Time for me to take on "oddware" themed hardware, as LGR would call it
I've been busy over the last couple of days cleaning & fixing old CD-ROM drives. Among several other ones ... including the (in)famous BTC units, there was this guy, right here... GoldStar, model number CRD-8482B
Now, here's the thing. Most people probably wouldn't bother with this thing or they would simply ignore it & move on to something more interesting, but this one caught my attention - can you tell why? If not, let me enlighten you
Back in the late 80s and early 90s, there was a company called GoldStar, which used to make HiFi, VCR, TV & many other products. However, that was only part of the story, as GoldStar coexisted with yet another company, called LuckyStar. Now, you may remember this particular brand ... they used to make motherboards & other electronics. In fact, I believe I got one of their Socket 3 motherboards inside my AMD Am5x86 machine! Apparently they used to make all sorts of electronics until LuckyStar & GoldStar merged into one, single company (some time in mid 90s, 1995-1996) called Lucky Gold Star. Or ... "LG" in short as we all know nowdays.
So, with that out of the way here's the thing. This particular unit is clearly labeled as GoldStar. And according to label it was manufactured in August 2000 ... August, 2000 when GoldStar obviously no longer existed! In fact, the label clearly states that the unit was manufactured by "LG", so why bother with GS brand to begin with?
Originally with blank, dark grey faceplate - I basically merged two different GoldStar units into one, as I couldn't save the old one (from what I can tell, either the main board died or something went horribly wrong with the motor controller, it wasn't a mechanical failure) I suppose I could have fitted the LG internals inside GoldStar unit, but then the BIOS & Firmware would obviously indicate LG, and not GoldStar.
Other than that, GoldStar & LG units are absolutely identical - as you can probably tell from the picture:
Oh, and I even confirmed at some point that the mechanical parts, including (but not limited to) laser pickup itself is literally the same as the one inside LG drive. Therefore, maintaining & patching up any mechanical components isn't going to be an issue. Here's the main loader, drive assembly of the original GoldStar unit:
Sooo, to tell you guys the truth I'm puzzled with this one. What do you make of it?
Anyhow, on top of everything else I also picked up this Socket 7 board right here. Seems like your standard, Socket 7 mobo that's compatible with Intel & AMD - right?
Again, wrong! Upon closer inspection and a LOT of Googling, I found out that IT586GXM is actually a Cyrix board ... manufactured by Cyrix, using their "LSI" chipset and for some reason has integrated Sound AND video. Which is highly uncommon and almost unheard for boards from that era, as most of you here already know.
You can actually see the Video/Audio header on this pic right here:
Again, I have no idea why ... or how come thing even existed but I've been told several theories & heard many different stories.
@r0x here believes that the board originates from some arcade machine. On the other hand, others told me that apparently CompaQ used to make tiny "clients", small systems which apparently used Cyrix hardware & came with everything already integrated into the board. This would certainly explain a thing of two but unfortunately I couldn't confirm either of the two claims. Perhaps someone here knows more?