Shreddoc wrote on 2022-02-14, 23:05:

Received a CH Flightstick Pro into my modest controller collection. […]
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Received a CH Flightstick Pro into my modest controller collection.

Sometimes, when you only see things in pictures, perception of the item's overall scale can be off. In this case, the Flightstick turns out to be about 1.25x the scale I thought it would be. No issue, it's just quite an imposing block of a thing. 😀 A comparison with a 3D Pro and a Wiimote :

medalceremony.jpg

I will give it the full disassemble and sterilise inside and out (the usual with secondhand controllers!) before I try it out properly. Maybe there will be refurbishments or improvements necessary, I don't know. Pots for example. We'll see in due course.

On the underside of the base in marker pen is somebody's name and the date 1/94. Funny to think, here I have somebody's gaming pride and joy of 1994, which perhaps they have long missed.

Oh, and boy am I excited. It's not retro hardware as such, but it's hardware, and it's going to be used in the pursuit of incredibly awesome retro activities. An authentic Parcel Of Greatness +5 has just arrived for me:

incoming.jpg

I am off to open it now 😁

Nice! I still use my CH Flightstick Pro that I bought new around '93. Before it I had 2 Thrustmaster FCS sticks which both broke after a few months. I bought the Flightstick Pro as a replacement and it's still rock solid after all these years 😀

Replying to Megantonneke's recent post, I also found a system very recently with the AIR 486SH motherboard. It came in a case I wanted and was listed as a non working system and a decent price. It turns out that once I removed and reinstalled the ram, the system worked fine. Came with a 486sx33, 256mb L2 cache insralled, DC4300VL caching ide controller, 1.2gb wd caviar hd, cirrus logic vlb video card, 16mb of 30 pin simms (4X4MB). One problem is that I have not found jumper manual that matches my layout. Mine is v1.1, but the online manual that I found is not a match. I was able to figure out the cpu type jumpers, installed a DX2-66, but would like the full documentation. It is apparently a 5V only board. I would send a pic but am travelling. The case is a fairly common style looks older than 486 era and has a big psu with the red switch on the side. I will attach a pic of a similar style case (not the same one)

.info wrote on 2022-02-15, 23:53:

Replying to Megantonneke's recent post, I also found a system very recently with the AIR 486SH motherboard. It came in a case I wanted and was listed as a non working system and a decent price. It turns out that once I removed and reinstalled the ram, the system worked fine. Came with a 486sx33, 256mb L2 cache insralled, DC4300VL caching ide controller, 1.2gb wd caviar hd, cirrus logic vlb video card, 16mb of 30 pin simms (4X4MB). One problem is that I have not found jumper manual that matches my layout. Mine is v1.1, but the online manual that I found is not a match. I was able to figure out the cpu type jumpers, installed a DX2-66, but would like the full documentation. It is apparently a 5V only board. I would send a pic but am travelling. The case is a fairly common style looks older than 486 era and has a big psu with the red switch on the side. I will attach a pic of a similar style case (not the same one)

I love those cases, had a friend who had a 286-12 housed in it with VGA in 89/90, which I envied. I had an 8088 with an EGA card at the time.

.info wrote on 2022-02-15, 23:53:

256mb L2 cache insralled

I don't believe that. 😜

KB insTalled, haha you got me there.

Regarding that case I actually switched this rig into a different newer looking AT case and put a 386 in the older one, I thought that looked more appropriate. Cases matter to me quite a bit.

Finally found a Voodoo 3 2000 for a reasonable price and grabbed it before someone else did, also ..may have bought a very well put together Pentium 3 Slot 1 based system, mostly I wanted it due to the absolute unit of a case its built into, and the 500 watt PSU, the Gotek, CF and Ultra 133 Card dont hurt either. (Read actually did buy)

Likely paid a little more than what I wanted to about 350 USD but its built using mostly NOS/New parts where he could and the case looks immaculate and pretty new itself, has a jetway 9bxas-a/9bxan-a board in it which I cant find much on at all but its a Slot1 / Socket 370 board so might prove to be a fun little board to work with.

Soon as it arrives Ill see to writing up a thread on it as the sound card and GPU will be getting replaced, PCI sound card in a ISA capable board just isn't right and the GeForce 2 GTS seems a little lonely so ill slap a pair of Voodoo IIs in there. The MX440 I have should actually be faster than the GTS but the GTS sounds cooler and I think a 1ghz P3 Coppermine will be the bottle neck well before the GTS.

Any way more on the system later 😁

Even Ultimate Retro doesnt have much on this board, guess its my opportunity to add to the project with some photos.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-02-04, 15:27:

That's great. The best firmware for the SC-55 is 1.21 and the 1.20 is almost identical. It's possible to swap this chip with the later firmware if you flash it with a compatible chip.

From what I understand, 1.x ROMs are interchangeable as are 2.x but not between each other.

Don't have a flasher unfortunately, 1.2, will have to do 😀

.info wrote on 2022-02-15, 23:53:

Replying to Megantonneke's recent post, I also found a system very recently with the AIR 486SH motherboard..., One problem is that I have not found jumper manual that matches my layout. Mine is v1.1, but the online manual that I found is not a match. I was able to figure out the cpu type jumpers, installed a DX2-66, but would like the full documentation. It is apparently a 5V only board. I would send a pic but am travelling. The case is a fairly common style looks older than 486 era and has a big psu with the red switch on the side. I will attach a pic of a similar style case (not the same one)

Yeah, I was also looking into the AIR 486SH configuration to be able to use a DX2-66 in my system, mine is also a v1.1. Stason.org lists it but has rather limited information and a PDF
Titled "The PC Engineer's Reference Book - IBM 51xx PC Family" on https://ibm.retropc.se does not seem to list the v1.1 version of this board. So you got a DX2 66 working on this board?

That case indeed looks pre 486 era, maybe a custom build of the previous owner. My custom builds are most the other way around.

Had to take the lot if i wanted that VLB card.

V3, diamond stealth 64 dram, cirrus logic gd 5446, ati rage xl, zyxel modem, creative ct2890 and a qdi brillianx-9 (440bx with socket 370) +p3@650 and 768mb of memory.

P.s.
Whats the difference between the ct2800 and ct2890?

On the 486SH motherboard, the cpu I installed to upgrade from 486sx33 was actually a 486dx2odpr66, 5V cpu with a heat sink I think it is more or less the same as a regular DX2-66. I had to change a couple of jumpers for cpu type to got from sx to dx, left the speed jumpers unchanged. The stason.org docs matched my mobo for the cpu type jumpers but the speed jumpers are different. I was thinking of trying a 40mhz bus but not without knowing the jumpers. I did replace the vga card with an ati mach32 vlb that I got recently. Seems to be a stable rig, currently with 1.2gb hdd and zip100 on the ide controller plus a cdrom on a non bootable adaptec scsi adapter.

.info wrote on 2022-02-15, 23:53:

the case is a fairly common style looks older than 486 era and has a big psu with the red switch on the side. I will attach a pic of a similar style case (not the same one)

In my remembrance they came out with early 286 AT clones (discrete logic motherboards) but lasted into the first half of 486 era... in particular it seemed that machines sold for AutoCAD from 2 or 3 different vendors favored these cases, configs like 486DX50 EISA and early DX2s might be common in them. VLB seems slightly on the cusp of when they faded away, but might still have been a favorable option for business machines, whereas home users wanted something "sexier".

Edit: by first half of 486 here I mean what home users might think of as the 386 era, when they were highly expensive still, only companies with high performance demands and wealthy home users had them.

.info wrote on 2022-02-16, 18:00:

On the 486SH motherboard, the cpu I installed to upgrade from 486sx33 was actually a 486dx2odpr66, 5V cpu with a heat sink I think it is more or less the same as a regular DX2-66. I had to change a couple of jumpers for cpu type to got from sx to dx, left the speed jumpers unchanged. The stason.org docs matched my mobo for the cpu type jumpers but the speed jumpers are different. I was thinking of trying a 40mhz bus but not without knowing the jumpers. I did replace the vga card with an ati mach32 vlb that I got recently. Seems to be a stable rig, currently with 1.2gb hdd and zip100 on the ide controller plus a cdrom on a non bootable adaptec scsi adapter.

Don't know if it's the right one, but there's an entry here for the 1.1 board: https://www.ultimateretro.net/en/motherboards/331#downloads , with a manual: https://www.ultimateretro.net/motherboard/man … 12227563484.pdf . It looks like the Stason and MicroHouse entries get their column headings wrong. JP11,12,14 are right by the clock gen chip (AV9155-01 in the photo of the board there) and based on the manual entries probably connect to pins 19 (FS1), 20 (FS0) and 11 (FS2). I guess JP5 is to do with wait states for the VLB at high frequencies (40 and 50MHz). Looking up the AV9155 datasheet then I think the full frequency table is:

1JP11 12 14  MHZ  FS2 1 0 (pin 11,19,20)
2                         (FS2=JP14, FS1=JP11, FS0=JP12)
3   |  |  |   4     0 0 0 (|=jumper, .=no jumper)
4   |  .  |   8     0 0 1
5   .  |  |  16     0 1 0
6   .  .  |  20     0 1 1
7   |  |  .  25     1 0 0
8   |  .  .  33     1 0 1
9   .  |  .  40     1 1 0
10   .  .  .  50     1 1 1

Wonder where JP13 goes. Manual suggests it can allow the chipset to override the other jumpers when in green mode.

Order two AGP video cards today, nothing fancy but they were particularly cheap, and given the low price I ordered them.
They are both from ATi, one is a 32MB DDR Radeon 7000, the other is a 128MB 9200SE, both have two VGA ports, one normal and the other DVI.
One has a third video output, I think you can connect a TV via a special cable.
The 9200SE is AGP 8X, the Radeon 7000 I don't know if it's AGP 8X, but looking at the position of the slots, it looks like an 8X too.

Show us the video connector, it might be regular S-VHS or might be the weirdo 9 pin one (Which actually some others used, but don't know if it's got a name) or might be an ATI one off.

edit: There's some that seem really similar to the Genesis2/Nomad connector right pic here, but I've never tested to see if it's the same https://gamesx.com/avpinouts/genesisav.htm

PC@LIVE wrote on 2022-02-16, 21:46:

The 9200SE is AGP 8X, the Radeon 7000 I don't know if it's AGP 8X, but looking at the position of the slots, it looks like an 8X too.

I'm afraid that Radeon started supporting AGP 8x from R300 core (9700 and 9500) and later with RV280 core (9200/9250). Even Radeon 8500, the best chip of R200 core, had no support of AGP 8x, let alone the even earlier Radeon 7000 with RV100 core.

On the other hand, the differences between 4x and 8x in actual games are far less significant than on paper.

Compaq Portable 286.

Will need a lot of items: foam and foil, battery, repairs, and lots of scrubbing and cleaning.

Seller's photos:

Not my cup of tea, but cool find.
Too bad that it's missing the original black 5.25 drive.
But I guess is a pristine one is rediculous expensive.

Bit of an impulse buy today, bought this Gainward 6800 Golden Sample .. its got me a little puzzled as none of the Ultra2100 Golden Samples look even remotely like this card. (It was cheap, cheap even for a GT model)

I'm assuming its been mislabelled since the cooler reminds me of the standard 6800 Ultra cooler. perhaps someone can help to identify this GPU correctly. I have checked the serial number on the card and its correct for a Golden Sample Ultra2100 .. at least I think it is since finding any information about Gainward cards is difficult or spotty.

Edit - I have found one image that resembles this GPU and its listed as a Ultra 2100 so its likely correctly labelled, not quite the 6800 Ultra but a nice card all the same, a few posts about ti being able to OC to Ultra speeds so it might be a fun GPU to play with.

It seems to be a standard 6800.

A weird and likely extremely rare Cirrus Logic Combo PCI card with IDE controllers and CL-GD5428 video chip. I have never seen this chip on a PCI card. Even if it doesn't work it's an interesting one for the collection.