A pair of CompuAdd Hardcache SCSI ISA cards.. with 8 30-pin SIMM slots.

Anybody have drivers/utilites for these? Would there have been any driver/utilities needed for these?

I can only find the utilities for the ESDI Hardcache card. According to the info I could find, the ESDI cards are made to handle a 12.5Mhz ISA bus. Guessing the SCSI cards are the same.

The newest members in my family for $30, IBM PS/2 model 70, IBM 8513, a model M keyboard, a reference diskette and a forgettable Logitech mouse.
Windows 3.1 and Accolade's Grand Prix Circuit already installed. Man, it brought back memories!

wow that almost looks mint apart from a bit of dirt on the keyboard ^^

here you can't even get a model M below <$100, let alone any IBM system.

imi wrote on 2020-02-04, 07:42:

wow that almost looks mint apart from a bit of dirt on the keyboard ^^

Thank heavens it had a working proprietary ESDI drive. This is my third PS/2 system with the ESDI interface and none of them had a working hard drive before.
These proprietary devices are a pain sometimes!

I will buy one of the two 6x86MX-PR233 processors to replace my mII-P233GP that decided to give up the ghost..

Aside from the one on the left being 2.5x75MHz vs the one on the right being 3.0x66MHz (However I would assume the one on the left would also work at 3.0x66MHz?) is there a good reason to buy one over the other? I would think the 75MHz part would be the better binned silicon? Is the 66MHz part a later revision that has any enhancements? Anyone have a clue?

CPU-World seems to suggest the right package type is FCPGA.. That means it's not pin compatible with normal Socket 7 boards? Is that why my mII burned and died in my 430TX board maybe?

Either of those CPU's will be fine in a regular socket 7 intel TX motherboard, I have perhaps a dozen Cyrix 6x86 CPU's and ALL have worked fine in my DFI P5BTX/L(I think that's the model!, been so long since I opened that case). So I have run straight 150,166,200+, MX 166,200,233,266,300 & 333 in that board all without issues. I think that one on the right is a later made IBM, it's looks similar to the later 333 chips.

This is my latest purchase of retro PC hardware, a nice all ISA 486 motherboard with a UMC U5S 40 MHz CPU and 8 MB RAM, works perfectly and goes well(as all these UMC CPU based boards seem to do).

Artex wrote on 2020-02-02, 00:31:

Alrighty folks.. […]
Show full quote

Alrighty folks..

Another year has come and gone and that means it's time for my annual collection update pictures! The shelves are a little more full after a good run of collecting in 2019, and the start of 2020 looks to be no different. Most of what I collect now is extremely specific or I'll jump on a purchase once in a while if I find a duplicate item in better condition. I've started selling off some of the bare, unboxed hardware in my collection as well as some dupes this year to reclaim some space. I hope everyone has a great start to 2020. Enjoy the pictures!

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1600x1200q90/923/8aD3lr.jpg
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Still missing a European V5 5500 AGP.

BSA Starfire wrote on 2020-02-04, 13:39:

This is my latest purchase of retro PC hardware, a nice all ISA 486 motherboard with a UMC U5S 40 MHz CPU and 8 MB RAM, works perfectly and goes well(as all these UMC CPU based boards seem to do).

I had the exact same board with an U5S 33MHz, it had a terrible quirk. I could not use any ISA cards that required DMA, including Sound Blasters for digital audio - it would hard lock up. 🙁 I sold it off eventually, letting the buyer know of the issue.. It's a very cool board though.

Yesterday arrived a package of stuff I ordered from a local classifieds site with these goodies:

A socket 7 mainboard, Gemlight GMB-P57VPS V0. Tested with a P166 MMX, it works fine

A Lucky Star LS-486E rev C2 motherboard. A couple a months earlier I also bought from the same seller an AMD Am5x86-P75 @133ADZ. The CPU is probably from this board, because it has the jumpers configured for right. Unfortunately the board doesn't boot, it hangs right before booting. Also the info screen stays on for about 1 sec, after that the screen turns black. It doesn't pick up any HDD or CD-ROM drive, neither on auto mode, nor in the BIOS. So, I need to spend some time with this...

A very nice and compact super socket 7 board, the VTech/PCPartner VIB878DS. This board works, but it has some problems with the keyboard controller or just with the DIN connector(hopefully). The main Enter key it's not working, or sometimes when pressed it's output is like pressing Ctrl+C. The Enter key from the numeric pad it's working. Also, the LumLock LED it is not turning on(even if in the BIOS is set to turn on) and if I press the NumLock key more then once, the system freezes.

Two ISA 512 kb video cards, one with the Trident TVGA9000i-3 chip and the other one with the Macronix MX-VGA86000FC chip.
One Genius branded ISA sound card with the Yamaha YMF719E-S chip and a noname socket 370 to slot 1 adapter. It has jumper settings for 66, 100 and also 133 MHz FSB, but the voltage goes down only to 1.8V. Probably it supports only Mendocinos and VIA/Cyrix C3...

I don't know this card for what it's for, I think it's a SCSI controller with one external connector. On the board it has also a molex connector and a 40 pin IDE... I need to do some digging to see what it is exactly.
In the same lot I also got a Matrox AGP video card and more than a dozen EDO and FPM memory sticks between 4 and 64 Mb. All these for like 14 euros with shipping included.

I got a very fresh looking VESA Local Bus Super-I/O card 😀 The CMD Technology CSA-6210 VL to IDE Controller
It's weird to see one of these with instructions and no rust!

Bought this nice Siemens Nixdorf keyboard with detachable flat PS/2 cord.

Looks similar to one from Scenic Expert series, but not exactly the same. Luckily, I have QWERTY layout instead of QWERTZ. I'm puzzled why would a QWERTZ keyboard have Russian letters on it, because in Russia we use standard QWERTY layout.

bearking wrote on 2020-02-04, 20:04:

The attachment ISA_Media-H_rev_1-2.jpg is no longer available

I don't know this card for what it's for, I think it's a SCSI controller with one external connector. On the board it has also a molex connector and a 40 pin IDE... I need to do some digging to see what it is exactly.
In the same lot I also got a Matrox AGP video card and more than a dozen EDO and FPM memory sticks between 4 and 64 Mb. All these for like 14 euros with shipping included.

It's not SCSI - It's for a model of IBM Aptiva that has no external facing drive bays on the tower itself - The floppy and CD-ROM drives were in an external enclosure designed to sit under the matching CRT monitor - It connected to this card.

dr.ido wrote on 2020-02-05, 11:41:

bearking wrote on 2020-02-04, 20:04:

ISA_Media-H_rev_1-2.jpg
I don't know this card for what it's for, I think it's a SCSI controller with one external connector. On the board it has also a molex connector and a 40 pin IDE... I need to do some digging to see what it is exactly.
In the same lot I also got a Matrox AGP video card and more than a dozen EDO and FPM memory sticks between 4 and 64 Mb. All these for like 14 euros with shipping included.

It's not SCSI - It's for a model of IBM Aptiva that has no external facing drive bays on the tower itself - The floppy and CD-ROM drives were in an external enclosure designed to sit under the matching CRT monitor - It connected to this card.

Hey, thanks for the info! I'll look it up...

bristlehog wrote on 2020-02-05, 05:58:

I'm puzzled why would a QWERTZ keyboard have Russian letters on it, because in Russia we use standard QWERTY layout.

Wikipedia mentions "For Serbian, there is also a Cyrillic keyboard variant. " but this is without citation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTZ#South_Slavic_Latin

Got my fourth Voodoo Banshee AGP in the mail.. Noticed it in a pile of TV tuner cards, offered $5 for it and got accepted. It came with a janky fan fixed onto the heatsink with superglue and soldered onto the power header pretty shoddily. I removed the fan (the card does not have one originally, but seems to have had one screwed on even before the glued oversized crap) and cleaned it thoroughly, replacing the thermal material as well. It works 😀

pewpewpew wrote on 2020-02-05, 13:27:

bristlehog wrote on 2020-02-05, 05:58:

I'm puzzled why would a QWERTZ keyboard have Russian letters on it, because in Russia we use standard QWERTY layout.

Wikipedia mentions "For Serbian, there is also a Cyrillic keyboard variant. " but this is without citation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTZ#South_Slavic_Latin

the pictured keyboard is very clearly a ISO DE layout though, see the umlauts ^^
the cyrillic legends don't look like stickers either, they appear to be there from the factory, very curious indeed, especially since siemens seems to have provided the same keyboard with standard russian layout.

I bought that Spectra 2500 that was on ebay a couple of days ago.

Likelihood that the auction is a complete scam: 65%
If legit, likelihood that the package will get lost from China: 35%
If legit and received, likelihood that the card doesn't work anyways: 85%.

Overall chances of receiving a working card: 3.4%.

I'm probably being too optimistic. That said, I haven't seen one of these cards for years, so this was still an easy decision. It shouldn't be hard to get my money back.

edit: probability that I forgot to do probability properly: ≥ yes.

Bought an external USB floppy drive (tested it and it works), Gamester for the SP (3 games can be inserted with ease), RF adapter for the NES, SNES, Mega Drive (Genesis), N64, C64, Sinclair 1000, and other devices (might work with a VCR using an RCA to RF adapter), an N64 RF adapter so that I can use the RF adapter on my TV set, and the Pelican SDTV/HDTV adapter for my OG Xbox, Xbox 360, and PS1/PS2 (has composite and component, and can be switched between TV and HDTV). All for a low price of $8.16 after taxes.

piatd wrote on 2020-02-06, 00:42:

I bought that Spectra 2500 that was on ebay a couple of days ago. […]
Show full quote

I bought that Spectra 2500 that was on ebay a couple of days ago.

Likelihood that the auction is a complete scam: 65%
If legit, likelihood that the package will get lost from China: 35%
If legit and received, likelihood that the card doesn't work anyways: 85%.

Overall chances of receiving a working card: 3.4%.

I'm probably being too optimistic. That said, I haven't seen one of these cards for years, so this was still an easy decision. It shouldn't be hard to get my money back.

edit: probability that I forgot to do probability properly: ≥ yes.

You forgot the probability of catchinh nCov-2019 from the package 😜