Grabbed this beautiful Lian Li PC-60 case (little review here http://www.dansdata.com/pc60.htm). It’s a special case so going to put some special hardware in it. ASUS K7M (Slot A) with a 850Mhz Pluto. Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro CT6970 (GeForce 256 DDR) and a Diamond Monster MX300 (Aureal Vortex 2) with a DreamBlaster X2GS SE on the wavetable header.

The Matrox G200 was a pretty respectable 2D/3D card for its time.

Ahrle wrote on 2024-06-20, 04:31:

Thank you! Sadly crap hit the fan as I took the beaut apart and... […]
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Trashbytes wrote on 2024-06-16, 04:20:

The PII P2b-D is a very nice setup, totally worth making your main rig, there will be a few here that will be happy to see the s […]
Show full quote

Ahrle wrote on 2024-06-16, 02:06:

So much drooling over this thread that I just had to contribute... […]
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So much drooling over this thread that I just had to contribute...

I decided to gamble.

$775 on vintage computing in 7 days scored me the following:

-------------------

#1.

$100 Marketplace ad. No idea what it was, given only crappy pics from behind. There wasn't even certainty how many computers there were, just "old computers and keyboard". Could however see the connectors were too old to be post-2000 (no USB). Decided to go for it.

20240610_012955.jpg

Turned out as 4x Fujitsu-ICL Pentium Pro's (180-200MHz), a Fujitsu-Siemens Athlon system with Win98 stickers, and an Asus XP mini computer. Also a bunch of CRT's and a Casio WK-1200 keyboard. These were all from an old driving school, defunct since 20 years. The family seriously considered throwing it all away due to no interest for the ad.

-------------------

#2.

$200 Marketplace ad. The two Librettos caught my attention. Already had two Libretto 100's in parts (with extra RAM and such) and always wanted an older one.

20240610_022010 - kopia.jpg

Indeed a Libretto 50 and unfortunately another 100, now have three of the latter (had hoped for a 110CT).

Drive was 520 miles back and forth, so took a full day, but still felt worth it. Last week a Libretto 50 went on our national "eBay" (Tradera) for $199.

Also got some old beepers and telephones. Will keep computers and Hotline (coolest useless item of all time!) and sell off the rest.

-------------------

#3.

$195 PowerColor V2 12MB off Tradera

20240614_191030.jpg

This was no "gamble" at all, just an ordinary ad. But I'm proud and wanna share 😁! For 13 years I've lusted for a Voodoo again. Last one was also a PowerColor, CiB, which I got for free. I was so dumb I sold it.

Nevertheless. Weirdly performed hugely better than the 8MB CT6670 previously in the IBM 6862 (PIII-750). Is PowerColor's card better?

-------------------

#4.

$280 Marketplace ad of dual PII, V2 SLi 12MB setup:

20240615_212813 - kopia.jpg

This was even further away. 745 miles back and forth! The old sleeper Saab bravely crossed through rain and flies, but not even 300hp got it done in less than 16 hours. Petrol included though, I still only paid for the two V2 cards.

Came also with around 100 original CD/DVD games, and a lot of extras like CPU's, GFX'es, additional new PSU etc. Some games are still unopened.

Possibly my new main retro rig due to its fantastic motherboard (ASUS P2B-D 1.06)

-------------------

Hell of some enjoyable holidays, but with 59 computers it might soon be time to put in reverse...

The PII P2b-D is a very nice setup, totally worth making your main rig, there will be a few here that will be happy to see the silly amount of Pentium Pros you scored in the hands of a collector they are worth cleaning up and selling off to other collectors.

Nothing to say about the V2's we all know they are stupidly over priced currently due to the "3DFX" tax but its nice to see them with someone who will appreciate and actually use them and not shove them into their collection to never be used.

745 miles .. that's ~1200Kms or the distance from Adelaide to Canberra that's one hell of a drive, worth it for that system however ! bet the fuel cost added another 150 - 200 bucks. Had to look up Tradera and considering the country .. hope it didnt involve too many mountains to make that trip.

Thank you! Sadly crap hit the fan as I took the beaut apart and...

20240617_013946.jpg20240617_020050.jpg

Yep, nowhere near the P2B-D 1.06 seller promised. That also explains why a PII-450 and PIII-500 came aside. Thought this was the starting point but it rather appears to be maxed out. I know it's still a good deal paying only for 3dfx cards, yet a massive disappointment (66MHz only)

On the positive, I found out one of my donation PIII's has a Tyan Trinity 400 board in it. I.e. Slot 1 + socket 370 in the same package. Quite an interesting board. Wonder if it can run a dual CPU setup.

Pentium Pros sadly usually get sent to gold collectors for scrapping due to the high amount of gold in the CPUs so fingers crossed they all still work !

I agree, I honestly have no use for a P.Pro but always wanted to save one from gold salvage. Seems at least one is getting into new hands of a member here 😀

It's probably possible to get a couple of mendocino core celeron 533s going on that, which will be a tad faster than katmai PIII 500s on everything but SSE stuff. Might need to get lucky to find the CPUs and slotkets cheap these days though.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-06-20, 11:48:

Ahrle wrote on 2024-06-20, 04:31:

Thank you! Sadly crap hit the fan as I took the beaut apart and... […]
Show full quote

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-06-16, 04:20:

The PII P2b-D is a very nice setup, totally worth making your main rig, there will be a few here that will be happy to see the silly amount of Pentium Pros you scored in the hands of a collector they are worth cleaning up and selling off to other collectors.

Nothing to say about the V2's we all know they are stupidly over priced currently due to the "3DFX" tax but its nice to see them with someone who will appreciate and actually use them and not shove them into their collection to never be used.

745 miles .. that's ~1200Kms or the distance from Adelaide to Canberra that's one hell of a drive, worth it for that system however ! bet the fuel cost added another 150 - 200 bucks. Had to look up Tradera and considering the country .. hope it didnt involve too many mountains to make that trip.

Thank you! Sadly crap hit the fan as I took the beaut apart and...

20240617_013946.jpg20240617_020050.jpg

Yep, nowhere near the P2B-D 1.06 seller promised. That also explains why a PII-450 and PIII-500 came aside. Thought this was the starting point but it rather appears to be maxed out. I know it's still a good deal paying only for 3dfx cards, yet a massive disappointment (66MHz only)

On the positive, I found out one of my donation PIII's has a Tyan Trinity 400 board in it. I.e. Slot 1 + socket 370 in the same package. Quite an interesting board. Wonder if it can run a dual CPU setup.

Pentium Pros sadly usually get sent to gold collectors for scrapping due to the high amount of gold in the CPUs so fingers crossed they all still work !

I agree, I honestly have no use for a P.Pro but always wanted to save one from gold salvage. Seems at least one is getting into new hands of a member here 😀

It's probably possible to get a couple of mendocino core celeron 533s going on that, which will be a tad faster than katmai PIII 500s on everything but SSE stuff. Might need to get lucky to find the CPUs and slotkets cheap these days though.

I think that getting slotkets cheap is not that difficult, but finding dual-capable ones probably is.
Fortunately, even some of the officially non-dual versions can be modded to support dual operation.

demiurge wrote on 2024-06-20, 00:10:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-06-19, 06:11:

Bought an AGP Matrox G200, which I fired up last night, confirming operation.

Not quite sure, why I wanted it, though 🤣

I just got one just now because it had the upgraded memory on riser and it was PCI and I like weird and the PCI bus.

Heck yea! Any reason at all is a good reason to spluge on old Tech!! I just picked up a Asus V6600 Geforce 256 SGRAM (Miss labeled as DDR ) on e$Bay for 19$! (Supposedly tested/working)
I already have a few SDRAM versions but none with SGRAM, so I thought what the heck!

Ordered a little while ago, a batch of various cards, a couple of videos, a TV, a Firewire, a LAN, and some memory banks.
Among video cards, there are no particularly rare models, they are also quite cheap, and are great for quite old PCs.
One is an AGP FX5200, the other a PCI S3, the latter is fine for a Pentium or similar.
The memory banks, except for the two pairs, are all of normal capacity.

zuldan wrote on 2024-06-20, 09:39:

Grabbed this beautiful Lian Li PC-60 case (little review here http://www.dansdata.com/pc60.htm). It’s a special case so going to put some special hardware in it. ASUS K7M (Slot A) with a 850Mhz Pluto. Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro CT6970 (GeForce 256 DDR) and a Diamond Monster MX300 (Aureal Vortex 2) with a DreamBlaster X2GS SE on the wavetable header.

8721C054-220A-4D47-B60E-DCDFE7A39760.jpeg

5BB767F9-A5A3-4B02-A3E4-A95AE0C5D0CF.jpeg

you lucky little-

I want a case like this (hopefully even with some acrylic) for a Willamette build I'd like to do. They're so cool.

3lectr1c wrote on 2024-06-20, 22:23:

you lucky little-

I want a case like this (hopefully even with some acrylic) for a Willamette build I'd like to do. They're so cool.

Thanks. It was a very lucky find. Apparently, they cost $240 USD back in the day.

zuldan wrote on 2024-06-21, 00:13:

3lectr1c wrote on 2024-06-20, 22:23:

you lucky little-

I want a case like this (hopefully even with some acrylic) for a Willamette build I'd like to do. They're so cool.

Thanks. It was a very lucky find. Apparently, they cost $240 USD back in the day.

They are great cases and there are a few people out there that can do mods to them to make them better for showing off the internals, IIRC there is a guy in the UK that did side and font panel mods for them to make them better for showing off the retro inside and to help improve air flow!

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-06-21, 00:28:

zuldan wrote on 2024-06-21, 00:13:

Lian Li PC-60 case

They are great cases and there are a few people out there that can do mods to them to make them better for showing off the internals, IIRC there is a guy in the UK that did side and font panel mods for them to make them better for showing off the retro inside and to help improve air flow!

I dont really understand nostalgia for post 2000 cases, especially when someone then turns around and mods it to look more modern.
There is flood of amazing modern cases to pic from [Best PC Cases for 2024 So Far: New Designs & Round-Up (Computex)] Gamers Nexus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eltDIwn0aQ8

rasz_pl wrote on 2024-06-21, 09:51:

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-06-21, 00:28:

zuldan wrote on 2024-06-21, 00:13:

Lian Li PC-60 case

They are great cases and there are a few people out there that can do mods to them to make them better for showing off the internals...

I dont really understand nostalgia for post 2000 cases, especially when someone then turns around and mods it to look more modern.
There is flood of amazing modern cases to pic from [Best PC Cases for 2024 So Far: New Designs & Round-Up (Computex)] Gamers Nexus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eltDIwn0aQ8

There was a factory windowed model PC-65W (I have one!).

Lovely looking cases but mostly a pain to work in:

Absolutely nowhere to run cables.
The sliding motherboard tray seems cool but is functionally just useless.
Sharp edges.
Way *too* modular for things that don't matter like USB ports and power/reset switches.

...And I properly love it and you can't have it!

Finding aluminium finish drives/drive covers is fun but I've found it looks way cooler with black drives. Mine has Audigy front panel, DVD, Zip, Card Reader, and Fan controller all in black and it looks pretty badass.

To illustrate what is offtopic in this thread, by likely undoubtedly being outside the realm of "retro", yesterday I was given an Android tablet from about 2012.

So old, it was snuck out (I guess) before the EU law mandating non-proprietary USB connectors. 2nd shop I tried had a cable, but the tablet is Samsung Tab 2, so I finding a Samsung cable was probably never going to be hard. 4 quid for a cable, still.

A cursory Googling and it seems there are alternative ROMs for this gadget. I've never really liked mobile phones, and smart things are worse: they are are mostly windows into corporate services, and are the opposite of what I would want from a small, portable computer. But this tablet might be a useful avenue into figuring out how to get these things in control by the user. Might even be supported by Lineage (I think it is called).

progman.exe wrote on 2024-06-21, 16:57:

To illustrate what is offtopic in this thread, by likely undoubtedly being outside the realm of "retro", yesterday I was given an Android tablet from about 2012.

So old, it was snuck out (I guess) before the EU law mandating non-proprietary USB connectors. 2nd shop I tried had a cable, but the tablet is Samsung Tab 2, so I finding a Samsung cable was probably never going to be hard. 4 quid for a cable, still.

A cursory Googling and it seems there are alternative ROMs for this gadget. I've never really liked mobile phones, and smart things are worse: they are are mostly windows into corporate services, and are the opposite of what I would want from a small, portable computer. But this tablet might be a useful avenue into figuring out how to get these things in control by the user. Might even be supported by Lineage (I think it is called).

My overall loathing for the planned obsolescence of phones and tablets makes me reluctant to acknowledge this... but... yeah... at 12 years old it probably isn't out of the scope of this thread. Android tablets had only existed for a couple of years by that point, so it's a relic already.

It's this model right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_Tab_2_10.1

I have only personally owned a handful of tablets myself. My first tablet was an HP Touchpad, which I bought back in 2011 when HP canned the whole Touchpad line suddenly and had that ridiculous Fire-sale to clear inventory. I managed to get it for $99 at Wal-Mart when it had been $499 the week before. It was a really nice device for the time period, but WebOS was nearly useless for my needs because it lacked any apps I would use. Thankfully, it wasn't long before there were custom Cyanogenmod Android ROMs available (because there was a leaked beta\alpha Android ROM for the tablet for developers to build on). With Android 4.0 it was pretty usable for watching youtube, playing emulators and Android games thanks to the dual-core CPU and 1GB of RAM (much like your Tab 2)... but I must say that compared to modern phones and tablets, ones from that era were horribly slow.

I still have it, but the battery swelled up and nearly broke the screen before I tore it apart and took the thing out. This is my biggest issue with these devices. In this aspect they're as bad as motherboards from the early 90s that are destroyed by corroded batteries... except they require proprietary parts for absolutely everything, they are sealed up with adhesives (making it awful and usually destructive to get into them) and the entire contents of the device will be lost when it fails.

My next tablet was an Nvidia Shield, which was really cool, was the perfect form factor for an 8" tablet, had good graphics performance, a fantastic flip-cover and an excellent hardware accelerated "dumb" stylus (accurate enough to writing and drawing but used only a standard capacitive screen and stylus)... but the limited RAM (2GB) and the dirt-slow storage made it awful to use on a regular basis. A mid range smart phone from the same time period could load apps and flip between things much much faster. Within a year or two the Shield was obviously among the slowest devices around when it came to loading times and multitasking. It's a shame because I still have it (with the box and everything) but these limitations absolutely kill it.

I had an opportunity to buy a display model iPad Pro 9.7" for $99 back in 2017 or so, and that has been the most reliable and usable of the tablets but the limitations of the Apple ecosystem mean that I have never actually bothered trying to use it for much personally. We just have it for a bit of media consumption here and there, some games my daughter likes and during the pandemic it was frequently used for Zoom or Discord. The thing constantly wants to update, which I decline because I know that pretty much always ruins performance of older devices so that people will upgrade. For a dual core CPU and 2GB of RAM it runs great with the current setup, and the battery still lasts long enough for our needs... but again, I don't do much on it.

... anyway... yeah, I understand completely what you mean when you say these kinds of things are the opposite of what you'd normally want from a computing device. I feel the same way. Modularity, expandability, standardized parts, longevity... these are all words I like to describe my devices. Tablets generally have none of those. Sometimes you can at least get longevity if you buy high end devices (like the iPad Pro... that was a freak sale and a great deal), since they tend to last longer, but even that isn't guaranteed, and often times when you buy high end devices you have to make other huge sacrifices... the cost is often ridiculous, and more often than not the "best" devices in a given lineup have no way to expand storage or have only one USB\charging port or something.

I will be curious to see how the "retro tablet" scene takes shape over time, because it will happen if it hasn't already started. There's going to be a lot of battery replacing at the very least. If all devices had removable batteries and could run on just USB power there would be a lot more hope for them being around 10+ years after they are manufactured, but as it is, it's hard to imagine anyone trying to collect and keep them running 15-20 years later. So, that makes me think some will be super rare and sought after by niche collectors.

I will horde old PC parts but I should probably draw the line at keeping boxes of mass produced garbage devices with swollen lithium batteries in storage for decades. 😮

rasz_pl wrote on 2024-06-21, 09:51:

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-06-21, 00:28:

zuldan wrote on 2024-06-21, 00:13:

Lian Li PC-60 case

They are great cases and there are a few people out there that can do mods to them to make them better for showing off the internals, IIRC there is a guy in the UK that did side and font panel mods for them to make them better for showing off the retro inside and to help improve air flow!

I dont really understand nostalgia for post 2000 cases, especially when someone then turns around and mods it to look more modern.
There is flood of amazing modern cases to pic from [Best PC Cases for 2024 So Far: New Designs & Round-Up (Computex)] Gamers Nexus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eltDIwn0aQ8

Cases have had side windows for a long time now, heck cases of the same era as the PC 60 had side windows so no idea what you are not understanding here, air flow mods are fine and usually necessary as old cases had terrible thermals.

The mods in this case look great, they dont detract from the overall appearance of the PC 60.

If one wants an older case look why would they be interested in a modern stupidly priced case with rainbow unicorn puke RGB and a complete lack of 5.25/3.5 drive bays ?

Modders were a solid three years ahead of what was commercially available, maybe up to 5 even for some things. Commercial windowed cases, commercial blowhole cases, commercial watercooling, commercial LED fans were all copycats of what the modding scene was doing. Though the early LED mods would pick a color rather than be rainbow puke.

True.
I never thought much of it myself, but around the 300A era (circa 98/99), there were plenty of people angle grinding their beige box, slapping some perspex and a blue led or 2 and being thrilled.
Iirc antec was one of the first to sell a windowed case.

Just bought this not so beautiful beast off of Ebay. Was slightly more than I would usually pay for this kinda thing, but I didn't have a PIII Machine with an AGP slot at all.

Plus............... This computer is hiding a dark secret 😁!!!

Couldn't believe it, a Geforce 256 DDR 64MB snuck in there next to the Network Card!! I can't believe they put it in like that hahah. Super happy to add this to the collection 😀

Picked up a set of Boston Acoustic BA265 speakers for $5 (NZD). They look great after a clean up, with no yellowing. I haven’t tested them extensively but they sound pretty good for that price (better than a basic set of multimedia speakers).

Bought a CT4380. That is an AWE64 with only 512 kB of sample ram. Works fine.

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-06-22, 03:14:

Just bought this not so beautiful beast off of Ebay. Was slightly more than I would usually pay for this kinda thing, but I didn […]
Show full quote

Just bought this not so beautiful beast off of Ebay. Was slightly more than I would usually pay for this kinda thing, but I didn't have a PIII Machine with an AGP slot at all.
PXL_20240622_003301934.jpg
PXL_20240622_003336099.jpg

Plus............... This computer is hiding a dark secret 😁!!!

PXL_20240622_003533196.jpg

Couldn't believe it, a Geforce 256 DDR 64MB snuck in there next to the Network Card!! I can't believe they put it in like that hahah. Super happy to add this to the collection 😀

PXL_20240622_004116149.jpg

Check the soundcard, maybe you're in for another pleasant surprise. 😁