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looks like someone was holding out on me

Starfalcon wrote:

looks like someone was holding out on me

Hah! I go by my declining memory here, but I think you got the dual PPro-200/32MB system, a complete K6-3p+Voodoo3 system, and a couple other Voodoo cards from me for cost of shipping. My conscience roams free

The only problem is whether I have enough old hardware left to set up a retro gaming system. Pretty sure I still have a VIA board that's basically a reincarnated Cyrix MediaGX with an Ezra processor or some such, so I might be able to do it.

Did you get that K6-III from me?
I went looking for the mainboard and chip and didn't see it.
Just wanted to make sure it showed up in a good home....

Not sure, I got a lot of things from a lot of people. I got one from JBI and one other, so Ill assume it was you unless someone else claims it.

More stuff added, more stuff found

Man, seeing that list brought back some memories (and some regrets for parts I'd bought).

I would've loved to have had a SB16 with that Roland GS daughterboard that was WaveBlaster compatible (instead of that stupid Logitech Soundman Wave I bought). I also wish I'd bought a nice 2D card and a pair of Voodoo 2s, instead of that Riva 128, and then later a Rage 128. Trying to play OpenGL games on those were a huge disappointment, and I remember Epic swearing they'd get the original Unreal working properly on them, but they never did. I used to have an old 486DX4-100 based system for my DOS games, before I finally made the leap to a P2-300 system for Win95/Win98 games.

If a lot of the old games I still like to play hadn't been remastered, supported by SCUMMVM, or available from GOG, I'd be tempted to try and take a few parts off your hands. I'm really looking forward to that remaster/re-imagining of Outcast. Even on that P2-300, I think it topped out at 512xsomething resolution. Still, it was an enjoyable game.

I also wish I had the money when I was younger, to by an MT-32/LACP-1 from Sierra Online, but it was just too expensive, and support for it fell off, after General MIDI made its debut.

I don't remember if it's SCUMMVM or DosBox, but I found a GM utility that lets me use 1-2GB wavetable patch sets, which sound *amazing* with some older games. MUNT still doesn't play MT-32 correctly 100% of the time, since I think Sierra took advantage of an issue with the Brown-Burr DACs found in the original MT-32 models.

Well was watching linus tech tips tonight, and they showed TR on their webcast, and my thread showed up for 10 secs in the hot threads before they scrolled down

Starfalcon wrote:

Well was watching linus tech tips tonight, and they showed TR on their webcast, and my thread showed up for 10 secs in the hot threads before they scrolled down

LOL... literally your 10 seconds of internet "fame"!

Starfalcon wrote:

More stuff is up, working my way through what is left...made a decent dent in it today. I will be very happy when this is done, i hate trying to figure out what stuff is typing part numbers into google.

After googling model numbers countless times I've resorted to defacing cards with a sharpie or if it's something more valuable I put a sticker on it giving the real name and specs of the card.

I still have a boatload of hardware I promised myself (and my wife) I would sell off. Mostly 3dfx cards. I also have a bunch of ancient MFM hard drives I'd like to re-home but it seems like the availability of modern flash based replacement drives has made the value of authentic vintage drives drop since I came upon these.

ozzuneoj wrote:

After googling model numbers countless times I've resorted to defacing cards with a sharpie or if it's something more valuable I put a sticker on it giving the real name and specs of the card.

I still have a boatload of hardware I promised myself (and my wife) I would sell off. Mostly 3dfx cards. I also have a bunch of ancient MFM hard drives I'd like to re-home but it seems like the availability of modern flash based replacement drives has made the value of authentic vintage drives drop since I came upon these.

Any collection on the level of Starfalcon's should have a labelmaker in heavy use. They also come in handy for tagging DC adapters behind the TV (or wherever), since they often look identical.

Even as a fan of vintage hardware, I have very little love for old hard drives and their shenanigans. At this point, you have to assume that any of those drives could go into cardiac arrest at any given moment, so if flash adapters are viable and generally work without issue, I'd be fine with going non-authentic for storage.

The Egg wrote:

Even as a fan of vintage hardware, I have very little love for old hard drives and their shenanigans. At this point, you have to assume that any of those drives could go into cardiac arrest at any given moment, so if flash adapters are viable and generally work without issue, I'd be fine with going non-authentic for storage.

My limited experience with flash-to-IDE adapters says they're reasonable. The firewall box I used on my DSL line for years was based on an old Socket 754 system running Ubuntu Server that booted from a CF card using a "direct insertion" (just sits in the IDE connector, nothing to mount in a bay) CF to IDE adapter. The box is actually still running... the DSL line is nominally my backup connection (though I'll probably be ditching it in the near future).

As a guess, the CF ones are probably the least likely to cause grief, as CF cards talk IDE natively (so it's essentially a passive adapter that passes the signals through and provides power to the CF card).

@Starfalcon - Are you still looking for stuff to add to the collection, or are you in "paring down" mode? I have some just-retired AMD Phenom gear I'd probably be willing to part with. Or is the Phenom generation (born in 2007) still too young for you?

I've also got the old file server mentioned in that thread... IIRC a Socket 939 something-or-other?

The Egg wrote:

ozzuneoj wrote:

After googling model numbers countless times I've resorted to defacing cards with a sharpie or if it's something more valuable I put a sticker on it giving the real name and specs of the card.

I still have a boatload of hardware I promised myself (and my wife) I would sell off. Mostly 3dfx cards. I also have a bunch of ancient MFM hard drives I'd like to re-home but it seems like the availability of modern flash based replacement drives has made the value of authentic vintage drives drop since I came upon these.

Any collection on the level of Starfalcon's should have a labelmaker in heavy use. They also come in handy for tagging DC adapters behind the TV (or wherever), since they often look identical.

Even as a fan of vintage hardware, I have very little love for old hard drives and their shenanigans. At this point, you have to assume that any of those drives could go into cardiac arrest at any given moment, so if flash adapters are viable and generally work without issue, I'd be fine with going non-authentic for storage.

Many old hard drives are quite hardy. There's a 3.5" MFM drive in my IBM 5150 that was installed in the late 80s and it works great after lubricating a couple of things (the system was stored in a garage for 20+ years). The data on them is so coarse and they are so "mechanical" that it honestly feels like its harder to mess them up vs with newer drives. They add so much character to an old system that an entirely flash based retro system would seem somewhat lacking to me. There's nothing like listening to the floppy disk reading "brrngg brrnng brrrrrrngg brrrng" then seeing the HDD LED turn on and have it go "DIT DIT DIDIT DIT" as data is copied. You can almost hear the data being transferred.

I guess at some point you have to decide how authentic you want the experience to be (vintage keyboard, vintage monitor, real floppy drives, period correct sound hardware). In some cases a modern port or an emulator is fine... but in other cases you may want the whole process to be authentic, all the way from pulling the floppy out of an old plastic disk caddy from the 80s.

Unfortunately most of my collection of old floppy drives got damaged by some minor basement flooding a few years back... no floppy drive MIDI for me.

Or for those who prefer classical:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_BeGDkNRtA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN2XWp6P0V0

ozzuneoj wrote:

Many old hard drives are quite hardy. There's a 3.5" MFM drive in my IBM 5150 that was installed in the late 80s and it works great after lubricating a couple of things (the system was stored in a garage for 20+ years). The data on them is so coarse and they are so "mechanical" that it honestly feels like its harder to mess them up vs with newer drives. They add so much character to an old system that an entirely flash based retro system would seem somewhat lacking to me. There's nothing like listening to the floppy disk reading "brrngg brrnng brrrrrrngg brrrng" then seeing the HDD LED turn on and have it go "DIT DIT DIDIT DIT" as data is copied. You can almost hear the data being transferred.

I guess at some point you have to decide how authentic you want the experience to be (vintage keyboard, vintage monitor, real floppy drives, period correct sound hardware). In some cases a modern port or an emulator is fine... but in other cases you may want the whole process to be authentic, all the way from pulling the floppy out of an old plastic disk caddy from the 80s.

I can totally understand that, but you're also talking a bit more retro than most of what's listed here. I would personally find most of your MFM drives interesting (I only ever used a couple in various 8088's and 286's), but would give a resounding "meh" to a 20GB Maxtor. I'd even argue that once we got to multi-gigabyte capacities, HDDs ceased to be a meaningful part of the experience (but someone else might feel completely different). I still find all the soundcards, videocards, and CPU/mobos here extremely cool though.

On the subject of the original post, I remember going to monthly computer parts expos at the local community college in the mid-90's and seeing various grungy 8088's stacked up all over the place, and being sold for pittance. Those were a bit before my time though....the oldest I have meaningful experience with is 286's (I don't count Apple II's).

If you are going to split out hard drives by size, or at least note non-3.5" drives, you should have a section for the quantum Bigfoots. Not many 5.25" half height form factor products out there which makes them rather interesting. Two hard drives in one CD-ROM bay? Craziness!

Yeah I am always willing to give computers a home JBI

Edit Bigfoots now have their own section

2nd edit A lot of my drives are barely or never used so they are in good shape, all the 8 and 10 gigers came out of OG Xbox systems from when a friend of mine modded the systems back in the day. Since he couldn't get rid of them, he just gave them to me as they work great with old systems. I have plenty of old rigs with drives from the 90's that work fine to this day, older hard drives seem a lot more forgiving then newer ones they cram tons of data in smaller and smaller spaces.

If you need help identifying anything, let me know. Same if you are interested in parting with anything. I may be interested in anything I don't have in my collection.

Starfalcon wrote:

2nd edit A lot of my drives are barely or never used so they are in good shape, all the 8 and 10 gigers came out of OG Xbox systems from when a friend of mine modded the systems back in the day. Since he couldn't get rid of them, he just gave them to me as they work great with old systems. I have plenty of old rigs with drives from the 90's that work fine to this day, older hard drives seem a lot more forgiving then newer ones they cram tons of data in smaller and smaller spaces.

On these:

Western Digital WD800BB 80 GB
Western Digital WD800JB 80 GB

I had some that died due to a PSU blowing up. I was able to actually swap the logic boards between identical models and that let me rescue the data! I had to keep swapping it from drive to drive to copy stuff off, but hell, it worked. I don't recall the exact model, might have been WD 80 GB IDEs instead of SATA.

My first DIY file server had a pile of 80GB WDs in it. Very reliable drives but they got progressively louder as they got older (they pre-dated the switch to FDB motors).

I haven't forgotten about finishing this, just been busy with work and lots of other things going on. Lots of fun left to go....

ludi wrote:

Hmm...was digging through dusty workbench drawers this weekend and discovered a PCI card with vintage 3DFX logos and a cryptic inscription of "Creative CT6670" on the back. The Internet says it's a 12MB Voodoo2. I thought I gave that entire stash to Starfalcon, but guess I saved one for myself after all.

You might as well mail it to him. You know he'll eventually have his hands on it anyway.

I am hoping I am able to get this finished soon, still have my house is still in great disarray from when I started this. I have just been busy as hell in RL recently...hope this scales down soon.

I think you need a storage unit. Some of those lists are now.

Well 6 months have passed, and I still haven't got around to finishing this list....My place has been in utter chaos and I just haven't had the time to get stuff moved and organized. I did make it my new years resolution to get this done and the mess cleaned up though. Guess we will see if I manage to get this done by next december...

Shoot for having it done by the BBQ. That way any new stuff you get can be neatly filed away where it belongs!

I think I may have mentioned this before, but my home office is worse than your apartment. The mess is much more concentrated. At least I haven't had a pile of boxes full of parts topple over onto my head lately. Getting a handle on that mess is one of my New Years resolutions as well.

NeonSun wrote:

Do you have any 24" Widescreen CRT displays?

Yes he does

http://www.heatware.com/evals/view/484623

Well I had some time today and added more things to the list.

> Tyan S1854

The first computer I built had one of these, recommended by Ars Technica and bought from the Chip Merchant. Due to my ignorance I screwed the motherboard into the case with the standoffs (or stand-ins, if you will). Celeron-533A CPU that ran for all of ~20 minutes without an HSF at all thanks to drawing only ~13 watts. Thing was solid enough that I used it for 3 years without further complaints.

It's too bad Tyan quit making consumer boards.

Starfalcon wrote:

Well I had some time today and added more things to the list.

Are you starting a museum?