Re: TEST and thanks

Hi William !~

You ALWAYS have my thanks. Just one real helpful guy. :-)


Project P66MAX has not been completed, but is in the works.

What's this project consist of (other than a P66 CPU)?

******
Warning. Dangerous Off Topic matter discussed below.
******

William since YOU asked:

Last December, I hatched this plan on what to do with some of the truckloads
of "stuff" that I am in charge of on this planet.

I decided to start tinkering with Socket 4 stuff. ( Which was not too
bright. When I cook, which is everyday, I see what I have, then fix it.
Since I do the shopping also, I usually know what is here. My wife on the
other hand decides what she wants, then finds out that I don't have it in
the cupboard. Oh well ) I thought at the time that I had a bunch of Socket
4 motherboards, but it turns out that I had thrown them all away. I figured,
"what the hell, can't be too hard to find.". I'll spare you the unbelievably
extraordinary details of rounding up about 20 motherboards so far. (
Including one wild brand new Socket 4 VESA board! I would have bet money
they didn't exist. ) About 10 Pentium 60 CPUs, I think 3 P66, and an
Overdrive 120/133 CPU. Lots of vintage Pre 1995 hardware, such as vid cards,
SCSI controllers, IDE controllers, mem, HDD's, etc. You get the idea.

Imagine it's about Sept 1994. Super Geek, probably named Louis or something,
is ensconced in his sub-basement using his "state of the art" computer. What
would be in that computer ?

Project P60

Build a computer *up to* about a date of Sept 1994, using everything that
can be found that is "state of the art" correct for that time period. After
all, that is what Super Geek would do. He would continuously tinker and
upgrade his computer to the newest stuff.

This turned out to be lots more difficult that I expected, but I actually
enjoy "searching" for things. I wish I could make money at it. Finding
period correct stuff wasn't easy. ( That is where some of the people from
this newsgroup were a big help ) Another factor is playing with obsolete
computer stuff should be cheap, or free. And it usually is. But you run
across some people selling "rare vintage computer parts", and you have to
move on. As you know, this stuff was really expensive THEN, but is
practically valueless NOW. The hard part is finding it before it is thrown
in the trash. I heard lots of " I just threw that away stories. " :-) I'm
quite certain all the PS/2 people understand this better than most of the
EartH's inhabitants. And then of course there is shipping. ( And the perils
of getting stuff shipped by complete brain dead man walking slobbering
toothless knuckledragging Neolithic Neanderthal idiots. Which is where Mr.
Shorney came in with helping to identify some caps on a motherboard I had to
repair. )

But then the project Morphed into :

Project P66MAX.

Super Geek, once Socket 5/7 came along would have to get one of those, but
would certainly keep his prior "baby" around. So he would upgrade it once
again. Project P66MAX has a stop date of late 1995, maybe early 1996. I
haven't decided yet. Whatever was available *up to* the new stop date was
fair game. Sure makes parts procurement a lot easier.

Then, the project morphed again:

Project P66ULTRA.

No rules.

Project P66 ULTRA is currently running with:

Micronics M5Pi motherboard
(onboard Dual IDE, floppy, serial, com, 256K L2 cache, 3 PCI, 5 ISA )
Pentium 120/133MHz Overdrive
64 meg of ram. ( I just stopped there because, well, because )
2.1 gig IDE HDD ( the most natively supported, but I may install a Promise
Ultra 66 controller. Probably not. Could go SCSI. )
Sound Blaster 16
3 Com ISA 3C509TPO
1.44 flop, some speed CD-ROM
Windows 98SE

This was all thrown together last night. Worked flawlessly as soon as turned
on. Well, all the parts had already been tested.

And then, I started collecting factory built Pentium 60/66 machines. Already
had the IBM PS/2, found some Packard Bells, Dell, Quantex P60 Server, etc.

That was this winter 2005/2006 project. ( there is usually a "theme" project
every winter. Too cold to play in the yard, or set off weather baloon UFO
projects. )

The project has been hampered by a lack of time, and is starting to fade.
I'll probably do Project P66MAX soon, and put 'em away.

You asked. And I type fast. :-)

bob

( where's my wheel ? :-)


.

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