dionb wrote:

stalk3r wrote:

brostenen wrote:

Absolutely no antistatic/ESR protection at all.

I receive hardware wrapped in newspaper pretty often. It's common around here.

Actually newspaper is pretty good - its electrical characteristics are almost exactly the same as antistatic bags (i.e. it conducts very, very badly, but nonzero - so ESD-safe) and a few layers of it give better mechanical protection than a bag.

Compared to some of the other packaging I sometimes see, newspaper is one of my favorites.

I'm gonna call bs on this. But i'd wager is is better than plain styrofoam (not much of a competition there, bth)

I tell non-business shippers to use aluminum foil. 100% sure to short all pins together, thus preventing esd from penetrating the chip.

Picked up a bunch of PCI sound cards today, but managed to find these four ISA sound cards. The top one I am unfamiliar with. It has a memory slot much like the AWE cards, but does this allow it to use Soundfonts as well? Maybe some of you are familiar with this model. Cheers.

Update: Apparently the top card is this: Guillemot Maxi Sound home studio 64 pro - no music in pure DOS and Luckybob informed me the bottom card is some type of GUS model.

liqmat wrote:

Picked up a bunch of PCI sound cards today, but managed to find these four ISA sound cards. The top one I am unfamiliar with. It has a memory slot much like the AWE cards, but does this allow it to use Soundfonts as well? Maybe some of you are familiar with this model. Cheers.

I think that top card is a Guillemot Maxi Sound.

Only thing I've bought recently worth posting, a sealed Quadro I card. Closest thing I'll probably find to a boxed GF256

liqmat wrote:

Picked up a bunch of PCI sound cards today, but managed to find these four ISA sound cards. The top one I am unfamiliar with. It has a memory slot much like the AWE cards, but does this allow it to use Soundfonts as well? Maybe some of you are familiar with this model. Cheers.

sound.jpg

Update: Apparently the top card is this: Guillemot Maxi Sound home studio 64 pro - no music in pure DOS and Luckybob informed me the bottom card is some type of GUS model.

That is a very nice card! There is some more info about it, as well as some recordings in this thread: My Wavetable Sample Thread

*EDIT* It is an ESS Audiodrive with a very nice DREAM wavetable synth built in. Apparently it loads samples into the 4MB of memory by default, but it can be expanded to 20MB with a 16MB SIMM installed.

Ozzuneoj wrote:

liqmat wrote:

Picked up a bunch of PCI sound cards today, but managed to find these four ISA sound cards. The top one I am unfamiliar with. It has a memory slot much like the AWE cards, but does this allow it to use Soundfonts as well? Maybe some of you are familiar with this model. Cheers.

sound.jpg

Update: Apparently the top card is this: Guillemot Maxi Sound home studio 64 pro - no music in pure DOS and Luckybob informed me the bottom card is some type of GUS model.

That is a very nice card! There is some more info about it, as well as some recordings in this thread: My Wavetable Sample Thread

It isn't a GUS variant. It is an ESS Audiodrive with a very nice DREAM wavetable synth built in. Apparently it loads samples into the 4MB of memory by default, but it can be expanded to 20MB with a 16MB SIMM installed.

I guess the fourth card down is a GUS variant from STB from what I have been reading. Not familiar with it but this:

STB Ultrasound 32 Pro (Compaq Interwave sound card) - The comprehensive guide

Mine looks like a cut down version of that? Obviously missing the memory slot.

Doh, I misread that. Sorry!

Yeah, the card at the bottom is an Interwave of some kind, which is a GUS variant. 😀

I was so distracted by the super-nice DREAM synth card at the top that I didn't even notice the Interwave at the bottom. In that lot you have two very uncommon and quite valuable cards, as well as two more common but still useful cards. The Packard Bell is actually a rebadged Aztech Sound Galaxy Nova 16 Extra, which is a pretty decent card as far as I can tell. The CT2260 is one of the few examples of a Vibra card with a real OPL3, which makes it neat.

Ozzuneoj wrote:

Doh, I misread that. Sorry!

Yeah, the card at the bottom is an Interwave of some kind, which is a GUS variant. 😀

I was so distracted by the super-nice DREAM synth card at the top that I didn't even notice the Interwave at the bottom. In that lot you have two very uncommon and quite valuable cards, as well as two more common but still useful cards. The Packard Bell is actually a rebadged Aztech Sound Galaxy Nova 16 Extra, which is a pretty decent card as far as I can tell. The CT2260 is one of the few examples of a Vibra card with a real OPL3, which makes it neat.

Wow, thanks for the info. I am probably pretty lame, but honestly like my Yamaha Audician 32 Plus with a DreamBlaster Synth S1 daughterboard. Easy to setup and they just work, but I'll definitely take the Maxi Sound card for a spin and see what she can do.

Arctic wrote:

Foambox wrote:

Artex wrote:

Same! Real nice!

Hey Artex, I'm super interested in your Voodoo mags but can't seem to PM (maybe from new account?). I know this isn't exactly the thread / place for it but let me know if there's a way to get in touch to talk more, thanks!

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 😀

There are some on eBay right now if you are interested!

Do. Not. Bid.

hard1k wrote:

Do. Not. Bid.

I am suddenly compelled to bid on something that I haven't even heard of until now.

liqmat wrote:

Picked up a bunch of PCI sound cards today, but managed to find these four ISA sound cards. The top one I am unfamiliar with. It has a memory slot much like the AWE cards, but does this allow it to use Soundfonts as well? Maybe some of you are familiar with this model. Cheers.

sound.jpg

Update: Apparently the top card is this: Guillemot Maxi Sound home studio 64 pro - no music in pure DOS and Luckybob informed me the bottom card is some type of GUS model.

Thats what I need is an AMD InterWave sound card for an All AMD 486 build.

Picked up this beaut today, it was listed practically for free, but no one seemed to care...until I found it! It was used in a lab of a hospital but they changed to LCDs and it was shelved for 10 years.

That's a sharp looking monitor. How is the picture?

Today I received this:

liqmat wrote:

That's a sharp looking monitor. How is the picture?

Like new. The tube has only 4000 hours on it. (equals to 1.5 years at 8 hrs/day)

Salient wrote:

Just won this from an ebay auction for a reasonable price (90GBP): […]
Show full quote

Just won this from an ebay auction for a reasonable price (90GBP):

Nice. I had my eyes on it but somehow didn't bid in time. How are you liking it so far?

liqmat wrote:

Picked up a bunch of PCI sound cards today, but managed to find these four ISA sound cards. The top one I am unfamiliar with. It has a memory slot much like the AWE cards, but does this allow it to use Soundfonts as well? Maybe some of you are familiar with this model. Cheers.

sound.jpg

Update: Apparently the top card is this: Guillemot Maxi Sound home studio 64 pro - no music in pure DOS and Luckybob informed me the bottom card is some type of GUS model.

The top card is a Guillemot Maxi Sound 64 - I have the same card in my dos machine - it has a pretty good on board midi synth and the ESS sound chip's SB compatibility is great. The midi synth also works in DOS. Nice find!

Regarding the PM's you sent, I can't use the feature yet. I'll have to rack up some more posts.

luckybob wrote:

dionb wrote:

Actually newspaper is pretty good - its electrical characteristics are almost exactly the same as antistatic bags (i.e. it conducts very, very badly, but nonzero - so ESD-safe) and a few layers of it give better mechanical protection than a bag.

Compared to some of the other packaging I sometimes see, newspaper is one of my favorites.

I'm gonna call bs on this. But i'd wager is is better than plain styrofoam (not much of a competition there, bth)

Compared to plain styrofoam a woolen jumper woundn't even sound too bad. But why BS? The job of antistatic bags is to avoid any static charge buildup by (very slowly) leaking charge, and at the same time equalizing charges by conducting at least something. That's not rocket science, it's just a very high but very much not infinite resistance. Essentially antistatic bags are just reliably, reproducibly conducting through their material, while slowly leaking charge to ensure that whatever potential is present inside is the same as outside.

Newspaper isn't reliable or reproducible, but it essentially does the same. It beats any form of (non-conductive) plastic packaging, which unfortunately seems the norm.

I tell non-business shippers to use aluminum foil. 100% sure to short all pins together, thus preventing esd from penetrating the chip.

Assuming the aluminium foil doesn't tear. But yes, full conductivity - so essentially a faraday cage - is another approach that can work.

Edit:
Got my new toys working today

Puretek PT-2037, aka UMC UM85C418F-GP VLB board. Replaces my crappy UM85C408AF ISA VGA board in my UMC build. So far so good, it improves 3DBench scoers from 26.3 to 37.0. No FDD though, so I still need my multi-I/O card for that.

dionb wrote:

luckybob wrote:

dionb wrote:

Actually newspaper is pretty good - its electrical characteristics are almost exactly the same as antistatic bags (i.e. it conducts very, very badly, but nonzero - so ESD-safe) and a few layers of it give better mechanical protection than a bag.

I'm gonna call bs on this. But i'd wager is is better than plain styrofoam (not much of a competition there, bth)

Styrofoam is a real MOS killer. Rub two styro pieces in the dark and watch the fireworks yourself.

Newspaper is somewhat conductive, which styrofoam is not.
For this reason it is very hard to impossible to produce a plastics-style static electricity lightshow using newspaper.
It also makes using silica bags unnecessary.
(Of course, plastics-laminated or shiny-color-printed paper is no "newspaper".)

Aluminium foil can be very dangerous.
Just a slight piece of foil overlooked flying through a computer can cause the weirdest effects, if it doesn't directly short and shoot the system. For this reason I never recommend this.