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OT Looking for old pc motherboards or units.

T

Tony Quiring

Titanium
Joined
Nov 5, 2008
Location
Madera county california usa
Observing threads related to older equipment it looks like there are a few folks who may have some old pc stuff.

Moderator please move to correct spot or delete if not allowed.

We have a control system from the late 80's that was originally on 286 and later 386 that is operating on DOS with Quarterdeck which was a multithread environment under dos.

Tops out at Pentium 3 which are getting hard to find.

Gets wonky on p4 and some p3.

Looking for surplus units with the cpu flat on the motherboard and 2 rs232 ports native on the motherboard.

Pentium 2 and earlier and some p3.

Atx form factor

Have a supply of newer working units with assorted windows os suitable for general use like spreadsheets or simple browsing if interested.

If you have such item collecting dust and need to dispose of it please send pm.

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Tony,

My local Goodwill accepts all sorts of computer stuff. They were fixing and selling later stuff and scrapping out the rest. Your Goodwill may be a source. Over the last year I have gotten rid of about 10 PCs, all the way to DOS 5 machines.

Also this: Sell Computer Scrap

Paul
 
Bummer, my old man holds on to old computer stuff FOREVER, but he just did a major purge eariler this year. I can take a look through the boneyard to see if anything is left, but chances are if it is he actually wants it.
 
Out of curiosity, I wonder if there are any 286 or 386 virtual machine profiles that could be run on a newer computer - and if that would work for the control. Has anybody tried such a thing?
 
Thanks a bunch for the fast response.

The e-waste craze combined with privacy concerns has just about ruined the thrift store chain as they usually just e-waste or do not accept.

The way the Quarterdeck system operates is pure magic in that the chipset matters.

Had 2 identical p4 units and worked fine on one until failed but on second hidden operations would not work.

Current unit was lucky find at estate sale.

We have feelers out with many local places but Pickings are slim.

We even find perfect units on side of road on trash day but those are too new.

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paul39 said:
Tony,

My local Goodwill accepts all sorts of computer stuff. They were fixing and selling later stuff and scrapping out the rest. Your Goodwill may be a source. Over the last year I have gotten rid of about 10 PCs, all the way to DOS 5 machines.

Also this: Sell Computer Scrap

Paul
Click to expand...
Bumped into one of their workers at a thrift store and was told once received they were not for sale.

Lots of reasons and could not even trade my scrap for theirs.

Speaking of scrap ...have box of dvd and CD units free if anyone wants them, whatever fits in flat rate box at their shipping cost.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
 
About a year or two ago I bought two industrial PCs that had real serial ports out the wazoo (like 6 or 8), USB ports, real parallel port, PS/2 keyboard and mouse plus USB kbd/mouse, running real-enough DOS (from a chip) all in a very small package, no fan needed. Supports standard floppy and IDE too, if I recall. Machine was under $300, with a warranty, support, etc. Came from an outfit in Indiana that specialized in industrial stuff.

I run a DOS program in 'near' real time, that uses a parallel port dongle and real serial ports. Runs fine. I can look 'em up if you're interested. Although I don't need it, I do recall there was a software patch that would 'slow down' Pentium class machines so they didn't flake out running this older software. Not exactly sure what tweaks it applied, but it's worth a Google if it opens up your hardware options.

The only 286s I have around are Compaq Portable III units, with orange plasma displays. Have a few 386s that top out at about 33 mHz. No 486 -- skipped straight to Pentium nothin'.

I do have a couple rack-mount XT machines, though...
 
Rack mount is fun...

We picked up both 1u and 2u rack cases and build with what we can find.

We only need a working motherboard.

However the stage of pc development fitting this period allowed for odd configuration of boards to marry to specific cpu.

Prefer someone who may have a working system that can be used as parts.

We have a genuine IBM that is flawless but that was a lucky find.

None of the rack mount p3 would run due to some memory mapping or something else in the chipset.



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Tony, I totally understand your pain. I was in a similar position around 10 to 15 years ago with a PC-XT, DOS based system that I HAD to keep running. My company used it in daily operations and there was nothing they had to substitute for it. I had parts squirreled away where no one would find and scrap them: our accountants did not understand. When we finally replaced that old XT, there was a long line at the destruction party. We had to limit the sledge hammer blows to two per person so that everyone could have a turn. Even I had my two.

I do have some older systems but I am not sure of the vintage. I will open some of them up and see what is inside. If any are suitable, you can have them for packaging and shipping costs.
 
Chip Chester said:
About a year or two ago I bought two industrial PCs that had real serial ports out the wazoo (like 6 or 8), USB ports, real parallel port, PS/2 keyboard and mouse plus USB kbd/mouse, running real-enough DOS (from a chip) all in a very small package, no fan needed. Supports standard floppy and IDE too, if I recall. Machine was under $300, with a warranty, support, etc. Came from an outfit in Indiana that specialized in industrial stuff.

I run a DOS program in 'near' real time, that uses a parallel port dongle and real serial ports. Runs fine. I can look 'em up if you're interested. Although I don't need it, I do recall there was a software patch that would 'slow down' Pentium class machines so they didn't flake out running this older software. Not exactly sure what tweaks it applied, but it's worth a Google if it opens up your hardware options.

The only 286s I have around are Compaq Portable III units, with orange plasma displays. Have a few 386s that top out at about 33 mHz. No 486 -- skipped straight to Pentium nothin'.

I do have a couple rack-mount XT machines, though...
Click to expand...

Not sure that will help, unless they were made with the actual janky architecture of the original. Hardware back in the day didn't behave exactly as it was "supposed" to, but in the cases where it was consistent, software guys would just account for that odd behavior instead of making the hardware guys bug-fix it. They chased each other's tails until the early 2000s when Windows Vista came out. That was supposed to be a "clean slate" reconciliation with all the oddball crap fixed, but everyone's software was built to work with the jacked-up workarounds, so it ended up being incompatible with EVERYTHING. Or something like that.

OP, you might be in luck. Looks like our old voicemail server escaped the purges. Hard drive is toast, but the board should be OK. I believe it's a Pentium I or II if I remember correctly. Want me to take a closer look tomorrow?
 
Yes please!

Back in the day they added the "turbo" button.

Remember those?

And the phrase "IBM compatible "...

Story goes early XT 8086 units used buss clock for network.

Later AT 286 units still used same cards but faster buss resulted in not working.

IBM was not IBM compatible...what to do?

Slow down the buss to fix it but now add a switch to speed it up if issue not present.

Quarterdeck in dos is limited by the lower memory size coupled with the QEMM manager that maps out all of the chunks of ram to make the many virtual machines for the multi-threading.

Problem is newer chipsets started using different blocks and QEMM does not know how to map them.

When the DVX call comes it gets very interesting.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
 
Tony Quiring said:
Yes please!

Back in the day they added the "turbo" button.

Remember those?

And the phrase "IBM compatible "...

Story goes early XT 8086 units used buss clock for network.

Later AT 286 units still used same cards but faster buss resulted in not working.

IBM was not IBM compatible...what to do?

Slow down the buss to fix it but now add a switch to speed it up if issue not present.

Quarterdeck in dos is limited by the lower memory size coupled with the QEMM manager that maps out all of the chunks of ram to make the many virtual machines for the multi-threading.

Problem is newer chipsets started using different blocks and QEMM does not know how to map them.

When the DVX call comes it gets very interesting.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
Click to expand...


Hehe Ive got a 8086 with a 2 speed switch on it, 7.8 MHz or 3.38 MHz it even has the math coproc….whew whew....I still recall the salesman in 1985 something telling me you had to slow it down for some programs. "it was so fast"
 
I have what I believe is a 486 rack mounted industrial computer that was scrapped from the stockroom of a place I worked at. It was unused and just obsolete for their purposes and up until a couple of years ago it was still in its original packaging. It is now on my shop floor getting dirty and dusty waiting for a new home. PM me if your interested.
 
salzburg said:
Have you never checked EBAY?
Click to expand...
Yes...

We have a genuine IBM PIII that is perfect and found replacement motherboards, wrong bios.

Found 2 sets of rack servers...wrong chipset.

Anything that may have possibility like the IBM we have are sold as "classic" and over priced combined with crazy shipping.

Tired of that mess, reading the stories of folks working on their machines we hear stories of possibilities so we see if folks have something that is saved but not needed.

We have primary unit and one spare, some old clunkers that will work in emergency so now we are working on building quality spares.


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Tony Quiring said:
Yes...

We have a genuine IBM PIII that is perfect and found replacement motherboards, wrong bios.

Found 2 sets of rack servers...wrong chipset.

Anything that may have possibility like the IBM we have are sold as "classic" and over priced combined with crazy shipping.

Tired of that mess, reading the stories of folks working on their machines we hear stories of possibilities so we see if folks have something that is saved but not needed.

We have primary unit and one spare, some old clunkers that will work in emergency so now we are working on building quality spares.


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

BTDTGTTS on hardware, there was a time you could load a van with this s**t within two blocks of HKG's "Golden" 'puter center.

but.. by this point in time... the risk should be lower to simply re-code the silly application with any of many "cross platform" intermediate layers and no longer have to care WHAT hardware was under it.

Reason is that the speed gains are so massive, anything "modern" could emulate it faster than it ever ran on bare-metal, even if coded in the gnarliest of interpretive languages or NOT "fully" recoded, just run in an emulator with the worst of the hardware-specific wierdness tweaked back out of it.

"T86", a competent "machine code" guru (seek in the embedded market..) and about two day's work, given you know in advance what it is SUPPOSED to do AND where the barriers ARE.

Lot of us wudda thot we'd died and gone to heaven to have that much - rather than working 100% in the dark.
 
thermite said:
BTDTGTTS on hardware, there was a time you could load a van with this s**t within two blocks of HKG's "Golden" 'puter center.

but.. by this point in time... the risk should be lower to simply re-code the silly application with any of many "cross platform" intermediate layers and no longer have to care WHAT hardware was under it.

Reason is that the speed gains are so massive, anything "modern" could emulate it faster than it ever ran on bare-metal, even if coded in the gnarliest of interpretive languages or NOT "fully" recoded, just run in an emulator with the worst of the hardware-specific wierdness tweaked back out of it.

"T86", a competent "machine code" guru (seek in the embedded market..) and about two day's work, given you know in advance what it is SUPPOSED to do AND where the barriers ARE.

Lot of us wudda thot we'd died and gone to heaven to have that much - rather than working 100% in the dark.
Click to expand...
Yup...we could do that but that smacks of way too much effort.

There is a Windows version that costs many thousands of dollars and that is not a realistic solution as we are cheap.

This system is something we maintained for others back in the day and ours is both in use to fill a need and a hobby to keep it going.

It has a boatload of tiny data collection and reporting tasks that each act independently as well as about 30 other on demand tasks that each are separate programs.

The system consists of the pc that manages remote equipment with a stand alone 6800 based interface that translates rs232 into the data the remote units use to communicate.

Remote units are stand alone and do not need the computer to operate but the computer can program and control them.

We did attempt to undo the dvx call to start this process and got nowhere very fast as the different active threads interact with other threads and just easier to hunt hardware.

Should had collected a bunch back in the day but the recent drive to recycle dried up the once abundant supply.

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