First post, by CapitanOdessa
Hello!
I was trying to answer a PM, and discovered that function is disabled for me because I'm a hardcore lurker and just look through old forum threads without contributing. So, I'm in quarantine after working most of the dead, tired, and see my computer aside me... Oh, that beauty! That beige, slightly yellowed case with the mismatched case-cap... Is it called like that? I'm not sure. Point is: I had plans for it, getting a new PSU, buying a second Voodoo 2 and making my own sli cable... Everything was going smooth! Until the pandemic attacked and my country went on lockdown. F for my plans? No, of course not! It will just take some more time, but I'm sure I can manage...
First off, I want to show the case I'm talking about. It is a really weird one, australian (just kidding, is just that the board is upside down), and is pretty shiny! All metal, heavy like any other, with those holders for the long ISA cards. Here are some pics:
The front
The back
The side
It even has for a third HDD!
The other side
This cute little fan
OKAY, yes, that machine is not connected. I don't know much about PSU's, but the one that came with it was really, really light, had the tiniest heatsinks I've ever seen, and it had less components than other I'll show at the end.
My plans for building my retro-PC is the following:
Motherboard: PCChips M560 with a GUI BIOS (Or the ACER variant which I also have, is there any difference? They look almost the same!)
Processor: Intel MMX233
RAM: 128MB DIMM RAM PC100
Videocards:
- S3 Virge 4MB
- 2 Voodoo 2@12MB (Or a PCI Voodoo3 with 8MB)
1 ISA Ethernet card
1 ISA 56k modem
1 ISA Awe64 with the Simmconn and 32MB if I'm lucky enough
1 Floppy Drive
1 5.25" HD IBM Drive (Not the one in the picture)
1 CD-ROM drive
3 HDD with the wooping size of 32GB (actually, they're probably going to be 3 80GB HDD disks capped to 32GB, they're quite hard to find and I feel they could be dangerous)
And coloured Parallel and Serial ports according to the PC97 specification
Also, a MIDI connector and a keyboard to play around with the AWE64!
As for the PSU, I'd been thinking in purchasing an Athena AT-40 with 400W of power, brand new. I have a Diamond PSU which looked new on the outside, but I'm not certain is the best quality one. Unfortunately, I couldn't find pictures with the guts of that Athena PSU, so I'll have to make a bet there. What attracts me the most is that the PSU is new, so it SHOULD be less likely to fail, right? And I wouldn't want my computer blowing up. This is the 300W Diamond PSU on the inside:
What are your suggestions for this? Is this a good plan? A 96GB Socket 7 machine? Why are 32MB SIMM modules more expensive than the 64mb ones?! Are the 64MB ones real, are the usable?
And yes, I'm guilty of taking bad photos :p