TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[stinger608]

Well crap @Trekkie4 , I looked at the 6 older systems I have and none of them have the drive your looking for. Sorry man.

 

[Trekkie4]

Well crap @Trekkie4 , I looked at the 6 older systems I have and none of them have the drive your looking for. Sorry man.

That's OK, don't worry about it. Thanks anyway!

Seeing I can't find the BTC drive anywhere, I might postpone this issue for some other occasion, once I actually have the system up & running.

Edit
Googled for BTC drives & things are not looking good, I might even have to give this one up entirely. The problem with buying one from ebay is going to be shipping fee. Take THIS drive for example, it's being sold for $16, but the postage would cost additional $36, not including any customs fees. And I just can't seem to find anything closer in Europe, most of them are mislabeled (wrong drives and/or not what I'm looking for) OR they are older models, of speeds up to 16X.

THIS one too, jeez! The postage is $54,00. Seriously?!

 

[debs3759]

That's OK, don't worry about it. Thanks anyway!

Seeing I can't find the BTC drive anywhere, I might postpone this issue for some other occasion, once I actually have the system up & running.

Edit
Googled for BTC drives & things are not looking good, I might even have to give this one up entirely. The problem with buying one from ebay is going to be shipping fee. Take THIS drive for example, it's being sold for $16, but the postage would cost additional $36, not including any customs fees. And I just can't seem to find anything closer in Europe, most of them are mislabeled (wrong drives and/or not what I'm looking for) OR they are older models, of speeds up to 16X.

That one offers free shipping within the USA, if someone is willing to forward it for you.

And This one from Germany is cheaper and looks very similar

 

[biffzinker]

And This one from Germany is cheaper and looks very similar

I was going to post about that one earlier but it’s half the speed of a 36x or the 32x @Trekkie4 was looking at.

 

[debs3759]

It looks like using a drop shipper might be the best option.

@Trekkie4 if you contact CPUShack on CPU-World, he will reship it as cheaply as possible. He's only one state over from the one with free domestic shipping

 

[Trekkie4]

That one offers free shipping within the USA, if someone is willing to forward it for you.

And This one from Germany is cheaper and looks very similar

I was going to post about that one earlier but it’s half the speed of a 36x or the 32x @Trekkie4 was looking at.

Exactly that, yeah. I don't mind having a slower unit, but IDK ... 16X is a lot slower than 32, 36, 40 or faster. My thoughts keep going back to playing Grim Fandango on that Adison machine, because the game loads all the necessary resources directly from a CD throughout the entire game. Same with Broken Sword 2 & Indiana Jones & The Infernal Machine (however, these two depend on the installation choice), so having a somewhat-faster drive makes sense & pays off.

Regarding the other drive, with free shipping within the States ... I have a friend in Florida, but she is very sick at the moment & undergoing chemo therapy, so I can't (& don't really want to) bother her with unnecessary things. Apart from her, can't really say that I have anyone else who would do it, sooo... *shrug* Guess I'll keep trying to find one locally, who knows? I just hope that it won't take another 15 years, like it did with the actual case

 

[framebuffer]

Some cards from my collection

 

[basco]

Mr.voodofx whats the 1st and 2nd pic plz?

 

[QuietBob]

My thoughts keep going back to playing Grim Fandango on that Adison machine, because the game loads all the necessary resources directly from a CD throughout the entire game. . . . so having a somewhat-faster drive makes sense & pays off.

With Grim Fandango this can be easily circumvented using a fan-made installer/launcher. I remember playing this game entirely from my hard drive back when it came out.
And no, I do not condone software piracy

 

[framebuffer]

Mr.voodofx whats the 1st and 2nd pic plz?

Sure!
1st is a ATi Rage Fury MAXX
2nd is a XFX 7800GS AGP

 

[basco]

ahh thx vodoo fastest agp card from nvidia

 

[Trekkie4]

With Grim Fandango this can be easily circumvented using a fan-made installer/launcher. I remember playing this game entirely from my hard drive back when it came out.
And no, I do not condone software piracy
View attachment 174171View attachment 174172

Probably, yeah. But I like to keep it entirely original ... there's something about hearing that CD-ROM drive squeak & crunch, each time you leave the room (area) & walk into the other one

Speaking of Grim Fandango...


@voodooFX Even though I had tons of 3dfx cards (sold most of them, but I kept one of each), my all-time favore is DEFINITELY going to be that Diamond Monster 3DII, there's something about Voodoo2 & their ability to SLI! By the time Voodoo3 came out, it seemed just like yet another AGP graphics card, nothing fancy or special about it.

And besides, how often can you tell someone that you have a "3D Accelerator" inside your system?!

 

[framebuffer]

ahh thx vodoo fastest agp card from nvidia

I think that the fastest should be the 7950GT ( https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-7950-gt-agp.c754 )

 

[Dinnercore]

I gave the JR P45-T2RS a clean and replaced the TIMs as usual.

Surprised to find this uneven spread on the southbridge. I mean its not a component that gets critically hot in the first place but still would have expected the thing to be covered completly.


Wiped the whole thing clean from the dust and grime with some iso and a fine brush.



It again is very picky about RAM choices. For some reason it refused to work with my SuperTalent sticks. But Micron never lets me down. I love that logo-screen:



Now the only thing left I need is a fitting CPU-cooler. NONE of my current air-coolers work with it. The one I used for testing can't be mounted on this socket, I just had it sitting there loose on a thermal pad.

Chances are slim, but maybe someone in here has used a board like this in the past and can recommend some cooler?

I thought about the Zalman 9700, it should fit but I have no clue if it is actually any good.

 

[biffzinker]

Speaking of Grim Fandango...

Didn't know there was soundtrack.

Here's a site with the original soundtracks for download.

Soundtrack – Grim Fandango Network

www.grimfandango.net

 

[Trekkie4]

Didn't know there was soundtrack.

Here's a site with the original soundtracks for download.

Soundtrack – Grim Fandango Network

www.grimfandango.net

Huh... Didn't realize it was free! Thanks for sharing the link anyway!

What I would LOVE to grab eventually is THIS:

 

[Trekkie4]

Update on the Adison restoration project.

Everything is worked out, case is going for a full rebuild tomorrow morning You've already seen the pics depicting the current & rusty state of things, so I'm planning to post the "after" set of pics once I pick it back up!

 

[framebuffer]

ECS ELITEGROUP K7S7AG w/ SiS Xabre200 64MB and XP2400+

 

[Mr Bill]

Seeing that floppy drive port/connection reminds me "again" I probably have over a hundred floppy disks over in my storage room, I should go over there and grab them, might find something on one of them I would like to keep. I still have an old ASRock G41M-S3 PC with the floppy connection, that runs like new.

 

[framebuffer]

Matrox Parhelia 128 MB (w/ 2.8ns RAM, still have to test how far they can go)

3dfx voodoo3 3500 TV

 

[biffzinker]

Seeing that floppy drive port/connection reminds me "again" I probably have over a hundred floppy disks over in my storage room, I should go over there and grab them, might find something on one of them I would like to keep. I still have an old ASRock G41M-S3 PC with the floppy connection, that runs like new.

Never know if you might something that hasn’t been put up on the old software internet archive.

Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

archive.org

 

[Trekkie4]

Time for another Adison update

The main case (chassis, side panels) are in the workshop & are going to be repaired & powdercoated in beige/white.

This excludes the motherboard tray & 3.5" drive(s) bay however, as the guy told me that it doesn't make sense to sandblast & treat those two because they have next to zero rust on them. Which is true for 3.5" drive bay, but only slightly correct for the MBO tray (has a small patch of rust on the PCI bay "lip", down at the bottom of the case) So, I might still have the tray sandblasted later on, we shall see... Depending on the outcome of the actual case frame & side panels along with overall cost of all these repairs together, obviously.

Meanwhile, I disassembled the entire system and am planning to recap the Chaintech 6BTM motherboard. I'm also taking my old CRT Shamrock monitor for the repairs on Monday to the local Radio/TV/HiFi shop, and (still) trying to work out that BTC BCD36X drive.

I also have some of the parts coming from China (case screws, PC speakers) so all in all this is now a major Work in Progress. Oh, and I also took the liberty of washing the plastic bits & trims in the dishwasher, they look as good as they can possibly be, if you don't consider somewhat yellow plastic which is to be expected for a computer case that's 23yrs old.

Planning to post some of the pics later on, if you guys are interested?

 

[QuietBob]

Planning to post some of the pics later on, if you guys are interested?

Sure, let's see it before & after! I'm all for it

 

[Susquehannock]

Speaking of optical drives. Pulled out the HP 9110i for some nostalgia. The Dell XPS400 in background was my very first PC. Delivered to my door end of November 1998.

Addition of the CD writer less than year later was my first modification. $224.60 seems uber expensive now. Writing your own CDs was a big deal back then. Shutter to think how much time was wasted downloading poor sounding low bit rate MP3s on Napster over dial-up, then burning them onto 100s of cheap generic disks. None of which are around anymore. Made mistake of storing a lot of data onto them too. Lost many Overclocking screenshots and the like. Fortunately the Maxtor 20gb HDD that I repleced the original Dell 12gb unit with was still good (still working today) or would have lost near all the old stuff completely.

 

[lexluthermiester]

3dfx voodoo3 3500 TV

View attachment 174659

I'd recommend putting a fan on that VooDoo, those suckers ran way hot!