VOGONS


First post, by gex85

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TL;DR
I was able to acquire this Socket 7 system that I am nostalgically attached to and that I have upgraded to suit my DOS/Win95 retro computing needs:

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Tulip Vision Line dt - Front View
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Background Story
The company that provided (and actually still provides) business IT solutions for my dads business back in the 90s used to sell hardware by Dutch manufacturer Tulip back then. (Tulip went out of business about 15 years ago.)
Some time around 1994 my dad received a complete system from them to use at home, which was a Tulip Impression Compact, equipped with a 486-DX2 66 MHz and running Windows 3.11. This was the first PC we had in our home and later (when my parents bought a P166MMX-based laptop) became the first PC that my brother and I could call our own. This system was, in terms of form factor and looks, very similar to the Vision Line dt that I'm going to show in this thread. Some years later - my brother and I were already sharing a P2-400 with TNT graphics, a Vision Line dt was decommissioned at my fathers business so I could have it. Although it was already outdated in terms of hardware, and never meant to play games on in the first place, it was still good for web browsing and other lightweight tasks. When we finally got broadband internet connection, I transformed the Vision Line into a home router using the lightweight fli4l linux distribution. By underclocking and undervolting the CPU (passively cooled) and removing the HDD (fli4l would boot from a single floppy disk), I was able to make it absolutely silent. It was running rock stable, reaching uptimes of >1 year, and served its purpose very well for 3 or 4 years. When it was replaced by a wireless home router, it went into storage and was probably taken to the scrapper by my parents some time later.
So for the last two or three years, I have been trying to find one - for entirely nostalgic reasons. A few weeks ago I finally found an ad, someone wanted to get rid of 5 or 6 old PCs. First they did not want to sell the Tulip separately and wanted local pickup only. But I started a friendly conversation, telling my story, and could convince them to ship only the Tulip. It cost me 40€, shipping included. It needed a good cleaning on the outside, but was pretty neat and clean on the inside.

Different Mainboard Models
The Vision Line dt came with at least two different mainboard models, both Socket 7. The earlier TC48 used the Intel 430VX chipset while the later TC76 uses the 430TX.
Of the TC48 there are at least two different variants, one does support split voltage (MMX) processors, the other one doesn't, because it is not fully populated with the required components.
Only a few days after receiving my unit, that was equipped with the TC48 in the non-split-voltage version, I found a TC76 on eBay and got it for 15€ shipped.

TC48 specs

  • Socket 7
  • Intel 430VX chipset
  • MMX- and Non-MMX models available
  • 4 RAM Slots (72-pin EDO RAM SIMM)
  • Alliance Semiconductor AT24 onboard graphics, 1MB RAM, proprietary upgrade module
  • AMD PCNet 10MBit Ethernet onboard
  • Probably models with onboard sound available (solder spots on the PCB are there)
TC48.jpg
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Tulip Vision Line dt - TC48 Mainboard
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TC76 specs

  • Socket 7
  • Intel 430TX chipset
  • MMX-capable
  • 2 RAM Slots (168-pin SDRAM DIMM)
  • S3 Virge/GX onboard graphics, 2MB RAM, upgradable with 2MB SGRAM SO-DIMM module
  • DEC 21143 100MBit Ethernet onboard
  • Creative Soundblaster Vibra 16X onboard
  • supports booting from CD-ROM, which is definitely a plus
TC76.jpg
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Tulip Vision Line dt - TC76 Mainboard
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Building my Vision Line
My goal with this system is to use it as my main retro system for Windows 95 and DOS gaming. To achieve this, I made the following changes to the original system:

  • Replaced the TC48 mainboard with the TC76 from eBay
  • Installed a Pentium MMX 233 MHz
  • Upgraded RAM to 64MB
  • Upgraded Video Memory to 4MB
  • Installed a HDD, obviously. Currently IBM 20 GB, which exceeds the BIOS limit of 7.9GB, but works OK
  • Installed an optical drive, currently some early 2000s DVD drive that I had at hand and that had a matching color, will be replaced with something more period correct later
  • Installed a 3Dfx Voodoo 1 4MB
  • Installed a Terratec Maestro 32/96 sound card
  • Updated the BIOS to the latest revision that I was able to find (thanks to archive.org)
  • Replaced the floppy drive that was working nicely with the TC48 but refused to work with the TC76
Front View.JPG
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Front View.JPG
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Tulip Vision Line dt - Front View
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Rear View.JPG
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Tulip Vision Line dt - Rear View
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Top View.JPG
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Tulip Vision Line dt - Top View
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Upgrade Considerations and To-Dos

  • It still has one free slot (combined PCI/ISA) left, so I might add an MPEG decoder card, SCSI controller or IDE controller later. Not decided yet.
  • Maybe replace the Voodoo 1 with a Creative Voodoo Banshee PCI, which is not 100% period correct and would probably not be saturated by the CPU, but I have it at hand and it would ensure there are no limitations GPU-wise.
  • Replace the HDD with the 8GB IDE DOM that is currently in use in my other, Tyan-based Socket 7 430TX build
  • Replace CPU and power supply fans with modern low-noise alternatives
  • Obviously get rid of that DVD drive. I have a 1997 (and therefore period correct) Creative DVD drive too, but it's yellowed quite badly so it wouldn't match the color of the front bezel.

The OS of choice is obviously Windows 95 OSR 2.5, nothing special. It turned out to be a bit tricky to find the drivers for the ethernet controller and the 430TX power management controller, though.

Current Issues

  • The onboard sound chip (Vibra 16X) is not detected at all. There are no options to enable or disable it in the BIOS. Maybe a jumper that I have not found yet, but I doubt it.
  • Upon warm reboot, the system refuses to start. Screen stays black, does not POST. No idea why.

Bottomline: This is a fairly compact but very capable little machine that brings back lots of good memories and will definitely stay in my collection.

My retro computers

Reply 1 of 11, by gex85

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Today I decided to level up my game on this one.
Swapped the Voodoo 1 for the Creative 3D Blaster Banshee PCI, added an Adaptec AVA-2904 SCSI Controller and replaced the DVD with a Pioneer Slot-In SCSI CD-ROM drive from 1998. 😀

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Reply 2 of 11, by Tetrium

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I've come across some Tulips back in the day. Not so strange considering I'm from The Netherlands myself 😜

I never really got into the desktop model PCs since I was never a fan of non-standardized motherboard formats (I wanted as much as reasonable to be exchangable to make it easy to mix and match parts), so I never ended up with a Tulip motherboard. Or at least I don't think Tulip ever made standard AT or ATX motherboards?

My first PC was a Mycom build PC, which I kept so I never had to re-purchase the parts as I still got everything (except the printer. Because I basically don't like printers 🤣).

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Reply 3 of 11, by Anonymous Coward

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The best part of this system is the keylock with the matching key. I guess those were still kind of around during the mid 90s, but rarely in OEM builds.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 4 of 11, by Scandy

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Hello,
I am buying this "mysterious" Tulip computer (photo by the seller, strangely there is no model on the front).
It should be a Pentium 166 but I don't know if it has been upgraded.

May I ask if/how did you disable the onboard VGA?
Thank you

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THE NIGHTLAND is my board + video game for Commodore 64.

Reply 5 of 11, by gex85

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Scandy wrote on 2021-06-25, 15:41:
Hello, I am buying this "mysterious" Tulip computer (photo by the seller, strangely there is no model on the front). It should […]
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Hello,
I am buying this "mysterious" Tulip computer (photo by the seller, strangely there is no model on the front).
It should be a Pentium 166 but I don't know if it has been upgraded.

May I ask if/how did you disable the onboard VGA?
Thank you

Cool, congratulations on this find!
The BIOS doesn't really have an option for disabling the onboard VGA, but it has a switch named "Force on-board VGA" that I have set to "No" (under Advanced --> Integrated Peripherals).
Still, the S3 shows up in the Windows Device Manager, but I disabled it there. I didn't have any issues with this solution.

My retro computers

Reply 6 of 11, by Scandy

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Hey thank you so much for your kind feedback!
I should receive the Tulip today but "unfortunately" I know yet that my version has AT24 onboard graphic so I'll use my S3 Trio 64V+.

A couple of questions: there are some PDF Manuals available? Why my PC doesn't have the model printed under the Tulip logo?

Thanks!

THE NIGHTLAND is my board + video game for Commodore 64.

Reply 7 of 11, by gex85

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Scandy wrote on 2021-07-01, 11:09:
Hey thank you so much for your kind feedback! I should receive the Tulip today but "unfortunately" I know yet that my version ha […]
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Hey thank you so much for your kind feedback!
I should receive the Tulip today but "unfortunately" I know yet that my version has AT24 onboard graphic so I'll use my S3 Trio 64V+.

A couple of questions: there are some PDF Manuals available? Why my PC doesn't have the model printed under the Tulip logo?

Thanks!

Manuals --> I have never been able to find anything online, unfortunately.
Model under logo --> No idea to be honest 😀

Have you received your unit? Does everything work?

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Reply 8 of 11, by Scandy

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Hi!
Yes I received my unit and it's in great shape: there was a Sound Blaster AWE32 inside it! ;D
Yesterday I disassembled and cleaned the internal parts (very easy to do) and I also changed the HDD with a SD to IDE, in next days I'll clean the outer case and post some photos.
I'll probably swap some IDE cables with shorter ones since I don't need slave devices. I also disabled onboard COM, LPT, USB, modem and onboard GPU (I'm using a PCI S3 Trio 64v+) and I reserved IRQ 7 to ISA.
I really like this system!

THE NIGHTLAND is my board + video game for Commodore 64.

Reply 9 of 11, by Scandy

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And here it is!

y4m3OQPdDRgvVCGhIJB6yLnr_ILhEsPMQCN6Wm5Qq6EB0r2KD6tupuDjPcRLKJuXAnI2HkvcIipqiQ9_2FIPAIErCWdUHL_yl8aqEZBLQ0jzjF5__pq_tBzIoisiTk4oFR4lJ6s7Z_0tkpS28l_T6TSuHjdSnxfg6J1nnFFe88w4Ghms5fh4DZ0QXnwRrTz6lxT?width=768&height=1024&cropmode=none

- Intel Pentium 166 Mhz
- 48 Mb RAM
- S3 Trio 64v+ (PCI)
- Creative Sound Blaster AWE32 (ISA)
- SD (4Gb) to IDE adapter
- MS-DOS 6.22

It's in PERFECT shape, cleaned and fine-tuned. I just need some shorter IDE cables for a better "cable management", and I should also investigate on why sometimes the CPU is detcted (on other softwares, not in bios) as 200 Mhz.

Now I need a beige CRT, I know!

THE NIGHTLAND is my board + video game for Commodore 64.

Reply 10 of 11, by gex85

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That's a beauty, thank you for sharing! I am glad that one more of these nice little machines has found its way to a collector instead of the recycler.

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Reply 11 of 11, by jedie

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gex85 wrote on 2021-07-05, 12:15:

Manuals --> I have never been able to find anything online, unfortunately.

I also tried to find *any* Tulip Mainboard manuals, without success, yet. See also: Tulip TC-44: BIOS Updates + Jumper Settings ?!?

Has anybody any manual?