TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[R-T-B]

I assume you've read this.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/11/half-an-operating-system-the-triumph-and-tragedy-of-os2/


It's a good read.

Yeah, I think the screenshot might even come from that article. (not my set, my set got thrown away in frustration sometime in 2005).

 

[Trekkie4]

Soooo... Regarding my 486 - it ain't! Took this thing apart & found this:

Also, won't be keeping this CD drive, at least not in this rig... Manufacturing date October 1999, seriously! I got some nice, vintage CD ROMs in one of the boxes, so I'll swap it for the real thing! At least the HDD is original!

So, now that we established the model number (and historical value) of this thing, here's once again my dilemma - shall I keep it in the original (and current) condition, or shall I swap the mobo for Intel 486, DX2 running @ 66Mhz? Decisions, decisions, decisions...

 

[MaxiPro800]

Soooo... Regarding my 486 - it ain't! Took this thing apart & found this:

Also, won't be keeping this CD drive, at least not in this rig... Manufacturing date October 1999, seriously! I got some nice, vintage CD ROMs in one of the boxes, so I'll swap it for the real thing! At least the HDD is original!

So, now that we established the model number (and historical value) of this thing, here's once again my dilemma - shall I keep it in the original (and current) condition, or shall I swap the mobo for Intel 486, DX2 running @ 66Mhz? Decisions, decisions, decisions...

Keep the board and swap the CPU with a 486. It's Socket 3,it's got PCI,it's pretty good. I assume the BIOS string reads somewhere in the 1996-1997 range?

 

[dorsetknob]

keep the cpu its supposedly quite rare
worth reading ths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am5x86

note the warning
The chip will actually physically fit into an older 486 socket such as a socket 1 or 2 or the original 168-pin 80486 socket, but doing this requires a replacement voltage regulator, since the AMD chip runs at 3.45 volts.

The CPU was commonly overclocked to 160 MHz, thereby giving performance similar to that of a Pentium 90 MHz system. It has been reported that some individuals have successfully run the chip at 200 MHz; this would require a PCI-based system (due to the instability of VLB at high speed) and uncommon motherboards and cache RAM that could cope with a 50 MHz system bus. There are four main versions of the socketed version of this CPU, manufactured in different locations. There is the common ADW variety, as well as the later ADY, ADZ and BGC. The later models were the preferred versions of the chip, because they were rated for higher temperatures and thus more forgiving of overclocking.

 

[Trekkie4]

keep the cpu its supposedly quite rare
worth reading ths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am5x86

note the warning
The chip will actually physically fit into an older 486 socket such as a socket 1 or 2 or the original 168-pin 80486 socket, but doing this requires a replacement voltage regulator, since the AMD chip runs at 3.45 volts.

The CPU was commonly overclocked to 160 MHz, thereby giving performance similar to that of a Pentium 90 MHz system. It has been reported that some individuals have successfully run the chip at 200 MHz; this would require a PCI-based system (due to the instability of VLB at high speed) and uncommon motherboards and cache RAM that could cope with a 50 MHz system bus. There are four main versions of the socketed version of this CPU, manufactured in different locations. There is the common ADW variety, as well as the later ADY, ADZ and BGC. The later models were the preferred versions of the chip, because they were rated for higher temperatures and thus more forgiving of overclocking.

Right, that could be the reason why this guy said it's 80MHz 486 inside... I'll tinker with the settings (and BIOS), so hopefully I'll be able to unlock the full potential of this thing, if possible. And yes, think I'm going to keep 586 inside, thanks More pics (and updates) coming up, as soon as I have this thing put back together again!

@MaxiPro800 To tell you the truth, I have no idea what the BIOS reads... Honestly, I didn't hook this thing to a monitor yet, but I DO know it posts OK because of the beeps & floppy seek during a start-up sequence.

EDIT
Still working on this thing... So far I've made the following changes & updates:

IDE (HDD) LED has been "fixed", polarity was wrong so it wasn't lighting up
Turbo LED has also been "fixed", polarity was wrong so it wasn't lighting up regardless of Turbo switch
Turbo Switch has been properly connected to the motherboard, previous owner (or whoever worked on this thing before) had the header permanently shorted using the jumper cap
CMOS battery was dead & was replaced with the new one
HDD has been raised (to prevent vibration transfer onto the frame, which was touching)
CPU fan has been taken apart, washed & cleaned, new thermal compound has been applied under the heatsink (didn't have any)
CD-ROM drive has been replaced with the older Toshiba unit, manufactured in 1996
2x modules of RAM memory have been removed, this thing has way too much RAM for this time period (if we are aiming for authenticity)

Still left to do:

Configure the BIOS settings, see what's going on with the CPU
Hook the port extensions, do a proper cable management (what a joy )
Add the ethernet card (just because I have few, from 1996), test to see if it works
Do a full system test

 

[STIG_ZA]

Some updates. Picked up not one but two Asus 8800GTX, both work. Would like to sli them but man do they eat power. Have the one stuck in my amd 64 x2 rig, had to buy a new psu also. The original "500w" would buzz loudly when the card was under load

Will post pics a bit later

 

[stinger608]

Some updates. Picked up not one but two Asus 8800GTX, both work. Would like to sli them but man do they eat power. Have the one stuck in my amd 64 x2 rig, had to buy a new psu also. The original "500w" would buzz loudly when the card was under load

Will post pics a bit later

Sweet score man!!!!!!!

 

[Trekkie4]

Cable management finally done, also added a plastic peg (support) for the bottom ISA card (sound card, in this case) because it was dangerously close to the metal bottom, floor of the case which would most likely kill the card in the blink of an eye (unless it already has...)

Still have to tidy it up a bit, pics coming soon!

EDIT
Here it is, status report...

Starting off with new old CD-ROM from March 1997, this is as original as you can get! Not a huge fan of Toshiba optical drives, but it was the only unit I got that's manufactured in 1997, rest of them are mostly 1998 and newer.


Random pic of a random mounting hole, BELOW the actual CPU socket! Really, this is the 1st time I got to see mounting solution like this... Pretty clever though, I don't see why not!


My testing gear, as I was trying to determine the polarity of Turbo switch header (3-pin). One (middle) of these is common, left is activated when the button is switched off and right is activated when the button is switched on. Since the purpose of turbo button is to close the electrical circuit, in order to activate the feature I had to determine which side is right, or in other words which side is going to turn on the turbo feature when the button is pressed in. Which I did, so now the turbo button actually has a purpose, rather than having a jumper permanently closing the header & keeping the turbo active at all time.


First of all to remind you guys how this system USED to look like yesterday, remember?


Good, because here's the finished result! Have to say, I'm pretty happy with how things ended up looking


So, now that we took care of that, here's couple of more things I wanted to address. I don't suppose anyone here knows what brand (and model number) is this motherboard here? Because other than S/N, I can't seem to find anything useful...


Don't think I ever uploaded this before - it's one of my "magical" boxes, full of spare motherboards, ODDs, even old hard drives & other stuff. And yes, all those cables are indeed Voodoo patch-through VGA cables! Used to have all of them mounted on their appropriate system(s), but took them off while I was moving (for the sake of not damaging the Voodoo cards) and never put them back again.


A while ago, I believe someone here mentioned Celeron 300... And I said I have one, but never got to upload pic - until now. Also have 333 one, both are Slot-1.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Pretty sure that is a Lucky Star board bro. Here. Best pic I could find.
http://s477.photobucket.com/user/Nickolay_I/media/hardware/mobo101.jpg.html

BTW, Got Slot 1's ? lol
I have a couple boxes like this.

 

[Trekkie4]

WOW!!

I really, really love (adore, actually) Slot-1 motherboards and CPUs! Apart from the fact that I had one back in a day (which makes them nostalgic), they're so easy to use & swap! Obviously, my collection is not even remotely big enough to what you have inside this box here, but yes - I DO have couple of Slot-1 spares Got Pentium 3 550, Pentium 2 266 (from that weird-looking motherboard, posted on the previous page), Celeron 300A and Celeron 333, all of them in full & working condition! Also have one Pentium 3, 500 which is missing a fan. Unfortunately, it uses a rare fan dimension (35x35), not available at the stores any longer so I can't use this thing in any of my builds

As for Slot-1 CPUs in service (as in already mounted inside my retro systems), I got the following models:

1x Celeron 333 (pretty much the same as the other one, mentioned above)
2x Pentium 3, 733MHz (both passive heatsinks)
1x Pentium 3 550MHz
1x Pentium 3 500MHz
2x Pentium 3 450MHz (one is passive, cooled by the chassis fan - Dell Optiplex)
5x Pentium 2, 350MHz

Speaking of which, I'm in the middle of getting another Slot-1 mobo and Pentium 2 CPU Probably around Mon, Tuesday still too early to say anything for sure, but I will post pics as always

 

[dorsetknob]

Unfortunately, it uses a rare fan dimension (35x35), not available at the stores any longer

fans fitted to my stock of Vintage slot 2 P11 and celeron are ( 50x 50 ) they are attached by screws to the serrated heat sink

http://www.evercool.com.tw/categories/global/fan/dcfan/ec-5010/ec5010.php

 

[Mr.Scott]

Trekkie, if you need anything for your builds, gimme a shout. I may have what you need. I'm sure we can work something out.

 

[Trekkie4]

Finally have that 586 up & running. Windows 95 kinda backfired & doesn't want to boot again (did get it to boot once), but other than that everything seems to be working OK.

Really hate talking about ppl, behind their back, but this guy who sold this system was either an idiot or didn't care whatsoever. Because what he claimed to be 80Mhz clearly reads "Am5x86-P75-S" with "CPU Clock @ 133MHz" So yes, it's working at full capacity - no need to mess with the voltage regulators

Now to boot up Win95... Stay tuned!

 

[dorsetknob]

no need to mess with the voltage regulators

You would only need to mess with the Voltage regulators "" IF you were to go Back to Intel CPU ""
what you have is a legitimate Nostalgic upgrade mod correct for the Period
Volt regulator mod was done to enable this AMD CPU to work in your board socket

 

[Trekkie4]

Trekkie, if you need anything for your builds, gimme a shout. I may have what you need. I'm sure we can work something out.

Thanks bunches! Not sure it would be worth the hassle (and postage), but I might get back to you on that, some day Also, thanks for figuring out the mobo model, totally overlooked that part, above

@dorsetknob Ah, gotcha. Sorry, as you can probably tell I'm not experienced with this generation of hardware. Mainly because I didn't get to work on it as much as I did with ATX, Pentium rigs. Either way, this thing here is a real rare hardware masterpiece, that much is for sure Glad I decided to follow your advice & keep it like this, as I already got the real 486 DX4 in other system (while this 586 here is 1st one to have, or even see in person, ever)

 

[debs3759]

keep the cpu its supposedly quite rare

It's not particularly rare. They show up in the CPU-World forum from time to time, I have 4 x 5x86-P75 (a mix of ADW and ADZ), which were priced between $5 and $7.

 

[Retrorockit]

WOW!!

I really, really love (adore, actually) Slot-1 motherboards and CPUs! Apart from the fact that I had one back in a day (which makes them nostalgic), they're so easy to use & swap! Obviously, my collection is not even remotely big enough to what you have inside this box here, but yes - I DO have couple of Slot-1 spares Got Pentium 3 550, Pentium 2 266 (from that weird-looking motherboard, posted on the previous page), Celeron 300A and Celeron 333, all of them in full & working condition! Also have one Pentium 3, 500 which is missing a fan. Unfortunately, it uses a rare fan dimension (35x35), not available at the stores any longer so I can't use this thing in any of my builds

As for Slot-1 CPUs in service (as in already mounted inside my retro systems), I got the following models:

1x Celeron 333 (pretty much the same as the other one, mentioned above)
2x Pentium 3, 733MHz (both passive heatsinks)
1x Pentium 3 550MHz
1x Pentium 3 500MHz
2x Pentium 3 450MHz (one is passive, cooled by the chassis fan - Dell Optiplex)
5x Pentium 2, 350MHz

Speaking of which, I'm in the middle of getting another Slot-1 mobo and Pentium 2 CPU Probably around Mon, Tuesday still too early to say anything for sure, but I will post pics as always

My Voodoo 5500 AGP is just gathering dust. Make an offer if you want to, it would be about right for slot 1 era.

 

[debs3759]

I'm not sure that's the same thing as AGP 1.0, AGP2.0, and AGP 3.0 I think the 1x,2x. and 4x were speeds data went through the bus (like PCIe 1x, 4x, and 16x cards on same slot). I think AGP1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 were different generations of motherboard architecture.

AGP 1.0 = AGP 1x and 2x = 3.3V
AGP 2.0 = AGP 4x = 1.5V
AGP 3.0 = AGP 8x = 0.8V

They all used a 66MHz bus. Cards that operated at 1x are few and far between. The only cards I can think of that specs say run at 1x and not 2x are the first NVidia cards, such as Diamond Edge.

 

[Trekkie4]

My Voodoo 5500 AGP is just gathering dust. Make an offer if you want to, it would be about right for slot 1 era.

You and I both know the value of this thing, so to be completely honest, I don't even know where to begin. The question is, how much would you expect?

Edit
It's time once again, to show the on-going progress with 586... Before I got to do any software changes, I had to deal with hardware ones, first. Mainly the network card (which I'm not going to use either way), because it wasn't showing up among the hardware components. So, after swapping the card for another (identical) one, reading the instruction manual & tinkering with IRQ resources on both the card itself and BIOS, I finally got the damn thing to work!

Anyhow, regarding software... Had to improvise the testing (and working) area for this thing, so that I could boot up the new copy of Win95, along with other software. The old copy of Windows was way too damaged (and cluttered) to be restored, so instead of wasting my time with all that, I went from scratch & booted up the fresh copy of Win95 off a CD. The old copy was apparently a floppy one, because when I was tinkering with the hardware & made some changes to the system drivers, W95 asked me to provide "disk #6" Yeah, riiiight!


As you can see, I'll be using this Cherry DIN keyboard for this procedure... Although I do have several of those DIN-to-PS2 converters laying around, nothing beats the original if you ask me!


System specs are following: Am5x86-P75-S @ 133MHz, along with 8MB of EDO RAM and 813MB hard drive. Actually, I might upgrade the RAM to 16MB, since I have the feeling that both CPU & mobo are capable of delivering much more performance, but are tied up due to RAM shortage. After all, regardless of the name "586" - this system here is more a "Pentium" class than x86 one.


HI! As you can see, both Turbo and HDD LEDs light up as they should!


And Turbo one goes off when the Turbo switch is turned off (LO)


Windows 95 starts here


My (small) tribute to TPU


Yeah, riiight!


Windows 95 is up, now it's time to get some games up & running... Starting with Cybwar Mission "Thunder Gun", to "Blast enemy star fighters in this action packed adventure game" Riiiight, but this thing here is the oldest game I got, that's on CD-ROM and not floppy. Copyright says 1995, which makes this a perfect game for 586 system


Come get some! Even though it lags... Yup, I definitely need to restore some of the RAM. What it had before was too much, but 8MB is just not enough for Win95


And that's all, folks. See you again tomorrow for more!

 

[Retrorockit]

I'm not trying to get the most $ out of it. I would like to see someone use it. I've seen what they go for on Ebay . If I wanted a bunch of money for it I would auction it. Make an offer and either I say yes or I say no.
Definitely less than $100.
Nobody replied to my post about My Dell Dimension E520 (2006) at 4Ghz. Maybe it's too new for this thread ( and too old for most others). But I've crammed an R9-285 O/C in the BTX Mini tower. Runs great. I've got some bugs to work out though.

 

[Keullo-e]

Sorry guys, totally forgot to post some images of my server, still too lazy to install the graphics card..

At least cleaned the SCSI controller of most dust

 

[dorsetknob]

Still Working on original power source
Never been upgraded
display perfect
used occasionaly

Spoiler:

And yes its older than alot of the members here

 

[debs3759]

I'm not trying to get the most $ out of it. I would like to see someone use it. I've seen what they go for on Ebay . If I wanted a bunch of money for it I would auction it. Make an offer and either I say yes or I say no.
Definitely less than $100.

I have sent you a PM about this, on the off chance that Trekkie4 decides it is worth more than he can afford. He has first dibs of course

 

[Trekkie4]

@debs3759 and @Retrorockit Voodoo5 is definitely worth more than I can afford at the moment, that much is for certain. If I were to offer you the actual value of Voodoo5 5500 card, it would have to be (at least) 140$ or above, because that's what these cards are selling for. In fact, there was one V5 on sale locally, couple of months ago. The guy wanted double the amount of what I wrote, so obviously I had to turn him down. And yes - believe it or not, it got sold in less than a month Anyway, what I can offer you right now is 15$, perhaps 30$ max. Keep in mind that (just like @debs3759), I would also have to pay the postage (and customs fee?) so that the actual price would most likely only go up the scale. Sooo yeah...

I suppose I can always wait & hope that someone from EU would sell me their Voodoo5, as it would be much cheaper & more affordable that way.


Now, back to my ongoing project, 586... Just like I said yesterday, I've successfully upgraded the RAM to 16MB. Used the identical pair of EDO modules, which I took out from an old Pentium (MMX), long time ago. It's only fair to say that the speed increase is obvious, and disk activity has been reduced by at least 50%.


Had to remove the ATA cables in the process, but that is to be expected... Especially with these boards


As I was digging through my boxes for EDO memory, figured I'd post another pic of all the "spares" That mobo down there is spare Pentium 1 233, paired with DTK-branded, AT styled board with 2x EDO modules (either 16 or 32MB) From what I got to see, it's all tested & fully operational! Rest of the stuff are just video cards (Evil Kyro, ATI Radeon 9200) and lots of serial rodents!


This here is what I was telling you about. This is the real thing, 486 board with ISA & VESA banks, running 4MB of RAM and DX2 @ 66MHz CPU. Since I was in a hurry, didn't have the time to pull it out from the static protection bag, I'm sorry. But I'm sure you get the point, either way


Back to software & 586... Who wants some Wang? Yes, this game now works pretty OK, considering this is 5x86 machine. It does lag a bit, I'm guessing because of the Cirrus Logic VGA card which has only 1MB of VRAM. Was tempted to swap it for something better but I had to draw a line somewhere - I didn't want this rig to become just another Pentium class machine.


With Shadow Warrior up & running, I wanted to try something more difficult... Despite the initial warning message, the game DOES run (pretty decent, actually), but just like with Shadow Warrior, it lags at certain areas & combat situations.


Heretic does seem to be working perfectly fine, no slowdowns whatsoever.


Overall, this is the current situation. With all the games up & running, it's barely 50% full. Probably due to file system, FAT32 rather than using FAT16 (which is also one of the reasons I wanted newer copy of Win95)


Now for a bonus question - can you tell me which DOS game was I playing here? Need a HINT?

 

[Retrorockit]

Seems like most of the interest In Voodoos is in EU. Not surprising really with the planned obsolescence driven "economy" we've got here in the US.