Munx wrote on 2020-06-22, 09:03:

Don't have much use for the Trident VGA or the Opti cound card, but the Mozart card looks interesting and has a real Yamaha OPL chip.

Depending on the model, that Opti card might have a perfect 1:1 copy of the Yamaha OPL3 chip, which sounds identical to the real thing.

I can't see the card model or the chips in that picture though, too blurry.

rikukos wrote on 2020-06-22, 07:05:

mpe wrote on 2020-06-22, 07:01:

It doesn't look to me that those pins are shortened. So no need to touch it IMHO.

Thank you! : )

if you don't want to risk bending them back you could put a tiny piece of tape or something in between, just to be sure.

Just picked up a nice looking Dell Lattitude CPI on eBay. AS IS but the seller has it booted up in the pictures and it looks fairly well kept. Its equipped with the 366MHZ CPU option and comes with the OEM External CD-ROM drive and power supply. I don't mind paying $80 for it with the accessories and it being top configured. I'm hoping it will make a good machine for Windows 95 games and late DOS titles. It has the NeoMagic256AV Graphics/Sound chipset, which supposedly has Soundblaster compatibility and it of course should have GM support in Windows MS-DOS Boxes. I have a Compaq Pentium II laptop that has the NeoMagic but its uses custom hardware ID's and the drivers available for it don't work right with basically any title. Causes nonstop mouse flickering. Also it has some sort of hardware/driver fault keeping the SB emulation from working under DOS titles. And to add insult to injury it has yet another hardware fault that prevents it from booting with the base station attached. Which is a problem because thats where the CD-Drive lives.

Does anyone know of anyone in the retro-community that rebuilds laptop batteries? I will probably be wanting the battery for this laptop, one of my Toshiba's, and a M1710 rebuilt. I can't find reasonably priced batteries for any of the 3.

Okay, which one of you guy out bid me on this Apple Macintosh Color Classic.
I know you guys love Macs.

Got my Sound Blaster Live! CT4620 with CT4660 extension board today.
This will go into my 1998 retro machine with Voodoo 2 SLI 😀
Hope this will quiet the soundcard enthusiast 😜

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-06-22, 13:40:

Okay, which one of you guy out bid me on this Apple Macintosh Color Classic.
I know you guys love Macs.

Back in the 90s we had one as prize for a tombola at the university and everone bought tickets like mad.
Guess who won it ...

ildonaldo wrote on 2020-06-22, 13:47:

Back in the 90s we had one as prize for a tombola at the university and everone bought tickets like mad. Guess who won it ... […]
Show full quote

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-06-22, 13:40:

Okay, which one of you guy out bid me on this Apple Macintosh Color Classic.
I know you guys love Macs.

Back in the 90s we had one as prize for a tombola at the university and everone bought tickets like mad.
Guess who won it ...

Spoiler

... the IT professor 😀

He surely hacked ticket-puller's hand...
🙂

Probably my last retro computer pickup for a while, scored this Compaq Armada M700 off eBay for pretty cheap, with a charger even. The fact that this 20 year old laptop is of similar thickness and weight to Core2 based laptops from several years later is genuinely amazing.

Nice find. What's the laptops specs?

Pentium III 1GHz, what seems to be 320MB of RAM, and I believe it originally came with a 10GB hard drive but said drive is no longer present. Also the BIOS is password locked and I don't know where the CMOS battery or password jumper are.

After leaving my 386SX25 (with non working video in its last months) in 1996 for a Pentium 166, I'm getting back into this era of DOS gaming and general computing tonight. I bought a complete system, saving me weeks/months of hunting from a knowledgeable enthusiast local to me:

486 IBM PS/Valuepoint upgraded to DX2/66, 32 meg RAM, no L2 cache tho
320 MB HD
NEC 15" CRT
3.5 inch disk drive
IBM mouse and keyboard

I mostly have old Mac stuff (68k b&w compacts and laptops) despite being a modern PC user, it's good to plunge right back into the great world of Non-emulated OPL FM synth music sweetness inside dos!
Sound Blaster 16 CT-2940

I don't really care about running the more advanced 3d games, including Doom (I can always emulate, but of course I'll try it). I just want a solid coverage of 1984 - 1994ish dos game coverage.

rikukos wrote on 2020-06-22, 07:05:

luckybob wrote on 2020-06-22, 06:54:

bent pins are NEVER intentional.

mpe wrote on 2020-06-22, 07:01:

It doesn't look to me that those pins are shortened. So no need to touch it IMHO.

Thank you! : )

I'd strongly advise to correct those bent pins. They look dangerously close and it just takes a razor blade with little to no force to bend them back into their original position or one that doesn't lead to a heartattack just by looking at it.

Mu0n wrote on 2020-06-22, 18:09:

After leaving my 386SX25 (with non working video in its last months) in 1996 for a Pentium 166, I'm getting back into this era o […]
Show full quote

After leaving my 386SX25 (with non working video in its last months) in 1996 for a Pentium 166, I'm getting back into this era of DOS gaming and general computing tonight. I bought a complete system, saving me weeks/months of hunting from a knowledgeable enthusiast local to me:

486 IBM PS/Valuepoint upgraded to DX2/66, 32 meg RAM, no L2 cache tho
320 MB HD
NEC 15" CRT
3.5 inch disk drive
IBM mouse and keyboard

I mostly have old Mac stuff (68k b&w compacts and laptops) despite being a modern PC user, it's good to plunge right back into the great world of Non-emulated OPL FM synth music sweetness inside dos!
Sound Blaster 16 CT-2940

I don't really care about running the more advanced 3d games, including Doom (I can always emulate, but of course I'll try it). I just want a solid coverage of 1984 - 1994ish dos game coverage.

Did that CT2940 come inside the PS/Vp? It is unlikely to be the original card for that PC considering it's a Vibra and the PS/Vp is from what, 1994? Regardless, I am restoring a late PS/1 model ( 2155-593 from 1993) and I'm not sure what exact SB16 model it shipped with originally. If it's the CT2940 then I have one at hand, I think.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-06-22, 13:40:

Okay, which one of you guy out bid me on this Apple Macintosh Color Classic.
I know you guys love Macs.

Was not me. If it actually works that is a good buy !
My retro purchase today: stopped at a thrift store and found a 50 pack TDK CD-R media for $4 and 10 pack cd cases for $2. No label on the 50 pack so decided to run CD Ident and both Nero and other tell me it is Ritek 8x max CD-R. Well WHOOP that is great news since old slow speed media is hard to find and expensive ! Bad news: only 47 blanks, found two dvd movies from 2010 under the top CD-R and appears one blank missing. Still a great find since a 5 pack on ebay of 8x CD-R averages $10 plus shipping.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-06-22, 22:10:

Did that CT2940 come inside the PS/Vp? It is unlikely to be the original card for that PC considering it's a Vibra and the PS/Vp is from what, 1994? Regardless, I am restoring a late PS/1 model ( 2155-593 from 1993) and I'm not sure what exact SB16 model it shipped with originally. If it's the CT2940 then I have one at hand, I think.

Oh, no. He just filled components he had in his stash until it met a price I was willing to pay.

I could have gotten a network card and/or cd controller and cd drive but I'm keeping this spartan because I may yet land another upgrade soon from elsewhere. More on this if it pans out...

blurks wrote on 2020-06-22, 21:13:

I'd strongly advise to correct those bent pins. They look dangerously close and it just takes a razor blade with little to no force to bend them back into their original position or one that doesn't lead to a heartattack just by looking at it.

Thanks for the tip! Razor blade indeed was thin enough to adjust them just a little bit - still not perfect but more peace of mind. Will test in a couple of days so I'll see. Didn't want to push too hard and breake it as PLCC parts are harder to find. The other PLCC upgrade chip I received seems ok but this one is slower and I am not finding much info about it nor any drivers which I believe are needed to enable cache.

My AWE64 just arrived! Tested everything and it works flawlessly. Here's a pic:

I double checked the layout before making the purchase to make sure that it wasn't a stripped down version without the AWE chip, and thankfully it's not. AWE music plays flawlessly in DOS, so I'm testing how my childhood favorites sound with it. It does seem to vary from game to game. Doom for example isn't so stellar, but Tyrian and Transport Tycoon sound fantastic. I also tried MT32 emulation and it sounded much nicer in Monkey Island than on my SBLive.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2020-06-23, 10:47:

My AWE64 just arrived! Tested everything and it works flawlessly. Here's a pic:

CT4520.jpg

I double checked the layout before making the purchase to make sure that it wasn't a stripped down version without the AWE chip, and thankfully it's not. AWE music plays flawlessly in DOS, so I'm testing how my childhood favorites sound with it. It does seem to vary from game to game. Doom for example isn't so stellar, but Tyrian and Transport Tycoon sound fantastic. I also tried MT32 emulation and it sounded much nicer in Monkey Island than on my SBLive.

Yesterday I missed one for under 10 euros... 🙁

bearking wrote on 2020-06-23, 10:56:

Yesterday I missed one for under 10 euros... 🙁

That's too bad, but I'm sure you'll get one eventually, since these value versions seem to be plentiful. I got mine for 5 EUR from a local eBay equivalent. Stumbled upon it by accident while looking for something else.

The seller listed it as "untested" since he didn't have a computer with an ISA slot, but I took a chance and it works perfectly!

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2020-06-23, 11:01:

bearking wrote on 2020-06-23, 10:56:

Yesterday I missed one for under 10 euros... 🙁

That's too bad, but I'm sure you'll get one eventually, since these value versions seem to be plentiful. I got mine for 5 EUR from a local eBay equivalent. Stumbled upon it by accident while looking for something else.

The seller listed it as "untested" since he didn't have a computer with an ISA slot, but I took a chance and it works perfectly!

The same here, I was looking for something else, too... But yesterday was the second time I missed a CT4520 in the last 4-5 months 😀. You were lucky!