Not building any altar or something but I guess I soon can build one out of sound cards 😁

I have catched some disease to collect old sound cards...my quest isn't done until I got all the sound blaster models and all revision of the gravis ultrasound

Also seeking to find the perfect PC for games from the early 90's and late 80's which I think I have...and oh..it's yellow and a bit rusty but hey..it works perfect! 😁

386DX 25mhz, 8mb RAM, sound blaster 1.5 with CMS chips

picture will come shortly when my battery in the camera is loaded, 🤣

btw. have also started a 386 motherboard collecting frenzy, my goal is the find a really old mobo....on of the first versions which had alot of components on them

Ha! Trying to get all the old sound cards? Yeah, I know the feeling... 🙄

In all the collecting and rummaging, I still have never laid eyes on a real Adlib. Or a GUS extreme. heh. I have a couple extra SBs and GUS models if you're interested in some trading. I'm looking for GUS ACE and Roland SCC-1s.

386 motherboard collection frenzy? That's hard-core.

Looking forward to pics of your rig.
😁

I currently have running:

Abit BF6 440BX
P3 450@600
256MB PC133
160GB WD
Geforce FX 5950
Diamond Monster Sound MX300 + SCD15
Ensoniq Soundscape Elite
Sil0680A Ultra 133 PCI card
Intel 1000GT NIC
Win98SE

I change things around weekly pretty much though. I am more into messing with the hardware than the games, honestly.. 😀 A week ago that same tower was a Pentium Pro @ 233 on an Intel VS440FX board with a PCI NV TNT.

You never seen an original adlib?` 😮

Here's original 1987 model 😁

Ribo,

Even though I grew up in the 90s (first PC was a 386 in ~1991). I didn't know what I was missing out on with the wonderful sounds of perfection known as Roland 😀 I vaguely recall knowing just a bit about Roland back in the day, but thought it was for musicians ONLY.

Well now that I've got a bank roll, I'm eating up all the retro sound GREATNESS that I can find 😀

I'm sorta in the same vain as Swaaye, I'm almost having more fun 'tweaking' the hardware than actually playing the games. Guess A.D.D. kicks in or something, who knows.

I'm not really an 'arcader' I mean, I'd love to have a basement full of stand ups, but that just sounds like WAY too much space, money, time, electric bill, etc etc... 😀

So for now I'll just stick with my old yellowing box, stuck in a corner. Keyboard + mouse for me please 😀

Sounds like you've got an arcade itch... have you checked out Atari Age? They have a sub-form dedicated soley to arcades 😀 http://www.atariage.com/forums/

This is my fave 386, 25mhz, 8mb RAM

it's clearly seen it's best days, when I got it 2 weeks ago it didn't boot, the PSU didn't deliver 12v but only around 10v and the gfx card was dead...

Have upgraded it with a better I/O card, upgraded RAM from 2mb to 8mb, repolaced the old 120mb harddrive with a 1.2gig, put in an OAK 512k gfx card (will be replaced by a Tseng 4000 card soon), Sound Blaster 1.5 + CMS chips, 5 1/4 1.2mb floppy + cd-rom

[/img]

Mike01Hawk-
Yes... Roland is pure candy! A friend from bacindaday used to rave about how great his midi sounded. We all thought he was nuts. His folks had bought him an SCC-1 NEW (from Costco, of all places). In fact, he actually contributed to the original FAQ on it.
He wasn't interested in retro-gear so he lost interest in it, and he eventually gave me the card as part of a trade for some other stuff. Neither of us had any idea it was really this cool or hard to acquire. I lucked out I suppose. Wow... even Doom sounds fantastic on this thing.
So yeah... Roland Rulez.
And yeah, I know about Atari Age. I occasionally post there because that system is near and dear to my heart. I found it's kinda impractical (mostly expensive and time-and-space-consuming) to collect arcade cabs, so I went the MAME-route, but it's got a split personality since I'm also trying to make it work equally well with DOS games and emulators.

Amigaz...
Vintage indeed. Well, I guess I can't say I haven't seen an Adlib now. Thanks for the pic. I am in the same boat as Swaaye as well. My main system is a humble...

Pentium II 400 MMX
256 mb ram
Nvidia Ti4200 AGP 64mb
Black Magic Voodoo 2 x 2
SB AWE64 Gold
GUS ACE
Roland SCC-1
Win98SE, but boots to DOS

I went through a lot of different setups, faster and slower. It's the configuration I settled on.

all this is running in the case I'm about to try and attach...

486/33, 8 Mb RAM, Spea/V7 Mercury 2 Mb (S3 928) VLB, Adaptec 1542CF+2x2 Gb SCSI HDD's+24x Pioneer CD-ROM, Genius Soundmaker 3DJ+GUS ACE;
IBM PC 330, Intel 430HX, Pentium 200MMX 128 Mb EDO RAM, Matrox Millenium 2 Mb, 4 Gb HDD, CD-ROM, SB-32 PnP with 2 Mb RAM;
WIP: K6-2/550, 64 Mb SDRAM, S3 Savage4 16 Mb, Adaptec 2940UW, 9,1 Gb HDD, SB Live! or Aztech PCI 338 or Genius Soundmaker 64.

486/33, 8 Mb RAM, Spea/V7 Mercury 2 Mb (S3 928) VLB, Adaptec 1542CF+2x2 Gb SCSI HDD's+24x Pioneer CD-ROM, Genius Soundmaker 3DJ+GUS ACE;
IBM PC 330, Intel 430HX, Pentium 200MMX, 128 Mb EDO RAM, Matrox Millenium 2 Mb, 4 Gb HDD, CD-ROM, SB-32 PnP with 2 Mb RAM;
WIP: K6-2/550, 64 Mb SDRAM, S3 Savage4 16 Mb, Adaptec 2940UW, 9,1 Gb HDD, SB Live! or Aztech PCI 338 or Genius Soundmaker 64.

Am286 + i287XL 12.5MHz, NEAT chipset, 8MB + 2MB EMS on AST Rampage286, Orchid ProDesignerII ET4000 1MB, SBpro2, PCnet-ISA II, 420MB IDE

Am386DX + ULSI MathCo 40MHz, UM82C482AF, MR BIOS, 13.3MHz ISA bus, 16MB + 256kB cache, CL-GD5429 1MB, (some crap for SBpro), GUSpnp (it's a computer for demo), SCC-1, ABP-5140 scsi, 2 IBM HD 2GB & 3.2GB, PlexWriter 12/4/32 (yes it can burn CD, even from DOS), , PCnet-ISA II (ISA bus headache)

Laptop T2150CDT (portable retrogaming rig), i486DX4 75MHz, 16MB, CT65545 1MB, TFT 640x480 65536 colors, ESS688 (with real OPL3), HD 3.2GB, 2X CD-ROM, PCMCIA NE2000, SlimSCSI 1460 (for external CD-ROM), PS/2 numpad

(some 486 parts lying around: PCI bios too much buggy)

ASUS T2P4, K6-III+ 500MHz (6*83MHz), 256MB FPM + 512kB L2/L3 cache (32k8 15ns tag ram), Voodoo5MAC DVI, SB Live! 5.1 + LiveDrive IR, AWE32 + DB-50XG, 3C905B-TX-NM, ASC-29160N

(some 440BX parts lying around: Heatsink on the back of FX5950utra conflict with cpu holder on P3B)

ASUS A7N8X-X, AthlonXP 1800+, 512MB, GeForce FX5950ultra (or else it was unused), Audigy2ZS

Epox 8KTA3+ (one ISA slot)
Athlon Palomino 1700+
Voodoo5 5500 AGP
Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold
Thrustmaster F-16 FLCS, TQS, RCS

My previous rig is based on Asus A7V333 mobo, which accepts Voodoo5 5500 (AGP 3.3v slot). It theoritically enables the fastest processor to use with the V5 (Barton 3000+), but it doesn't have ISA slot, so....

My oldest rig is a 486 DX2-66S (still don't know what the "S" stands for...), 8mb RAM, Phantom 64 VLB (S3 chip, I just figured out 😁) with 2mb, Sound Blaster 16 CT2950 (wonder if CT2950 is the best among all the SB 16's). It used to have a 420mb Quantum HD, but unfortunately, it no longer works, died after 14 years of good service. Now I'm digging around on Ebay to find a compatible hard disk. What options would be good for the replacement?

DOS_Boy wrote:

My oldest rig is a 486 DX2-66S (still don't know what the "S" stands for...), 8mb RAM, Phantom 64 VLB (S3 chip, I just figured out 😁) with 2mb, Sound Blaster 16 CT2950 (wonder if CT2950 is the best among all the SB 16's). It used to have a 420mb Quantum HD, but unfortunately, it no longer works, died after 14 years of good service. Now I'm digging around on Ebay to find a compatible hard disk. What options would be good for the replacement?

I use 8-10 gig hd's on my 486 systems together with disk master to create a dynamic layer so I can use them even though the hardware has HD capacity limitations.

Amigaz, can you tell me a little bit more about disk master? Guess I've never heard of it before... 😒

DOS_Boy wrote:

Amigaz, can you tell me a little bit more about disk master? Guess I've never heard of it before... 😒

http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.co.uk/hard-dri … iskmanager.aspx

Not sure if it still has DOS support though, mine is a bootanle disk

I guess it still has DOS support, saving me big time on the HD replacement. Amigaz, thank you so much for that golden hint!

DOS_Boy wrote:

I guess it still has DOS support, saving me big time on the HD replacement. Amigaz, thank you so much for that golden hint!

Np, actually the creds goes to Keropi who showed me this piece of software in the first place 😎

My retro rig collection grew a bit lately

Here's some quick spec's

386DX 33mhz, 8mb ram (in a Commodore 286-16 desktop case)
800mb hdd, Sound blaster 1.5 w CMS chips, Roland Lapc-I, Tseng ET4000AX gfx card

386DX 25mhz, 8mb ram, mini tower case, 1.2 gig HDD, Sound Blaster Pro 2, Tseng ET4000w32 gfx card

386DX 40mhz, 20mb ram, mini tower case, 1.2 gig HDD, Sound Blaster 2.0 w CMS chips, Gravis Ultrasound rev 2.4, Tseng ET4000AX gfx card

386SX 16mhz, upgraded w. Cyrix 486SLC to 33mhz, HP Vectra VL 386/16N, 8mb RAM, 1.2 gig HDD, Sound Blaster Pro 2, Tseng ET4000AX gfx card

286 12mhz ,4mb ram, desktop case, 800mb HDD, Adlib music card (original 1987 model), Tseng ET4000AX gfx card

486DX 40mhz, 16mb ram, 8gig HDD, Sound Blaster 16/Yamaha DB60XG clone, Gravis Ultrasound Max, CL5424 VLB gfx card

486DX4 75mhz, 32mb ram, AST desktop case, 8gig HDD, Sound Blaster 16/Yamaha DB50XG,Gravis Ultrasound MAX ,onboard CL5426 gfx

486DX4 100mhz, 32mb ram, mini tower case, 1.2gig HDD, Sound Blaster Pro 2, Roland SCC-1/Roland CM32L, Ati Mach64 VRAM VLB gfx card

5x86 133mhz, 64mb ram, big Targa tower case, 10gig HDD, Sound Blaster Pro 2, Gravis Ultrasound rev 3.4, Roland Lapc-I, Cardex Tseng 4000W32p 1mb VLB gfx card
(planned upgrades, AWE32 CT2760+Yamaha DB50XG, Sound Blaster 2.0 w. CMS chips, upgrade gfx card to 2mb)

P1 233mhz (AST desktop case), 128mb ram, 20gig HDD, Sound Blaster 16/Yamaha DB60XG clone, Gravis Ultrasound Max, Tseng ET6000 based 4mb gfx card, Voodoo 2 12mb

AND K6-2+ 500mhz (tower case), 128mb ram, 20gig HDD, Diamond Monstersound MX300 + 2mb wavetable board, Sound Blaster 16/Yamaha DB60XG clone,Gravis Ultrasound Ace, Geforce 2 ti 64mb gfx card

That's about it, I'm going to put up the exact specs + pics of the 5x86 machine soon since it has an interesting Phoenix BIOS which let's you set the machine speed when it's in non turbomode so it can be set to 8mhz "XT mode" up till full speed in 16 steps
😎

Amigaz: My retro rig collection grew a bit lately

Wow. where do you put all that.

Disposed of most older systems.. but I don't think I will retire this one anytime soon, it works well for almost all retro stuff I care about:

CPU: P3 600MHz @ 660MHz, added a fan-speed controller.
Motherboard: Soyo SY-6BA+III (intel 440BX)
RAM: 3x128MB
Video: ASUS Geforce 440MX 64MB (no fan)
Sound1: Turtle Beach Montego 2 H.S. PCI card (vortex 2 chipset), with Wavetable Yamaha DB50XG (or Roland SCD-10 or Topwave-32 or Turtle Beach Cancun-FX).
Sound2: A-Trend Harmony PCI card (Yamaha YMF-724F chipset with integral OPL3), connected to SB-Link and and PC-Speaker signal.
PSU: 250 Watts (brought back to live 😉 )
Screen: Compaq V720 (CRT, 17")
Storage: Maxtor 40GB, HD removable rack, 3.5" Floppy drive, Lite-on CD-R.
Other: Realtek PCI ethernet card and a VIA USB2.0 PCI card
OS: Windows 98SE + unoff. service pack.