appiah4 wrote:

can anyone identify it as either passive or active matrix?

Passive matrix should usually come with 2 sliders on the display (brightness + constrast) while active matrix displays usually only have one slider (brightness) - if they have one at all. So I would guess it's active matrix.

^Just to the left of the Prt Scr key should be a tiny nameplate with the model number. I can barely make out an "XD" there, so this might be a 380XD.

Those weird gradients on the screen point to a passive-matrix panel, but I could be wrong.

debs3759 wrote:

liqmat wrote:

dirkmirk wrote:

286 motherboard with 640kb of ram, the reason I bought this board because it has a harris 286-25 CPU and I won the auction for a far price, one of those impulsive purchases in case I ever build a high end 286, unfortunately no simm memory but on to another related purchase.

Wow. 286-25. Is that the fastest 286 out there or did they make even higher clock rate versions?

Harris and Intersil both produced 286 at 20 and 25 MHz. Nobody else produced them faster than 16 MHz

I'm pretty sure the motherboard has 1MB of memory. As the OSC is 40MHz, the CPU is running at 20MHz.

I have this board or very similar one. Even at 25MHz I thought it will be faster.

debs3759 wrote:

liqmat wrote:

dirkmirk wrote:

286 motherboard with 640kb of ram, the reason I bought this board because it has a harris 286-25 CPU and I won the auction for a far price, one of those impulsive purchases in case I ever build a high end 286, unfortunately no simm memory but on to another related purchase.

Wow. 286-25. Is that the fastest 286 out there or did they make even higher clock rate versions?

Harris and Intersil both produced 286 at 20 and 25 MHz. Nobody else produced them faster than 16 MHz

I'd have to check this out again, but I think that AMD did produce limited quantities of 20MHz 286s.

Dual core CPUs came in first with the pentium D, and then on to the Core and Core2 systems.

However, pentium II/III/Pro chips had been doing single core but dual CPU for years without needing to go for Xeons. Around the p4 era Intel wised up to this and split multi processor systems up into Xeon only.

Two beautiful young ladies dropped by to drink some rose gin in the park this evening. One of them picked up some stuff for me earlier:

Edit:
Anti-clockwise starting top left:
Tyan Trinity 400 (ATX Via ApolloPro133A with Slot1, So370 FC-PGA, AGP 4x, PCI and ISA) - pretty much the ideal test board.
Compaq Garcia (uATX i815 So370 FC-PGA2) supports Tualatin after BIOS upgrade
Gigabyte GA-7ZX rev 1.0 (Via KT133, SoA)
MSI MS-6198 (uATX Via ApolloPro133A, So370 FC-PGA, AGP4x, PCI and ISA) - with P800EB and 192MB PC100 RAM that at least boots at 133MHz...
A-Trend 7402A (i740 AGP, 8MB)
An anonymous Cirrus Logic GD5424 VLB VGA adapter with 1MB RAM
Intel AN430TX (ATX, i430TX, So7, ATi RageII+ onboard)

The Compaq and MSI boards have awful bulging caps, but both boot fine. They both go into the todo-box for recapping. A good haul, as everything I could test works (don't have any SoA for the GZ-7ZX...)

You're going CCW, pal!

ynari wrote:

Dual core CPUs came in first with the pentium D, and then on to the Core and Core2 systems.

However, pentium II/III/Pro chips had been doing single core but dual CPU for years without needing to go for Xeons. Around the p4 era Intel wised up to this and split multi processor systems up into Xeon only.

Looking at release dates, Pentium D came out only a few days before the Athlon 64 x2 CPUs.

Back then AMD was dominating... it is too bad that Intel basically locked them out of the market due to their illegal activities.

gdjacobs wrote:

You're going CCW, pal!

Some people start posting obscenities when they've had a tad too much to drink, apparently I just lose my orientation 😉

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyBBrdElalc

Thermalwrong wrote:

Some of these were in the post for a while - while looking for a decently priced K6-III for my Lucky Star MVP3 motherboard, I found an Asus P5A-B along with one - there was so much thermal paste on the CPU 😀 Notice the thermal paste on the DIMM slots?

IMG_8008-crop.jpg

It was advertised as 525MHz, but the CPU is actually a 450, so maybe I know how well it overclocks now, I haven't had a chance to power it up yet, I wish I could find an AT case:

Well the P5AB rev 1.04 hold the world record for 3DMARK 2000.
But in games like GTA 3 I am not sure if the MVP3 is faster or not.

Oh, what a day, what a lovely day!

Bought unidentified Tandon machine that I assumed (based on photos) would have Hercules graphics card and amber monitor. Bought it as a monitor for my Childhood Embers build, but it turned out to be fully functional device. Some tinkering with BIOS, setting up Conner CP3044 CHS data and it reported for duty. Inside we have AMD AT @12MHz, a couple of funky BIOS chips (Odd and Even), even a network card - and it's all in the monitor base. Nice!

Apparently it was used by zee Germanz, as DOS and all programs (still intact!) are in German. Of course, no games - NO FUN, GET BACK TO VORK. Fortunately, I always have Prince of Persia disk nearby, so:

Bought a K7VZA with blown caps - in 10 minutes it was back on track, chugging happily with a Duron 1000MHz and new caps. 😁

Now the only thing to complete the list is to buy a VCR. 😀

@OldCat
Oh nice! True retro. I had amber monitor as a kid either... i will never forget electro-body or
golden axe on it...

OldCat wrote:

Oh, what a day, what a lovely day! […]
Show full quote

Oh, what a day, what a lovely day!

20180528_184405.jpg

Bought unidentified Tandon machine that I assumed (based on photos) would have Hercules graphics card and amber monitor. Bought it as a monitor for my Childhood Embers build, but it turned out to be fully functional device. Some tinkering with BIOS, setting up Conner CP3044 CHS data and it reported for duty. Inside we have AMD AT @12MHz, a couple of funky BIOS chips (Odd and Even), even a network card - and it's all in the monitor base. Nice!

Apparently it was used by zee Germanz, as DOS and all programs (still intact!) are in German. Of course, no games - NO FUN, GET BACK TO VORK. Fortunately, I always have Prince of Persia disk nearby, so:

tan05.jpg

I have viewed into this machines future and I sense: Interactive Fiction Text Adventures.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

OldCat wrote:

Oh, what a day, what a lovely day! [SNIP] Fortunately, I always have Prince of Persia disk nearby, so: […]
Show full quote

Oh, what a day, what a lovely day!
[SNIP]
Fortunately, I always have Prince of Persia disk nearby, so:

tan05.jpg

I have viewed into this machines future and I sense: Interactive Fiction Text Adventures.

Quite possibly, but I definitely intend to visit my childhood / adolescence games in yellow (cue Coldplay): Prehistorik, Prince of Persia, Metal Mutant, Colorado, Starblade, Lode Runner, Zak McKraken, Electro Body, Robbo, Heartlight PC and so on.

I used to own an PC/AT clone with a Hercules card, but my monitor was a 12.1" black/white.. monochrome? We used to call green/amber monitors monochrome and the black/white ones Hercules. To this day I don't know how off our terminology was.

appiah4 wrote:

I used to own an PC/AT clone with a Hercules card, but my monitor was a 12.1" black/white.. monochrome? We used to call green/amber monitors monochrome and the black/white ones Hercules. To this day I don't know how off our terminology was.

Were they true black/white, or rather greyscale?

Either way your terminology was badly off. Hercules was a card/protocol standard, which could output mono to compatible monitors regardless of colour. True mono pixels were just on or off. Greyscale (sometimes known as 'paperwhite') screens could accept regular VGA output, but only had one type of subpixel.

I'm fairly certain that my own PC, with a Hercules card, could output 12 (or maybe 16) shades of grey onto the monitor we had, that is why my dad always claimed it was superior to green monochrome PCs even though they could display in color, albeit a single one. So I'm guessing we had a Hercules card with a compatible Greyscale monitor.

appiah4 wrote:

I used to own an PC/AT clone with a Hercules card, but my monitor was a 12.1" black/white.. monochrome? We used to call green/amber monitors monochrome and the black/white ones Hercules. To this day I don't know how off our terminology was.

That is incorrect. Monochrome means, well, single colour. So black & white monitor, amber monitor and green monitor are all going to fall under monochrome monitors, even if they display different shades of orange or green. Hercules graphics card would output signal that would be monochrome as in binary, it's either a lit pixel or dark pixel, but you could connect any of these monitors and have monochrome green, amber (yellow/orange/whatever) or b&w display. When emulating Hercules graphics card in DosBOX can switch between the screen colours to reflect that.