the roland mt32 sounds are lame, what made the mt32 special was the possibility to upload custom sounds

I think it sounds good so far, just been playing back midi's in windows on it.
It wasn't free but only paid 60$ for it, It had the manual and I'm new to these devices, so I went for it.

^
It is still a VERY good synth for GS/GM stuff.
The way I see it the SC-50 is a SC-55MK2 without the MT-32 sound bank, the front midi port and the IR function. It still offers 28-voice polyphony like the MK2 (vs 24 of the original SC-55) . So it's nice 😁

Regarding the missing MT-32 mode , IMHO it's not that big of a problem. Sure the other models have it BUT they don't support the custom sound upload and usage. You are stuck with the stock set , Monkey Island 1 for example sounds OKish, Monkey Island 2 that uses custom instruments doesn't sound that good... TBH one needs a real MT-32 if he is into that, not some other device half-emulating it 😊

Soyo KT600 Dragon Plus V2.0 Motherboard, found off ebay for $22.50 free shipping. Using the seller's photos from the listing for now as I don't have it in my paws yet.

Listing said Manufacturer refurbished, I think it must of been a manufacturer replacement that sat in their shop on a shelf and just re-sold today or something, because those capacitors look pristine and it might of been re-capped by the factory. Plus overall it looks very clean, almost not used much at all.

Anyway if it works well, nice bit of kit. The KT600 took all of the Socket 462 chips, all the way from the early duron and Athlon chips, all the way up to the AthlonXP 3200+ Barton chips, so it should be a fun platform to play with various different chips. And it has full compatibility with Win98se, Win2000, and XP. For < $30 I just couldn't pass this one up. Plus I don't have an AGP-8x system capable of XP at the moment, so this will be nice. Maybe I might finally be able to volt-mod bios-flash my 6800 ultra and see about getting it a little overclocked if I can get it in a system that runs XP stable (Something I've always wanted to do since I bought that 6800 Ultra last year). Maybe If it works out and XP works I can see about trying to bios-mod several fun AGP NVIDIA cards, I saw a FX-5700 at local used store yesterday for $10, I might go back and grab it just to play with it.

Very nice find mate.
I have a 6800GT Winfast, but it appears to have died. Great cards.

Finally, a spare pair of JBL 044Ti tweeters, yay! 😀

It doesn't stop me from looking for another pair, though. Just like Voodoo5 5500 and Thrustmaster HOTAS, I'm also hoarding those tweeters. The more, the better! 😁

Why are they so special?

Are these tweeters some sort of super pc speaker? I'm a little confused as well...

Those are tweeters for full-size speakers - they'd go into a multi-driver system with a crossover.

Seeing as I work in a PC shop, I have access to older things I wouldn't ordinarily find (unless on e-bay), Nothing Pre Socket A though unfortunately 😢 )

However, acquired this laptop. An Acer Aspire 1700. Unfortunately doesn't work, it seems to power on, and the HDD spins into life but nothing at all appears on the screen. I may buy a motherboard on e-bay if there is one going. It is to replace my Dell CPi D266XT that I use in the front room while watching the telly (which is now 16 years old and usless for youtube etc), also the HDD is failing and sometimes it doesn't boot properly into Windows 2000 (hangs on 'initiating group policy' or something. Regardless, here it is. This thing is damn heavy and I might get broken legs if I have it on my lap all night.

And for comparison with my dell.

The reason why it's so heavy..

Look at that hardware, 3.5" HDD, 786MB desktop ram, independant graphics card, Pentium 4, all the I/O you could wish for, a floppy disc drive too (always a good thing). Just wish it worked. 😀 Apparently cost around £1,400 when it came out in 2002.

I also got this full size ATX too, it's the only one at work in the bin pile that isn't ugly as crap. I've loaded it with all the cd/dvd drives and floppy drives it can take. A nice looking case I think. It has a mini-atx board, which I am not bothered about- but has a 1.6 Duron, which may be necessary if my 1.3 duron fails in my 3dfx machine.

Splinter wrote:

vetz wrote:

Splinter wrote:

That is the bundle with the Diamond Monster 3D card, not the Voodoo2, still nice catch 😀

Not sure what you mean there mate.
The card is a Voodoo II.... 😎

What he means is the software bundle does not go with the video card. I bought a Diamond Monster Voodoo 1 from Gary Donovan (of Donovans Dodge Garage) that came with that same software bundle. Since Gary is pretty much an expert on all thing related to 3dfx, I'll take his word that the software bundle came with the Voodoo 1 and not the Voodoo 2.

Look at the cover of the folder the CD's come in. It says Diamond Monster 3d. The driver CD you got says Diamond Monster 3d II. They are mismatched. The video card and driver CD go together, but not the games CD's.

You're also missing a couple of CD's from the set, BTW.

Wow a DTR style laptop with a full 3.5 inch drive that is the first semi modern laptop that I have seen that used a normal desktop hard drive. If you could give some details about the problem chances are that it could be a simple fix to get it running again but laptops from that time usually just cook. Got a charger for it?

Soon! 😁
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dog4I5Clnjo
For stuff like that http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:266576

nforce4max wrote:

Wow a DTR style laptop with a full 3.5 inch drive that is the first semi modern laptop that I have seen that used a normal desktop hard drive. If you could give some details about the problem chances are that it could be a simple fix to get it running again but laptops from that time usually just cook. Got a charger for it?

Yep, it sure does, and it is itself the size of a 3.5" hard disc. 😎

The fact of the matter is, when you plug it in (the battery is completely gone-who'd have thunk it?), i can press the power button, and everything will whiz away, but nothing at all appears on the screen. I've hooked it to an external monitor too but that has no effect on either the laptop nor external monitor. I've re-sat everything, including the dedicated gfx card, cpu, ram, hdd, screen etc etc etc. No display. No beeping, nothing. Just the power light on and the hdd spinning away.

I've been doing some research and alot of early Acer Aspire laptops had this problem after time. Apparently flashing the BIOS works? I don't know why that would fix an issue that is in ROM and therefore present since release though..

Nothing specific to this 1700 laptop though.. It was probably so expensive no one bought it. 🤣

I picked up a Gigabyte GA-7IXE (Slot A) for £5 including postage. I'm just waiting for the processor to arrive, AMD Athlon 750mhz.

Blurredman wrote:

Yep, it sure does, and it is itself the size of a 3.5" hard disc. :cool: […]
Show full quote

nforce4max wrote:

Wow a DTR style laptop with a full 3.5 inch drive that is the first semi modern laptop that I have seen that used a normal desktop hard drive. If you could give some details about the problem chances are that it could be a simple fix to get it running again but laptops from that time usually just cook. Got a charger for it?

Yep, it sure does, and it is itself the size of a 3.5" hard disc. 😎

The fact of the matter is, when you plug it in (the battery is completely gone-who'd have thunk it?), i can press the power button, and everything will whiz away, but nothing at all appears on the screen. I've hooked it to an external monitor too but that has no effect on either the laptop nor external monitor. I've re-sat everything, including the dedicated gfx card, cpu, ram, hdd, screen etc etc etc. No display. No beeping, nothing. Just the power light on and the hdd spinning away.

I've been doing some research and alot of early Acer Aspire laptops had this problem after time. Apparently flashing the BIOS works? I don't know why that would fix an issue that is in ROM and therefore present since release though..

Nothing specific to this 1700 laptop though.. It was probably so expensive no one bought it. 🤣

Reflow the graphics card and give it another try, more often than not they will come up especially the older stuff. If it works and isn't glitchy you will have a pretty neat retro gamer there.

Slide
I never would have noticed to be honest, but thanks for pointing it out.
Collected the card this morning and the bloke was very unhappy to sell it as he'd had it for about 15 years and is in pristine condition.
Perhaps down here in Argentina, they came with the Voodoo 1 pack, who knows?
Which missing CD's are you referring to?
Presumably the picture below is how the V2 was presented:

Sutekh94 wrote:

@Splinter - that 4500 is actually made by Powercolor, and it's one that actually has TV out! Very nice deal for only $20!

You can see it in the Dodge Garage's collection right here. It's towards the bottom of the page.

Just double checking...all the info I've looked at points out that the 4500 is an AGP 4x, but then i read this on the 3dfx help page:

WARNING! If you have a Powercolor Voodoo4 4500 card, be aware that this is a 3.3V AGP 1.0 PCB and it will NOT work in 1.5V AGP 2.0 or 1.5V/0.8V AGP 3.0 motherboards or operate beyond 2X AGP (the card may work in a new agp8x motherboard, but this will damage the hardware after short period of time. In short words, don’t do it).

I'm considering a PIII build, but am now a little cautious as to which mobo to put the card in, unless I stick to AGP 1.0 only.

@Blurredman:

The great thing about having a laptop with a 3.5" hard drive from that era is that you can source a 320GB IDE drive and have more than enough capacity for modern day tasks. Not sure I'd want a Pentium 4-powered laptop on my lap though - my Duron-powered Vaio PCG FX-601 gets warm enough, and looking at that design, you'll have a fan blowing into your lap, or sucking air through it. I don't think it is from 2002 either; things I can find point to a 2004 date, although everything gets mixed up with the newer X1700 series. I do hope you get that beast running though, and that ATX case is very nice indeed! You should probably throw a cheap replacement hard drive in the Dell laptop as well.

Picked up some IDE->CF adapters to try out - they're so freaking cheap that I figured I might as well. I installed one as a secondary master drive on my 486 and it works like a charm, very impressed.