Show off your old and retro computer parts

[da na]

1 hour ago, Bitter said:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/135076802754

 

Someone want to win this?

Seems like a total scam. I'm in

 

 

Had to dispute the last suspiciously cheap SGI machine with Regions Bank.

[Bitter]

58 minutes ago, da na said:

Seems like a total scam. I'm in

 

 

Had to dispute the last suspiciously cheap SGI machine with Regions Bank.

Actually, you're right. Looking at more listings...they're listed in all different locations, all have a 'buy it now at this totally legit ebay website' URL at the bottom of the listing, and until recently the account sold mercedes benz oxygen sensors. I reported several listings to eBay, hopefully they'll all get taken down before anyone gets scammed.

[da na]

15 minutes ago, Bitter said:

Actually, you're right. Looking at more listings...they're listed in all different locations, all have a 'buy it now at this totally legit ebay website' URL at the bottom of the listing, and until recently the account sold mercedes benz oxygen sensors. I reported several listings to eBay, hopefully they'll all get taken down before anyone gets scammed.

The external link is in an image file so eBay won't flag it. Classic

[Bitter]

1 hour ago, da na said:

The external link is in an image file so eBay won't flag it. Classic

Well I flagged it. I flagged it so hard. I flagged it three times.

[SimplyChunk]

4 hours ago, Bitter said:

Well I flagged it. I flagged it so hard. I flagged it three times.

Don't flag yourself too hard..you may go blind

[luckybob77]

On 5/26/2024 at 9:40 PM, Bitter said:

 until recently the account sold mercedes benz oxygen sensors. 

You could make the argument they've always had scam items for sale...

[Beerzerker]

On 5/26/2024 at 9:39 PM, da na said:

Seems like a total scam. I'm in

 

Had to dispute the last suspiciously cheap SG1 machine with Regions Bank.

That's what happens when you buy cheap "Rings"..... Those things are expensive you know and shit happens everytime you use it.

[Dabombinable]

Of course, the first AGP Pro card that I have ever touched happens to be DOA. I reckon that sometime in the past it was dragged across concrete - would explain how badly abraded the push pins and some of the SMD components are. All hail pen marks left during QC BTW.

Spoiler

 

 

I wonder why I only get something from the connector on the daughter board...

Also the highest amount of memory chips on any of my AGP cards. Though at least sensible unlike the 8 on my 16MB Vanta.

[intel_fab]

已删除

[da na]

10 minutes ago, intel_fab said:

Have you ever seen such a small motherboard? guess what is this?

Hmm just a wild guess: it's an Intel Minnow Engineering Sample

 

Single-board computer? 

[intel_fab]

16 minutes ago, da na said:

嗯，只是猜测：这是英特尔 Minnow 工程样品

 

单板计算机？ 

Yes, IoT devices, to be precise

[Nightwolf201792]

Looking to trade a old windows xp computer for something I can play minecraft on I can also throw in a pretty much new ps4 if anyone's interested pls reach out also if Linus or anyone wants some content the ps4 needs new usb ports

[da na]

Found this gem in a user manual for a camera I purchased. Had no idea Y2K warranties existed

[Bitter]

2 hours ago, da na said:

Found this gem in a user manual for a camera I purchased. Had no idea Y2K warranties existed

My dad wouldn't let me be on the computer AT midnight, I had to turn it off before then wait and turn it back on after. It was fine of course, all patched up, but kind of funny.

[SimplyChunk]

6 hours ago, da na said:

Found this gem in a user manual for a camera I purchased. Had no idea Y2K warranties existed

 

3 hours ago, Bitter said:

My dad wouldn't let me be on the computer AT midnight, I had to turn it off before then wait and turn it back on after. It was fine of course, all patched up, but kind of funny.

I was working in the IT deperatment for a big local college during the 99-2000 era.  No word of a lie we switched our machines off for the Christmas/new year period not knowing what we'd be coming back to on the 3rd of January

[Erioch]

9 hours ago, SimplyChunk said:

 

I was working in the IT deperatment for a big local college during the 99-2000 era.  No word of a lie we switched our machines off for the Christmas/new year period not knowing what we'd be coming back to on the 3rd of January

"I was there, Gandalf..."

 

We did a lot of work leading up to Y2K so the actual day of was a complete nothing burger.  However, our director at the time wanted a show of force in the office testing stuff.  I was so hungover I could barely type but hey, I was in the office being seen.

[Bitter]

39 minutes ago, Erioch said:

"I was there, Gandalf..."

 

We did a lot of work leading up to Y2K so the actual day of was a complete nothing burger.  However, our director at the time wanted a show of force in the office testing stuff.  I was so hungover I could barely type but hey, I was in the office being seen.

It's not what you do, it's how you look doing it.

[Erioch]

14 minutes ago, Bitter said:

It's not what you do, it's how you look doing it.

At least the NYE party I went to they night before was top notch.

[da na]

Pulled some old rack gear out of service at work today - things which hadn't been used in 20 years, were completely broken, or both. 

One that I took out was this Extron System 5cr video switcher, a pretty neat piece of gear.

Inside, most of the video switching and conversion takes place on purpose-built ICs...

.....but something is needed to run the serial port, 12v trigger, programmable presets, and IR remote - and that "something" is a Motorola 68000. 

It is actually rather common to see 70s-80s CPUs performing simple functions in 90s-2000s rack gear. I'd think this fella here is essentially an SOC based on the 68000 core - likely has a bit of memory integrated onto the chip as well, perhaps also an integrated RS-232 controller and maybe some ROM. 

 

It doesn't seem too outlandish to pontificate that the number of Zilog Z80 and Motorola 68000 chips used from 1990-2000 was at least half of their original sales from 1970s-1980s. A Z80-based chip with integrated serial controller was a very popular choice for programmable network switches and sound gear, and the 68000 descendants made appearances in cameras running DigitaOS, soundboards, video switchers.....

[Bitter]

Also very common in automotive, infact some of the parts shortage during COVID/Crypto boom was due to fabs closing older nodes to build more profitable stuff like GPU's, automotive chips are all very old node size so those were shuttered to chase profits. Some of the chips are die shrunk SOC's like in that equipment above. I remember opening an ECM once and it had a pair of Intel i286 in a SMD package along with some MICRON flash and DRAM. Other modules definitely are using Motorola chips, never bothered to decode them. If I have one laying around I'll open it at lunch and post some photos, phone doesn't do macro but it'll still be cool.

[da na]

Not computer parts per se, but cracked open an amp at work today to see if I could repair its silent right channel and was greeted with the biggest transistors I have ever laid eyes on. MOSFETs sure have gotten a lot smaller over the past 50 years. 

The date codes on these FETs point to late '97 through early '98, but this amp design was originally concieved about 50 years back, and it seems this part of the circuit was not altered whatsoever over its long production cycle. 

 

I'd love to collect a bunch of these giant transistors and ludicrously large 1950s oil-filled caps and build a simple "micro"chip in a cigar box. TI published a good deal of schematics for their early '70s microchips and a lot of them consist of nothing more than a few transistors and capacitors. I'd love to build my own timer chip, CMOS switch, or gate array on a process node of 20,000,000 nanometers. 

[Bitter]

I didn't have any car modules at work to crack open, I thought I had an old Chrysler ECM but I was incorrect.

 

I've got a few receiver/amplifiers with things like that in them. A couple old Hitachi with their funky Class G amps and some big transistors.

[da na]

9 minutes ago, Bitter said:

I didn't have any car modules at work to crack open, I thought I had an old Chrysler ECM but I was incorrect.

 

I've got a few receiver/amplifiers with things like that in them. A couple old Hitachi with their funky Class G amps and some big transistors.

I have seen these before but never in such great quantity, it was a bit surprising to see eight per channel running in series. 

I have also never heard so many of these in a high-power amplifier - 600 watts pumped through these transistors is neat. They sure do introduce a unique sound. Not a particularly good sound - it comes in the form of a 1% total harmonic noise rating - but it is certainly nothing like I have heard from a modern power amp.

I'd love to pair this amp with my Altec Voice of the Theatre if my job does decide to toss it, but the amount of noise this guy produces at low gain is unbelievable, and something tells me a highly efficient horn speaker and an amplifier that sounds awful at low volume is not the best pairing. 

[Bitter]

2 hours ago, da na said:

I have seen these before but never in such great quantity, it was a bit surprising to see eight per channel running in series. 

I have also never heard so many of these in a high-power amplifier - 600 watts pumped through these transistors is neat. They sure do introduce a unique sound. Not a particularly good sound - it comes in the form of a 1% total harmonic noise rating - but it is certainly nothing like I have heard from a modern power amp.

I'd love to pair this amp with my Altec Voice of the Theatre if my job does decide to toss it, but the amount of noise this guy produces at low gain is unbelievable, and something tells me a highly efficient horn speaker and an amplifier that sounds awful at low volume is not the best pairing. 

This hiss is a feature, not a bug. Just means you gotta crank it up louder! Yeah they're pretty noisy but reliable and produce solid power. We've been using one at the shop for like...15 years 8 hours a day 5 days a week powering 4 speakers on 2 channels at about probably 12 ohms around half power maybe 1/3 power. It'll outlive me.

[da na]

5 minutes ago, Bitter said:

This hiss is a feature, not a bug. Just means you gotta crank it up louder! Yeah they're pretty noisy but reliable and produce solid power. We've been using one at the shop for like...15 years 8 hours a day 5 days a week powering 4 speakers on 2 channels at about probably 12 ohms around half power maybe 1/3 power. It'll outlive me.

Funny part is, found what was wrong with this amp. Wasn't one of the massive transistors, no, it was the tiny preamp that comes between the input jack and the array of fellas.

Was so confused how I was getting power throughout the entire amp board, and how the speakers crackled from the volume knob on the dead channel (so clearly the "dead" channel was amplified enough to find faults in the volume potentiometer and something had gone wrong in the signal path.) I find it absolutely hilarious that the problem was not an aging capacitor, nor a high-power transistor, nor a rat chewing through a wire (has happened before at my job) - nah, tiny op-amp chip. Like finding a dead RAM stick - it's basically the least likely to fail.