TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[Trekkie4]

This system here was donated to a good cause (charity), in fact it's been made only for this particular purpose. It was the best I could do at the moment, I gave it the fastest CPU I could find & loaded it with RAM, combining both with Asus mobo which I personally find very reliable & durable. Besides, it was one of those "3 for the price of one" deals, so I've kept other 2 to feed my retro obsession (Pentium 2 350 and Athlon 750, I think) You can see these boards all together, on the 2nd pic. I considered donating all 3 of them, but let's be honest - most people nowdays wouldn't know what to do with 350MHz system



The rest of the parts are (and were) my own stock, gathered over time. I know it looks impressive, but this huge stack of ODDs and floppy drives has been entirely used by dozens of systems assembled over time, they've all been mounted, thrown into the trash (because they didn't work) or given away to someone. Speaking of defective components, ABIT VH6 was put into the chassis, just so I would realize straight away it doesn't work. Of course, I've tried to have it fixed but eventually had to get rid of it and so it got replaced by the same, S370 Matsonic board instead (pics of both boards down below)


These next pics were actually part of the instruction guide (by myself, made for one particular person), to show them how easy it is to make your own computer system. Whenever it's a socket 775 or Slot 1, it all pretty much comes down to the same thing (sooner or later), which is why I documented every step in the entire process. Obviously (for the sake of repeating myself & spamming TPU), I removed some of the pics in between, otherwise there was a pic to show everything you need to know This also gave me an opportunity to make yet another retro system, so I turned it into Voodoo2 SLI rig. It's been a while, so I've done quite some changes since then. In fact, you might remember few months back when I got that SoundBlaster AWE card... It actually ended up inside this system, here!


These ones are just random pics of my collection...


I once scored this Slot 1 system here for almost nothing and the best part is that it had a Voodoo2 card inside! Frankly speaking, that was pretty much the only reason I bought it... The case was nice & mostly clean, but it was missing those 5.25" rails for mounting optical drives, so after fiddling with alternative solutions, I've stripped it apart & kept all the components which (oddly enough, especially for the given price) all tested OK!


Sealed copy of Windows 95, OEM version (on CD-ROM). I got 3 or 4 of these, one package has been opened, so I used it for "display" purpose. Other ones are in the safe place


Don't really remember what's this one here, but it looks like a Voodoo card, Diamond Monster 3D. If this is what I think it is, then it's the card with pretty weird problem. Apparently it works perfectly fine under Glide (and maybe OpenGL?), but hangs & freezes with entirely black screen if it's a DirectX. I can only assume that something somewhere went terribly wrong, but since it does seem to be working, I decided to hang onto it...


Speaking of Voodoo cards, this one is yet another Diamond - except this one is Voodoo2, aka Diamond Monster 3DII. This one is entirely dead, it doesn't even power up. Just a single glance at the card itself & you can see why, doesn't take much experience to figure it out Too bad actually, these are becoming more & more difficult to find, and their prices went up through the roof!


More stuff...


Overall, you guys can probably tell how much I like my retro stuff Of course, most of these systems have been upgraded in the meantime, especially graphics! I used to have a "model" for building old systems and so every time I would use Voodoo2 card, I would (for the sake of authenticity, staying as true as possible to the original recipe) use an old AGP card, something like S3 Virge, SIS 6326 or similar. In other words, just a plain old AGP card to provide the system with essential 2D graphics. However, I've realized over time that 3dfx is not the answer to every requirement, so therefore having a secondary, 3D-capable card along with existing Voodoo2 helps a lot! Especially with games such as Half-Life: Blue Shift for example, which has some serious issues with 3dfx! In fact, I got more than several GeForce2 and Geforce4 cards since then, so most of these standard ones have been replaced with those. ATI, too... Just because I didn't want to repeat myself, I've used "Rage 128" in two different rigs! You know, gotta keep things interesting somehow

 

[stinger608]

Holy crap batman!!!!! That is a ton of awesome pics @Trekkie4 !!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Trekkie4]

Holy crap batman!!!!! That is a ton of awesome pics @Trekkie4 !!!!!!!!!!!

Haha, thanks You might remember some of these from the last year as they turned out to be duplicates, but from what I can tell I never got around to upload rest of these (for some reason, probably forgot & moved on) so here they are

Oh, and here's last one for now, just for the giggles


"That's my Linux, human! You go & catch your own."

EDIT
Updated my previous post with the appropriate description(s). There's a lot more information to those, but in the end I didn't want to turn this into the guide and/or lecture

 

[Trekkie4]

Another double-post... Yup, I'm hopeless

So, here's something entirely new - my video card collection. All these cards are indeed fully functional except for Diamond Monster (mentioned in my previous post), which only does Glide & hangs on DirectX and Voodoo3 3500. From what I know, that 3500 may as well be running perfectly fine, but since I don't have original adapter to connect VGA monitor, it's therefore never been tested.

Starting with NVidia TNT2 Vanta, the (in)famous M64 version... Does seem to be working, but there's no way I'm going to use this one, at least not any time soon!


Audio Excel sound card with 3D hardware support! Pretty awesome IMHO, especially considering how old this thing is!


Asus N6200, aka NVidia GeForce6, 6200LE. Budget-friendly model featuring basic DirectX9 hardware support, quite capable of running Half-Life 2 and episodes at decent FPS. It's missing the VGA header, but I don't mind... This one is just a spare, I'm already using the same card in one of the "newer" Athlon XP retro builds.


Previously mentioned 3dfx Voodoo3 3500. Top of the line model, as you guys probably know better than me. The only thing that's missing is necessary AV cable adapter, which plugs into the output jack. Therefore, this thing has never been tested, I have no idea if it's worth anything or not. Probably works OK, but still... *shrug*


Inno 3D Tornado, aka NVidia GeForce2 MX200 with 64mb of VRAM. From what I heard, pretty decent card, but since I had several GF4 MX400 laying around, I never got around to use it in any of my builds.


SIS 6326, a fine example of how simple 3D accelerators used to be back in a day This one is actually capable of running older games at 640x480, such as Carmageddon 2 for example. But that's about it really, as it can't even compete against the Voodoo1 cards.


S3 Trio 3D/2X, same as previously mentioned SIS 6326, except it runs even slower and can't do ANY 3D ... except in software mode


Matrox Mystique, another example of graphic decelerator which can hardly keep up even with the Windows environment - at least the PCI version of the same card can't, which I'm using in one of the older, AT-styled (Windows 95) builds.


And last but certainly not least, that Diamond Monster 3D, aka Voodoo1 which only does Glide. I did my best to find any obvious damage and/or blown components, so if you can see anything wrong with this thing (or something obvious, that's causing problems), I would highly appreciate if you let me know!


In addition to all these, I still have that Evil Kyro, which I never really got to test & see if it works or not. In fact, I couldn't even find the drivers for this thing, they're all just for Kyro2... Warning, these next 2 pics are hosted by ImageBam, previously uploaded some time last year.

 

[Trekkie4]

Another day, another batch of video cards...

Starting with NVidia GeForce MX400, pretty decent card for what it's worth. I had 3 or 4 of these at some point, but gave away one to someone who needed it more than I do. 2nd one has been mounted inside one Pentium III (866MHz) and the third (this) one got replaced with GeForce4 Ti4800SE, so it ended up being spare.


I don't think I ever got to see this Trident TVGA8900C in action, but I'm pretty sure it runs OK.


Same thing with this Realtek RTG3105E... In fact, I didn't even know that Realtek made GPU chipsets!


Another S3 card... This time with (VESA?) interface, primarily designed for later 386 & 486 boards. I got the appropriate motherboard in one of the boxes, it has a 486 DX2 (66MHz) on it so I MIGHT do another 486 at some point, don't know. Frankly, I wouldn't know what to do with it... Not to mention I don't have any spare AT towers & power supplies available.


Yet ANOTHER Trident... This time TVGA9000i-1 Never been tested, I have no idea if it works or not



Remember that Audio Excel card from my previous post? Well, here's another one of those! Has 3D support, like I said before pretty awesome stuff considering its age! I remember my 1st audio card ever, bought around 1993, 1994 maybe... It was also Audio Excel, although I'm not sure if it was the same model or not. It was working perfectly fine for years, never had any problems with it, whatsoever!


How about a brand new (old stock, of course) Genius G2000III network adapter card?


No? Well, how about two Genius G2000III network adapter cards then?


Still not satisfied? Gee, tough crowd! Well, in that case how about three of those?


Just a random Silicon Image ATA controller... I'm pretty sure it works, because I've pulled this one from the running system!


S3 Trio64V+, another fine example of video decelerators Has approx. 2MB of VRAM, so therefore it can't even display 1024x768 in 32bit color!


ATI Rage 3D PRO, one of those cards you don't get to see very often. (Recently) tested & works OK, not sure what else to say... Don't have the memory expansion for this thing, and even if I do, I don't think it would make much difference. It's about the same class as SIS 6326 card.


Last one for now - another S3, Trio64. Once again, same thing. Approx. 2mb of VRAM, pretty sure it works OK but apart from that I got nothing more to say. The only use for these things is inside old Windows 95 builds, which combine cards such as these with Voodoo1 cards. Other than that, they're useless IMHO.

 

[Red_Machine]

Starting with NVidia TNT2 Vanta, the (in)famous M64 version... Does seem to be working, but there's no way I'm going to use this one, at least not any time soon!

I have the original Vanta, with 16MB VRAM. It's a beast of a card. I could get a 98% overclock on it without even so much as a heatsink on the chip. It was able to run Star Trek: Elite Force flawelessly!

 

[Trekkie4]

I have the original Vanta, with 16MB VRAM. It's a beast of a card. I could get a 98% overclock on it without even so much as a heatsink on the chip. It was able to run Star Trek: Elite Force flawelessly!

Wow, that's new... From what I got to see and hear, ppl mostly dislike Vanta due to the bad 3D performance. In fact, I remember someone comparing all 3 cards together, running benchmark for TNT2 Pro, TNT2 Ultra & TNT2 Vanta, with M64 showing less than half of what Ultra (even Pro) has to offer. Just not worth the hassle IMHO, especially since I already have TNT2 Pro in one of my rigs.

But you're right, I never tried to OC one of these... My experience has been entirely based on factory clock speed.

EDIT
Yup, here it is... Of course, I replaced the fan on this thing (soldered it directly into the PCB) and cleaned it up, it runs perfectly!

 

[Red_Machine]

There were a few different versions of the Vanta; mine is the full-fat, TNT-based chip. Surprisingly, the Vanta cards based on the TNT2 actually performed worse.

 

[Trekkie4]

See, this is exactly why I love TPU ... I learn something new every day!

Seriously, didn't know that - thanks for sharing the information! Somehow, I assumed that every Vanta was the same, M64 based on TNT2...

EDIT
I would like to use this moment to talk about previously mentioned Slot-1 motherboard(s) here



From the collector's point of view, these things are surprisingly interesting, yet very misleading & confusing. I remember buying the right board 1st, and then coming back to the guy who sold these for the other, left one.

At the first glance, both of these were identical. Same markings, same layout, same design, same everything! Except one of these had the chip (or memory module, don't know for sure) extra, while the other one did not. Of course, I assumed that it must have been a different revision, or something similar. It even crossed my mind that someone, at some point removed it on purpose, but that theory fell apart as soon as I realized that both of these boot up & run perfectly OK. In fact, it didn't even occur to me to look for the OBVIOUS answer, right in front of my face!

So, here's the thing... One of these, the one on the right uses the famous Intel 440BX chipset, while the other board, and once again I repeat - basically identical to the one with BX chipset uses VIA Apollo. In fact, (apart from obvious, which I didn't notice right away), the ONLY difference between these 2 boards is that sticker on the left board. The original model number has been covered with white sticker, now featuring P6V693A/A5/133E which, of course refers to VIA sub-model of the same product, QDI Advance 5, Slot-1 motherboard. What really surprised me the most is the way they've done the modification from Intel to VIA, as if they designed the layout after the board already left the production, assembly line. As if they've literally done it by hand, modding the Intel's board in order to transform it into the VIA one. IDK, I would really love to hear your opinion on this one! Both of these are in perfect condition, one (Intel) has been paired up with Pentium 2 350 & the other (VIA) with Pentium 3, 550.

Review for Intel, Legend QDI P6I440BX BrillianX 1S/2000
Review for VIA, Legend QDI P6V693A Advance 5/133E

 

[debs3759]

There were a few different versions of the Vanta; mine is the full-fat, TNT-based chip. Surprisingly, the Vanta cards based on the TNT2 actually performed worse.

Actually all Vanta cards were based on the NV6 chip. The Vanta LT ran at 80 MHz core, 100 MHz Memory. TNT2 M64 Vanta, later named simply TNT2 Vanta, ran at 100/125 MHz. There was no TNT Vanta.

This data was gathered in my work creating a database of graphics cards (currently still working on adding vintage cards, and so far the website only has ATI/AMD/NVidia cards). I have catalogued over 10K cards so far. They can be seen at www.gpuzoo.com. This can also be confirmed from the database this site has, which lists all reference cards.

 

[xvi]

Vacated an old job site. This just arrived on my desk. Brace for epic.

Processor: Intel 80286
Hard Drive: Seagate ST-225, Formatted Capacity of 21.4MB, 3,600 RPM, ST-412 Interface (Full spec sheet here)
Graphics: ??? Supports CGA or EGA graphics.

Best part? CEO says he actually wants me to recover an old program off it.
I don't think he realizes Windows 10 doesn't have a "QDOS" compatibility mode option.

Edit: Let me know if anyone has a ST-412 to USB adapter that I could borrow.
Edit 2: Found a page in an old Computerworld magazine from 1987 listing the specs of this bad boy. Sticker on the back of it says it's a Wyse 2108-20.

8MHz CPU means it could only be a Siemens 80286 processor. Can barely make out the eggplant-colored ceramic packaging.

 

[debs3759]

Edit: Let me know if anyone has a ST-412 to USB adapter that I could borrow.

Is ST-412 the same as MFM? If it is, it may be easier to find an MFM to IDE, IDE to SATA and SATA to USB adapter.

EDIT: I just googled, and where IDE and SATA have the controller on the drive, MFM has it on the controller card. If your boss really wants to salvage the program, it might be easier to get an ISA network card and use that to transfer the data. Or an IDE card and drive, as IDE/SATA/USB adapters are very cheap.

 

[Red_Machine]

Actually all Vanta cards were based on the NV6 chip. The Vanta LT ran at 80 MHz core, 100 MHz Memory. TNT2 M64 Vanta, later named simply TNT2 Vanta, ran at 100/125 MHz. There was no TNT Vanta.

This data was gathered in my work creating a database of graphics cards (currently still working on adding vintage cards, and so far the website only has ATI/AMD/NVidia cards). I have catalogued over 10K cards so far. They can be seen at www.gpuzoo.com. This can also be confirmed from the database this site has, which lists all reference cards.

Well mine isn't a Vanta LT, it's the full Vanta card with 16MB VRAM and 100/125 clocks. My research led me to believe that it was based on the original Riva TNT because the Vanta is only referenced in the Riva TNT article on Wikipedia, not the TNT2 article.

I really wish I had a machine I could put that card in, I love it.

EDIT: The TNT2 article has been updated since I last visited, this has been added:

A low-cost version, known as the TNT2 M64, was produced with the memory interface reduced from 128-bit to 64-bit. Sometimes these were labeled "Vanta", continuing the Vanta name started with a value-oriented RIVA TNT-based product.

 

[debs3759]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units confirms that the Vanta cards used the NV6 die and was released a week after the TNT2 M64 which used the same die. TNT used NV4. The TNT/TNT2 pages appear to be mistaken.

NV4 and NV6 have the same configuration.

 

[dorsetknob]

As Promised Pictures of Scanman 32 for DOS

isting the specs of this bad boy. Sticker on the back of it says it's a Wyse 2108-20.

Back then this standard of PC( Good for its time ) was known as a Fag and coffee machines

turn it on AND put the kettle on ( see which came to the "Boil first ) often you could be sat back down at desk with coffee and a half smoked Fag before you could use the Pc
Reminds me of my 1st (Tandon something )
similar spec
12Mhz CPU 80286 ,1 meg Ram 32 pin simm, 20 M/b MFM/RLL hard drive, Vga (isa slot ) 3 and 1/2" floppy + 5 and 1/4" floppy Dos 3

 

[xvi]

As Promised Pictures of Scanman 32 for DOS

Certainly newer and mostly just a barcode reader, but this reminds me a bit of the :CueCAT used by Radio Shack ads. Didn't seem to catch on too terribly well.

 

[Trekkie4]

More stuff coming up...

I sure got loads of fans Some of these might not be fantastic, but they will do their job! Two of these worth mentioning are Spire FalconRock 2 & Titan Twin Cooler, the one in the middle.


Yet another (and probably the last one for now) video card - ATI Radeon 9100? with Rage Theater chip on it.


An old Pentium 133 in ceramic package, probably one of the last models WITHOUT MMX support!


And Yamaha XG YMF724F-V sound card...


Now, here's something slightly different. I bought this next motherboard long time ago, and it was part of that "3-system" deal I got back in 2014, when I gave one of the systems away for charity. I had it around the room for months, before I decided to use it for one of the AMD builds. In fact, this motherboard WAS, at one point paired up with that black Cooler Master case, from my profile rig. So, what happened, you may be asking? At one point, while I was still putting this thing together, I've noticed that the system (with Athlon 1700+) had weird problems, and that the motherboard would sometimes turn on normally and sometimes it wouldn't. It also had tons of other issues, so I took it apart & started fiddling with the settings & RAM modules. At some point, I did one of those stupid, rookie mistakes & removed the CPU cooler from this thing, so that I could quickly swap the CPU for other one (for the sake of testing, if necessary) and placed a temporary, small passive chipset cooler across Athlon 1700. Here's the thing... Ordinarily CPUs such as Intel Pentiums 1, 2, 3 & newer probably wouldn't mind something like that, and would simply keep on working. However, this is Socket A we're talking about, and these ones (as you know) have exposed components on the actual CPU, something which I entirely forgot about. As you might have guessed, the small chipset cooler caused the short across Athlon 1700, which simply died in a puff of smoke, right in front of my eyes! I remember testing the board afterwards, with one other Athlon (750MHz) and it did't work, so the board ended up on the scrap pile & almost got thrown into trash. Well, almost - you see after couple of weeks, as I was gathering stuff to recycle & get rid of it, I've decided one more time to give it a go with Sempron CPU & see if it'll boot up or not. In fact, the board (at this point) was already picked clean, I removed the CMOS battery, all the jumper caps, even removed those plastic clips for the sound input (TAD, CD-IN & AUX) because I needed those for one other board. Surprisingly enough, board booted up perfectly fine ... which left me stunned & wondering what the heck is going on. Of course, I restored all the jumper caps & placed one of the plastic hooks back on the board, saving the board from its terrible fate.

Although I kept this particular board, I never really used it again so after couple of months, I gave it a "new" Athlon CPU, placed a brand new CPU cooler & traded it with someone for one other piece of hardware. That was 2 years ago, and I never heard about that board again - until yesterday. When I got the call from the same person who gave me the board back to me, because he's no longer interested in it. In the meantime, it seems that the board has been tossed, scraped, abused & crushed under a whole bunch of other parts, but it does seem to be OK. Don't really know for sure, as I didn't have the time to actually test it but I'm starting to wonder just how many lives this thing has?!

This other board here is a complete mystery to me... All I can tell is that it has a 266MHz Pentium II, integrated Matrox GPU & uses SD-RAM. Probably an older Dell maybe, or HP? IDK, never saw anything like this before, but it's pretty much worthless since it doesn't comply to standard, ATX specs.

 

[Red_Machine]

My money's on that mystery 266MHz Pentium II board having come out of an HP Brio. I had a very similar system for a few days many years ago, but I couldn't get it working. I stripped it for parts, and kept the SGRAM DIMM module on impulse. Two or three years ago, I bought an old Dell OptiPlex GX1, with an integrated ATI Rage Pro Turbo. It had an SGRAM slot on the motherboard, so I dug the DIMM from the HP out of storage and slotted it in. Now it runs with 8MB VRAM. Really glad I kept that SGRAM DIMM, I couldn't find any of them on eBay when I looked around the time I bought the Dell.

 

[Trekkie4]

My money's on that mystery 266MHz Pentium II board having come out of an HP Brio. I had a very similar system for a few days many years ago, but I couldn't get it working. I stripped it for parts, and kept the SGRAM DIMM module on impulse. Two or three years ago, I bought an old Dell OptiPlex GX1, with an integrated ATI Rage Pro Turbo. It had an SGRAM slot on the motherboard, so I dug the DIMM from the HP out of storage and slotted it in. Now it runs with 8MB VRAM. Really glad I kept that SGRAM DIMM, I couldn't find any of them on eBay when I looked around the time I bought the Dell.

Don't think it's Brio (at least according to what I saw Googling) but I think you're onto something here. It MIGHT be HP Vectra, model number VL6-266. Could be wrong though...

 

[Ruru]

Long time no see guys! I received an old server which I'm going to dedicate to older games with XP SP3/W7 x64 dualboot. What I figured out, it has Socket 604 Xeon 3GHz with 2MB L2 and X64 support (Xeon variant of Pentium 4 630), 2GB registered ECC DDR2-400, some crappy integrated GPU, 3x SCSI320 146GB drives, tape drive for backups and hot-swappable 725W PSU and a support for another. Oh, and a socket for another CPU. It has also 2x PCIe x8 slots (the second one is x4 electrically), but with closed ends, so I opened the end of the x8 slot for a video card, some old GPU for games for it. SCSI drives connected via PCI-X SCSI controller. So far I just need to get a graphics card and a sound card (since it doesn't have onboard) to it.

Pics coming soon, I spent few hours cleaning it and put new thermal paste for the CPU etc..

Some info from it: http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetPDF.aspx/c04284160.pdf

 

[laszlo]

i have a Sony VAIO PCG-505GX with win98 from 1998? still working... is this old enough to appear here?

 

[Trekkie4]

i have a Sony VAIO PCG-505GX with win98 from 1998? still working... is this old enough to appear here?


View attachment 70973 View attachment 70972

Heh, of course! Nice one!

Edit
Saved another VCR today! Model number (and brand) is Philips VR520, I got it for 7$ or approx. 6€ for those of us living in EU. Usually I don't collect "modern" units (from 2000), but since it was preserved and it's HiFi Stereo with 6 heads & original remote I figured why not! I might upload some pics, depending on whenever you guys are interested or not.

Edit2
For some odd reason, I'm tempted to make a Celeron system, from 1997/8. I'm thinking of Slot-1 motherboard (iWill BD100), running either Pentium 266, Celeron 300 or 333 (got both of them) I suppose I could even try with something higher, let's say Celeron 433 (S370) running on either Slot-1 via slocket adapter or the actual S370 board... Graphics would be something old & slow. Let's say SIS 6326 or ATI Rage Pro Turbo, both cards from my previous posts. 2nd card would be Voodoo1, and it would only run 64mb of SD-RAM.

Just for the sake of complicating things, I would use a DVD drive in this thing, so I'd need to patch the video card with one of those DVD (MPEG) accelerators/encoders. And maybe run the latest version of Windows 95? Hmm, doesn't sound too bad actually

 

[Countryside]

Old dusty Badass 9800GT 512MB GDDR3

 

[MaxiPro800]

Just got this ol' big Xbox over here.

Mobile Celeron 733MHz anyone? It's been upgraded a bit by me - HDD will be replaced with 200GB Hitachi Deskstar (current one is a 80GB IDE Maxtor - it's unlocked) and then cloning with Chimpanzee Linux

Trekkie - I've got two PSUs,both Deer,that went through a lot of torture from me,and both still work fine to this day. I'm going to admit,one of them was rebuilt by me. The other one,however,I got it packed up with components.

 

[Trekkie4]

Trekkie - I've got two PSUs,both Deer,that went through a lot of torture from me,and both still work fine to this day. I'm going to admit,one of them was rebuilt by me. The other one,however,I got it packed up with components.

Hmm, not sure I understand which post you're referring to here, is it that last one about making a Celeron build? But you're right, I've been wondering about PS units & how much load would they be able to handle, if I make a system that's packed up with hardware My guess would be around 300W... I was thinking of something like this:

Celeron 433, S370 on a DFI CA61 mobo running 64mb of SD RAM, ATI Rage Pro Turbo (or SIS6326) AGP card + Diamond Monster Voodoo1 + Creative DVD encoder card, some cheap & generic sound card & a modem (or an old network card with coaxial jack) and last but not least 2x optical drives (CD & DVD), floppy & a single HDD.