Inside isn’t too bad but definitely going to blow out the dust first. I also see an S3 ViRGE chip so that’s going to be the onboard graphics, no doubt.

Survey says… I’m not sure. Pretty sure not AWE32 - I see an Aztec chip with OPL so might still be a good little sound card. Either way, I don’t think SoundBlaster cards of the era had modems built on.

Normally this is the stuff I only pick up for around $10, maybe a little more. I will say, the case is in such clean shape, the tamper sticker is still intact, so guessing it is stock. Deciding factor - there's a chance that's an AWE32 sound card so, taking a chance.

Also saw an old Dell Pentium I laptop - nothing with it, decent shape but uses an odd power plug. It'd be a decent DOS/Win95 or Win98 machine if you wanted to save some space. Didn't get a price. Finally, saw this flight stick ($3) - passed, I have too many as is, but good price

Aside from putting the 5950 in, I added an IDE to SATA adapter with a 120gb SSD and put a fresh install of Win98 SE, added 512mb RAM (plenty for these specs), and installed Win 98 Plus! because I love themes. Played some Quake III and C&C Red Alert last night on it, as well.

Sometimes it is just fun to add an over-powered GPU to a very mid computer. Had this GeForce 5950 FX Ultra 256mb kicking around and decided to stick it in the Compaq PIII machine just because I can. CPU and GPU are about 4-5 years apart.

Still tinkering with the Compaq PIII machine - while it does work, I had to get the power cord at just the right angle. I opened the PSU to reflow the connector wires and found some crusty caps waiting. Replaced the four of that type for now and reflowed, working much better now!

Looking around the drive, I noticed a Nintendo folder - fitting to find Nesticle, ZSNES, and a Genesis emulator on a PC of this vintage. Had to tool around with some totally legitimate backups. :)

Backed up/imaged the drive from the Compaq just in case (10gb Quantum) and gave the computer a test. It booted up, 96mb RAM, PIII 450 mhz, S3 Savage4 GT 8mb Video, and Win98 (which reports the CPU as PII) Not a bad start.

Surprisingly, the dust isn’t too bad inside considering the seal being intact points to not having been opened. Love to see an AGP port (with card), too! Looks to be a 450MHz PIII if I’m reading the CPU right. Time to blow the dust out and test it!

I get the sentiment, but phones have been using a form of 'AI' to modify photos for a long while now, as I understand it. When you think about the pin-head sized sensor and amount of megapixels, there's a lot of math going on under the hood to produce the digital photo - upscale, de-noise, etc.

Of course there was a blue Dell P4 tower out there, too. I was half tempted at the $5 price just as a test box - it was chock-full of dust and while it seemed intact inside, the lack of at least an AGP slot (only 3 PCI) was ultimately a pass.

I didn't photograph as much this VCF East swap meet, my table kept me busy the bulk of the time. BUT, here's an album of the photos I did grab in the early morning to give you a taste of what was there. photos.app.goo.gl/ze2xJDgcNKh2...

I kept thinking the Pismo was suspiciously quiet - nice little bonus inside, someone swapped in a SSD drive (also it's been upgrade to 1 GB of RAM and dual boots OS9 and OSX). Over the weekend, I watched videos about it and loaded/played some Mac games on it. Enjoying it! :)

Fresh set of batteries and it’s jamming out :)

I've been told by a reliable source the Mac laptop is the G3 'Pismo' - has firewire ports. All I know is I didn't have a black Mac laptop and it has a really nice keyboard (I got to try one at a previous VCF event). Guy said it worked and so it does!

Flight Sim 3 was one of my first computer games I had on my old Vendex PC - this is version 4, but close enough and so neat to have boxed. I'm going to have to try the upgrade pack as well. Just one of those nice to have complete of the few games I had. :)

I would have to say, this was the table to be at if you wanted Mac stuff today. Guy was selling cheap - That boxed red iMac was $30, the boxed PowerBook under the table was the same price iirc. I didn't take too many photos, too busy at my table, but I'll share an album later.