Don't quite remember what had me risk the initial Euro on a box of early 2000s noise generators, but here we are.

Think it was the idea of a DVD-ROM with those silly "play/pause" control buttons, headphone jack and volume control.
At least it's not completely DOA, that's rare enough.
But as a member of NATO, for the same money I could have bought a perfectly fine Mig-29. Plus shipping.

Also just in, yet another combo of ES688, badly camouflaged OPL3 knockoff and useless CD-ROM controller, for a tenner.

One can never have too many paperweights!

appiah4 wrote on 2022-03-09, 09:06:

Also received this ISA VGA card in this lot. It is the most curious ISA card in my collection to be honest. Anyone know anything about this weird VGA card?

I had one years back, it was just bare adequacy in a shortass package. I kinda want to find another one, just for the shortassness. For a lower half 286 or 386 it's a basic pixel-werfer, you're not gonna break any Doom timedemo records with it.

cyclone 3D got one last week, middle pic, not the "interesting" card, heh.

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-03-05, 17:15:

Main reason I bought a scrap lot: AWE64D-CT4600.jpg […]
Show full quote

Main reason I bought a scrap lot:
AWE64D-CT4600.jpg

Some more cards:
cards.jpg

And an interesting ISA VGA card:
HM86305_VGA.jpg

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-09, 08:22:

appiah4 wrote on 2022-03-09, 08:15:

I only ever came across a single Fury MAXX and it was dead as a doornail.

I have come across two on eBay that the sellers claimed worked but they were both priced over 2000 USD, much like the odd PCX card I found that was priced close to 4k USD, I dont begin to understand why it was priced that high but it looked truly unique and I have never seen another one hit eBay since.

I picked one up around a years ago for about $70. Seller claimed it was new but the dust on the fans showed otherwise.

It works fine but I haven't built a system with it yet.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-09, 07:40:

Another great card to get from the 9000 series is the 256mb 9600 XT, its just a good solid GPU much like the 9800 Pro/XT, they were just amazing cards for their time. Most went nVidia for compatibility but for DX9 with AA the 9000 series was top dog till nVidia released the 6000 series GeForce.

I actually do have a 9600 XT which is currently in the PC the 9800 will be replacing, as well as a 9600 Pro, got them both for a pretty good deal. I just had to have a 9800 Pro as it was the pinnacle of awesomeness back then and held its own against "big green" for a long time.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-09, 13:45:

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-03-09, 13:40:

I don't know much about XTs, but I expect this to be a valid use case, so long as there is a 16-bit ISA slot available.

As someone already pointed out, that ersatz potato of a graphics card is backwards compatible, will work in 8 bit slots.

No, I'm not saying that would be in good taste, but it could be done.

Pretty much all popular 16-bit ISA SVGAs (OAKs, Realteks, Tridents up to the latest 9000, and so on) will work perfectly fine in XTs 8-bit slot.

As my youngest brother turn 40 this year, and I have bought him an Xbox 360 Slim 250gb (grey colour). Then I have also bought this set. Near mint condition, only with a tiny bit of scuff marks here and there. I paid around 53 Euro for this set. I have a brand new, never opened copy of Forza3 heading my way as well.

I have an old television that I am not using, and I am thinking about throwing this in as well, alongside a HDMI cable. It will then become a nice racing setup that he can have in the basement. He will then get an Xbox360, 5 games, wheel/pedals, two controllers and a 24 inch LCD television.

Neat....

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-03-09, 18:32:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-09, 08:22:

appiah4 wrote on 2022-03-09, 08:15:

I only ever came across a single Fury MAXX and it was dead as a doornail.

I have come across two on eBay that the sellers claimed worked but they were both priced over 2000 USD, much like the odd PCX card I found that was priced close to 4k USD, I dont begin to understand why it was priced that high but it looked truly unique and I have never seen another one hit eBay since.

I picked one up around a years ago for about $70. Seller claimed it was new but the dust on the fans showed otherwise.

It works fine but I haven't built a system with it yet.

Sounds like a future rainy day type of build

Such an interesting card to have too, very lucky !

Brawndo wrote on 2022-03-09, 18:46:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-09, 07:40:

Another great card to get from the 9000 series is the 256mb 9600 XT, its just a good solid GPU much like the 9800 Pro/XT, they were just amazing cards for their time. Most went nVidia for compatibility but for DX9 with AA the 9000 series was top dog till nVidia released the 6000 series GeForce.

I actually do have a 9600 XT which is currently in the PC the 9800 will be replacing, as well as a 9600 Pro, got them both for a pretty good deal. I just had to have a 9800 Pro as it was the pinnacle of awesomeness back then and held its own against "big green" for a long time.

I got my hands on a 9800 XXL which has a R360 core and is clocked like the XT for the Core and Like the Pro for the Vram, its a rather unusual XXL honestly but goes like the stink, Ive been after a XT (or good Pro) for a while but the ones I see hit eBay dont ship to Australia or shipping costs are absurd along with asking price. Been seeing a lot of International sellers closing shipping to Australia of late from what they have been telling me eBay is making it difficult by moving Vintage PC components onto shipping lists that exclude Australia as an option. I'm still not sure why.

Better see if your gubbmint is taking a snit against leaded solder, or stuff that gives Californian lab rats cancer, or electronics over 5 years old in general, calling anything else ewaste or something like that.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-03-10, 00:09:

Better see if your gubbmint is taking a snit against leaded solder, or stuff that gives Californian lab rats cancer, or electronics over 5 years old in general, calling anything else ewaste or something like that.

It seems connected to the eBay GSP program as shipping via USPS or other non eBay methods is still ok, but those methods do require some effort on the part of the seller.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-03-10, 00:09:

Better see if your gubbmint is taking a snit against leaded solder, or stuff that gives Californian lab rats cancer, or electronics over 5 years old in general, calling anything else ewaste or something like that.

Its really easy to throw shade at the "known to the state of cancer to cause california" stickers. The whole state is a cautionary tale of people trying to do the "right" things and literally fucking up the execution in the most imaginative way possible. I think Bill Mahr's solar very public shit-show is a prime example of this.

Won a Unicomp buckling spring keyboard (Windows 95 ready) from 2001 that'll be used for my work computer.

Seller's photos:

That keyboard looks like it's in excellent condition. Good job.

The mighty MX460, Medion edition. Made by pros for pros with rather cheap computers.

64 MB Samsung 3.6 ns memory, Dual VGA, native S-video out with Philips chip and weird yellow Dupont style connector for front panel video ports.
Paid the rusty iron price for it.
Made by MSI, their retail product MS-8863 had 3.3 ns memory, aggressive timing and an active fan.

Also just in: Asound ALS100 based ISA with OPL3 clone.
Re: Soundcard capabilities benchmark or tool, and ASOUND ALS100 based card questions

That's a great card. I've been wanting an MX 460 but I haven't been able to find one with a DVI port, if one exists.

I have so many VGA cards already that I try very hard to only buy variants with DVI if they were made.

I bought that same Medion MX-460 a few years ago for my son's socket A system. It performs really well like a highend GeForce 2 card. I changed the cooler out for something much better and added heatsinks to the ram. I know everyone hates on the MX line but the 460 is a strong dx7 card.

I have a couple of GeForce 2 Ultras and would really like an MX 460 to compare. That's my use case, at least.

From personal experience it trades blows really well with the Ultra. If you got good cooling even a small overclock it'll out perform the ultra. I personally think the output of the mx460 is nicer than the output of the Asus GeForce 2 ultra I used to have.

That's what I have imagined. If this is true, then the MX 460 would be the top performing DX7 card. The only advantage with the GeForce 2 Ultra would be if you needed a very specific driver that the MX 460 doesn't support. But I can't think of any example of this.

Another thing to consider is that the GeForce 2 Ultra supports the 23.11 driver, which is much faster than anything that came after it if you have a slower processor. Conversely, if you have a faster processor then later drivers, especially the 50 series, see a huge performance boost. My guess is that NVIDIA moved the hardware T&L to software around this time because modern processors with SSE and SSE2 could outpace the original hardware.

For comparison, on a 440BX with a P3 650-100 (Coppermine), my GeForce 2 Ultra scored the following on 3DMark 99/00/01:

99 - 7051
00 - 4939
01 - 2553

But on 56.64 it scored much less:

99 - 5229
00 - 4684
01 - 2729

When pairing the GeForce 2 Ultra with a fast P4 3Ghz it scored the following on 23.11:

99 - 7483
00 - 5439
01 - 4070

And on 56.64:

99 - 7531
00 - 10342
01 - 4855

The question I have is how the MX 460 performs by comparison. Even if it's faster, is the GeForce 2 Ultra still faster on a slower processor because it has the ability to use older drivers?

I also believe that this makes a lot of the modern "benchmarking" where old cards are paired with modern or much later processors and drivers to be an unrealistic comparison that can skew scores significantly. It also provides no frame of reference to how these cards perform on hardware from that era. A perfect example is when people try using the latest 81.98 drivers on Windows 9x and everything is broken. These are details that a lot of modern reviewers fail to take into consideration.

Some things worth considering. 😀

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-03-09, 13:40:

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-09, 13:18:

Cheap NICs are almost synonymous.

What was wrong with Realtek NICs of the time?

Nothing wrong with them, yet more fancy ones like intel or 3com were supposed to run faster and/or take load off the CPU. I did not check.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-03-09, 13:40:

I assume you're referring to the ISA ones?

Pretty much half of any add-on ethernet card before they ended up being integrated in every motherboard.
Google search for images of "PCI ethernet" and you're bound to see a lot of crabs.