TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[Robert B]

I'll update my storing tactics over the following months - My "collection" is still underweight becasue I dont want to store PC cases. The rest fits in small boxes.

I plan to buy modular boxes and about 200 ESD bags and pack them well. I think I can reduce the footprint of my stored stuff by at least 40%

Also I dont want to buy everything that comes my way. There's so much stuff to be had that I had to almost quit paying full price and go to the flea market instead. This way my shopping was reduced big time.The full prices arent too big either but at the flea market you dont find good stuff too often. (Recently I did find the sweet SLOT A setup so as they say YMMV )

I still buy stuff that I want like the i850 or the socket 4 P66 when I see it

Meanwhile they sit like this: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...ly-old-hardware-emporium.228932/#post-3574704

 

[Trekkie4]

Interesting... My approach is completely different - I stack computer cases & generally avoid keeping individual part(s) inside the boxes &/or plastic containers. The way I see things - mounting the hardware into the case prevents it from being destroyed or scratched. In fact, mounting the hardware inside the computer case IS the best way to keep it alive, because it's going to be properly mounted & plugged into appropriate slots & brackets, which is something you can't do with boxes. Also, I find these (finished) systems easier to move around & test if & when necessary, than having to take them out of storage & plug them all together, power them up.

The only downside to this is that I ran out of storage room, long time ago lol. Which is why I retired from Retro PC hardware, which (despite my two recent projects) is still true, I'm not collecting old hardware any longer, UNLESS it is something very rare & truly vintage (3x86, 4x86, 5x86, OverDrive, PentiumPro, etc) and/or if I'm given loads of hardware for example, in which case integrating all these individual components into the single case makes a lot more sense than to have separate parts laying around the room. Which was the case with that Slot-1 system, I've had just about all the parts scattered around, except for the tower case itself.

 

[Deleted member 67555]

@Trekkie4
Thanks for posting that AMD 5x86...
I had one back in the day... Good times

 

[Trekkie4]

@Trekkie4
Thanks for posting that AMD 5x86...
I had one back in the day... Good times

My pleasure I would never pass on opportunity to restore 4x86/5x86 system, especially if it's in a really bad shape & on its way to recycling center Besides, I grew up, started with 4x86 DX2 @66 MHz, so just the sight of an old AT case with Turbo button & glowing LCD frequency display makes me nostalgic

You might want to know that this is my 2nd 5x86 system actually. Which is why I said "Deja Vu" in that first, original post featuring 5x86 project. The other one was featured way, WAY back on page(s) 157 & 158

 

[Deleted member 67555]

My pleasure I would never pass on opportunity to restore 4x86/5x86 system, especially if it's in a really bad shape & on its way to recycling center Besides, I grew up, started with 4x86 DX2 @66 MHz, so just the sight of an old AT case with Turbo button & glowing LCD frequency display makes me nostalgic

You might want to know that this is my 2nd 5x86 system actually. Which is why I said "Deja Vu" in that first, original post featuring 5x86 project. The other one was featured way, WAY back on page(s) 157 & 158

Talk about memories... My very first 386 16mhz, 20nhz turbo came in that case from page 157 or one so similar I can't tell the difference..
DOS 5.0.. 2mb memory..42mb HDD, Roland sound card with game port(no sound blaster on the market yet), 15" .28 dot pitch svga playing Doom, Wolfenstein 3d, Chucker yeager air combat, knights of the sky and Wing Commander....
Miss those days

 

[lexluthermiester]

Miss those days

Me too! Although, I feel like the USA missed out on the really fun Amiga and RiscOS platforms. Been looking into both a lot lately and we were diddling around on the CLI when everyone else had fully functional GUI's that put Windows and MAC to shame..

 

[Trekkie4]

Me too!

Who doesn't...? @jmcslob

 

[BiggieShady]

Amiga and RiscOS platforms

I remember those days when Amiga had 256 color games years before PC ... CGA/EGA graphics had such a limited palette, move from wolfenstein to doom was essentially move from 16 color CGA/EGA to 256 color VGA ... in crisp 320x240 resolution

 

[Deleted member 67555]

Prior to IBM compatible we had Atari computers...like the 800...it played Atari console games via a cartridge slot..We even had the tape recorder storage and a big ole 5.25 floppy drive.
I remember my Dad's first IBM an 8088...
You had to turn it on wait for the beep and load DOS from a floppy... monochrome...it was essentially useless for home use..my dad connected it to a PLC bank and made hydraulic Halloween montsers...

 

[BiggieShady]

my dad connected it to a PLC bank and made hydraulic Halloween montsers...

That's as much cool as you could possibly be as a nerd in the early eighties

 

[Trekkie4]

That's as much cool as you could possibly be as a nerd in the early eighties

You took the words right out of my mouth!

PS, pozdrav kolega

 

[Trekkie4]

While I'm still in the process of finishing that 5x86, I'm also "cooking" something, but just like with 5x86 system I won't be going into any details just yet. It's another full restoration project - older & even more cooler than 5x86, if something like that is even possible

 

[Retrorockit]

While I'm still in the process of finishing that 5x86, I'm also "cooking" something, but just like with 5x86 system I won't be going into any details just yet. It's another full restoration project - older & even more cooler than 5x86, if something like that is even possible

Are you going to overclock that 5x86? I think 4x40 was the hot setup.

 

[Trekkie4]

Are you going to overclock that 5x86? I think 4x40 was the hot setup.

Nope, not going to OC 5x86 system I thought I made it clear, this is a whole new restoration project, with even older hardware components. In the worst case scenario I'll have to combine some of the parts from 5x86 unit, in order to make this work (which is why I haven't finished it yet), but other than that it's a whole new adventure

 

[biffzinker]

but other than that it's a whole new adventure

Bring it, when your ready.

 

[Trekkie4]

Bring it, when your ready.

It's not that I like to keep things dramatic around here, I just don't want to jump ahead of myself Anyhow, I see here that you liked some of my old post(s) and all I can say is that you're on the right trail...

 

[STIG_ZA]

Another Athlon XP system. Got the mothboard for free some time ago, pci and ide where dead. Luckily it was just due to a damaged track and a broken off smd capacitor which were easy fixes.

Athlon XP 3000+(333mhz fsb, barton core)
2x 512MB twin moss DDR400
Gigabyte 7N400 pro2(nforce 2)
Gainward 6800GT('Gainward PowerPack! Ultra/2400 “Golden Sample”TM GLH TM' yes thats its full name )
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2
160GB maxtor IDE HDD
Windows XP pro

 

[Robert B]

I managed to exorcise all the demons in my socket 4 Pentium 66 system. GLORIOUS DAY!!! Now it runs smoothly like it should. I did about 20 DOOM Shareware 1.9 benchmark runs and I got a pretty good score of about 1450 realtics with an ET6000 4MB PCI, after some tweaking in BIOS.

https://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/misc/doombench.html

I even managed to use an WDC 800JB - 80GB/8MB on the relic it is seen as a 2GB drive but it is FAST. The HDD score in SpeedSys is with SMARTDRV ON.

In SpeedSys 4.78 - Processor Benchmark score for Pentium 66MHz - 36.85 and for AMD 5x86 133MHz 36.51. The P66 was a monster back in the day. To bad for the FDIV bug which by the way my CPU also exhibits. It doesnt get more "original" than this

 

[Mr.Scott]

Gainward 6800GT('Gainward PowerPack! Ultra/2400 “Golden Sample”TM GLH TM' yes thats its full name )

Nice card. I have the exact same one.

 

[Trekkie4]

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Another Athlon XP system. Got the mothboard for free some time ago, pci and ide where dead. Luckily it was just due to a damaged track and a broken off smd capacitor which were easy fixes.

Athlon XP 3000+(333mhz fsb, barton core)
2x 512MB twin moss DDR400
Gigabyte 7N400 pro2(nforce 2)
Gainward 6800GT('Gainward PowerPack! Ultra/2400 “Golden Sample”TM GLH TM' yes thats its full name )
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2
160GB maxtor IDE HDD
Windows XP pro

Used to have 7N400Pro2 mobo, but I gave it away some time ago. Considering the overall amount of retro systems, I just didn't have a purpose for it, especially since I didn't have a decent CPU to be used with this thing

I managed to exorcise all the demons in my socket 4 Pentium 66 system. GLORIOUS DAY!!! Now it runs smoothly like it should. I did about 20 DOOM Shareware 1.9 benchmark runs and I got a pretty good score of about 1450 realtics with an ET6000 4MB PCI, after some tweaking in BIOS.

https://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/misc/doombench.html

I even managed to use an WDC 800JB - 80GB/8MB on the relic it is seen as a 2GB drive but it is FAST. The HDD score in SpeedSys is with SMARTDRV ON.

In SpeedSys 4.78 - Processor Benchmark score for Pentium 66MHz - 36.85 and for AMD 5x86 133MHz 36.51. The P66 was a monster back in the day. To bad for the FDIV bug which by the way my CPU also exhibits. It doesnt get more "original" than this

Well, darn it! You stole my idea lol Okay okay, not quite - but you're close

I suppose I might as well tell you guys everything. I'm about to (re)build a genuine Intel 4x86, DX2 (66MHz) from scratch! We're not talking modern stuff all over again, like that 5x86 with PCI interfaces, no. This one will have a proper ISA & VLB (VESA Local Bus) hardware, dedicated controllers, maybe a sound blaster too I won't know any details for sure until I actually get the part(s) I need, which should be on Thursday, in 2 days!

 

[biffzinker]

I'm about to (re)build a genuine Intel 4x86, DX2 (66MHz) from scratch!

Now you don't have to be concerned with Meltdown or Spectre.

 

[Trekkie4]

I suppose not Once I (hopefully) have it up & running, it's going to feature MS-DOS (v6.22) & Windows 3.11! And since I already previously made a DX4 system, having pre-configured Autoexec.BAT & Config.SYS (for DOS gaming) will come in very handy!

 

[Doc41]

i believe this collected enough dust and its time to "work" on it

https://imgur.com/a/MD5HX

Pentium 4 651 and 2gigs of "fasttech" ram
when it was in a system we couldn't get it to install an OS, it would just crash during installation no matter what i tried (even with different RAM) so i guess its time to do some more testing on it

 

[Trekkie4]

i believe this collected enough dust and its time to "work" on it

https://imgur.com/a/MD5HX

Pentium 4 651 and 2gigs of "fasttech" ram
when it was in a system we couldn't get it to install an OS, it would just crash during installation no matter what i tried (even with different RAM) so i guess its time to do some more testing on it

I was given the same board couple of years back, for free. Well, technically the entire system, not JUST the board. It had a Core2 Duo in there & 2GB of RAM, from what I remember. The only problem I've had was with onboard ethernet controller, something about MAC address? It kept reporting error over & over, during every single POST. So I eventually referred to that yellow sticker, number printed on top of LPT1 port & system booted up perfectly fine. Never had this kind of issue since then... *shrug*

Edit
Found the pic!


Oh, and it also seems that PostImage changed their domain for some reason. Therefore none of the previously-uploaded pics will work from now on, without manually editing, correcting the address (which I think it's not possible, since some of these posts are 2, 3 yrs old)

 

[Robert B]

Some P66 tweaking and now is even FASTER (No Smartdrive loaded)