Predator99 wrote:

Puh, won this auction but I am afraid I paid too much money. Think some other collectors spotted this and the seller was rather surprised about the outcome...

so that was you then 😒

heh, yes I did indeed spot that but I didn't want to bid more... still think it's going to be worth it even if only half the stuff works

the auction started at 100, so not that surprised probably.

dionb wrote:

Nice haul indeed, although I too wonder about the price.

The Matrox card looks like an Athena. Don't see a Banshee, but there is a Voodoo Rush next to the Tseng VLB card. Also like the big PCI S3 9xx VRAM-based VGA card at the top right. Could that be a Yamaha 719-based ISA sound card above it? Also, I only count three soundblasters (CT1600 and two SB16s?) to the left of the Matrox Athena, the sound card on the bottom right is something else. Might be Oak Mozart, but can't quite make it out.

I believe that is an Ultima Plus. I posted about mine a while back. It's a VERY early, if not first gen, PCI graphics card.

Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

imi wrote:

so that was you then :blah: […]
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Predator99 wrote:

Puh, won this auction but I am afraid I paid too much money. Think some other collectors spotted this and the seller was rather surprised about the outcome...

so that was you then 😒

heh, yes I did indeed spot that but I didn't want to bid more... still think it's going to be worth it even if only half the stuff works

the auction started at 100, so not that surprised probably.

Argh 🙁 If I knew that...dont tell the final price 😉

Should have taken a closer look at the seller however. Has some bad Feedbacks. Hope didnt get ripped of there and nothing of all that is working. At least the other bidder was not the seller himself 😀 Something special you have been looking at? Lets PM 😉

liqmat wrote:

[...]

I believe that is an Ultima Plus. I posted about mine a while back. It's a VERY early, if not first gen, PCI graphics card.

Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Ah yes, that does look very similar. The Ultima Plus uses an Atlas chip (no hw gouraud shading), the Athena chip I suggested (with hw gouraud shading) was used on the Impression Plus cards - but both are pin-compatible, so this could be either. Either way a fantastic really early PCI card indeed 😀

I had one years back, not the version with socketed VRAM expansion you have but with (later?) typical Matrox pins for RAM expansion board - but it artefacted all over the place, seemed as if both some RAM and the RAMDAC were failing... 🙁

Either way, the Ultima Plus has truly terrible performance in DOS and I never did test flipping that VGA switch on the card and installing a secondary video card for DOS. Maybe I will get around to it when I get back into my storage unit up north.

wirerogue wrote:

MMaximus wrote:

Bought this NOS case for a reasonable price on ebay. It seems to be a clone of the Chieftec Dragon - I used to have a grey model in the early 2000's and remember it being really heavy. This one might be a bit lighter, but overall I'm really pleased with the quality. The materials, fit and finish are all decent. TBH I wasn't expecting such a nice case for the price... I'm looking forward to using it for a build soon.

i wouldn't call it a clone really. chenming was the case oem for antec/chieftec and others.

chenming also released their own product line and i think the case you have is the chenming 601AE-U.

Thanks for the info. I have no idea if this particular case was made by Chenming. It was advertised as an "ACME ACM503X", and this is is the brand and model name that appears on the packaging.

spiroyster wrote:

The Cyberpuck you can live without, but the VIP card is a bit of a pita... however, if you are ok with DIY electronics there is something called a LinkBox (and also describes the pinout) which basically frees the VFX1 from VESA and its other software limitations. You will need the cable, but not the VIP card, and may end up with a VFX1 that you could use on today's modern machinery.... LCD res still crap though 😀.

I have both the headgear and a VIP card (as you can see in the photo) and visually it's in perfect condition. I only miss the cable for connecting it to the headgear.

Thanks for the tip about linkbox! I'm mostly interested in using it on old PCs, for modern stuff I have Oculus CV1 and I'm happy with it 😀

Finally got this Live!, for some future experiments 😀

MMaximus wrote:

wirerogue wrote:

MMaximus wrote:

Bought this NOS case for a reasonable price on ebay. It seems to be a clone of the Chieftec Dragon - I used to have a grey model in the early 2000's and remember it being really heavy. This one might be a bit lighter, but overall I'm really pleased with the quality. The materials, fit and finish are all decent. TBH I wasn't expecting such a nice case for the price... I'm looking forward to using it for a build soon.

i wouldn't call it a clone really. chenming was the case oem for antec/chieftec and others.

chenming also released their own product line and i think the case you have is the chenming 601AE-U.

Thanks for the info. I have no idea if this particular case was made by Chenming. It was advertised as an "ACME ACM503X", and this is is the brand and model name that appears on the packaging.

Chieftec wasnt their brand?

arncht wrote:

...

Chieftec wasnt their brand?

No idea. Here is their website - maybe ACME technology is just the name of this particular UK business that sells computer cases, they likely buy from OEM makers like Cheming and such and rebrand them as "ACME"? From the look of the website they might no longer be trading, but instead be disposing of their old stock on ebay...

Predator99 wrote:

Puh, won this auction but I am afraid I paid too much money. Think some other collectors spotted this and the seller was rather surprised about the outcome...

Will see if something works. We have:
4 x 286 Mainboard, 2xSuntac

Those too 286s!!! <3

Picked up this lot from a friendly collector. I've been looking for SIPP memory for a board that I think I just threw away last week. 🤣

sf78 wrote:

Picked up this lot from a friendly collector. I've been looking for SIPP memory for a board that I think I just threw away last week. 🤣

Just a matter of soldering in some pins on SIMM30 modules... Back in the day they sold dedicated pins for this purpose (I still have some) now it's easier to solder some regular goldpin header...

HanJammer wrote:

Just a matter of soldering in some pins on SIMM30 modules...

Yes, but if I need to use the regular simms in another machine I have to desolder them again.

This is even better than what I posted yesterday (will report when it arrives..). I also won an auction of 10 kg scrap. There were mainly some interesting Soundblasters in the pile, nothing special. The seller wrote that he has 50 kg in total and if I am interested in buying more. I answered it depends and asked for a photo.
I selected 3 cards from the photo...do you see the most important? 😉

Predator99 wrote:

This is even better than what I posted yesterday (will report when it arrives..). I also won an auction of 10 kg scrap. There were mainly some interesting Soundblasters in the pile, nothing special. The seller wrote that he has 50 kg in total and if I am interested in buying more. I answered it depends and asked for a photo.
I selected 3 cards from the photo...do you see the most important? 😉

eb07.jpg

Pretty hard to miss a Voodoo 5K

Munx wrote:

Pretty hard to miss a Voodoo 5K

Yes 😎

Got this Pentium 4 machine for a pretty low price:

Specs are:

Pentium 4@3GHz
Gigabyte GA-8IDX motherboard
Gigabyte GV-GF3000D (GeForce 3)
SoundBlaster Live 5.1 with a LiveDrive front panel
DVD-RW
512 MB RAM & 40GB HDD

Sooo, not great, not terrible, right? Actually, the coolest thing about this machine is the case. Meet the 1999 Palo Alto ATCX, aka the convertible case. Just take out the drive cage:

And you can turn this case into a desktop:

Even the little badge holder can be rotated (although right now the front panel of this case is a bit yellowed, so I didn't move the badge).

Palo Alto was a company that made cases for all the big OEMs including Dell, Gateway, Sun and others and was widely celebrated for their quality. The case probably doesn't look too interesting, but it has a lot of features (like screw less design for motherboard mounts) and it is certainly one of the most unique ATX cases I have. I remember reading about Palo Alto cases in 2002, but I've never seen one for sale — they were never big on the retail market and were soon sold to Flextronics.

This build also inspired me to try some WinXP gaming. Guess I'll upgrade it from GF3 to FX5900XT I have in my drawer.

jheronimus wrote:

Got this Pentium 4 machine for a pretty low price: […]
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Got this Pentium 4 machine for a pretty low price:

Love it! Great find 😀

I'm really digging these convertible cases, I think Compaq did something very similar too, with some of their full size Deskpro computers (don't quote me on that 🤣, I haven't seen any of these)