TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[lexluthermiester]

Creative CT6200 (3D Blaster VLB) 2MB (New, Unsealed) (1995)

Those cards were great! Excellent 2D performance, and for the time, good 3D performance. However when paired with a Voodoo it was a power-house combo that rocked every game thrown at it.

Install driver first.....

That was a real thing! If you didn't, it would hard-core bork the Windows registry which would necessitate a reinstall of the OS. DOS not so much, but by then no one was running DOS by itself

 

[Trekkie4]

That was a real thing! If you didn't, it would hard-core bork the Windows registry which would necessitate a reinstall of the OS. DOS not so much, but by then no one was running DOS by itself

That happened to me, on several occasions. And not ONLY just under W95, I had a similar experience with Win98 as well. Which is why I developed fool-proof approach to booting up "new" retro builds - first I boot up all the drivers & software and only then I install the games & personalized stuff, settings. Because if something goes wrong, it would be easier to scrap everything & go all over again from scratch.

 

[HUSKIE]

Old analog black and white tv with housing. National brand. If I remembered this way back early 1980's

 

[biffzinker]

Old analog black and white tv with housing. National brand. If I remembered this way back early 1980's

I spy an old CRT TV above.

 

[HUSKIE]

Yes it is I just cropped it

 

[Bones]

Tossed an old 21' CRT monitor not long ago even though it was still working perfectly.
Had a beautiful picture, no issues or anything else but just didn't have the room for it anymore.

Was a freebie from a few years back so I didn't lose anything and got plenty of use out of it too.

 

[deflipe]

Hi, I just replaced the original fans of my Voodoo 5 with some Noctua NF-A4x10 5V, Premium Quiet Fan. Now temperature and sound are not problems.

 

[Trekkie4]

Old analog black and white tv with housing. National brand. If I remembered this way back early 1980's

For those who don't know, National is Panasonic. So is Technics, and/or Quasar... I was just discussing Panasonic on another forum, they made (and still make) reliable, high quality stuff. Unfortunately, the cost of servicing their components is mostly absurd, to the point where buying new & disposable is sometimes better than overhauling "vintage". Your TV included I'm afraid, but it holds a great historical value IMHO.

 

[Apocalypsee]

Did someone say VU? Here is my dad reel-to-reel tape deck and casette deck. The reel-to-reel sounds unreal, he was transcoding (don't know if that the right term) from LP to this two format.

Here's my dad tuning the casette bias with headphones for fine tuning where speaker doesn't cut it. Neat stuff.

I hope this isn't off topic, it is nostalgic but not PC stuff

 

[lexluthermiester]

Hi, I just replaced the original fans of my Voodoo 5 with some Noctua NF-A4x10 5V, Premium Quiet Fan. Now temperature and sound are not problems.

View attachment 127795

View attachment 127796

Well done that. Well done indeed! Very deserving card.

I hope this isn't off topic, it is nostalgic but not PC stuff

I'd like to suggest this fits perfectly. The name of the thread is "TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club". You showed hardware and it certainly qualifies as nostalgic.

 

[Trekkie4]

Did someone say VU? Here is my dad reel-to-reel tape deck and casette deck. The reel-to-reel sounds unreal, he was transcoding (don't know if that the right term) from LP to this two format.
View attachment 127840

Here's my dad tuning the casette bias with headphones for fine tuning where speaker doesn't cut it. Neat stuff.

View attachment 127842

I hope this isn't off topic, it is nostalgic but not PC stuff

Showoff! Seriously, I like these! This Denon deck, on top - is that a closed loop dual capstan unit? I got something very similar myself, but from Pioneer. Model number CT91a, it's a reference cassette deck with 3 heads & dual capstan drive. Fairly modern (1989, I believe) but it was built like a tank!

I'd like to suggest this fits perfectly. The name of the thread is "TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club". You showed hardware and it certainly qualifies as nostalgic.

My point exactly. This is all "hardware", and it most certainly is a nostalgic one... We already discussed VHS machines before, even cameras and old cellphones, so I really don't see any problems with that

 

[dorsetknob]

we draw the line at old pacemakers ...........

 

[MaxiPro800]

Just modified a old IBM Netvista 6578 I had. Didn't want to really go overboard by installing a i3 540 (I could, if I wanted.) so I sticked with a similar platform (Skt370, VIA694X instead of i815E) and replaced most of its internals, as well as adapted the front panel.

Specs:
IBM Netvista 6578-BHG case
EPoX EP-3VCM - VIA694X/686A, AwardBIOS 4.51PG, 3xSDR, Universal AGP4x, 3x PCI
Intel Pentium 3 1.0B GHz Coppermine (original board had a Celeron 800, also Coppermine)
ATI Radeon 7500 64MB AGP4x
384MB RAM
NEC DVD-RW
Samsung SP0411N 40GB IDE HDD (BIOS shot was taken before I replaced the HDD)
Realtek RTL8139D NIC
TEAC 3.5" floppy drive
Windows ME w/ KernelEX

 

[Robert B]

Some "kinky" SDR PC133

 

[MaxiPro800]

ECC memory?

 

[biffzinker]

ECC memory?

They appear to be.

 

[Robert B]

A gipsy woman was selling those sticks and I said that I must have them. They costed around 3 EUROS. NO BRAINER!!!

I'm not sure if any of my motherboards will be able to use them, though.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Showoff! Seriously, I like these! This Denon deck, on top - is that a closed loop dual capstan unit? I got something very similar myself, but from Pioneer. Model number CT91a, it's a reference cassette deck with 3 heads & dual capstan drive. Fairly modern (1989, I believe) but it was built like a tank!

My point exactly. This is all "hardware", and it most certainly is a nostalgic one... We already discussed VHS machines before, even cameras and old cellphones, so I really don't see any problems with that

I had that deck for a short time! It came with the package I got at Silo(a major electronics retailer BITD). I wanted a dual cassette deck so ended up selling it.

Just modified a old IBM Netvista 6578 I had. Didn't want to really go overboard by installing a i3 540 (I could, if I wanted.) so I sticked with a similar platform (Skt370, VIA694X instead of i815E) and replaced most of its internals, as well as adapted the front panel.

Specs:
IBM Netvista 6578-BHG case
EPoX EP-3VCM - VIA694X/686A, AwardBIOS 4.51PG, 3xSDR, Universal AGP4x, 3x PCI
Intel Pentium 3 1.0B GHz Coppermine (original board had a Celeron 800, also Coppermine)
ATI Radeon 7500 64MB AGP4x
384MB RAM
NEC DVD-RW
Samsung SP0411N 40GB IDE HDD (BIOS shot was taken before I replaced the HDD)
Realtek RTL8139D NIC
TEAC 3.5" floppy drive
Windows ME w/ KernelEX

View attachment 127883
View attachment 127881
View attachment 127884
View attachment 127885

If you're looking for great software, tweaks and utilities for WinME, try here;

Operating System Revival: Windows ME | Free Retro Computer Software

ECC memory?

They appear to be.

A gipsy woman was selling those sticks and I said that I must have them. They costed around 3 EUROS. NO BRAINER!!!

I'm not sure if any of my motherboards will be able to use them, though.

Those are actually registered ECC modules. Early server ram. Should work in Pentium2/3 Xeon boards.

 

[Athlonite]

Hahha. Yeah, this is an early one - right around the time when the NVIDIA NV1 was released in 1995 - 100% before 3DFX. This is the uber rare Vesa Local Bus version. NVIDIA's NV1 was PCI-based.

is it the version where you can upgrade the memory from 2MB to 4MB by adding in the VRAM chips to little brown sockets like this one I used to own

 

[Trekkie4]

I had that deck for a short time! It came with the package I got at Silo(a major electronics retailer BITD). I wanted a dual cassette deck so ended up selling it.

You do realize that CT91a easily outpowers most if not all dual-deck units? Not saying of course that dual-deck design is bad, I've seen some of the nicer ones (made by Aiwa & Pioneer), but these ones are built to last. 3 heads, 3 motors and two capstans. It really is the "ultimate" tape experience IMHO, unless you can afford Nakamichi Dragon

Speaking of price, would you believe I picked mine for free? It was in mint (alas, non-working) condition, but I worked it out eventually for the price of around $10

 

[Artex]

is it the version where you can upgrade the memory from 2MB to 4MB by adding in the VRAM chips to little brown sockets like this one I used to own

There was an upgrade kit for it but I've never seen it pop up anywhere. I believe the upgrade was more of a daughterboard with onboard memory chips that you stuck onto the top of the board - kinda like the midi daughterboards of the time.

 

[Trekkie4]

Back on topic ... let me ask you a question, I would really love to hear your input:

Two Socket 7 machines, one with the faster CPU (233MHz, MMX) and the other is 133 non-MMX Two PCI cards (Matrox Millennium II (4MB) & ATI Rage IIc (2MB), both PCI interface. However, only one of these can have a 3dfx Voodoo card (meaning that all the 3d rendering will go through 3dfx and not through the primary PCI card). Which of the two systems would you pair with which card, and which one of these deserved most to have 3dfx card installed?

In short & simple, which of the two cards would provide better gaming platform by itself, Rage IIc OR Millennium II? And why?

 

[biffzinker]

Back on topic ... let me ask you a question, I would really love to hear your input:

Two Socket 7 machines, one with the faster CPU (233MHz, MMX) and the other is 133 non-MMX Two PCI cards (Matrox Millennium II (4MB) & ATI Rage IIc (2MB), both PCI interface. However, only one of these can have a 3dfx Voodoo card (meaning that all the 3d rendering will go through 3dfx and not through the primary PCI card). Which of the two systems would you pair with which card, and which one of these deserved most to have 3dfx card installed?

In short & simple, which of the two cards would provide better gaming platform by itself, Rage IIc OR Millennium II? And why?

I would say the Pentium MMX 233 MHz but the 133 MHz Pentium (01-June-1995) seems more authentic to the time period of the Voodoo Graphics (End of 1996.) Between the two PCI cards I would have to pick the Matrox Millennium II (rebranded Mystique with the SGRAM swapped for WRAM) for the excellent 2D image quality.

Pentium MMX 233 MHz came out 02-June-1997

 

[MaxiPro800]

A gipsy woman was selling those sticks and I said that I must have them. They costed around 3 EUROS. NO BRAINER!!!

I'm not sure if any of my motherboards will be able to use them, though.

Yeah, gipsies sell the most interesting stuff. That's where I managed to get my 3D Prophet 9700 Pro from (along with the Pentium 3 and the rest of the stuff).

That 9700 Pro was 2 euros, and to top that it's working, unlike all the other crappy 9600s I had that were either artifacting or dead as a brick. I did have a exception where I got a working X1650 Pro AGP that only had a seized fan.

Some board should have ECC support in the BIOS though. I know my Pentium 166 machine (VIA MVP3 based) does take ECC RAM and can even check for parity. (not a lot of boards I have check the RAM for parity)

 

[Apocalypsee]

Showoff! Seriously, I like these! This Denon deck, on top - is that a closed loop dual capstan unit? I got something very similar myself, but from Pioneer. Model number CT91a, it's a reference cassette deck with 3 heads & dual capstan drive. Fairly modern (1989, I believe) but it was built like a tank!

It was3-head but a single capstan from quick Google, I didn't know the specs of these things He still playing with it, the heads are dirty when I posted that and after a quick clean it sounded better, the casette he using is also wrinkles that makes the sound imbalanced. He got another properly calibrated Technics M270X that sounds better than the Denon currently. Thing is, Technics gives extensive maintenance manual how to properly calibrate their casette deck with proper diagram showing chich components do what, the Denon manual is not as detailed.