Esoteric (rare) hardware from the past

Keljian

[H]ard|Gawd
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Nov 7, 2006
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I've seen a lot of threads around with some unusual stuff, and I have a bit of an interest in knowing stuff about rare "birds" in the computer hardware scene. I was wondering what kind of things are out there that you all have come across out of the norm.

Here are some examples from the past from me:
ALR 6x6 - 6x pentium pro glue logic beast
Canopus pure3d Voodoo1 - unusual as it had 6mb of memory vs the usual 4
Octek DCA2 (motherboard and ram) - 486 with "cached" memory dimms
Weitek WTL 3167 - Unusual and powerful FPU
Tadpole Alphabook - Alpha AXP powered notebook

auntjemima
 
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Any of the amiga hardware is quite pricey now
the 3dFX Voodoo 5/6 boards are quite rare
Definitely the "3dfx Rampage boards"
 
The links that erek posts are in the eBay forum.. I also post in there when I find old stuff going for insane prices.

You can also go looks at the vogons.org forum in the Marvin sections.
 
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Some things in my collection.. all working. Some rare, some not as rare but still awesome. This is just the stuff I've recently took pictures of in the past year.

Voodoo 5 5500 AGP
yOLYWyqh.jpg


...and here it is inside my Shuttle SK series with an AMD Athlon XP 3000+ and a SB Audigy 2 ZS
rK6k2gKh.jpg


rAEZ6oZh.jpg


bKqGhijh.jpg


Voodoo 3 3000 AGP w/ cooling mod
vfQVIdAh.jpg


Sony Vaio MX (PCV-MSX20) with Minidisc NetMD Drive
Q8xYmqih.jpg


qdaUKBNh.jpg


12JWSCvh.jpg


My Voodoo II 12MB SLI build in a Mini-ITX case with dual PCI riser (Via 1GHz ITX board -- around Pentium III 500 speed)
BYJNofAh.jpg


7bVR9vPh.jpg


Pj5X09Dh.jpg


bJ8WxlVh.jpg


76OlWTSh.jpg


Pentium MMX 233MHz build I did with an industrial Half-ISA board

u7HHq0Ch.jpg


Mach64 ISA
dPL6Sk3h.jpg


ATI Graphics Ultra ISA
6jFlNvqh.jpg


Dash OPS-1000 with integrated amber CRT (Intel 486)
QZwmLhIh.jpg


6sYxnTSh.jpg


ReJ98PHh.jpg


2bC3s0rh.jpg


Shuttle Spacewalker w/ Pentium Pro 200MHz
pKdlPsJh.jpg


Ensoniq OTTOR2C ISA Sound Card
TrS1cOwh.jpg


Abit uGuru Panel
BwDATpHh.jpg


Future Power NewQ Gold
GzRypYPh.jpg


bqjU4Arh.jpg


Toshiba Libretto 110CT
bBY0hnSh.jpg


Sony Vaio VGN-UX280P
hlJEXZuh.jpg


Sony Picturebook PCG-C1VPK
Nu8dHtih.jpg


All three...
YQB796th.jpg


Mini 10" SVGA CRT with my Mini Pentium MMX
APmBGOch.jpg


GeForce4 Ti 4600
B7903y9h.jpg


ATI X1950XTX Crossfire setup
vI7LiiRh.jpg


Asus nForce 1 motherboard
4k4XYASh.jpg


Asus Terminator A7VT
IOMIp0xh.jpg


My Intel Core2 Extreme 8800GTX SLI setup..
LPuNEqrh.jpg


AMD Athlon XP 3200+, Abit NF7-S V2.0 with the Ti4600
SHlM963h.jpg


5aGTbVkh.jpg


MSI P7N Diamond
reE6ZHAh.jpg


Asus Striker Extreme
oV85ld3h.jpg


WD Raptor X
XKtZ3sYh.jpg


GeForce256
E2Ioqdyh.jpg


IWILL ZMAXDP Dual Opteron "Shuttle"
tKEbriLh.jpg


FdxtBp0h.jpg


AqZmO7Ih.jpg


ECS KN1 Extreme
n5T2sESh.jpg


GeForce256, Quadro 2 Pro (modded to GeForce 2 Ultra specs), GeForce 3 Ti 500
XotHqPfh.jpg


Voodoo Banshee in one of my rigs
YjcqxiEh.jpg


Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold
QziP9nUh.jpg


Sound Blaster Pro 2
OktS7k1h.jpg


The famous Xoxide/Kickboxes High Roller case I won (Coolermaster Mistique modded)
PIQS7sAh.jpg


GeForce FX 5950 Ultra
X9dtr1Yh.jpg


New Old Stock Upgradeware Slot-T (last one on Ebay sold for $1200 USD non-boxed/used)
HjFlU2Yh.jpg


lcq36Arh.jpg


25MHz Cyrix build
N92zYbch.jpg


66MHz 486DX2-66 build
l5HrK1Dh.jpg


75MHz Pentium build
1lcmyZCh.jpg



Workspace clean:
fO02HNth.jpg


Workspace stacked:
NooSd0Rh.jpg


Random games to play on the other wall:
hSmp6Hmh.jpg
 
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It blows my mind a bit that a slot-ket fetches that much money now. Those were super cheap, back in the day... Kinda makes me wonder how much that Socket 7 to Super Socket 7 converter I had would have gone for.

(A daughter board you put in your S7 mainboard CPU socket that had it's own CPU socket, voltage regulator and jumpers. The one I have/had has a K6-3-400 CPU on it, I think; but the pins were all bent up. I might have chucked it, but I don't remember.)
 
Paltry in comparison lol, I have a Core 2 Q9705 6MB cache that does 4.4GHz.
I ran it at 4.2GHz (so not to harm it) for 9 months.

I found it on Ebay when looking for a quad core.
It was manufactured shortly before Intel moved to Nehalem, it isnt an engineering sample.
 
Paltry in comparison lol, I have a Core 2 Q9705 6MB cache that does 4.4GHz.
I ran it at 4.2GHz (so not to harm it) for 9 months.

I found it on Ebay when looking for a quad core.
It was manufactured shortly before Intel moved to Nehalem, it isnt an engineering sample.

Found the chip at last:
Q9705 cropped.jpg
 
I found my stash of chips, pulled from motherboards before they were binned (dont ask).
I wonder if any of these few are delectable.
There are more but are socketed Duron, Athlon64, Celeron, PIII and a slocket II Celeron 600.

AMK K6-2 500
PIII 450 512k slocket
Intel slocket chip 266 66K, 1998

K6-2 500.JPG

PIII slocket 450-512 rear compressed.jpg
Intel slocket  soldered chip 266-66 front.JPG
 
I had a Shuttle board (maybe the HOT-603?) with the AMD 640 Super Socket 7 chipset that disappeared from Shuttle's website. I dunno what happened, but I guess the product got pulled. Incidentally, I botched the BIOS update on that board, but some time later got an identical board at a new job -- when I broke that one with a water spill in an open case, I was able to swap the bios chip and repair the first one. :D
 
Some things in my collection.. all working. Some rare, some not as rare but still awesome. This is just the stuff I've recently took pictures of in the past year.

Voodoo 5 5500 AGP
View attachment 168993

...and here it is inside my Shuttle SK series with an AMD Athlon XP 3000+ and a SB Audigy 2 ZS
View attachment 168994

View attachment 168995

View attachment 168996

Voodoo 3 3000 AGP w/ cooling mod
View attachment 169051

Sony Vaio MX (PCV-MSX20) with Minidisc NetMD Drive
View attachment 168997

View attachment 168998

View attachment 168999

My Voodoo II 12MB SLI build in a Mini-ITX case with dual PCI riser (Via 1GHz ITX board -- around Pentium III 500 speed)
View attachment 169000

View attachment 169001

View attachment 169002

View attachment 169003

View attachment 169004

Pentium MMX 233MHz build I did with an industrial Half-ISA board

View attachment 169005

Mach64 ISA
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ATI Graphics Ultra ISA
View attachment 169007

Dash OPS-1000 with integrated amber CRT (Intel 486)
View attachment 169008

View attachment 169009

View attachment 169010

View attachment 169011

Shuttle Spacewalker w/ Pentium Pro 200MHz
View attachment 169012

Ensoniq OTTOR2C ISA Sound Card
View attachment 169013

Abit uGuru Panel
View attachment 169014

Future Power NewQ Gold
View attachment 169015

View attachment 169016

Toshiba Libretto 110CT
View attachment 169017

Sony Vaio VGN-UX280P
View attachment 169018

Sony Picturebook PCG-C1VPK
View attachment 169019

All three...
View attachment 169020

Mini 10" SVGA CRT with my Mini Pentium MMX
View attachment 169021

GeForce4 Ti 4600
View attachment 169022

ATI X1950XTX Crossfire setup
View attachment 169049

Asus nForce 1 motherboard
View attachment 169023

Asus Terminator A7VT
View attachment 169024

My Intel Core2 Extreme 8800GTX SLI setup..
View attachment 169025

AMD Athlon XP 3200+, Abit NF7-S V2.0 with the Ti4600
View attachment 169026

View attachment 169027

MSI P7N Diamond
View attachment 169028

Asus Striker Extreme
View attachment 169050

WD Raptor X
View attachment 169029

GeForce256
View attachment 169030

IWILL ZMAXDP Dual Opteron "Shuttle"
View attachment 169031

View attachment 169032

View attachment 169033

ECS KN1 Extreme
View attachment 169034

GeForce256, Quadro 2 Pro (modded to GeForce 2 Ultra specs), GeForce 3 Ti 500
View attachment 169035

Voodoo Banshee in one of my rigs
View attachment 169036

Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold
View attachment 169037

Sound Blaster Pro 2
View attachment 169038

The famous Xoxide/Kickboxes High Roller case I won (Coolermaster Mistique modded)
View attachment 169039

GeForce FX 5950 Ultra
View attachment 169040

New Old Stock Upgradeware Slot-T (last one on Ebay sold for $1200 USD non-boxed/used)
View attachment 169041

View attachment 169042

25MHz Cyrix build
View attachment 169043

66MHz 486DX2-66 build
View attachment 169044

75MHz Pentium build
View attachment 169045


Workspace clean:
View attachment 169046

Workspace stacked:
View attachment 169047

Random games to play on the other wall:
View attachment 169048
Wow, now THAT is a PC hardware museum. I especially liked the working full systems. Scrolling through all that was like a trip down memory train for me. Nostalgia overload.

Those slot 1 to socket 370 converters are hilarious to look at. A reminder of this absurd transition period the PC market was going through.
 
Picked up an Upgradeware XP-TMC, here it is next to my Slot-T.
z6zG7R5h.jpg


FIC VA-503+
qTysyYuh.jpg


AMD K6-2/500AFX for flashing the motherboard above so I can put my K6-III+ in it.
EMP1ocvh.jpg


Virtual IO i-Glasses VGA interface box and Composite adapter for the VR glasses... now I just need a set of the glasses if anyone has some they would like to sell.
xraTSF7h.jpg


A crapload of RAM/CPU's I snagged from work we were throwing away. There's everything from 128MB PC133-ECC up to 8GB ECC DDR3 sticks. Processors range from a 486 DX2/66 up to 6 core 1366 socket Xeons.
KtNSxo5h.jpg


Brand new beige LCD we were throwing away too.. goes up to 75Hz.
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Pentium II 450MHz
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More beige goodies
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Superflower case I picked up for another XP machine
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lFmAdoih.jpg
 
It saddens me that I once owned some of that stuff. Sent it to scrap after divorce....
Not that I need more stuff, but nostalga and.... stuff.
 
This is the luckiest find ever courtesy of my mother-in-law, and my wife hauling it home. It was being thrown away by the curb. Here's just what I'm saving, nothing else of value or any good/working. Let's open these bad boys up. (yea, they are dirty as hell)

bpAIVHXh.jpg


The Dell didn't have much besides 384MB of RAM, and a Pentium II 400MHz which I took out for parts. Looks like water got inside and ruined the ISA/PCI riser board. Very bad corrosion and mold, not really worth saving anything else from it since I have a bunch more at work I'm going to bring home.

The Compaq had this in it. 12GB Quantum Bigfoot TS
Qi16w2eh.jpg


And this.. wait what's that in the PCI slot?
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Closer..
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Closer..
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Voodoo 3 3000 PCI 16MB!!!!!!!!!
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KC5kEYYh.jpg

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Inside the Proteva was a Chaintech M101 ATX motherboard, Pentium II 300MHz, 192MB of RAM, a PNY Geforce2 MX 200 and a Creative AWE64. :D
9VcwuIRh.jpg
 
If anyone likes Turbo (MHz) Displays, I'm designing one right now.. lol. It's almost done. It is a modern implementation, where you don't have to use a bajillion jumpers and everything is integrated into this board. Program the PIC with the values you want, and hook up all your wires. (Turbo LED, turbo switch, 5V power, and then run the turbo switching jumper to your motherboard)

Worklog if you care to see how I made it: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=70370

UB9kX9ah.jpg


IOYAfKAh.jpg


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hL2Nxxxh.jpg
 
Going back to the 80's.

DTK PIM-TB10-Z 10Mhz 8088, Swan XT10 case. Works! Just need to:
- solder the XT2AT keyboard converter
- solder the XTIDE when it arrives
- install the floppy controller and Teac 5.25 floppy drive
- solder the Adlib replica I made, or grab a Sound Blaster CT1350B / Snark Barker

h7kFxYx.jpg


YFiDjcb.jpg


DetOuFS.jpg


UErjKWe.jpg
 
Built an Adlib at work today. 98% true to the original.. slight variations due to some parts not being available, obsolete, no longer manufactured. Just need to put my PCI (ISA) bracket on it. Original silkscreen ftw.

8oGdcPCh.jpg
 
Freshly received today.. Chieftec Dragon and some awesome year 2000 full tower with translucent "Mac Plastic" on the front and a 4x20 Crystalfontz display. The full tower is going to house my dual 1GHz Pentium 3 rig.

ZQIL3Rb.jpg
 
M2dYcb.jpg

Not super rare with execption of the UMC 486 in the US but I like my collection of random 486 chips. Can't find a picture of the display case I have them in with others but it always amazed me at how many companies sold 486 cpu's at the time.
 
Dual Pentium Pro I'm trying to make work -- this was a single socket board before. I have all the components mounted (Socket, APIC, VRM), just need to figure out the jumpers to enable the 2nd socket. If anyone has pictures of a Shuttle HOT-613 DUAL, that would be extremely helpful. Work log on Vogons: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=71445

there appears to be a dual on eBay, might be worth asking the seller to take some good pics
 
Checked all my socket 8 duallies, nothing even close unfortunately. Funny thing I have that same full tower case too, keep one of my BP6 rigs in there.
 
I owned the rarer/nicer iWill Zmax D2. Dual Opteron goodness and SLI (single slot width cards) dual PCIe. Powerhouse (at the time) in a shoebox.
 
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