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AOpen Dual Pentium Pro minitower w/Wildcat 3D accelerator, 512MB RAM, WinNT w/3D apps

S

SiliconClassics

Experienced Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2009
Messages
148
Location
Chapel Hill, NC
It might not be old enough to be truly vintage, but I've finally decided to sell a dual-200MHz / 512K L2 Pentium Pro system that might appeal to board members who are interested in 3D animation. It is a 3D workstation with a dual-board Intense 3D 3410 graphics accelerator, an Intel PR440FX motherboard maxed-out with 512MB RAM, Ultra SCSI, a Toshiba CD-ROM and Sony FDD.

It's configured with Windows NT 4.0 and a full suite of vintage graphics apps, including 3D Studio MAX 2.5, LightWave 3D 5.6, Photoshop 4, Deep Paint 3D, After Effects, Premiere, Maya 2.5, and a bunch of other apps. It's in basically mint condition, having seen very little use. It would make a very nice retro 3D modeling workstation, as it can push an impressive number of polygons thanks to the Wildcat's geometry accelerator.

I'd like to get $150 plus shipping for it.

PPro-1.jpg
PPro-2.jpg
PPro-3.jpg
 
Sadly if nobody wants this system these PPro chips will probably end up in a smelter. I'm going to have to part it out and sell the components, and eBay prices for PPros are quite high due to their gold content. If anybody wants a particular component PM me.
 
I'm interested in this system but shipping will be prohibitive for the whole thing - if you'd consider shipping CPUs plus mobo to the UK maybe we could work something out.
 
Ok, it seems that this system will have to be sold in pieces. It looks like single PPro chips fetch about $25 apiece on eBay, so if you'd like the CPUs plus mainboard (which will include the rear blanking plate, documentation, and driver CD, plus CPU VRM) let's say $75, or $100 if you'd like the 512MB of EDO SDRAM with it as well. Also up for grabs are the ATX case (an Inwin A500 with 250-ish watt power supply), the CD-ROM drive (I believe it's an IDE Toshiba 32x) and the Sony floppy drive. Everything is in basically like-new condition.

I can ship anywhere at cost. Please PM with offers / questions. Thanks!
 
dorkbert said:
truth is that for $150, you can almost build a modern system...
Click to expand...

So? That's not relevant to the price of retro hardware. A Macintosh Quadra 840AV in fair condition fetches at least $150 on eBay. I recently sold a 166MHZ DEC Alpha system to a knowledgeable buyer for $160. Hell, I sold an old Gateway 2000 486 tower last year for over $300, and even generic 486 boxes routinely sell for triple-digit prices on eBay. Would you call these prices excessive? Hardly. In fact, it's very odd to hear a statement like yours coming from a member of a vintage computer forum. As an active forum member you should be well aware that retro hardware can be worth more than brand new systems that are 100x as powerful.
 
I'd think a dual PPro will be overcome with rarity faster than most others will, and also, that looks like a hek of a graphics set. Whatever came of this set? Is it an AT, or an ATX set-up? (I'm guessing an ATX, but was really searching for info on an AT box) Whatever came of it though, I hope it fared well :)


ahhh! I just looked back at the photos and realized that lower board was the SCSI board, at first I had thought it was a 2 board graphics card
 
I've still got it for now - haven't had time to sort through it yet, and I have other computers to deal with first. Plus when I started to dig through it to figure out what to sell and what to keep, I decided that it was a nice combo of high-end PPro-era hardware that might be worth keeping after all :)

It actually is a two-board graphics card. The top card is the rasterizer and the bottom card is the geometry engine, and they're connected by a wide gray cable.
 
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ahhh! Ok! That was my first thought actually from the vented lower expansion slot, but later I noticed SCSI and saw that cable. So it's onboard SCSI then eh ? I have an early AOpen computer, one of their first couple years, and it's also a late AT board, ATX had all but taken over by then. I can find reference to the AOpen board, but none on the case or combo. It's an AP53 board, a BG85 case, and BG85-AP53 combo. The CD-ROM isn't AOpen but I'm guessing it's original to the unit, and is march 1997. The PS isn't AOpen either, only the board and the case.
I'm wondering if separating the two and parting it out is doing a diservice to the unit, or goes against the grain of vintage collectors, when the case and the board are probably the only two AOpen made parts on it
 
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