this is so cool. i'm not sure how i got recommended this video when it's your first one ever, but i'm glad i did. i just subscribed and now i'm going to watch the rest of your videos!
RUclips recommendations brought me here, and I was all ready to make a comment about how great it is to discover a new channel with such high quality. But then at the end you hit us with the "this is my first ever RUclips video" - woah! 😁 This channel is destined for great things. Keep up the good work my friend!
I'm subscribing now, because when in a few years this channel got 100k+ subscribers I will have my bragging rights to say that I was one of the first to follow this dude. Great content and stile of presentation. Keep up good work!
Very interesting video! I had no idea old embedded hardware like this was sometimes just a single board computer on the inside. Makes me want to go to my local electronics recycler and see what turns up!
This was a fantastic project, thank you for sharing. That will help to keep my eye open for something like that and maybe doing a similar project. Congrats on the build, really cool.
I did the same thing with a different "firewall appliance" known as a Cisco PIX-520. It was a fun build in spite of needing to replace the case. Thankfully, it was a normal Pentium II ATX motherboard with the venerable 440BX chipset inside. For your setup here, I recommend finding an ITX or micro-ATX case and going from there.
@@eaglemaster7 I've looked into them before. They don't have much room for expansion for sound cards or a VooDoo card if you wanted to go that far, but it'd be good for setting up your first rig if you didn't have anything else to start with.
They are now replaced by Cisco ASA firewall. The 1U models has a 2.5-inch SSD bay that lets you install pfSense, OPNSense, or Sophos XG Home. Just make sure that it meets the minimum system specifications.
Honestly, I just want to say, as someone that has been soldering since age 8 ish and own some decent soldering equipment. You did a fantastic clean job on that multilayer board with that bulky basic iron.
Nice idea turning a firewall into a nice little retro-gaming machine! For some reason RUclips suggested this video to me. Subbed!! And I'm going to watch your other videos, too!! Looking forward to your upcoming videos!🤘
This is absolutely awesome for an otherwise considered useless piece of e waste. I never thought I’d see the day someone used a piece of network hardware of all things to use for a retro build. I’m subbing immediately 👌
I love this project idea. I would love to see you turn this into a Windows 98 all-in-one PC, which is certainly something that is at least uncommon if not nonexistent. Would be really cool to see a small form-factor build like that that incorporates a modern idea of what a slim form factor would be but with retro Hardware.
That’s Great. I have an old Hp “Table’ette” thingy thing, from a hospital. It’s almost an inch thick and has 2 60gb Zif drives and a DVD burner. Remote, pencil and fingerprint scanner. It has one of these VIA CPUs in it. Only driver I could find worked fine with 2000. Xp rejected the driver for some reason. I packed it up in a box years ago. I’ve been thinking of it recently. Maybe... God Bless.
S3 savage. My recollection is that s3 savage is one of those 3d accelerators that couldn't accelerate a slideshow, let alone a game. How did you find the Pinout of the VGA header, and how did you figure out that it's x86?
Yes, although the savage hardware was comparable to rivals, it struggled with poor drivers and lacking support for OpenGL and Direct3D. A few games that supported it’s native MeTal API (Unreal being one) supposedly ran well on these cards. No luck here with the Twister though! As for the pinout I just guessed that it was regular VGA pin for pin, and it turned out it was! The CPU had clear markings on the chip, so I just googled it.
@@OddObsolete just make easier for yourself next time - you need just 5 wires for video signal, you don't need all ground wires and rest is obsolete or not used anyway.
Savage did a lot better using the Savage API... that very few games supported. I think it was the Savage 4 that had very neat high res texture support as well using its own API, only game I remember supporting it was Unreal though.
I wonder if that PCI slot supports the feature of having a PCI rizer board with multiple connectors. That would help with the expandability great project by the way !
@@OddObsolete If it ends up working, look for an early Voodoo card (1 or 2) to pair with the onboard video. Even on a Cyrix/VIA chip, it should let you run games like Quake 2 and Tomb Raider flawlessly.
@@amirpourghoureiyan1637 Or for better performance there were TNT/TNT2 in PCI variants, D3D/OGL support good and should pair well with the C3 for later 90s/early 00's games.
@@lemagreengreen Yes, but in most cases with embedded systems, the integrated graphics will conflict with the new video card. A card that works with the onboard video will be the only option in those cases. LGR had this same issue with a Packard Bell, it all comes down to the ability to disable the integrated video via the BIOS/jumper switch. 9/10 times, an IoT device won't be designed to accommodate this.
The video out connector looks very similar to what you used to get on older GPU's especially low profile ones, where you would have a VGA out on its own small PCI bracket.
this was very nice and interesting to watch, good job! 😉 you could try to find a WIn98 compatible USB sound card and use PCI slot for video (but probably will have to trade the DOS compatibility)
VIA created the Mini-ITX motherboard format, and the CPU, graphics and chipset were similar to what's in this firewall. They were a bit underpowered, but were intended for industrial uses - digital signage, controlling equipment, and such - so the relatively slow graphics weren't a problem. The same hardware is often found in Thin Client computers, often in much smaller cases. It's easy to find something with similar or better hardware - I have several, one with the later VIA Nano CPU at 1.2GHz, and the graphics are improved somewhat too. They usually lack the PCI port, so sound support in DOS can be tricky. Phil's Computer Lab here on RUclips has made several videos on Thin Clients, turning them into retro gaming boxes.
For your first video this is really excellent! Nice job! Interesting that there wasn't 3D acceleration for that chip - I wonder if this was post-2000 and perhaps the Win2K drivers are better? But yeah no *real* DOS for Win2k of course (Although 2k is my retro OS of choice because I prefer those early OpenGL games and they all run fine for me) I wonder if you can get a video card & sound card combined? Would be interesting... But yeah, some of the ideas about getting a PCI riser I think are going a bit far... It's gotta fit in that snazzy case of course. IMO though with 4x ethernet ports it makes more sense to use the thing as a Linux/BSD server or something.
Games I used to run on similar hardware (laptop) were Age 1 & 2, Tomb Raider 3 & 4, Soul Reaver, NFS III, Command and Conquer Red Alert demo, and many others. I'd imagine those may run well on this computer. and yes, Back then I had NeoMagic which ALSO didn't support 3D at all. 🤣 A PC like this is nolstalgic. I would have loved playing on it back in the day, that's for sure! Just would have been scratching my head about the lack of a CD-ROM Drive which every game I played used.
Neat! Not a bad first video either. Are there any other ports or headers on the board that could be used? I know that there are PCI risers that can give you extra slots, so it may be possible to use both the sound card and a GeForce FX 5200, but idk if a riser would work on that motherboard. It could be something that needs to be supported by the chipset, or in BIOS.
Another option is a micro ATX case. Line it up so the sound card slots into the first rear bracket and get a USB header bracket and VGA header bracket and you have 3 out of the 4 slots filled. Connect your card adapter to a 2.5" drive adapter and mount it in the case and adapt the front panel (power switch + LEDs) and you have a surprisingly-capable little box. Heck if you want to get really-creative you can get an internal powered USB hub bay that takes SATA power, and then connect that and your motherboard power supply to a switching unit like a Meanwell and have a proper IEC output for the power supply. I think it could turn out great! With that powered USB hub, you can instead attach an external one internally to expand it's capabilities, utilizing adapters to give you CD-ROM, Floppy and Sound. Then the PCI slot could be for a proper graphics card.
I ended up 3D printing a custom case (there’s another video on the channel about that). I like the idea of having an internal powered USB bus, I might have a closer look at that!
Riktigt skoj video det här också! 😀 Måste bara fråga, vad är det för låt du använder från 03.00 i videon? Jag känner igen den, men kan inte hitta den. Brukar spara no copyright låtar i en spellista och lyssna på när jag jobbar 😋
Cool project! Get a IDE DOM for storage, CF are prone to failure in heavy use scenario such as a systemdisk. I'd look for a low PCI riser (or on flexcable) in combination with a lowprofile/wedgestyle soundcard to keep the build really compact. And I concur on including a Voodoo card if you go with a dual PCI riser.
It's one of my own songs I made some years ago. It's on Soundcloud along with a few other ones if you want to check it out: soundcloud.com/exigent-mote/planetoid
You can get a PCI riser that will let you plug multiple cards into one PCI slot as long as the motherboard can drive the signals down the extra length of PCB.
@@OddObsolete Found it! Love the channel, keep going! I think people would be interested in Windows beta and abandonware stuff. At least me. I'm planning on doing some (for 10 years or so)
Reminds me of some old Watchguard Fireboxses.. The just had an Pentium 200 (i think mmx) inside.. you just had to have to add a graphics card when opening the case to the system without the brackets, put some keyboard on them (i think they also had some standard ps2 connection and voila you had a normal pc booting with some onboard storage, but you could also add extra devices via some ide port.
Awesome work! Just for fun, can you test the power consumption on it while emulating, then compare to original native consoles and then also in the other direction to modern android tv boxes. Obviously it's of no concern, I just think it would be interesting.
Interesting idea! My guess is that it uses more power than a typical 16bit console. And definitely more than a Pi or Android device. The heat sinks does get quite toasty after a while, especially the one on the GPU.
With a PCI angled riser can use the soundcard and a PCI VGA card. I used an Radeon 9250PCI in a Dell (2600 it was?) without AGP slot and with windows 95 was a pleasant experience for old games. Also, I had no issues on dos. For sound I used a generic PCI64 soundcard made by Creative (es1370? I might be wrong). The IDE controller support master/slave drives? What is the model of that firewall machine?
I’m curious about those dual slot risers, but I’ve heard from several people that only one of the cards is usable at a time, due to conflicts. Still, I might explore that possibility! The IDE most likely supports master/slave, although I haven’t verified it.
What would have been displayed if you left the old boot rom chip from when it was an internet appliance? Did it run a *NIX or MS DOS OS? Also does Windows 98 have drivers for the 4 NICs?
I’m curious about this myself, but unfortunately I have no idea where I put the original CF card. If I find it, I’ll try putting it back in and see what happpens.
I believe you would boot into the CLI of the "Clavister Firewall 8.something" operating system, which at the time was a very lightweight and powerful proprietary firewall operating system with only a 2MB blueprint. The onboard e100 intel NIC's are natively supported in Windows 98.
Hi. Is it possible to use usb soundcard and have video accelerator in pci slot? About quake - have you tried new versions of it like fuhquake ez quake and others? I remember playing 640*480 on p2mmx266 with c&a 65554 video card.
@@OddObsolete Of course! There would be no sound under dos, but under win 98 maybe something could be possible... My laptop with pentium3 800 can play mp4 videos at 640x360 with sound via usb 1.0 but it's under win xp. Tried Playing dvd but usb+dvd drive slows system. Dvd video works with internal card or via pcmcia sound blaster(toshiba sp4200 ).
There is a bunch of 3rd party OPENGL software for win98 I forget what it is called. Being a 3d card in chipset name???? I would believe you need both the right driver. And the different 3rd party softwares, like dx9, glsetup public beta 1.0.0.121 maybe?? I really dont remember the name of the file I'm thinking about at the moment but the downloaded version was like 70+/-MB large anddid a hUGE install... hope that helps. wish I could remember the name OF the file I'm thinking about. I know I have it on some random archive.
It’s just a cheapo generic thing from Amazon. Might have been this one: MMOBIEL justerbar PCB-hållare, kretskort-hållare, verktyg för lödning av kretskort, reparationsverktyg med 360° rotation www.amazon.se/dp/B098PBPX8W/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_1GSYWTVQVYWKFZNBHK8Z
How about a plexiglas top-plate for the original case, then drill and tap holes for stand-offs to hold the sound card parallel to the motherboard. You'd need a flexible PCI bracket adapter but they're cheap enough online. I'm curious what in-game renderer you used with Unreal - it offers a bunch of choices. What about trying a Glide wrapper like DgVoodoo? Or you could get a flexible PCI connector that delivers two slots instead of just one, and then you could run a sound card AND a Voodoo2 stacked on top of the original case! Pass the onboard VGA into the Voodoo2's 2D input and then your monitor connects straight to the Voodoo card! That would be right up my ally!
Interesting idea withe the plexiglas! I already went in another direction though - have a look at the follow up video for details. In Unreal I used the Direct3D renderer. It was the only one I could select (besides software). In Unreal Tournament I could also choose MeTaL, but that didn't work properly either.
Not really sure. It came with a tiny 32mb CF card with only a few files on it. Someone on Reddit suggested it might have been something based on QNX or VxWorks. This device didn’t have a web based admin interface like we’re used to today, instead it had to be configured using a proprietary windows application from Clavister.
Parents were cleaning out the garage and they found this old ethernet-based firewall that was long decommissioned, we opened it up but it had proprietary circuitry. how did you get so lucky with yours?
Consumer grade routers and firewall are usually based around an ARM setup with proprietary software stored in ROM. Sometimes you can flash them with a custom OS, like DD-WRT. But they typically lack any circuitry for display output. So I think your best bet for something like this is to look for old business firewalls. I believe many old Cisco firewalls where X86 based for example.
Great video. If possible, try installing Linux on this hardware with some lightweight desktop like i3, icewm or even lxde. There are plenty of games and emulators that might run ok, like openTTD, openRCT2, freeDOOM and SNES... If there's gpu driver available for this one.
I actually tried installing TinyCore on it recently. Let’s just say it wasn’t blazingly fast :) I have a new follow-up video coming up soon about that amogst other things.
since pci is a fundamentally extensible format, that fundamentally always shares bandwidth anyway, why not skip the adapter and include a riser board and standalone GPU, if it's going to be for gaming anyway?
Great video, have an old firewall sitting somewhere in the basement, gonna check what it is. What did you use for removing solder from the holes? I usually use the vaccum tubes to get rid of the solder, but this seems like a great alternative when that doesn't work fully.
It’s a drill bit (0.6mm I think). It’s great for clearing out those last stubborn bits of solder, but one has to be careful not to damage the plating inside the hole.
I have a signal decoding kit, if that's how you call it, branded Elsys NS1030. Is there anything I can do with it? It still turns on but without an active TV plan, I can't do anything. It's been at least 10 years now, and I don't want free channels, just maybe repurpose it.
I don’t know anything about it, but I would guess it’s an ARM based device. Open it up and check if there is any removable media in there. If there is you might be able to get Linux running on it and use for emulators or something.
@@OddObsolete There doesn't seem to be any. But indeed this is as SoC device, I can identify a heatsink but nothing removable, as far as I can tell. It also uses SIM cards, with encrypted data that unlocks the satellite signal for the decoder. That's its only removable part, really. I'm guessing all I can do with this now is remove the ports for anything else I might need? And thank you for replying, I love your videos, I hope to achieve something remotely close to this someday.
The twisterT does have 3d acceleration. Unreal is rather fussy with support though. Unreal Tournament should work. As well as Halflife should run pretty good as well. At least I got those to work on my VIA Epia board with the same chipset.
@@OddObsolete It was windows 98 SE. And as far as I can remember the drivers came from via's website. I recall 3d support being much better than the intel 810 chipset. And I didn't really do anything special. I do remember performance being piss poor though. And openGL was a no-go for quake or quake2. I never tried Q3. If this motherboard has a special implementation then its possible its locked out with the bios. But I do not see why they would bother. My board was a genaric epia branded via board with a 733 mhz nethanial CPU. And PN133 chipset i think?
I had some think like it with out a vga but did have a pci slot and a ide solid state drive at 4GB ran windows OK win XP no sound ended up like all the junk dropped in the Bin.
Keen eye there! :) I didn’t notice this myself until after filming the video, when I found the component (a diode) on my desk. At that point it had been completely ripped of, pads and all. Very clumsy of me! Fortunately it could be repaired by soldering it back on directly on the remaining traces.
@@OddObsolete Good stuff! Yeah it's something I tend to keep an eye out for especially with that type of board holder. Gone it plenty of times myself :) Great vid, keep up the good work!
Ah, the age-old question "Can it run Doom?", yes, an ancient firewall can run Doom.
You might also consider a USB sound card paired with a 3D accelerator PCI video card.
Wouldn't that be a pain for DOS games? + most USB sound cards are HD Audio, so good luck with that :)
@@ivyflow3r If you’re already going the route of Windows98 though, might as well take advantage Windows SB Emulation and run games in a DOS window.
There does exist a parallel OPL sound card IIRC 8bitguy did a vid over it
this is so cool. i'm not sure how i got recommended this video when it's your first one ever, but i'm glad i did. i just subscribed and now i'm going to watch the rest of your videos!
Recapping through-hole is always so satisfying
RUclips recommendations brought me here, and I was all ready to make a comment about how great it is to discover a new channel with such high quality. But then at the end you hit us with the "this is my first ever RUclips video" - woah! 😁
This channel is destined for great things. Keep up the good work my friend!
I'm subscribing now, because when in a few years this channel got 100k+ subscribers I will have my bragging rights to say that I was one of the first to follow this dude. Great content and stile of presentation. Keep up good work!
First 1000 club.
Same!
Very interesting video! I had no idea old embedded hardware like this was sometimes just a single board computer on the inside. Makes me want to go to my local electronics recycler and see what turns up!
This was a fantastic project, thank you for sharing. That will help to keep my eye open for something like that and maybe doing a similar project. Congrats on the build, really cool.
Agreed! Very cool use of an interesting box
I did the same thing with a different "firewall appliance" known as a Cisco PIX-520. It was a fun build in spite of needing to replace the case. Thankfully, it was a normal Pentium II ATX motherboard with the venerable 440BX chipset inside.
For your setup here, I recommend finding an ITX or micro-ATX case and going from there.
Ooh, that’s nice!
wait there are lot of retired PIX device on the marketplace with relatively low prices, PIX 515E for example, can we use that?
@@eaglemaster7 I've looked into them before. They don't have much room for expansion for sound cards or a VooDoo card if you wanted to go that far, but it'd be good for setting up your first rig if you didn't have anything else to start with.
They are now replaced by Cisco ASA firewall. The 1U models has a 2.5-inch SSD bay that lets you install pfSense, OPNSense, or Sophos XG Home. Just make sure that it meets the minimum system specifications.
@@markarca6360 I looked at putting a PIX in an got an ASA instead for a project in 2006 - it's been a looong time since PIX was the recommendation :)
This is absolutely amazing reuse of old hardware.
Really awesome for taking something from the scrapyard into something that can be used once again in a different use. Subscribed!
Honestly, I just want to say, as someone that has been soldering since age 8 ish and own some decent soldering equipment. You did a fantastic clean job on that multilayer board with that bulky basic iron.
Nice idea turning a firewall into a nice little retro-gaming machine! For some reason RUclips suggested this video to me. Subbed!! And I'm going to watch your other videos, too!! Looking forward to your upcoming videos!🤘
Verry nice project ! Good job ... now I regret throwing out old watch guard firewalls
would not have known this was a "first" video. It was great. Keep it up
This is absolutely awesome for an otherwise considered useless piece of e waste. I never thought I’d see the day someone used a piece of network hardware of all things to use for a retro build. I’m subbing immediately 👌
So glad I found your channel. Best content I've watched since LGR!
I love this project idea. I would love to see you turn this into a Windows 98 all-in-one PC, which is certainly something that is at least uncommon if not nonexistent. Would be really cool to see a small form-factor build like that that incorporates a modern idea of what a slim form factor would be but with retro Hardware.
That’s Great. I have an old Hp “Table’ette” thingy thing, from a hospital. It’s almost an inch thick and has 2 60gb Zif drives and a DVD burner. Remote, pencil and fingerprint scanner.
It has one of these VIA CPUs in it. Only driver I could find worked fine with 2000. Xp rejected the driver for some reason. I packed it up in a box years ago. I’ve been thinking of it recently.
Maybe...
God Bless.
Sounds like a neat device!
Real nice project and first video! Count me in! Subscribed!
PS: "Odd and Obsolete" is what I think whenever I look into a mirror at myself.....😂😂
i wish i had the technical know how and the electronic knowledge to do something like this... this is amazing.
Never thought I'd see a Clavister this old. I work with the NetWall E20 and E80s mostly in my day job.
Cool! I believe this one of the first models they made.
@@OddObsolete looks like it, yeah.
Very well put together video, had no idea those used desktop pc boards inside. Looking forward to more content :)
wow thats a throwback the s3 savage 4, one of my first "3d " Graphics cards
This is very impressive!
Nice video and great usage of that old firewall 😬👍👍
I have that same helping hand, I hot glued mine to a heavy flooring sample from Home Depot to make it more stable.
Hehe, yeah, it can be a bit flimsy on its own!
you are really underrated, i really love your work
S3 savage. My recollection is that s3 savage is one of those 3d accelerators that couldn't accelerate a slideshow, let alone a game. How did you find the Pinout of the VGA header, and how did you figure out that it's x86?
Yes, although the savage hardware was comparable to rivals, it struggled with poor drivers and lacking support for OpenGL and Direct3D. A few games that supported it’s native MeTal API (Unreal being one) supposedly ran well on these cards. No luck here with the Twister though!
As for the pinout I just guessed that it was regular VGA pin for pin, and it turned out it was! The CPU had clear markings on the chip, so I just googled it.
@@OddObsolete just make easier for yourself next time - you need just 5 wires for video signal, you don't need all ground wires and rest is obsolete or not used anyway.
Savage did a lot better using the Savage API... that very few games supported. I think it was the Savage 4 that had very neat high res texture support as well using its own API, only game I remember supporting it was Unreal though.
i just discovered your channel, and wow you are indeed really cool, and do cool projects!
keep going, i love the videostyle.
I love such usage of old hardware.
For certain a better and more authentic experience than either DOSbox or PCem.
I wonder if that PCI slot supports the feature of having a PCI rizer board with multiple connectors. That would help with the expandability
great project by the way !
Been thinking about that too. Might explore that possibility!
it absolutely should, deployed lots of kit like this early 2000s
@@OddObsolete If it ends up working, look for an early Voodoo card (1 or 2) to pair with the onboard video. Even on a Cyrix/VIA chip, it should let you run games like Quake 2 and Tomb Raider flawlessly.
@@amirpourghoureiyan1637 Or for better performance there were TNT/TNT2 in PCI variants, D3D/OGL support good and should pair well with the C3 for later 90s/early 00's games.
@@lemagreengreen Yes, but in most cases with embedded systems, the integrated graphics will conflict with the new video card. A card that works with the onboard video will be the only option in those cases.
LGR had this same issue with a Packard Bell, it all comes down to the ability to disable the integrated video via the BIOS/jumper switch. 9/10 times, an IoT device won't be designed to accommodate this.
The video out connector looks very similar to what you used to get on older GPU's especially low profile ones, where you would have a VGA out on its own small PCI bracket.
Yeah, my old GeForce 6200 had one
this was very nice and interesting to watch, good job! 😉
you could try to find a WIn98 compatible USB sound card and use PCI slot for video (but probably will have to trade the DOS compatibility)
Thank you! Yes, I’ve thought about that. Might try something like that in the future.
You can install on pci slot a good 3dfx video card and for the sound you can find a usb sound card that is working on win 98
Damn that's cool! I'd love to get my hands on one of these to make a micro 98 PC. Just imagine, a miniature beige box 😍
This is so frickin cool !!!!! and this pops up after a had another look at the history Cyrix COOL.
Just stumbled across your channel glad i did amazing presentation
Fantastic production sir, smashed the subscribe button
you're doing much better work than I do and with much crappier tools, I feel ashamed but now obviously I need to subscribe for more xD
VIA created the Mini-ITX motherboard format, and the CPU, graphics and chipset were similar to what's in this firewall. They were a bit underpowered, but were intended for industrial uses - digital signage, controlling equipment, and such - so the relatively slow graphics weren't a problem. The same hardware is often found in Thin Client computers, often in much smaller cases. It's easy to find something with similar or better hardware - I have several, one with the later VIA Nano CPU at 1.2GHz, and the graphics are improved somewhat too. They usually lack the PCI port, so sound support in DOS can be tricky. Phil's Computer Lab here on RUclips has made several videos on Thin Clients, turning them into retro gaming boxes.
Cool, I’ll check that out!
For your first video this is really excellent! Nice job! Interesting that there wasn't 3D acceleration for that chip - I wonder if this was post-2000 and perhaps the Win2K drivers are better? But yeah no *real* DOS for Win2k of course (Although 2k is my retro OS of choice because I prefer those early OpenGL games and they all run fine for me) I wonder if you can get a video card & sound card combined? Would be interesting... But yeah, some of the ideas about getting a PCI riser I think are going a bit far... It's gotta fit in that snazzy case of course. IMO though with 4x ethernet ports it makes more sense to use the thing as a Linux/BSD server or something.
Good point about win2k. Very possible! I should definitely try that.
BRILLIANT WORK! 👍😃
As soon as you started talking, i subscribed lol, a nice little pf sense box too.
Games I used to run on similar hardware (laptop) were Age 1 & 2, Tomb Raider 3 & 4, Soul Reaver, NFS III, Command and Conquer Red Alert demo, and many others. I'd imagine those may run well on this computer. and yes, Back then I had NeoMagic which ALSO didn't support 3D at all. 🤣
A PC like this is nolstalgic. I would have loved playing on it back in the day, that's for sure! Just would have been scratching my head about the lack of a CD-ROM Drive which every game I played used.
Neat! Not a bad first video either. Are there any other ports or headers on the board that could be used? I know that there are PCI risers that can give you extra slots, so it may be possible to use both the sound card and a GeForce FX 5200, but idk if a riser would work on that motherboard. It could be something that needs to be supported by the chipset, or in BIOS.
A multi riser might work, I’ll try that if I can get hold of one.
OMG. did anyone else get goosebumbs when the win 98 startup played? nope just me okay...
Another option is a micro ATX case. Line it up so the sound card slots into the first rear bracket and get a USB header bracket and VGA header bracket and you have 3 out of the 4 slots filled. Connect your card adapter to a 2.5" drive adapter and mount it in the case and adapt the front panel (power switch + LEDs) and you have a surprisingly-capable little box.
Heck if you want to get really-creative you can get an internal powered USB hub bay that takes SATA power, and then connect that and your motherboard power supply to a switching unit like a Meanwell and have a proper IEC output for the power supply. I think it could turn out great!
With that powered USB hub, you can instead attach an external one internally to expand it's capabilities, utilizing adapters to give you CD-ROM, Floppy and Sound. Then the PCI slot could be for a proper graphics card.
I ended up 3D printing a custom case (there’s another video on the channel about that).
I like the idea of having an internal powered USB bus, I might have a closer look at that!
Riktigt skoj video det här också! 😀 Måste bara fråga, vad är det för låt du använder från 03.00 i videon? Jag känner igen den, men kan inte hitta den. Brukar spara no copyright låtar i en spellista och lyssna på när jag jobbar 😋
Tack! Det är denna: soundcloud.com/exigent-mote/planetoid
@@OddObsolete Underbart, stort tack själv! 😀 Ska se din senaste video ikväll, ska bli enormt skoj det också 😀 Önskar dig en riktigt skön helg!
Cool project! Get a IDE DOM for storage, CF are prone to failure in heavy use scenario such as a systemdisk. I'd look for a low PCI riser (or on flexcable) in combination with a lowprofile/wedgestyle soundcard to keep the build really compact. And I concur on including a Voodoo card if you go with a dual PCI riser.
A DOM is not a bad idea. Would remove the need for a CF adapter mount inside the case. Good tip!
The video has been online for a while, but can someone tell me which song starts at 2:47?
THX
It's one of my own songs I made some years ago. It's on Soundcloud along with a few other ones if you want to check it out: soundcloud.com/exigent-mote/planetoid
@@OddObsolete Thank you.
I like that kind of music. Reminds me of Jean Michelle Jarre, Kraftwerk and similar "Bands"
You can get a PCI riser that will let you plug multiple cards into one PCI slot as long as the motherboard can drive the signals down the extra length of PCB.
I’m planning to explore this possibility, and perhaps make a follow-up video if I can get it to work.
Nice project, nice channel. But oh, what's the thing at 3:40 you use to hold the board in place? I need that!!!
Search Amazon for “PCB holder” and you’ll find a bunch of similar contraptions.
@@OddObsolete Found it! Love the channel, keep going! I think people would be interested in Windows beta and abandonware stuff. At least me. I'm planning on doing some (for 10 years or so)
Please keep posting :D, i loved your video
Did you have a diagram for which pin was which on the onboard VGA? Or was there a load of off-screen debugging? Nice job either way!
Thanks! No, I just assumed that the pin numbering were the same on each end and wired it pin for pin.
I was wondering about that too
Reminds me of some old Watchguard Fireboxses.. The just had an Pentium 200 (i think mmx) inside.. you just had to have to add a graphics card when opening the case to the system without the brackets, put some keyboard on them (i think they also had some standard ps2 connection and voila you had a normal pc booting with some onboard storage, but you could also add extra devices via some ide port.
Awesome work! Just for fun, can you test the power consumption on it while emulating, then compare to original native consoles and then also in the other direction to modern android tv boxes. Obviously it's of no concern, I just think it would be interesting.
Interesting idea! My guess is that it uses more power than a typical 16bit console. And definitely more than a Pi or Android device.
The heat sinks does get quite toasty after a while, especially the one on the GPU.
This video made me sub! Great work!
Cool built 👍
nice piece of hardware
With a PCI angled riser can use the soundcard and a PCI VGA card. I used an Radeon 9250PCI in a Dell (2600 it was?) without AGP slot and with windows 95 was a pleasant experience for old games. Also, I had no issues on dos. For sound I used a generic PCI64 soundcard made by Creative (es1370? I might be wrong).
The IDE controller support master/slave drives? What is the model of that firewall machine?
I’m curious about those dual slot risers, but I’ve heard from several people that only one of the cards is usable at a time, due to conflicts. Still, I might explore that possibility!
The IDE most likely supports master/slave, although I haven’t verified it.
What would have been displayed if you left the old boot rom chip from when it was an internet appliance? Did it run a *NIX or MS DOS OS? Also does Windows 98 have drivers for the 4 NICs?
I’m curious about this myself, but unfortunately I have no idea where I put the original CF card. If I find it, I’ll try putting it back in and see what happpens.
I believe you would boot into the CLI of the "Clavister Firewall 8.something" operating system, which at the time was a very lightweight and powerful proprietary firewall operating system with only a 2MB blueprint. The onboard e100 intel NIC's are natively supported in Windows 98.
Hi. Is it possible to use usb soundcard and have video accelerator in pci slot? About quake - have you tried new versions of it like fuhquake ez quake and others? I remember playing 640*480 on p2mmx266 with c&a 65554 video card.
Sure, that should be possible, although I suspect DOS compatibility would suffer with a USB card.
@@OddObsolete Of course! There would be no sound under dos, but under win 98 maybe something could be possible... My laptop with pentium3 800 can play mp4 videos at 640x360 with sound via usb 1.0 but it's under win xp. Tried Playing dvd but usb+dvd drive slows system. Dvd video works with internal card or via pcmcia sound blaster(toshiba sp4200 ).
I have 2 firebox firewalls with one using a socket 7 and other a 370, ill get around to them sometime to do the same
There is a bunch of 3rd party OPENGL software for win98 I forget what it is called. Being a 3d card in chipset name???? I would believe you need both the right driver. And the different 3rd party softwares, like dx9, glsetup public beta 1.0.0.121 maybe?? I really dont remember the name of the file I'm thinking about at the moment but the downloaded version was like 70+/-MB large anddid a hUGE install... hope that helps. wish I could remember the name OF the file I'm thinking about. I know I have it on some random archive.
The win 98 splash sound brings back memories..😆 Also this would great for snes or n64 emulator games.
Yeah, it would be interesting to try a few emulators. The 8 and 16-bit systems should run fine, but I suspect it’s too slow to run n64 well.
Hello, did you check dxdiag for hardware acceleration? The twister supposedly has the same Direct3D capabilities as the Savage 4.
Yes, and it only says acceleration for DirectDraw and not Direct3D unfortunately.
Very Cool idea
I'd be curious to see what this cpu compares to in a vintage windows benchmark like sisoft sandra. I guess similar to a 233 mmx ?
I haven’t done any benchmarks, but yeah, probably something like that.
I'm very impressed
I remember Wireless LAN Access Point (not Wi-Fi standard) from LGR channel are x86 IBM PC standard motherboard inside.
I watched that one too! Fascinating piece of hardware.
@Odd & Obsolete, can I ask what the make/model of that PCB holder is please?
It’s just a cheapo generic thing from Amazon. Might have been this one: MMOBIEL justerbar PCB-hållare, kretskort-hållare, verktyg för lödning av kretskort, reparationsverktyg med 360° rotation www.amazon.se/dp/B098PBPX8W/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_1GSYWTVQVYWKFZNBHK8Z
How about a plexiglas top-plate for the original case, then drill and tap holes for stand-offs to hold the sound card parallel to the motherboard. You'd need a flexible PCI bracket adapter but they're cheap enough online. I'm curious what in-game renderer you used with Unreal - it offers a bunch of choices. What about trying a Glide wrapper like DgVoodoo? Or you could get a flexible PCI connector that delivers two slots instead of just one, and then you could run a sound card AND a Voodoo2 stacked on top of the original case! Pass the onboard VGA into the Voodoo2's 2D input and then your monitor connects straight to the Voodoo card! That would be right up my ally!
Interesting idea withe the plexiglas! I already went in another direction though - have a look at the follow up video for details.
In Unreal I used the Direct3D renderer. It was the only one I could select (besides software). In Unreal Tournament I could also choose MeTaL, but that didn't work properly either.
Freaking well done!
Where on earth did you find drivers for that thing at? The bane of my existence.
Lots and lots of googling :)
@@OddObsolete well I subbed. Keep these coming. You did a great job on both vids about this!
here before this channel is at 100k subs
Now I'm looking for an old firewall to convert. I'll add it to he list.
At first I thought the thumbnail had a VCR in it, and I was thinking: "wait, can I really turn THAT into a PC?"
nice! is it possible to use a pci riser and reuse the old case? :-) also.. youre swedish right?
I did use a 90 degree riser to mount the sound card in the final build, check out the followup video!
Och ja, svensk :)
@@OddObsolete ja jag såg den senare :-) lycka till med kanalen! du har onekligen ett intressant koncept :-)
Interesting system like!
How did you find out the VGA pinout? Nice project!
I just wired each pin number to the corresponding one on each side.
How did you know what wire goes where on the VGA connector?
The pins are numbered on both the VGA and IDC connectors, so I just hooked each pin up to the corresponding one on the VGA end.
i'm super curious what OS/Software it shipped with from the facotry
Not really sure. It came with a tiny 32mb CF card with only a few files on it. Someone on Reddit suggested it might have been something based on QNX or VxWorks.
This device didn’t have a web based admin interface like we’re used to today, instead it had to be configured using a proprietary windows application from Clavister.
Keep it up, thank you for sharing :)
Parents were cleaning out the garage and they found this old ethernet-based firewall that was long decommissioned, we opened it up but it had proprietary circuitry. how did you get so lucky with yours?
Consumer grade routers and firewall are usually based around an ARM setup with proprietary software stored in ROM. Sometimes you can flash them with a custom OS, like DD-WRT. But they typically lack any circuitry for display output.
So I think your best bet for something like this is to look for old business firewalls. I believe many old Cisco firewalls where X86 based for example.
Great video. If possible, try installing Linux on this hardware with some lightweight desktop like i3, icewm or even lxde. There are plenty of games and emulators that might run ok, like openTTD, openRCT2, freeDOOM and SNES... If there's gpu driver available for this one.
I actually tried installing TinyCore on it recently. Let’s just say it wasn’t blazingly fast :) I have a new follow-up video coming up soon about that amogst other things.
since pci is a fundamentally extensible format, that fundamentally always shares bandwidth anyway, why not skip the adapter and include a riser board and standalone GPU, if it's going to be for gaming anyway?
I’m curious to try this, just gotta get hold of one of those risers first.
Great video, have an old firewall sitting somewhere in the basement, gonna check what it is.
What did you use for removing solder from the holes? I usually use the vaccum tubes to get rid of the solder, but this seems like a great alternative when that doesn't work fully.
It’s a drill bit (0.6mm I think). It’s great for clearing out those last stubborn bits of solder, but one has to be careful not to damage the plating inside the hole.
Great vid!
Little tip since you only have
Thanks for the feedback on the audio, very much appreciated!
The background track to this video is a banger. What's the source?
Glad you like it! :) It’s a track I made a few years ago. It’s on SoundCloud if you want to check it out: m.soundcloud.com/exigent-mote/planetoid
Snyggt jobbat!
I have a signal decoding kit, if that's how you call it, branded Elsys NS1030. Is there anything I can do with it? It still turns on but without an active TV plan, I can't do anything. It's been at least 10 years now, and I don't want free channels, just maybe repurpose it.
I don’t know anything about it, but I would guess it’s an ARM based device. Open it up and check if there is any removable media in there. If there is you might be able to get Linux running on it and use for emulators or something.
@@OddObsolete There doesn't seem to be any. But indeed this is as SoC device, I can identify a heatsink but nothing removable, as far as I can tell.
It also uses SIM cards, with encrypted data that unlocks the satellite signal for the decoder. That's its only removable part, really.
I'm guessing all I can do with this now is remove the ports for anything else I might need? And thank you for replying, I love your videos, I hope to achieve something remotely close to this someday.
Where did you find the pinout for that VGA connector?
It’s just a standard VGA pinout, so it could be hooked up pin for pin to the d-sub.
@@OddObsolete so pin 1 - 1, pin 2 - 2... and so on?
@@DasMrOSi Yes, exactly!
@@OddObsolete interesting, thanks
Needs a nice yamaha audician opl3 and you have a killer dos gaming pc
You've got it covered it seems!
how did you find out the vga output layout ?
The pins are numbered 1-15 on both ends, so it’s just a matter of connecting each pin to the corresponding one.
The twisterT does have 3d acceleration. Unreal is rather fussy with support though. Unreal Tournament should work. As well as Halflife should run pretty good as well. At least I got those to work on my VIA Epia board with the same chipset.
Interesting! Do you remember which drivers and Windows version you were on?
@@OddObsolete It was windows 98 SE. And as far as I can remember the drivers came from via's website. I recall 3d support being much better than the intel 810 chipset. And I didn't really do anything special. I do remember performance being piss poor though. And openGL was a no-go for quake or quake2. I never tried Q3.
If this motherboard has a special implementation then its possible its locked out with the bios. But I do not see why they would bother. My board was a genaric epia branded via board with a 733 mhz nethanial CPU. And PN133 chipset i think?
I legit thought this channel had at least 50k subs.
I had some think like it with out a vga but did have a pci slot and a ide solid state drive at 4GB ran windows OK win XP no sound ended up like all the junk dropped in the Bin.
Reminds me of the 8bit guy 👍
How about running MAME?
Maybe!
5:04 - you have pushed a SMD component off the board with your PCB holder on the left of screen.
Keen eye there! :) I didn’t notice this myself until after filming the video, when I found the component (a diode) on my desk. At that point it had been completely ripped of, pads and all. Very clumsy of me!
Fortunately it could be repaired by soldering it back on directly on the remaining traces.
@@OddObsolete Good stuff! Yeah it's something I tend to keep an eye out for especially with that type of board holder. Gone it plenty of times myself :) Great vid, keep up the good work!