wirerogue wrote on 2024-01-26, 02:38:

i found this on ebay and thought it looked interesting. i can't find many references to this card on the internet or here on vog […]
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i found this on ebay and thought it looked interesting.
i can't find many references to this card on the internet or here on vogons.
a new orchid kelvin mpeg vlb.
it has a cirrus logic gd5434 along with a em7000 mpeg-1 decoder all on the same board.

Very nice! I knew about the regular Kelvin-64 featuring the CL-GD5434, but not this version with MPEG decoder. From the label on that Psychotron CD I guess should be compatible with the games that have ReelMagic support.

It's nice to see another use case for VLB. A dedicated MPEG decoder is perfect for a 486.

card works great so far.
just playing some duke3d.
only one problem so far.
just a wee bit tall for my current machine.

That's so very odd. I thought that PCI card height was a universal standard.

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-01-26, 05:28:

That's so very odd. I thought that PCI card height was a universal standard.

It is . .case height however is not at least its not for these older cases, the other factor is most PCI cards after a certain time period were made for ATX standard cases that had more depth to them to give a larger clearance between the case side panel and the cards.

I couldn't resist this weird little motherboard when I saw it on eBay - its a "Syntax S8601MP 1GigaPro" totally integrated mATX system with a VIA Apollo Pro 133 chipset and a soldered on VIA C3.

There's definitely a weird nostalgia in this for me - I think this was the exact board I used to build a separate desktop in a slim mATX case for my parents to use, so I could have the main PC I'd been building and upgrading for myself. Although I had a feeling the one I had was branded as PC Chips?

Basically, it is directly equivalent to a VIA EPIA 800 mini-ITX board (which I already have one of ... ) but with a few key differences that make it seem kind of cool to me: it has a floppy controller; it has a game port; and it ....

Kind of has an ISA slot?

As far as I can see, the only component missing apart from the ISA slot itself is a quite small through-hole capacitor? I'm tempted to try and find a new ISA slot connector and solder it on, but I figure I'd have to also fit the capacitor? Is there any way to work out what value and voltage it would have to be? There are hardly any photos of this board on Google, and none that I could find with the ISA slot in place! 🙁 Would looking at a similar Apollo Pro based board give a good enough guide?

Is there anything else I'd need to do in order to add the slot?

Seeing as the board has the 686B southbridge, the same as the EPIA 800, it should also have pretty reasonable SB Pro DOS emulation (there are the options to enable it in the BIOS, although I haven't got as far as testing it yet). So it could be a totally integrated DOS PC, complete with floppy and game controller ...

So I'm torn - do I set it up as a totally integrated system, put it in a beige slim mATX case (like the one I put together for my parents) and rely on the VIA audio?

Or do I add the ISA slot and use it with a 'real' ISA DOS sound card - but needing a case that has full height expansion slots?

(Or perhaps ... I even find one of the physically smaller ISA YMF or Opti sound cards that only had a half height PCB and game port on a cable, and 3D print / hack some half height brackets to accommodate it in a slim case? Or are the small PCB ISA cards like that always trash when it comes to audio quality?)

I had already managed to collect a Voodoo 1, 2, 3, and Rush, and now I finally managed to snag a Banshee at a not-terrible price. I'm considering my Voodoo collection complete because there's just no way I can justify the prices for the Voodoo 4 and 5. If I happen to stumble across them for an amazing price I'll certainly grab them, but for the sake of my sanity I'm just considering them unobtainable. 😀

I'm a little concerned about the PCB browning. Mostly noticeable on the back behind the VRM and the main chip. I'm gonna look for a good way to attach a fan to the heatsink, and maybe adding a fan header to the unpopulated points on the card to keep it all clean and self-contained. I'll also stick a heatsink to the back of the card behind the VRM. I read something about someone having the same PCB browning issue on a different card and they completely changed out the VRM for a better one. Not sure if I'm adventurous enough for that, but I might look into it.

It was only 100EU... I coudnt resist

Just grabbed a Toshiba Satellite Pro 435CDS. From what I've read, it's one of the better laptops for DOS sound support, as it has an ESS688 and an OPL3. It has a Pentium 120 Mhz under the hood, which should be good for DOS gaming (I just plug my laptops into an external monitor). As usual, it had a PCMCIA card that is missing the dongle plugged into it. If anyone needs a modem card without a dongle let me know (-:

One downside is that the BIOS is locked, but I think that can be fixed by shorting a few pins on the parallel port.

I now have 5 Pentium era laptops, so I think I'm ready to hold off unless something really unique becomes available cheap.

ciornyi wrote on 2024-01-26, 19:08:

It was only 100EU... I coudnt resist

Anything particularly interesting in there or was it just a lot of computers without a description? I'm guessing that some of those would have P4s in them, but the beige boxes could have something neat in them.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-01-26, 22:02:

ciornyi wrote on 2024-01-26, 19:08:

It was only 100EU... I coudnt resist

Anything particularly interesting in there or was it just a lot of computers without a description? I'm guessing that some of those would have P4s in them, but the beige boxes could have something neat in them.

That's a good haul, I see compaq Evos at the top which I'm pretty sure are P4 and a Dell which might be P4 or C2D, Thinkstation looks C2Dish but could be first gen i5. The beige-r ones look more tantalising for older, but prolly have standard form factor so worth it for cases if occupied by bleh.

Meatball wrote on 2024-01-23, 13:19:

I obtained one of my ‘grail’ items: […]
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I obtained one of my ‘grail’ items:

Quantum3D Raven

Actually, I’m smitten over just the box artwork; everything else is gravy.

The card, paperback, and discs appear to be unused.

Nice! Heck I'd be happy just to land that nfl blitz game myself, the pc version is hard to track down.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-01-21, 11:32:

I have some Deskstars as well, though IIRC all are post 60/75GXP era - well into Hitachi's merger, with some reading Excelstor (which I seriously don't understand why were they seen as bad - they're actually just as good Hitachis as the standard Hitachi drives.)

Well, seems like I'm quoting myself for speaking too soon.
Apparently, my fastest drive I was using on my KT133A build last year... is a 60GXP. IC35L020AVER07 is the model.
For something that rivals my Cheetah 10K in terms of loudness, and given it's a Deathstar of all things, it's a surprise it's still alive.
That, and a 13.7GB Deskstar from 1999, taken from a Gateway GP6-400.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-01-26, 22:02:

ciornyi wrote on 2024-01-26, 19:08:

It was only 100EU... I coudnt resist

Anything particularly interesting in there or was it just a lot of computers without a description? I'm guessing that some of those would have P4s in them, but the beige boxes could have something neat in them.

It was without description but there is pentium 3 , pentium 4 systems which is good, it still sat in a car ill check what's inside later .

Got a big haul of 386/486 parts today for a total of 80 AUD, none of it has been tested but the boards have had their batteries removed and had repairs done to traces so its a good chance the motherboards will be ok. This is all from a deceased estate sale so perhaps it may have been from a fellow retro collector, in any case the parts will be well looked after here with me. I think I have a 387 FPU around here some where too, not sure if its the type to fit this socket though, perhaps with an adapter.

list of parts

- MG 8517 Rev 2.2 Motherboard (includes AMD 386SX-40 CPU soldered)
- Unknown motherboard with Intel 486DX-33 CPU
- Intel Pentium 133MHz CPU
- Intel Pentium 90MHz CPU
- Intel Overdrive DX20DPR66 CPU
- Intel Overdrive DX40DP75 CPU <---This CPU alone is horribly expensive and rare so if it works it pays for this lot three times over.
- Trident TVGA8900D ISA VGA Graphics Card
- Cirrus Logic CL-GD5420 ISA VGA Graphics Card
- Oak Technology OTI077 ISA VGA Graphics Card
- 3x Disk/Port Controller cards
- 3x 5.25" Floppy Disk Drives
- 2x IDE Cables + 2x FDD Cables
- 4x Rear port bracket/cables

and some pics, might have to make a second post for this lot !

part 2

I dont own any 5.25 drives so itll be interesting to see if these three actually work, might possibly have to check any belts out they have.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-01-26, 21:59:

Just grabbed a Toshiba Satellite Pro 435CDS. From what I've read, it's one of the better laptops for DOS sound support, as it ha […]
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Just grabbed a Toshiba Satellite Pro 435CDS. From what I've read, it's one of the better laptops for DOS sound support, as it has an ESS688 and an OPL3. It has a Pentium 120 Mhz under the hood, which should be good for DOS gaming (I just plug my laptops into an external monitor). As usual, it had a PCMCIA card that is missing the dongle plugged into it. If anyone needs a modem card without a dongle let me know (-:

435CDS_closed.jpg

One downside is that the BIOS is locked, but I think that can be fixed by shorting a few pins on the parallel port.

435CDS.jpg

I now have 5 Pentium era laptops, so I think I'm ready to hold off unless something really unique becomes available cheap.

I have a 430CDS and I used it for a 90's style Doom deathmatch party last year. Worked great.

Do you know if there are significant differences with the 430 CDS ? Every PDF I found labelled as 430/435 specifications turned out to only contain the 430 and nothing about the 435...

Today I got this 3.5 inch 1.44MB floppy drive from Samsung, model SFD-321B/LE, white bezel. Any opinions?

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-01-27, 10:14:

Got a big haul of 386/486 parts today for a total of 80 AUD, none of it has been tested but the boards have had their batteries […]
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Got a big haul of 386/486 parts today for a total of 80 AUD, none of it has been tested but the boards have had their batteries removed and had repairs done to traces so its a good chance the motherboards will be ok. This is all from a deceased estate sale so perhaps it may have been from a fellow retro collector, in any case the parts will be well looked after here with me. I think I have a 387 FPU around here some where too, not sure if its the type to fit this socket though, perhaps with an adapter.

list of parts

- MG 8517 Rev 2.2 Motherboard (includes AMD 386SX-40 CPU soldered)
- Unknown motherboard with Intel 486DX-33 CPU
- Intel Pentium 133MHz CPU
- Intel Pentium 90MHz CPU
- Intel Overdrive DX20DPR66 CPU
- Intel Overdrive DX40DP75 CPU <---This CPU alone is horribly expensive and rare so if it works it pays for this lot three times over.
- Trident TVGA8900D ISA VGA Graphics Card
- Cirrus Logic CL-GD5420 ISA VGA Graphics Card
- Oak Technology OTI077 ISA VGA Graphics Card
- 3x Disk/Port Controller cards
- 3x 5.25" Floppy Disk Drives
- 2x IDE Cables + 2x FDD Cables
- 4x Rear port bracket/cables

and some pics, might have to make a second post for this lot !

486 board.jpg386 board.jpg
CPUs.jpgVideo Cards.jpg
IO cards 2.jpg

Wow some great stuff there. May I ask where you got all this stuff from? Tried 4 waste centers in Queensland and they all told me to bugger off 🙁

Weirdly off Evil Bay, local Aussie seller from Victoria, I live out in the boonies of SA so no local e-waste dealers here or much of anything honestly 🤣.

Not a bad haul for 80 bucks, fingers crossed it all tests out ok.

IIRC Queensland has some weird laws regarding E-Waste, IIRC there is some proviso that once its gone to e-waste they are not legally allowed to sell it on. I could be wrong about that but I do recall Queensland does it differently to the rest of Australia.