First post, by Ozzuneoj
- Rank
- l33t
I hope someone can make use of this. It took over three hours to put together. Please contribute if you can!
I was talking with another member here recently, trying to find software for this Salient AT3000 TIGA\Falcon64 ISA VGA card, and it occurred to me that I hadn't seen a thread that served as a repository for all of the various retro driver archives and websites that still remain online... so I decided to make one!
I'd like to focus on PC hardware drivers and documentation in this thread. If you have a big pile of links though, feel free to dump them here... just please point out which ones actually have drivers. This should be a good resource for those looking to get their old hardware working, even if it is really uncommon. Archives of old manuals or promotional material can sometimes provide new search terms to locate obscure drivers, so they can be very useful too.
If you do post a link, a short description of what is available at the site (or any help navigating it) would be helpful, if you can. I'm posting multiple links to relevant sections of certain websites, so people don't have to dig so much. I am also posting links to some of the more useful commercial "driver sites" out there, as well as dead or archived sites, since many of them provide filenames that are otherwise not available anywhere on the internet.
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Archives\Collections:
http://vogonsdrivers.com/
Doesn't need much explanation, but here it is. 😀
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/
Again, doesn't need a lot of introduction, but it's a great place to find not only drivers and modded drivers, but an explanation of why you'd want to use a specific version.
http://www.bitsavers.org/
Huge variety of very obscure documentation, software, images, magazines and more. Seems to focus mainly on more professional stuff, or pre-90s stuff, but there is too much to sum up in one sentence. If you want to do a quick search for something, go to the bottom of each section and open the "indexbydate" file. You can then do a simple text search of everything in that directory.
https://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/Archive/index.html
https://www.infania.net/misc/moboarchive/index.html
https://www.infania.net/misc/moboarchive/Oldm … m/mb/index.html
Tons of motherboard drivers, BIOS roms, software and documentation... mostly from the 90s. The "mobo archive" is mirrored on two of the sites above. I don't know if either copy of this archive is more or less complete, so I posted both. The third link is there just to point out that there is a large 386\486 documentation archive hidden in the other archive (as pointed out by this poster a couple years back). There may be more like that, I don't know.
https://www.infania.net/
ftp://ftp.infania.net/
Along with the moboarchive above, Infania.net seems to have several other sections that are extremely handy, like a PS/2 software archive, and their own FTP server with other drivers and software.
ftp://ftp.aztech.com/SUPPORT/DOWNLOAD/
Aztech's FTP! It's incredible that this still exists, though I have no idea who is hosting it. Tons of software and documentation going all the way back to their earliest devices. You'll find most of their sound cards under "sg" (Sound Galaxy). It's too bad we don't have one of these for every manufacturer...
https://archive.org/details/ftp.dyu.edu.tw_pub
https://archive.org/details/ftp.dyu.edu.tw_drivers
The original FTP is down, but thankfully I had downloaded everything that was available back in 2020 and recently uploaded it to the internet archive. I don't know if all 11,000 files are visible this way but if you go to "SHOW ALL" and then "View Contents" of the zip, you can get an easily searchable list of the files. For the second link, keropi also uploaded a copy he made of the drivers directory of the FTP back in 2018. It has a much different layout and may have different files.
Original link and info: ftp://ftp.dyu.edu.tw/pub/ I stumbled across this a while back. Not super organized, pretty slow to load (for me in the US), but there's a ton of interesting drivers and docs there. I've found some very obscure sound card files there, though I think some links are broken. If anyone knows of any mirrors of this archive, please post them! Make sure to dig in to the various folders whether they sound relevant or not. There may be files for a specific device under "vendor" as well as buried in the "stuff" directory.
http://falconfly.vogonswiki.com/
Falconfly.de was the go-to site for 3dfx drivers and software, so I'm glad that there are several mirrors of it out there.
https://www.oldergeeks.com/downloads/index.php
A good assortment of files and a small selection of drivers (under Device Drivers), some fairly obscure. Easy site to browse, no ads.
https://soggi.org/
Mainly motherboard focused site, with lots of information and BIOS files, but also has a decent collection in the drivers section. No ads, simple retro-style site... very easy to navigate.
https://msfn.org/board/topic/115903-compilati … for-windows-9x/
Nice compilation of SB Live drivers to get basic functionality out of several different versions with one download, along with a discussion about various versions. I know this isn't really an archive, but this is just as useful when there are so many versions of the Live! out there that they could have their own driver archive and you still may not get a certain model to work.
"Driver Sites":
Disclaimer: Have patience, watch what you click on, ignore "updaters", use an adblocker if necessary. These can be sketchy sites but the sheer quantity of drivers they have cannot be denied.
https://www.driverguide.com/
Insane amount of driver files on a site that's been around for 25 years (been using it myself for over 20). I would say that 90% of the time I search for something here I eventually find a driver that works, unless it is really obscure. Just beware of all the clickbait and ads. If you only ever click the file name (no download buttons or "update utilities"), you'll get to the file you want fairly easily. Ad blocker recommended! The search is also fast and pretty effective.
https://us.driverscollection.com/
Huge collection of drivers, not a very useful search, but the links seem to work and it doesn't seem to use clickbait.
https://www.station-drivers.com/index.php?opt … mid=353&lang=en
I remember this having more retro related drivers than it seems to have now, but they may still be here if you dig. I'm sure a lot of this stuff will be retro before long.
https://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/sortdate/drivers.html
Been going to this site for like 20 years and they still have some old drivers listed (as well as lots of useful programs).
https://fileforum.com/browse/Drivers
Very general, not the best search, but there are a lot of drivers and other retro files (even game modding stuff) here going back 20+ years, and the links I tried seem to all work.
Archived\Dead sites that may still be useful to find file names:
https://web.archive.org/web/20050715000514/ht … driverzone.com/
Sadly, DriverZone.com seems to be dead now. All the links go to the same broken file, but they used to have such a nice variety that it is probably still useful to simply browse the site from archive.org to at least get file names if the files themselves aren't available. You might have to pick different years to find what you're looking for. The bookmark I made for this site years ago is titled "DriverZone! - TONS OF OBSCURE DRIVERS", and I would have named it that for a reason. 😀
https://archive.org/details/software?tab=collection
This is more general, but it's certainly worth typing the name of a brand, device or file in here if you are looking for something obscure. I see lots of old drivers on here, though I admittedly haven't used it a lot myself... yet!
http://www.soundcard-drivers.com/
Not sure if this site ever had the actual files available, now they just try to give you a stupid "updater" for each link, but there are THOUSANDS of file names listed here, many of them for obscure hardware. This can be a big help when searching the other sites.
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As a side question, is there a way to "map out" an FTP entirely? I'd love to be able to search through one offline without downloading the entire thing. I have archived a couple of the ones I use frequently, but I really don't "need" to horde entire copies of FTP servers that are already mirrored multiple times online. This obviously has some impact on the web host as well.
Also, I'm trying to find a site that I used to go to... I think it was either Russian or German, but I could be wrong. I believe it had a green background, and little picture icons for the driver categories. What was it?? Maybe it wasn't even a driver site. 😮
Now for some blitting from the back buffer.
