VOGONS


NuXT - micro-ATX IBM XT (LGR review)

Topic actions

First post, by Hamby

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Brand new Micro-ATX format IBM XT compatible computer!
YouTube video by Lazy Game Reviews
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwzHurzTNTY

Reply 3 of 102, by blurks

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
derSammler wrote:

Nice, but way to expensive. You can buy a complete 5160 for that.

It's intended purpose is not affordability but to serve those who appreciate the craftmanship of modern engineering with old tech components while maintaining x86 compatibility.

Reply 4 of 102, by mothergoose729

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
blurks wrote:
derSammler wrote:

Nice, but way to expensive. You can buy a complete 5160 for that.

It's intended purpose is not affordability but to serve those who appreciate the craftmanship of modern engineering with old tech components while maintaining x86 compatibility.

Yeah, its really the stuff it does differently from the IBM 5160 and clones that attract me to it. I really like being able to use momentary power switches, and ATX PSUs, and I can access the bios without a boot disk, and other things that are a pain on an actually 5160.

My only complaint really is the lack of available ISA slots. I would have preferred a full ATX version, with some of the integrated components being removable cards. Meh.

Reply 5 of 102, by Daniël Oosterhuis

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
blurks wrote:
derSammler wrote:

Nice, but way to expensive. You can buy a complete 5160 for that.

It's intended purpose is not affordability but to serve those who appreciate the craftmanship of modern engineering with old tech components while maintaining x86 compatibility.

And you simply cannot build it for less than the asking price. Other than labor costs, which are high on these small projects, the main chipset and video chipset are $45 each on the few chip sellers out of China that still have stashes of them. Sure, buy them in bulk and you get a discount, but I highly doubt the NuXT project is large enough of a niche that Monotech can buy them in large enough quantities to get significant discounts on there. There probably are, but not high enough to push down the price. And that's essentially $80 to $90 of the total price already, stack up all of the other components, PCB manufacturing, labor costs, and I highly doubt you'd land anywhere under that.

sUd4xjs.gif

Reply 6 of 102, by Deksor

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Since ATX is AT-eXtended, shouldn't "micro XTX" be more appropriate ? 😁

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 7 of 102, by hasnopants

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I ordered one after seeing LGR....I can't wait! 😀

Mothergoose, I saw on a previous post you installed a GOTEK floppy emulator with your NuXT...any issues getting that working?

Current Systems:
DIP40|8088|640K|HERCULESGB102|PCSPKR
DIP40|V20|640K|VGA|ADLIB/TNDY/COVOX
S7|P233MMX|128M|S3ViRGEDX/DM3D|SB16
S370|P600MMX|256M|SIS630/DM3DIIX2|SBLIVE!5.1
S775|P43.4|2G|6800GS|SBAUDIGY

Reply 8 of 102, by mothergoose729

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
hasnopants wrote:

I ordered one after seeing LGR....I can't wait! 😀

Mothergoose, I saw on a previous post you installed a GOTEK floppy emulator with your NuXT...any issues getting that working?

Hit F1 in the bios and make sure that 1.44mb drive type is selected in floppy A. My gotek takes a good minute to get going, so sometimes I get a failure when booting from a floppy the first time.

The hardest part was upgrading the flash storage. I had success with a transcend 133x 16gb, but no so much with silicon power, or a newer Transcend industrial CF card.

Also, reference the documentation for how to configure the upper memory and other parts of the computer. The recommended memory manager can be found in the github I believe, although I might have had to find a third party source for one of the files (never get around to making it work though).

https://github.com/monotech/NuXT/blob/master/ … er%20Manual.pdf

Reply 9 of 102, by hasnopants

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Awesome, thanks for the tips...I am going to go ahead and order a gotek then to go with mine.

So youre having trouble finding a CF to upgrade from his included 64 mb card? I have a Transcend 128mb laying around I was going to try...

Current Systems:
DIP40|8088|640K|HERCULESGB102|PCSPKR
DIP40|V20|640K|VGA|ADLIB/TNDY/COVOX
S7|P233MMX|128M|S3ViRGEDX/DM3D|SB16
S370|P600MMX|256M|SIS630/DM3DIIX2|SBLIVE!5.1
S775|P43.4|2G|6800GS|SBAUDIGY

Reply 10 of 102, by BloodyCactus

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Daniël Oosterhuis wrote:

the main chipset and video chipset are $45 each on the few chip sellers out of China that still have stashes of them.

well, a year-ish ago the faraday chipsets were $10 and the trident chips were not much more expensive, but now supply is pretty much to completely gone on the faraday chips. I expect someone will find a batch of trident chips, they seem to appear and disappear.

I dont believe WDC fabbed the FE2010A chips for very long at all. so sometimes you find Faraday, sometimes you find WDC.

--/\-[ Stu : Bloody Cactus :: [ https://bloodycactus.com :: http://kråketær.com ]-/\--

Reply 11 of 102, by appiah4

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

It's a nice piece of hardware and I know it's not a sponsored review, but the fact that he got it free seems to have kind of messed up this video's perspective for me. I didn't like the way he just glossed over the fact that it costs $350 without any of the nice stuff he got with it. He should've given a total cost for the build, which would be eye popping IMO.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 13 of 102, by Aragorn

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Yeh, while i can appreciate the effort etc, the price certainly soured the whole thing for me.

I watched the video thinking "ooh i want it" and headed straight to the website. At which point it turned into "oh hell no"...

And sure, i get something like this is very niche and expensive due to production volumes, and that there will be buyers even at that price, but for the money i'd rather a real 5160 or 5162.

Reply 15 of 102, by SirNickity

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
appiah4 wrote:

It's a nice piece of hardware and I know it's not a sponsored review, but the fact that he got it free seems to have kind of messed up this video's perspective for me. I didn't like the way he just glossed over the fact that it costs $350 without any of the nice stuff he got with it. He should've given a total cost for the build, which would be eye popping IMO.

I know a lot of people feel this way, but I've never been able to understand what the fuss is about. Reviews can't ever be anything but subjective anyway, so you're really just watching someone else's reaction to a product, combined with some amount of explanation and demonstration of its abilities. The judgment call is completely your own, and of course price plays into that, so really ... who cares if someone is doing a review of a product they got for free? Particularly with YT guys (like LGR) that have a record of being fairly transparent about their opinions... My takeaway from the video is that there are a lot of things it's not particularly good at, so you kind of have to be aware of what an XT is and can do, and want specifically that. In that case, it's an awesome product.

True, he didn't make a big deal of the price, but 1) LGR understands the reality of low-volume production so it probably didn't strike him as noteworthy for a project of this scope (it sure didn't surprise me any); 2) your cost threshold is highly dependent on your situation, so really the only fair thing to do is say "this is how much it costs" and leave it at that -- which he did, basically; 3) and yeah, you can get a real XT for that cost, but it is absolutely likely to end up costing you more to fix it and keep it running unless you get lucky with a fully-functional system for a bargain. Retro ain't cheap.

Reply 17 of 102, by Kiteless

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
AlphaPapa wrote:

This video and Thread got me Thinking. I wonder if 8-bit guy is going to have an update on his dream retro system he did a video on a while ago. Price was very important to his goals.

I fully have to agree with SirNickity with everything they said these are my thoughts on cost of this device. I overspent on my "fun money" for this month and ordered a NuXT, and a much smaller case. The IN-WIN BK623 specifically. I think it's dang near perfect for the NuXT. I will be doing a video on this ASAP for my new and tiny YouTube channel. (Link below)

And AlphaPapa the exact same thought occurred to me. At the time I didn't realize this was basically a combination of many of Sergey Kiselev's incredible open source works. But I think 8-Bit Guy's project is going to be something that's not x86/88 based. But for me, I'm a DOS kid and x86 kid and yeah, in good humor a PCMR 40 year old. This is *MY* 8-bit dream machine.

For JD (of Monotech) making an entire PC mobo, even one based around such old architecture, is a heck of an accomplishment and a super rare moment in this hobby of ours. I just had to get one and can't wait to build my NuXT. I'm hoping to make mine as much functional as a work of art. Videos coming soon, well when ever I get mine anyway. I'm not expecting to get mine before the end of the month.

Also just had an interesting thought. While I don't think this project would have been possible without Kiselev's open source designs, I wonder if this could... maybe spark some other similar projects. How cool would it be if this expended to something like a 386/486 or even a 68K mac. What a time to be alive! 🤣

YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTfnRX4AWhbYJuguUcEff-g

Main Systems
NuXT
IBM 5140
486 DX4 100Mhz (Mainly DOS)
AMD K6-2 500Mhz (Mainly DOS)
AMD Athlon 700Mhz 9700 Pro (Win 98)
Pentium D 3Ghz 4670 AGP 8x (Win XP)

Reply 18 of 102, by hasnopants

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
Kiteless wrote:

Also just had an interesting thought. While I don't think this project would have been possible without Kiselev's open source designs, I wonder if this could... maybe spark some other similar projects. How cool would it be if this expended to something like a 386/486 or even a 68K mac. What a time to be alive! 🤣

I am so down for an open source i386/i486! Sometimes I wish I went into a profession where I would have the knowledge to even know where to start with a project like that, because honestly I would love to make it happen. I would have to spend much time learning and researching before even starting though, and I have a family to rear and games to play as it is! 😁

Anyways, I also ordered one recently and I am super excited to build it! I have already started picking up the bits and pieces to do the build, although its an unknown amount of weeks away from even being shipped!

- For my case, I picked up another Coolermaster N200, I have 2 of my retro builds in these guys. They are cheap and they work well.
- For PSU I picked up a Thermaltake 500w (I know SUPER overkill, but it was just about the smallest PSU I could find at Microcenter).
- For floppy support, I ordered a GoTEK 3.5 floppy emulator. It's my first one and man is it a cool piece of tech!
- For extra connection possibilities, I picked up a ISA Parallel/Gameport/2xSerial multi card model AI12SG11.
- For amazing early sound compatibility I also snagged an Adlib clone from JD, coming along with the NuXT.
- For also amazing beeps and boops, I picked up a spare pc cone speaker (like Clint got in his LGR episode).

One last think I am kicking around in my head is somehow sourcing a working 5.25 drive, or if it exists, a 5.25 floppy emulator. Any suggestions are welcome!

I can't wait! And I am looking forward to seeing that build video Kiteless!

Current Systems:
DIP40|8088|640K|HERCULESGB102|PCSPKR
DIP40|V20|640K|VGA|ADLIB/TNDY/COVOX
S7|P233MMX|128M|S3ViRGEDX/DM3D|SB16
S370|P600MMX|256M|SIS630/DM3DIIX2|SBLIVE!5.1
S775|P43.4|2G|6800GS|SBAUDIGY