• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Advice needed with large lot of vintage hardware and electronics... XT, MFM, ISA etc.

O

Ozzuneoj

Experienced Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2015
Messages
185
Location
PA, USA
This is my first post here, and I honestly can't believe it took me this long to make an account at this place. Just for some background, I'm 29 and I've been building PCs since I was 14 (2000), been into PC hardware since the mid 90s when my brother got into it and played with Tandys, Atari STs and Commodores as a kid. I have a fair amount of now-irrelevant information stored forever in my brain (the rise and fall of 3dfx, the pros and cons of the various GPUs of the early 2000s, specs of CPUs, GPUs and chipsets from 1999 on...), and recently discovered that this is finally somewhat useful information again. Lots of people are buying and reusing older PCs these days to play old games, run old software or to operate older machines\peripherals for businesses. So, in an effort to replace a day or so a week of my boring job with something I enjoy, I've started getting into rebuilding, refurbishing and reselling older machines and components. Its a lot of fun, and I advertise locally that I'm doing this.

Last week a guy contacted me saying that he'd picked up several boxes of old PC stuff at an auction. He showed me the pics and I could tell that it was all quite old... 80s and early 90s mostly, but I figured it'd be worth taking a look at. I threw a modest offer at him and he agreed to it. Woohoo! Except, this stuff predates nearly everything I have experience with (some of it predates ME), so I really need some help here.

Anyway, long story short, here are the pictures he sent me of what he had.

https://plus.google.com/photos/1176...s/6215650803506264913?authkey=CKyV2-r_y6njnQE

I now have all of this, plus some stuff that isn't pictured. I have taken a few more detailed pictures and will add them to another album as I take more. I know it isn't really a gold mine exactly, but I don't make much money since I do a lot of volunteer work, so if there's at least some value to what's here, I'm happy. So far, my research tells me that there's some reasonably valuable stuff here.

To make this quick, I'll paste a quick synopsis of my findings that I sent to an acquaintance online a couple days ago:
---
It doesn't look like there are any CPUs sadly. Dozens of BIOS and EPROM chips. There were a few bags containing hundreds of small miscellaneous DIP chips which were seemingly sorted somehow but its hard to tell. A gigantic dual 8 inch Tandon 848 floppy drive (first one I've seen in person), a Tandy Logic Board from 1979 (can't find much on it), three in-box 3Com Etherlink 8bit ISA network cards with disks and manuals, a Soundblaster CT1350B with its original box, paperwork and driver disks (3 1/2 and 5 1/4 floppies), an Orchid Tiny Turbo 286 CPU upgrade card for 8088 systems, a bag of "vintage" speaker crossover components in good condition(the caps are probably all out of spec by now but people buy them for some reason) and potentiometers (some turn out to be from late 70s Fender guitars). There's also a big box of hundreds of 5 1/4 floppies, most are copies or self made disks, but there are a lot of older applications too... like MS Flight Simulator on one 5 1/4 disk. There's even a disk called "copy1987" that explicitly says it is used to make copies of copy protected disks... :lol:

The most interesting things I found were actually in the box of hard drives. Turns out, they are 5.25" hard drives, mostly Seagate, all but one is MFM. Some ST-225, ST-251, ST 296N (the only SCSI), and a couple of other brand drives (a 10MB NEC and a 40MB Miniscribe). There's also an MFM 8bit ISA card from WD (identical cards are being sold with Seagate drives online as a working pair, so that's good). There are also three mitsumi lu005s CD-ROM drives with really elaborate tray mechanisms (Google them!) along with three of their matching Mitsumi ISA controller cards (with stereo RCA outputs on them), and two original cables (though I think a standard IDE will work anyway).

There's way more than this too. One random thing that I found interesting was an electronics training book from NRI and in it I found a 5 or 6 page printed message (not exactly an email...) from a guy named Jim Burton regarding his 1983 communications program "1 RingyDingy". He comes up in Google searches and I guess was "somebody" back then. It has his contact information and his Compuserve number. :lol: I think it was the printout you'd get when you purchased the software. I need to go through all the disks to find out if its in there.

Anyway, I'm having fun. Its like taking a trip back to the era in which I was born... and I would have loved this stuff so much had I been old enough to appreciate it at the time.
----

I did order a set of MFM cables on eBay yesterday to be able to test the drives for stiction and such, because I'm almost certain that they are worth more tested than non-tested.

Basically, if anyone can give any advice on anything seen there, I'd appreciate it. Specifically, anything that is somewhat rare or might be more sought after. Or even any interesting info you can share about them, about testing them (if reasonably possible without an old PC\XT system around) or any tips as to other places I should go to ask about this stuff. I can take pictures of anything if anyone wants more detailed pics.

Also, if anyone is interested in purchasing any of this, you can post or send PMs, but I won't be selling anything until I post a proper thread in the for sale area, to make it fair to any that just check there. For what its worth, I do have heatware under ozzuneoj and 220+ 100% positive eBay feedback, so when that time comes I've got some references. For the time being though, I'm just doing research!
 
At a glance, that looks like a nice haul!

eBeh buyers love those sound blasters with original boxes and manuals. There are plenty of people here that would be interested in that 8" floppy drive and the MFM hard drives.

To test the hard drives, you will want to hook them up, see if they spin up, low-level them, run spinrite on them, note if there are lots of bad sectors (a few are normal), and briefly retest them after a long period of inactivity to see if they "stick" any.

I'd be interested in hearing what software titles are in there.
 
SomeGuy said:
At a glance, that looks like a nice haul!

eBeh buyers love those sound blasters with original boxes and manuals. There are plenty of people here that would be interested in that 8" floppy drive and the MFM hard drives.

To test the hard drives, you will want to hook them up, see if they spin up, low-level them, run spinrite on them, note if there are lots of bad sectors (a few are normal), and briefly retest them after a long period of inactivity to see if they "stick" any.

I'd be interested in hearing what software titles are in there.
Click to expand...

Thank you! Yeah, the soundblaster was the whole reason I bought the lot really. That was the only thing I could really identify easily from the pictures. I have a couple of ISA sound blasters and I know that they can be valuable, but I'd never seen any in box personally (other than my X-Fi box which I still have from 2005) and certainly not any that predate the classic two tone yellow+blue box style that Creative used for over a decade. Looking it up on eBay its hard to be certain of what its worth... similar cards in box sell for $30-$300... but there is one problem with it. The dial on the volume pot at the back of the card is missing. I'm not sure if I can find one that'd fit. I checked pretty thoroughly through all of the old bags of misc junk that came in the lot (sacks full of screws, and brand new caps and resistors) but haven't found it yet. I may be able to steal one off of an old CDROM but I think those generally connect with a metal rivet in the center which won't work.

Thanks for the tips on testing the drives. What version of Spinrite would you recommend and what OS is most likely to be able to read these drives? I have a few Socket 7 Pentium era AT systems at my disposal. And I'll definitely dig through the software to see what's here!

kb2syd said:
This one:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-...AAAACNw/-qF1wPeLomg/w640-h480-no/comp+015.JPG

Is a trs-80 model II back-plane.
Click to expand...

Thank you! That's very helpful! Also, I noticed that the green coating on the PCB is bubbling in places on the back of that board, and in one place it has actually flaked off a bit to reveal the metal layer beneath. Is it likely useless now or is this common?
 
Ozzuneoj said:
Thank you! That's very helpful! Also, I noticed that the green coating on the PCB is bubbling in places on the back of that board, and in one place it has actually flaked off a bit to reveal the metal layer beneath. Is it likely useless now or is this common?
Click to expand...

That's very typical of these. It's probably still good. Might need a coat of lacquer to pretty it up a bit, but this is just an insulating coating.
 
SomeGuy said:
eBeh buyers love those sound blasters with original boxes and manuals.
Click to expand...

Guilty as charged. I wouldn't mind getting a SoundBlaster + SCSI with its box and software. I have a card already, but I like to collect the boxes, too. :)

I like to display them on my shelf next to my computer. :D
 
Ozzuneoj said:
What version of Spinrite would you recommend and what OS is most likely to be able to read these drives?
Click to expand...
I used to use Spinrite II v1.1 for that all the time. The later versions don't like older hardware any more.

Actually, with MFM and RLL drivers, the bigger problem is that every hard disk controller used it's own variation of low-level format. So to read existing data, you MUST use the same model of controller it was used with. So they will probably look unformatted to anything you attach.

If you get lucky and they were formatted with that controller in that lot, then they would certainly just be DOS formatted.
 
olePigeon said:
Guilty as charged. I wouldn't mind getting a SoundBlaster + SCSI with its box and software. I have a card already, but I like to collect the boxes, too. :)

I like to display them on my shelf next to my computer. :D
Click to expand...

I can definitely understand that. I have an old graphics card collection and I like to hold on to anything that has its original box. I still have the box from my first graphics card purchase. A 3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 PCI 16MB. I have one of the cards too, but its actually my brother's. I have a pretty decent collection of 3dfx (and other) cards though. I can't believe how much the value of the Voodoo 5 5500 AGP has gone up in the past 10 years though. I was given one to put in my collection, and now they're worth over $100 easy, and I know this one works. I actually just snagged a lot of 8 PCI and ISA graphics cards on eBay for $50. In it was not one, not two but THREE original Voodoo Graphics cards (two 4MB Diamond Monster, one 4MB Orchid Righteous), a Diamond Monster II Voodoo 2 8MB (will work well in SLI with another 8MB card I have), two Trident ISA VGA cards, an S3 Trio64V+ PCI, and a Matrox Millennium. Definitely a smoking deal for a PC graphics card collector. The ISA Trident cards are probably each worth nearly what I spent on eBay... though I'm thinking I'll probably end up listing them for sale here. This seems like a nice community and I'd honestly rather make a few less bucks and have transactions that didn't involve 10% eBay fees and all that garbage.
 
SomeGuy said:
I used to use Spinrite II v1.1 for that all the time. Spinrite III should work also, but the later versions don't like older hardware any more.

Actually, with MFM and RLL drivers, the bigger problem is that every hard disk controller used it's own variation of low-level format. So to read existing data, you MUST use the same model of controller it was used with. So you probably look unformatted to anything you attach.

If you get lucky and they were formatted with that controller in that lot, then they would certainly just be DOS formatted.
Click to expand...

I think I understand.

If I'm just planning to low level format them anyway, will it matter what controller they were last formatted on? I'm thinking no, but I come from the era of "low level formatting" being an outdated term that we misused all the time... real low level formatting isn't something I'm familiar with.

It would be somewhat interesting to see what's on the drives, out of morbid curiosity, but I'm mostly just concerned about being able to test them and ensure that they are usable. Still... I'm sure the previous owner has since passed away, given that it was auctioned off in a huge lot and there are 80 year old hand tools mixed in with this stuff... so I doubt he cares about the data on these drives.
 
No, for low-level formatting, it doesn't matter at all what it was last used with.

This is indeed real low-level formatting, these drives would come from the factory with NO magnetic signals on the platters, completely blank. It is then up to the controller to lay out sector IDs, address marks, an other low-level stuff before the OS can even think about reading or writing a single sector or placing a file system. Same deal with floppy disks. Later IDE and SCSI drives came factory formatted and legacy "low level" requests simply zeroed sectors.

I agree it can be interesting and useful to recover old software, especially if it is needed to operate a specific system.
 
Comments on interesting things by photo number (x of 43):

#3 - Oh, a dual tandon drive: two 8" slim half height drives in one case (or at least stacked together) - that cool. Almost all 8" drives I see are full height.

#8, #16 - the white box with A.R.T. , I think that's one of the high quality classic eprom burners that people like. Read a thread about it recently, will try to remember where.

#10 - what's that computer motherboard(?) sitting on the boxes in the upper left?

#19 - Looks like a Heathkit ET-3100, doesn't go for much on ebay ($15-30) but is cool.

#25 - upper right, an anti-static grounding strap - put on wrist, clip to computer you are working on, keeps static electricity from jumping from your fingers to the computer you're working on by keep you at the same ground potential (or something like that).

#33 - I think hard disk platters from inside hard drives. cool decorations.

#40-43 - check those book prices on ebay, sometimes you get rare ones. Otherwise they could go with the Heathkit electronics learning lab.
 
Soupwizard said:
Comments on interesting things by photo number (x of 43):

#3 - Oh, a dual tandon drive: two 8" slim half height drives in one case (or at least stacked together) - that cool. Almost all 8" drives I see are full height.
Click to expand...
Yes, the Tandon drive is actually two totally separate drives with brackets to link them together. I didn't realize this until yesterday. I unscrewed them and they come right apart. Pretty nifty!

Soupwizard said:
#8, #16 - the white box with A.R.T. , I think that's one of the high quality classic eprom burners that people like. Read a thread about it recently, will try to remember where.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the EPROM burner actually has a full instruction manual, software on 5 1/4 floppies (and a 3 1/2 that I labeled after seeing what was on it), and a strange ribbon cable with an EPROM socket on the end.

Soupwizard said:
#10 - what's that computer motherboard(?) sitting on the boxes in the upper left?
Click to expand...

That would be the Tandy TRS-80 backplane that kb2syd identified from another picture earlier.

Soupwizard said:
#19 - Looks like a Heathkit ET-3100, doesn't go for much on ebay ($15-30) but is cool.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I thought the same thing. Its the kind of thing I'd keep around until I died... or I can clean it up and see if someone will buy it. I had a 1950s Heathkit Signal Generator for a while and eventually sold it at a yard sale because it wasn't really worth anything and I was too afraid to plug it in (fabric insulation on the wires inside, with everything packed in together? no thanks).

Soupwizard said:
#25 - upper right, an anti-static grounding strap - put on wrist, clip to computer you are working on, keeps static electricity from jumping from your fingers to the computer you're working on by keep you at the same ground potential (or something like that).
Click to expand...
Yeah, I hadn't seen one of those since I was in high school. I'll probably just keep it so that I can feel like I'm doing things by the book once in a while.

Soupwizard said:
#33 - I think hard disk platters from inside hard drives. cool decorations.
Click to expand...

Yeah, there's quite a variety. Some of them have massive scratches around them... probably from the head hitting the platter while it was running.

Soupwizard said:
#40-43 - check those book prices on ebay, sometimes you get rare ones. Otherwise they could go with the Heathkit electronics learning lab.
Click to expand...
I haven't looked yet, but I certainly will!


I'll be uploading more pictures shortly. Its going to take a little while since there are so many.
 
Here are some more pictures I took.

Still need to take pictures of the hard drives, among other things. There's just so much here. :rolleyes:

https://plus.google.com/photos/1176...ms/6218908505290252273?authkey=CO6l64ec2aLxDg

Toward the beginning of that album you'll see a few strange little transparent resin disks with PCBs inside them... does anyone have any idea what these might have been from? Two of them have numbers and writing but I can't make sense of any of it. I don't know if its just some home made trinkets, or something handed out at some kind of event... I really don't know. They appear to be sliced, as if a long board (and some metal) was put into a resin cylinder and then sliced, and then handed out? All three of these appear to be end pieces too. For what its worth, this stuff came from somewhere in central Pennsylvania and I've seen some references to Florida. Beyond that, I have no clue where these could have come from.
 
I can't say about those but failed ICs and wafer bits used to be encased and given out at trade shows. Lot more exciting than a pen. If you watch a few documentaries of early Silicon Valley, encased ICs are shown as an example of what was made since working production ICs are long gone.
 
Since you don't quite have enough posts to let me PM you, I have to do this here:

I'm interested in any old PC games in that box of floppy disks. I'm the head archivist for the Total DOS Collection, and boxes like that are some of the last stones unturned to find original sources for games that need to be in the archive for preservation purposes. Having access to that box, even just to borrow it and browse the disk contents for a few days, might unearth a new game that might be on the brink of extinction otherwise. Once you're able to PM, please do so and we will get in touch directly to discuss details!
 
Sure thing guys. I'm all for preserving stuff like that.

Having given away an Atari ST and a box of software to goodwill 15 years ago (because we didn't "use" it... *cries*) I can certainly understand wanting to preserve impossible to find software. I'll try to go through them today. On a positive note, they were kept well. A large "computer paper" box full of sealed ziplock bags full of 5.25 floppies, and the one lone 3.5 floppy I found worked perfectly so they most likely haven't been exposed to terrible conditions. I will say, at first glance I haven't found much as far as games go... mostly large sets of hand-marked disks, but we'll see! There are certainly a lot of applications though.
 
As mentioned a few times, quite a few goodies in there. In particular, I'm one of the ones interested in one of the 8" drives, mainly for use with a floppy archival station I plan to set up. I'll throw you a PM about it as well when you get your post-count above the limit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top