/retro/ - retro, vintage, old computers and tech

ITT post retro-cool pics of old computers / data centres / whatever.

Old thread: Nice list of retro related YouTube channels:

nice going starting off a new thread with dubs!
let me recap some shit from the old thread

the xbox dev kit shit
list of youtube videos of destroying old hardware

>the xbox dev kit shit
>list of youtube videos of destroying old hardware
You just have to rub it in, dontya?

>list of youtube videos of destroying old hardware
WHY

The BEST part was that he didn't know he could easily get a dual 1080 SLI system easily with a 4k monitor and everything if he would have just sold it instead of wrecking it and building he's GeForce 700 system into it.

...

I found a relatively visible pic of my station, yay~

Update on the floppy drive and the Ethernet MAU: I've bought both and the drive has already been shipped. Thanks again to the generous user that donated.

I like your new shelving

TOO MUCH!

...

Nice user! Can't wait for the next update!

I sexually identify as retro technology

I identify as a Commodore 1541, slide that floppy dik in me bb

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>a-user.. i'm just a betamax player! th-that VHS tape is t-too big!

topkek

time to see what this motherfu*cker is all about

Thank you!
That old kid's room shelving I had before just didn't cut it anymore. It was quite hard to say goodbye to it, though, since it used to belong to my uncle and then to my mother, and I had been using it for a good 10 years. My uncle actually got it back and is using it right now, which makes me feel warm inside.
:3

Why did they make the PS/2 first and then the PS/1?

>board swapped
gay

>VESA
Muh dicc

Oh, I love guts reveals!

That doesn't look all that bad! It even has VESA slots!

...

well it's not the virgin 386SX I was hoping for but at least it's not another Pentium-133

there's hope for this one yet

>sticker between the heatsink and cpu
kek, some things never change

Kek, at least for the DX4 the sticker would not change the thermals at all, like it would on a modern CPU.

CPU PR0N!

they can get pretty hot, but not to the same extent as modern cpu's, no
you could probably even get away with no thermal paste on a DX4-100, though i can't say i'd recommend it

can't complain at the price and I would have saved it anyway, just needs to be swapped into an appropriate setup with something a little better than a 40 MB stepper drive and a shitty 8-bit VGA controller

kind of a strange mix of hardware, might have even been a 286-16 originally

Yup, had a Compaq laptop with a 486DX4 100MHz and it only had a slab of thin aluminium (aluminum for the nutcrackers out there) sheet with paste for cooling. Never had any problems.

>shitty 8-bit VGA controller
>tfw I've been looking for one for my XT and this guy calls it "shitty"

"one man's trash..."

for a DX4-100 box it's unsuitably low end

EGA is bestiest for XT though, you have to upgrade your monitor too with a VGA card
There are cards with both TTL EGA/CGA/MDA and VGA outputs on the same card, but can't display VGA over the 9pin TTL connection

Now to find a fucking ADB keyboard, I lost mine. Apparently, there are some pretty snazzy drive emulators for the Apple ][ series. Not pictured is the apple dot matrix printer. Got all that for 10 dollars.

I don't have a monitor that will support that comodore. The Panasonic pictured is stuck in PAL mode and I have no idea why.

I also have a buttload of Sun4 and Sun4m systems at my dad's; a few IBM PS/2s.

>EGA is bestiest for XT though
I know, I'd set it up as a secondary display adapter. I don't even know how I would go about configuring it in DOS, though.

Pretty darn comfy, for the ADB keyboard, nothing eBay can't provide.
For the IIgs, networking and a hard drive would probably be the best, drive emulators are for lazy people.

You can use any composite/s-video screen with the Commodore 64.
If that's a NTSC C64, they can be converted to PAL too with a few replacement parts.

>I know, I'd set it up as a secondary display adapter. I don't even know how I would go about configuring it in DOS, though.
Manually. You'd have to deactivate one card to use the other. Maybe a switch.
There was software that supported a secondary MDA screen, but not VGA and EGA.

PCs didn't have official support for dual displays back then.

>VESA
>80286

No, not at all. VESA is a 32bit bus.

What is significantly more likely is that it was a 486DX4 system from the getgo. The owner just couldn't afford better graphics and sound, so they just shoved in 16 bit ISA cards.

Your youthful ignorance is showing.

and it was all worth it just for this immaculate shitbrick

but let's be real here, by 1991 this was definitely not a top-end part, kind of surprised to even see one in a system this new, even one that's basically scraping the bottom of the barrel

know the feeling though, I looked for an 8-bit card forever when I got my first XT, they do come up

i think what he meant was the mobo/cpu was upgraded, but the rest not

--oh, the haphazard cpu installation backs this up as well, imo

There are probably 16-bit ISA VGA cards that work in 8-bit slots. Just slower.
Network, sound and even very rarely drive controller cards do.

>PCs didn't have official support for dual displays back then.
They did. You can officially configure an XT to take dual graphics adapters via the DIP switches on the board.

>and it was all worth it just for this immaculate shitbrick
all PATA/IDE hard drives where made obsolete for retro machines after CF cards and adapters became cheap

>hamfest pull
the last time I went to a hamfest all I saw were a bunch of radios and antennas

where's all the good stuff?

I know, I have a Sound Blaster 16 and a VESA floppy/serial/parallel/IDE (though IDE does not work) controller in my XT. 16-bit graphics adapters that work in 8-bit slots are a lot harder to find.

Source?

IIRC all you could have is MDA (CGA thus also) with a EGA card.
MDA/CGA didn't also map memory the same way as EGA, you didn't even need to configure it.
It was entirely up to the software if it supported it.

Maybe it was also possible to have two MDA cards, but then one did need to be remapped, highly doubtful though, as they used conventional memory for their buffer. If there was any, then 3rd party.
Never seen any information about that though, so please show me if you do know.

My old shit

It's shit alright.....jk

Well, my current problem is that I currently do not own any analog NTSC/PAL accepting monitors that work. That panasonic supports both but is stuck in PAL.

Funnily enough, the IIGS RGB out works on one of my LCD colorgrading monitors using a Macintosh to VGA converter, even though it's not supposed to. VGA at 640 is supposed to have a 32kHz horizontal sync, and the IIGS uses a 15kHz. The monitor reports out of range if you turn it on or it comes on detecting a signal... but if you cycle through the inputs and land back on VGA, it just works. Very bizarre.

Networking is planned, as is a memory expansion. The internal is bare.

No, you dingus. The 80286 had a fucking 24 bit address bus and 16bit data bus. The 80386 and 80486 had 32bit address and data buses.

The fucking 80286, 80386, and 80486 were not pin compatible! At all! You couldn't just "swap" CPUs like that. You would fucking fry the CPUs!

Please note, this is the pin layout for all 80486 CPUs!

Did DX4s get that hot? Never had any first hand experience with one, but none of my systems up to and including my Pentium 100 had any paste; only the heatsink, and a tiny fan in the case of the Pentiums.

>The fucking 80286, 80386, and 80486 were not pin compatible!
that's why i said cpu AND MOBO

cont

Not only does the 80486 have an extra "key" pin, the voltage lines are in locations that are not compatible with older processors!

>VGA at 640 is supposed to have a 32kHz horizontal sync, and the IIGS uses a 15kHz. The monitor reports out of range if you turn it on or it comes on detecting a signal... but if you cycle through the inputs and land back on VGA, it just works.
Yeah, some monitors use controllers that support more then documented or even intended.
Keep that monitor also safe, they are hard to find, even if it's new.

>The 80386 and 80486 had 32bit address and data buses.
386SX had a 16-bit bus!

Nice backpeddle

Define hot, I'd say they would work fine without any paste, but heatsink for sure though.

In retrospect, paste is always good, so is a heatsink even if it officially does not require it.

>the 80386SX

Yes, but it's the redheadded step child that used alternating clock cycles like the 8086 and 80186 to get full bus width (go look at their whacky pin outs); and no one likes them.

...I ran an AMD K6 266MHz for a few years without a heatsink. Not recommended, but you can definitely do it.

hot enough to need a heatsink, not quite hot enough to need a fan unless it was a small heatsink
newest cpu i used without paste was a pentium 133
adding paste never hurts though, i don't believe any of these cpus have temperature protection, so it's best to err on the side of caution

>Your youthful ignorance is showing.
yeah, coming from the guy who actually thinks people were still buying fucking 8-bit video controllers and 40 MB stepper drives almost into 1996, jesus fuck you make my blood boil

it's a board swap, dude, all of the I/O and drives are dated 1991 while the modem is dated 1993 and the board 1995, this shit happened all the time, and nobody with the money to throw at a brand new DX/4-100 box even when it was lower-mid range kit in 1995 was stuffing ancient bottom of the barrel shit from four years ago in it, especially not the fucking hard disks

even the exterior is a dead giveaway, if you actually knew dick and weren't just roleplaying you'd pick up on the grey bezeled drives that are a generally good indicator that we're looking at something from the early '90s (though sometimes you did see them up until around 1995, but they weren't as common in my own experience)

most Tridents do from my memory as do some of the OTI cards I think, only ever had to mess with that once or twice

boring

some people seem to dislike beige

Academics still can't grasp the true form of Wittgenstein's philosophy.

yea, though in that case you can't just compare clocks with heat output (not saying you are, btw) since they aren't the same kind of cpu
for example, my 486DX2-66 had a heatsink (no fan), and got hot as shit
but a pentium 75 with no heatsink at all didn't get as hot

A Open is now known as ACER!

They weren't formed until 1996.

Step off, kid.

damn you're right, so I set the upgrade a little too close to the date codes and it was actually done in 1996 which makes the post I replied to even more retarded

Then why do you imply it was a 486 system from the getgo? Makes no sense.

Yeah, that is definitely the case. The K6 I had said it required a fan, but plenty of airflow over it kept it cool enough. I've ran a few DX2s without heatsinks. I have one DX4, but it's in a Compaq laptop, and I have never opened that thing up, so I have no idea what is going on inside and whether it has a heatsink or just the case fan.

The Case says AOpen. That's Acer. A BUDGET brand. AOpen didn't come around until 1996.

I'm . I'm pretty sure I know more than you about this.

never seen someone run a Pentium without a heatsink

almost want to try it now

>I'm . I'm pretty sure I know more than you about this.

If someone says that in a /retro/ thread they are usually a dumbass narcissist.
Not the original user you replied to btw.

Why are there still shitty celerons and older architectures for sale new? Backstock, warehouses offloading their old shit to budget brands to sell as "new".

Shit has not changed in 30 years.

only the low end p75, iirc is safe to use without one
there's also and even lower end p60, which is probably also fine without a heatsink

you shouldn't run anything higher without a heatsink, if you want to try it anyway, be sure to monitor it's temperature!

-- like, there's no way i'd run a pentium MMX 233 without a heatink (... and fan)

It's likely, but a dumb choice for a OEM to have a VESA board and not take advantage of it.

that AOpen badge was undoubtedly applied after the upgrade, and that bog standard baby AT is sure as fuck not an Acer-built system to begin with, have you ever even seen their hardware from that time period? shit, they weren't even really a budget marquis, they made some incredibly nice shit at that time

you sound like you're just regurgitating garbage from a wiki page at me, please stop and at least read some magazines or something if you want to posture yourself as the thread historian, this is fucking pathetic to watch

even the _shittiest_ mom-and-pop in 1996 was not shipping brand new systems with ancient 40 MB stepper disks in an era where 500-800 MB was the minimum even in the sub-$1,500 bracket, let alone a big OEM, next time you come across an example from the latter with a date of manufacture go and compare it to the date codes on the chips and see exactly how quickly they liquidate their stock, none of them keep shit around for 5+ years like that

It's Acer we're talking about here. They still do dumb stuff.

Also, I just noticed from the pictures that they're 8-bit ISA cards, not that it matters. It was likely never a 16-bit system at any point.

Boxes like original disappointment poster were produced and sold NEW well into early 2000. A few brands had fancy cases. A lot did not.

it's possible that it could have been a really late XT clone but the drive's too weird a match and the system as a whole is just too new, I can't see it, 286 boards were cheap as hell by then and skimping on the graphics wasn't that weird a choice, I've come across other 286es with similar parts

whatever it was it's getting swapped back out for a 286-16 next time I open it up, I think I've got a nice case more suited to a DX4, or maybe I'll keep it as a spare

this was not one of them at all, no matter how many straws you grasp at

You so sure? I am telling you. Cases like this NEW were not uncommon AT ALL.

were you just talking about the cases? don't disagree with you at all there, those designs lasted forever

I remember seeing black Acers waaaaay back in the day. anyone have more info on this or pics? This was when like having a CD-ROM drive was hot shit. Guessing about 100MHz CPUs

Oh, look, more generic slab PCs from the 1990s. Not like the AT form factor wasn't a standard or anything, no sir.

anyone remember this?

might be thinking of early Aspires, they were pretty sick

what does Dell have anything to do with anything being discussed at this time?

sorry I had to shit on your attempt to pretend to be knowledgeable but seriously just stop fucking posting already

Yes, Macintosh clones. Comfy.

hnnnnnng

there were towers too!

fuck me I didn't even know they made those, I want one now

saw a regular tower model once at the recycler that was beat to shit and missing pieces but they felt really nice especially with the full plastic skin, that first wave of consumer multimedia PCs was 10/10

was there a different design for the tower?

Yea I just saw them in computer catalogs back in the day. Pages across from 75MHz PPC603 Performas and 75MHz ThinkPads

yeah, I think the one I posted is from the same model range or a little newer
here's a shitty shot of the minitower variant of the original for sure
those are fun as hell to read

Better provide your pronouns for all the SJWs.

The inside wasn't swapped out. The 80486 was found in low end computers for years, especially the DX2 and DX4 series. Computing power needs didn't really jump much unless you were trying to game. Most people didn't. It was the equivelent of buying a low or mid range machine today with a celeron or an FX6300 or something nowadays.

You can still go out and buy older chipsets "new". You can still buy Core 2 products from newegg. I remember seeing 80386 computers in use up until around 1998 or so when I started finding a ton of them in the trash.

No. People have got to stop assuming "old looking" cases, whatever that means, means it's a motherboard swap. There was a lot of variation in motherboard sizes, and AT cases were cheap, modular, and used all over. You can't make assumptions about the internals based on a fucking generic AT case. It's an unusual build, but not unheard of for really low end machines of the time.

>No. People have got to stop assuming "old looking" cases, whatever that means, means it's a motherboard swap.
that's not why it's a swap you dipshit, the case isn't even that "old looking"

it's a swap for all of these reasons:
>grey-bezel floppy drives that were most frequent around the late '80s and very early '90s (plenty of exceptions throughout the 486 age, but it's a good way to set general expectations)
>IDE and VGA controllers both have 1991 date codes and are hilariously dated for such a system (there was absolutely no excuse to use an 8-bit card in a fucking DX4 build at all)
>similarly hilariously outdated ST-157 disk which was pretty much standard faire for entry-level systems at that time (nobody was putting those in new systems in 1996, absolutely nobody)
>aforementioned floppy drives are stamped 1991
>modem with 1993 date codes (a later upgrade before the swap)

this system would be basically the equivalent of buying a brand new 6600K with a shitty 40 GB diamondmax someone pulled out of an old NetVista and threw in there with an FX 5200 and some old CD-ROM drives, sure it's possible but the chances of it being a new system are absolutely zero, especially back then when disk space was one of the most important things that you could never have enough of even as a consumer, you could barely fit a useful minimal Windows 95 or even 3.x installation on 40 MB, let alone a typical one, and sourcing such an ancient drive would be harder than just ordering some newer, cheaper 540 MB disks in the first place

I THINK temperature protection came in with the Pentium Pro. I know my Pentium Pro 200 has it (at least according to the spec sheet, I ain't stupid enough to rely on it.)

The Radius ones were the best. At least from an aesthetics point of view.

Finally got my SPARCclassic going. I'm pretty pleased. Now I just have to get bash installed, I can't stand csh. Linux has spoiled me.

I wish computers were still like this. The world would be much better without the aspies and women everywhere.

that's really nice, pretty much a complete set too
figured out anything fun to do with it yet? I think SunOS ships with bsd-games installed by default unless someone managed to sneak it on to my SS20 while it was still an instrument controller

So what CPU do you recommend for frying eggs?
CPU cooked eggs just have that retro taste to them modern heatplates can't produce.

In 1995, that Seagate 40MB HDD was 75 dollars. That price quickly ballooned up to 120 dollars on average for an 80MB HDD. That motherboard with the AMD DX4 clone CPU cost 250 dollars.

That's 1995 dollars. He's already spent 529 dollars in 2017 money before taxes.

What's the cost of Windows 3.1, which he was surely using, considering the costs and HDD size? Oh, that was retailing for 100USD. That brings the current total up to 424 dollars before taxes in 1995... which is currently worth 690 in today's dollars. He hasn't even added ram. Or a video card! Let's look at the average ram used, which was usually around 4~8MB.

Oh, by the way, ads for barebone computers at the time without any drives but floppies was around 500USD with 4MB of ram. This was without video cards. Operating system. Etc. 500USD in 1995 is worth 813 now.

Care to guess again?

I think the keyboard may be a bit new comparatively (it's a 5c I usually use on my Ultra 1), but otherwise, pretty complete yeah.

I believe I saw the games package get extracted during install. I haven't gotten a chance to check it out much.