I finally got myself a Terratec Maestro 32/96 that should arrive tomorrow.
Since it was quite a bit of an investment (almost 50€ shipped, which is more than I am usually prepared to spend on single items) I hope that it can meet my high expectations.
The MIDI wavetable part of this card uses a 4MB Roland GM soundfont or at least some sort of subtype (or remake) of it. The statements on this topic that I found on the internet do vary a lot, as well as the statements on the actual quality of the soundfont, although most people say that it sounds exceptionally good. So I hope that I find some time to compare it to my SC-55 soon so I can draw my own conclusions.

gex85 wrote on 2020-02-06, 08:13:

I finally got myself a Terratec Maestro 32/96 that should arrive tomorrow. Since it was quite a bit of an investment (almost 50€ […]
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I finally got myself a Terratec Maestro 32/96 that should arrive tomorrow.
Since it was quite a bit of an investment (almost 50€ shipped, which is more than I am usually prepared to spend on single items) I hope that it can meet my high expectations.
The MIDI wavetable part of this card uses a 4MB Roland GM soundfont or at least some sort of subtype (or remake) of it. The statements on this topic that I found on the internet do vary a lot, as well as the statements on the actual quality of the soundfont, although most people say that it sounds exceptionally good. So I hope that I find some time to compare it to my SC-55 soon so I can draw my own conclusions.

maestro-32-96.JPG

Congratulations, you now own the ultimate ISA sound card. I only have the Gold 16/96 and hope to one dawy own a Maestro 32/96 some day..

gex85 wrote on 2020-02-06, 08:13:

I finally got myself a Terratec Maestro 32/96 that should arrive tomorrow.

I have one of these but it is very finicky to get going. It really didn't like the motherboard I was trying to use it on, but I did end up getting some sound out of it, and the soundfont sounded really good to my ears, but the FM emulation was weird.

gex85 wrote on 2020-02-06, 08:13:

Since it was quite a bit of an investment (almost 50€ shipped...

I wouldn't call 50€ an investment... But the card on the other hand is an investment as even now the usuall price on eBay is around 100€+.

Bought this lot of Apple stuff from a local seller:

One of the computers does not have a HDD but seems to work fine otherwise, and the other has a HDD that is probably on its last legs or really just non functional since it emits these clicks of death and the computer shuts itself down after a few seconds of turning it on.

The mouse is from a Mac classic from what I can tell.

kixs wrote on 2020-02-06, 10:36:

gex85 wrote on 2020-02-06, 08:13:

Since it was quite a bit of an investment (almost 50€ shipped...

I wouldn't call 50€ an investment... But the card on the other hand is an investment as even now the usuall price on eBay is around 100€+.

yup, that's quite a good price actually including shipping... though I share the sentiment of not spending more than ~50€ on a single card usually my limit is even less unless it's something rare I really want... hence why I have a lot of variety in my collection, but not many of the really sought after ones ^^

Yesterday I received a unexciting keyboard overlay for my Timex 2068. I was hunting for this for a long time, and the Gray colour doesn't help eider, they seem more elusive somehow .

Fortunately a Ebay seller surfaced on my search, and now my Timex is whole again.

Seller photo, what looks like a dirty IBM Model F. Got it for $30 shipped, we'll see if it works when it gets here. I'm sure it will need a full disassembly, cleaning, and refurb.

^ looks like the keyboard for the IBM portable 5150 to me

that's a regular Model F that came with the 5150 (portable is 5155?) and maybe early 5160?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_Model_F_XT.png

the portable keyboard has a different enclosure.

Exactly, it's an original 5150 keyboard, i have the same in my full original 5150 setup.

Today I did a Cex Gamble. No, you haven't accidentally stumbled upon that other forum I only frequent on weekends; Cex is a electronics and games shop in the UK where you trade in your games and electronics for cash or a in store voucher. However, it's a gamble because the prices are significantly cheaper than eBay but the shops are staffed by disinterested and edgy teenagers who may or may not pack all 4 disks of Flight Simulator 2004 and may or may not actually have tested the GPU you just bought from them before they took it off another customer. The item description won't say anything other than the memory size and model. The picture will be a stock picture. And I can't say I blame the staff given the clientele they put up with as the shops do tend to the aggressive and smelly people in town. You can pick up various C2D for less than £1, RAM for similar, basic GPUs for a tenner. I think the best value at the time was a GTX260 for £12.

Anyway I had £23 in vouchers and needed a cool, quiet, efficient and moderately powerful GPU for XP gaming. I bought an Nvidia GT 340 (continuing with my theme of buying weird OEM cards) which is identical to the 240 except more likely to come with GDDR5 VRAM. This cost me £18. With my spare £6, I picked up an ATI X600 Pro, on the hope it would be the All in Wonder version, which I've not messed with.

They arrived in quite big boxes (probably from separate stores)... a good sign that they might be wrapped reasonably.

OK, the smaller one is a tablet box, hopefully they've just repurposed it...

Yup! Here is my X600 Pro - so far so good - well wrapped (for a £6 card) and actually sent the right card. The model number has VIVO on it, and it has a Rage Theatre chip. Is it an AIW card? This could go in my 939 / Athlon 3200+ system. Definitely needs a clean.

The 340... Well wrapped again.

Ehh doesn't look like the picture (all part of the gamble!) but it is at least the GDDR5 version (again, all part of the gamble). At least it isn't a low profile one (you guessed it...), but it definitely needs a clean once I've tested it out (yup part of the gamble but I would probably clean and apply TIM even if it was spotless!)

Useful selection of ports. This might actually overclock with the cooler and GDDR5. I've got some little memory heatsinks I can put on the RAM (not sure it would help...) Limited by having no external power I suppose.

Got a haul of free parts today.

First, a PC Chips M915 — a PCI/VLB/ISA board with probably fake cache chips, a DX2 and what looks like quite a bit of FPM RAM. I have lots of those, but nothing bigger than 4MB per stick, so that could be interesting.

An Asus CUBX-E board. Socket 370 with 440BX and 2 ISA slots. I have a Coppermine 1100/100 that would be a good match for this board.

A Gigabyte GA-6BXC. A quite typical 440BX Slot 1 board.

A Gigabyte GA-6OXM7E — a regular i815 board. Sadly, it doesn't seem to support Tualatins. Came with a Coppermine 1000/133 chip.

Finally, some video and sound cards. A Matrox G250 (probably the only card I really like out of this bunch), a Matrox G4+ (16MB), a GeForce 2MX, an ATI Rage 128Pro and two Ensoniq-based PCI SoundBlasters.

Fake cache chips is molded in characters, not printed on. Had seen that.

Cheers,

jheronimus wrote on 2020-02-06, 22:02:

First, a PC Chips M915 — a PCI/VLB/ISA board with probably fake cache chips, a DX2 and what looks like quite a bit of FPM RAM. I have lots of those, but nothing bigger than 4MB per stick, so that could be interesting.

Lol, that cache is extra fake. No real cache chip comes with Write Back stencilled on the top of it. I've got one of those boards as well, a bit cantankerous to get going well, but works OK once you find the right BIOS and jumper settings.

jheronimus wrote on 2020-02-06, 22:02:

First, a PC Chips M915 — a PCI/VLB/ISA board with probably fake cache chips, a DX2 and what looks like quite a bit of FPM RAM. I have lots of those, but nothing bigger than 4MB per stick, so that could be interesting.

I have one of these too and yep, fake cache like yours. From what I understand it's possible to solder in real cache and flash the BIOS to stop lying about it and use the real thing - so far the motivation to do the work hasn't materialised but it's an interesting board so maybe one day I'll do it.

Oh right, another type of fake "write back" how I could miss that?

😀

Cheers,

some cards I got recently 😀

good old Matrox Millenium and Mystique 220

Headland HT209 VRAM 2

Genius YMF724 card

interesting Promise 3DWebSound with OPL4, the bridged pins are a bit weird?

the only other picture I could find of that card was without the OPL4 and the pins were bridged anyways, that is underneath the chip.
also what's the difference between YMF704-S and YMF704C-S?

badmojo wrote on 2020-02-06, 23:40:

jheronimus wrote on 2020-02-06, 22:02:

First, a PC Chips M915 — a PCI/VLB/ISA board with probably fake cache chips, a DX2 and what looks like quite a bit of FPM RAM. I have lots of those, but nothing bigger than 4MB per stick, so that could be interesting.

I have one of these too and yep, fake cache like yours. From what I understand it's possible to solder in real cache and flash the BIOS to stop lying about it and use the real thing - so far the motivation to do the work hasn't materialised but it's an interesting board so maybe one day I'll do it.

I probably won't waste time making this mod on mine. I already have a decent Asus VLB motherboard with a DX66 chip on it, and a PCI board with a 133mhz 486 on it. It is a perversely interesting board leave entirely as it is!

canthearu wrote on 2020-02-07, 00:36:

It is a perversely interesting board leave entirely as it is!

I like your thinking - it would be interesting to benchmark it as-is and see what sort of performance handicap the fake cache is, that might be a better project.