through POST (according to the legend on the CPU it wants 1.9V...).

So the CPU works which means the SP98AGP-X is the weakest link, it certainly doesn't boot an unmodded Tillamook. I'll play around with the K6-3+ on it, when I bore of that I'll message you 😉

Edit: reading up a bit on Tillamook, I see why SiS is interesting. I have a SiS 530-based board here too, will see what that does too when I have time.

mpe wrote:

Bought this 5V -> 3.3V voltage adaptor.

Finally I can install a DX4-100 in my favourite 5V-only 486 motherboard. The BIOS reports it as DX-50, but works fine.

DSC_7561.jpg

I have the same one.
Note that AMD 486 DX4 SV8B and AMD 486 DX4 NV8T use different jumpers to set their multiplier.

I use it in a 50 MHz EISA board with a 5x86 133 @ 50x3 and L1 at write through.

cyclone3d wrote:

SpectriaForce wrote:

mpe wrote:

Bought this 5V -> 3.3V voltage adaptor.

Finally I can install a DX4-100 in my favourite 5V-only 486 motherboard. The BIOS reports it as DX-50, but works fine.

DSC_7561.jpg

The alternative is to buy an Intel Overdrive CPU http://www.cpu-collection.de/?tn=0&l0=co&l1=I … =i486+OverDrive

Or an AMD or Cyrix 5x86 that are meant to work in both 5v only and newer 486 motherboards.

So I have some NOS 486 motherboards that only support 5v.
So I have some 50mhz Intel 486 CPU’s
But it would be nice if I could go faster at least 66mhz. Or 100mhz.

What CPU alternatives are there available ?
Can you list the best performance options ?

Another fine specimen...... GeForce2 Ultra 64mb(DELL)

Intel486dx33 wrote:

So I have some NOS 486 motherboards that only support 5v. So I have some 50mhz Intel 486 CPU’s But it would be nice if I could g […]
Show full quote

So I have some NOS 486 motherboards that only support 5v.
So I have some 50mhz Intel 486 CPU’s
But it would be nice if I could go faster at least 66mhz. Or 100mhz.

What CPU alternatives are there available ?
Can you list the best performance options ?

We are hijacking the thread a bit IMHO. Perhaps start a new topic? But briefly:

Basically, without using a converter such as the one above, you can have:
- all desktop Intel & AMD 486 cpu's up to DX-2 66 MHz with exception of AMD WB Enhanced DX2-66 and some mobile variants
- DX4 overdrives (75 MHz & 100 MHz)
- AMD DX2-80 or Cyrix DX2-80 is most likely the fastest non-overdrive 486 CPU to support 5V.
+ potentially some Cyrix chips and its derivatives (IBM, SGS, TI). I am not that familiar with them and often there are some issues.

more items found in my boxes with old stuff, this is going to be part of my pentium 200mmx build... I hope it fits the time...

btw - is this genuine or any fake version / clone of real voodoo? i am confused there is no nice logos of voodoo etc...

I had promised myself to not buy more Slot-1 stuff, I was actually selling some of mine off, but I could not pass up on a Slot-1 mATX with onboard Matrox G200 and Crystal CS4280, even if it was an HP OEM board.

Also, my Adlib clone PCB and 2x16MB FPM-30 RAM for my AWE32 are finally in my hands:

Just received this old beast :

I tested that Seagate ST412 with a 486 and my original 5160 MFM controller and it works flawlessly (not even a single bad sector found !) Very cool 😁

nice! where did you find this relic?

I stumbled upon a WD 8-bit MFM controller card the other day in my pool of parts, and I thought I could use it do drive my Kalok MFM HDD in my XT. But no luck, I guess it will only work with these ST-412 drives or similar...

Deksor wrote:

I tested that Seagate ST412 with a 486 and my original 5160 MFM controller and it works flawlessly (not even a single bad sector found !) Very cool 😁

Interesting, I have never tried that. Does it also get recognized in Windows?

Btw, you can also use an IBM MDA card in a later x86 board.