Turbo -> wrote:

Bought this lot a few days ago for 10 EUR. Nothing tested though. Are there any highlights? I belive that Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 AGP graphics card (missing fan) is probably a keeper (If it works)...

That Adaptec ISA SCSI/floppy controller is a keeper my friend.

Hi guys. I mentioned this PC a few weeks ago. Now it arrived about 20 mins ago, now I am opening it. Sorry for the quality of pics, I am so excited. Its an AMD 386, Trident 9000B graphics, Quantum HDD . So the Varta is leaked as always, but not too bad. Will post photos after cleaning.

UPDATE removed the battery cleaned a bit. Traces seem to be okay, can test only tomorrow, now I must go to work...

Got some CPUs on auction. I think I did rather well. Three Pentium Pros ( 2x 200/256 & 1x 180/256), two slot 1 Pentium 3 450, one DX4 75 Overdrive and two mystery 486 cpus.
I bid on the Pentium pros because of the 180, didn't have that one. And it keeps them away from scrappers.
The Slot 1s where 1 buck each as was the mystery 486s. The Overdrive went for 3 bucks. Works for me 😁

And for the mystery 486s? One was a regular DX-33, nothing special. The other one however turned out to be a DX2-66 SX955, SL-enhanced and write-back, I had not expected that. Isn't it a rather rare one?

The SX955 isn't really that rare. I picked one up a few months back for my 486 build from an Amazon seller who had 10+ new old stock. I think I paid around $15 for it.

Vegge wrote:

And it keeps them away from scrappers.

nice... unfortunately the high "scrap" value makes them always get expensive :\
I've been watching a bunch of them but they all got more expensive than I was willing to spend... maybe wait a bit and I'm gonna buy one of those scrap boxes again and hope the pins aren't too bad like last time I bought one... just spent too much lately 😵

The thing is, the scrap value of these is very low. Yes, they are gold-plated, but the amount of gold is so low that last time I checked it was in the range of about 3€. On the other hand, they are pricey but not rare. The really rare one is the black 200 MHz version with 1 MB cache. That one is not gold-plated and has literally no scrap value, but still it's much harder to find and much more expensive than the gold-plated ones. "Pricey" is also a matter of opinion. You can get them for about 40 bucks. A socket 2/3 Pentium Overdrive sets you back around 50+ bucks already. A Cyrix 5x86 even more. So 40 bucks for such a nice CPU isn't really that expensive.

btw, I've never searched for them but still managed to have three in my collection (2x 180 MHz, 1x 200 MHz).

I'm sure I will have to save one or two of them from the scrappers some day 😀

Crank9000 wrote:

Hamby wrote:

So the other day I was looking to get an SC-55 or a second MT-32 (I love my MT-32...) And I came across a little thing called a […]
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So the other day I was looking to get an SC-55 or a second MT-32 (I love my MT-32...)
And I came across a little thing called a Roland "PMA-5".
Did some research... it's like an SC-55 only newer. Also smaller and portable.

The MT-32 and SC-55 were hovering between $150 and $250 on ebay. plus shipping.
There were some PMA-5s around $100...
saw one for $60... and won the auction.

Been playing with it today. It works like my MT-32 only it's GM/GS compatible.

It works off of ac adapter or 6 AA batteries.

How similar does it sound compared to SC-55 and especially MT-32? I've been under the impression the MT-32 compatibility on SC-55 isn't fantastic and one really should have both.

I can't compare it to the SC-55, but it sounds great. I have it connected to a generic Alsa sound card. As for compatibility... well it sounds okay on games like Space Quest 3 & 5, but it at times sounds really bad in Wing Commander. I haven't learned yet how to invoke MT-32 compatibility mode. But as I learn more I'll post messages about it. There are some interesting videos on it on YouTube, including a "video manual" from the 90s. In one video, a guy composes an entire song just on the PMA-5.

Down side; this one didn't come with a stylus, but I put a bit of velcro on an old phone stylus and it stays in the holder.
The worrisome part is that the MIDI-in jack is loose; at some point I'm going to have to open it up and re-secure it. The plug fits in tightly, but the socket itself wiggles. The scary part about that for me will be opening the case without breaking it. I figure if nothing else I can re-secure the jack with hot glue. But I'm guessing it's just loose screws.

I spent yesterday afternoon listening to midi files on it, and they do sound better than they did just off the sound card (I have it plugged into a Linux PC). I have a Win7 PC sitting next to this one, and I think I'll try a sound comparison between the Linux/PMA-5 and Win7 on the built-in audio. I need to order a USB-MIDI cable so I can connect it to my Win7 machine, too.

I've also begun looking for a DB9F-3 cable; basically rs232 at one end and mini-din at the other.

PcBytes wrote:

Hamby wrote:

Got my backup Toshiba T5200 laptop today. […]
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Got my backup Toshiba T5200 laptop today.

I already had one that I souped up with a 486, CF 4gb drive, sound card, etc.
But I was afraid to mess with it in case I broke it. Now I have a backup. 😀

T5200-02_01.jpg

T5200-02_02.jpg

The CMOS battery is dead, of course, but once I got through that it fired right up. 2mb ram, 100mb HD. Has an old ethernet card with rj45 and aux ports.
Later I'll pull the HD and the CMOS battery for safety's sake.

Is it possible to replace the LCD with a color one? Or does the video chip run in B/W by default?

The chip is full-color. I think it only has 256k of video ram, however. But it has an external monitor jack and will display vga color. It is limited to 16 shades of orange on the internal display (which is way better than the EGA 4 shades of orange on the Compaq Portable III, for example). I *think* there is a rare LCD version, grayscale, and I vaguely remember someone putting a color display in his.

There's a thread on the T5200 here on Vogons. Has quite a bit of info discussed.

OldCat wrote:

Hamby wrote:

Got my backup Toshiba T5200 laptop today.

It's quite beaten up, but I'm still jealous. Had to sell mine during dry spell and regret it ever since. Considering re-buying one, but they seem to have gotten quite expensive. Or maybe I am just unlucky?

No, they have gotten expensive. They generally run $150US and up. I got this one for $57US as a steal ($40 shipping, but that's almost inevitable). This one started out at $25, and when I saw the pics of it actually working I started following it. I didn't expect to win the auction, but I didn't have much competition.

I shopped for years before breaking down and spending nearly $200 for one. And I've followed T5200s on ebay since then, for about a year now, before this one came up.

So getting one cheap is rare, but can be done.

Upgrading the HD to a 4gb CF card required someone to burn new roms for me, btw.

Got this today:
MSI 865PE NEO2P
Tested, working. It come with a 40gig HDD, cant boot the win7 which is installed. I think this will be in my new XP gaming PC if I can find a good priced 512Mb graphics card . Photo is from internet.

more dual CPU goodies 😀

I feel the postman is slowly starting to think I'm crazy 🤣
3 more big boxes arrived, these are going to come in very handy.
both cases date to around 2002 from what I found.
edit: just found a review of the CM case from 2001, this only gets better 😀

The 6BXD might need a recap, as I'm seeing badcaps over the RAM slots.

Picked up this Incredibly cheap Epox EP-D3VA Dual Socket 370 Board. Board came with 256mb 133 and a Sweet 100fsb 800mhz PIII CPU. Gonna need a recap but the board posted without issue.

PcBytes wrote:

The 6BXD might need a recap, as I'm seeing badcaps over the RAM slots.

you're right, there's a few bulging caps, I spotted 4 all around the board by just glancing over... I need to take inventory of all my boards some day so I can order caps for all the ones that need replacement in bulk.

Picked this up for $10 at the local rural Goodwill of all the fucking places.

It's complete, right down to the driver CDs and cables (which are COMPLETELY proprietary by the way).
Seems to be worth about $200 boxed and complete like this, so this is one of my better local finds.
I'm honestly not sure what I'm going to do with this thing. The external IO box is just ridiculous and bulky for my retro
gaming needs. I might try to trade it for something more functional.

got another box with old CD drives today, they're all nice for old builds but these were the main reason I got it:

I never got to play with caddy drives back in the day, my first cd-rom in 1996 I believe was already a dual or quad speed mitsumi tray drive.
it seems really impractical at first, but that's what I like about them, it's just so quirky and different, those are definitely going in some builds 😀

the toshiba is from 1996 and the yamaha from 1998, can't find a date on the NEC drive unfortunately.

The NEC should be a MultiSpin 4x, which is from around 1994/5.

I collect old cd-rom drives as well. The ones I own are quite a bit older, however. Mostly 1990-1992.

derSammler wrote:

The NEC should be a MultiSpin 4x, which is from around 1994/5.

I collect old cd-rom drives as well. The ones I own are quite a bit older, however. Mostly 1990-1992.

thanks, I was watching an external philips top loader from 1991 but that ended up more expensive than what I paid for the whole lot of 11 drives including the caddies, there are some from 1995 in there though, I'd love to have the mitsumi single speed top loader drive, but that's also too pricey.

The oldest CD-ROM drive I own is a Panasonic/Creative Labs/Matsushita CR-563-B that uses a proprietary ISA card or sound card with a Panasonic or Creative Labs port.