I'll have time this weekend to take some pictures and some screenshots of the system and the cpu upgrade module

Just got this SB 2.0 clone as a gift along with some ISA cards and cables from a 386 machine; only paid for shipping.

Haven't tested it yet. I have a couple systems I could test it with (a socket7 and a slot1) but I'm not sure what drivers to use. Will these work? http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=59&menustate=0 http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=46&menustate=0

I think you don't need any drivers for SB 2.0. In DOS it should work out of the box.

am I high, or does that Sound Machine have a "real" creative clpd? not to mention a 1:1 copy of the PCB?

The Sound Machine is a Quickshot branded CT1350. It is the same thing except for missing CMS upgrade sockets. More a custom branded version rather than a clone.

luckybob wrote on 2020-04-01, 21:21:

am I high, or does that Sound Machine have a "real" creative clpd? not to mention a 1:1 copy of the PCB?

If you're bored with lockdown and have access to recreational substances, it's entirely possible you're high - but yes, that's the original PCB and CLPD. Creative produced the Quickshot-branded cards themselves 😉

Only thing needed to test in DOS is SET BLASTER=A240 I7 D1 T3 (at least, that's what the jumpers are telling me) - oh, and disable LPT1.

If it works, I'd grab a soldering iron for the missing sockets...

it's an original SB sold under license by QuickShot

Still the "originals" were made in Singapore and those in China. So it is a question where these were produced under license by Quickshot or actually made by Creative.

Received boxed version Pentium 133 with intel heatsink and fan. Was smart enough to purchase PCI 3com ethernet network card that came with double ended WOL cable, will snip this in half and use one half to reconnect fan to a fan header. Save other half for future uses to fix other intel fans that are missing one.

Cheers,

mpe wrote on 2020-04-01, 21:25:

The Sound Machine is a Quickshot branded CT1350. It is the same thing except for missing CMS upgrade sockets. More a custom branded version rather than a clone.

I have 3 different versions of the Quickshot Sound Machine:
Top: Creative and Quickshot branding - lower edge - with CMS sockets and socketed OPL2
Middle: Quickshot branded - with CMS sockets
Bottom: Quickshot branded - without CMS sockets

"make in china" ...nice touch ^^

Not much recently, but this Voodoo4 4500 PCI falsely advertised as a Voodoo3 for the price of a Voodoo2 I just couldn't let pass.

luckybob wrote on 2020-03-31, 22:32:

https://i.imgur.com/xO8LGRJm.jpg […]
Show full quote

Don't know if it works yet. Got it from what looked like the original owner. He told me it worked, but sometimes you need to reseat the cpu card to get it going. Something that should be easy to fix. The origional craigslist ad only listed the cpu, monitor, and manuals. The disks and printer were a very welcome bonus. I'm thinking about retrobrite-ing it this summer, with a full tuneup.

Very well spotted, luckybob. They're really solid 8-bit machines - awesome for CGA gaming and the firmware-based monitor program is dead handy for debugging and such. I had issues booting mine at first but reseating the RAM chips seemed to help. Lots of handy diagnostic LEDs. That's a proper time capsule you've got there. I'd love images of those floppies for my UK version.

MMaximus wrote on 2020-04-01, 10:25:

luckybob wrote on 2020-03-31, 22:32:

Found this on craigslist...

Nice! Is it XT compatible? CGA or Mono? I'd guess MFM HDD...

As you can see from the styling, this is definitely an 'XT clone'. I think the Zenith monitor is amber so it would be mono. Some models had the display integrated into the CPU card but later models came with an EGA card, though, so it could be selectable colour with the DIP switches. The system runs off a powered 8-bit backplane with 2 proprietary system cards integrating serial, RAM, CPU, firmware, serial and parallel. Some models came with dual floppies and MFM hard drive was an upgrade. The CPU is usually an 8088-2 (a Fujitsu clone), which has a turbo switch and runs at either 8Mhz or 4.77Mhz. These machines were very well made as Zenith had lots of military contracts.

I got myself a Hercules 3D Prophet FDX 8500LE. The seller admitted that it displays artifacts and sold it as non-working for $2; did not bother me, I used to have one back in the day, in fact it was my "first gaming" GPU I bought myself, and I love the way it looks, so I want to frame it. In fact I already have one working in my Athlon XP 1800+ build

However I was wondering, do any of you have any suggestion how to fix this? It would be lovely to have a working backup...
Works fine in character mode on startup

Probably faulty RAM.

Broken solder joins under the video chip are more likely. These patterns don't look like bad RAM to me.

The checkered nature of the artifacts is a pointer to ram issues more than with the GPU itself.

Can you explain this? If video RAM is bad, there should be garbled pixels instead, not shifted blocks. Such a ordered pattern hints to an address line not working correctly, and those are coming from the video chip. Now of course, a RAM chip may also just not react on an address line, but BGA chips are prone to fail at their solder joins, while RAM chips are normally quite reliable.

derSammler wrote on 2020-04-03, 09:36:

while RAM chips are normally quite reliable.

Not in my experience.

I never had a single RAM chip failing on any of my hardware since 1996. Maybe I'm just lucky. 😉

If I ever had bad RAM, it was already bad when I got it. ESD damage most likely, as people tend to touch that stuff without any care.