CPU Porn

[gbeirn]

....or back in my day.

Going though my CPU collection I thought I would snap some photos and upload for nostalgia or so the young-ins can learn something. Enjoy!

Few boxes of CPUs I've collected over the years:

I started trying to collect one of every x86 CPU made but with all these modern CPUs and how many different ones are released, that went out the window.

A Pentium Pro I took the blow torch to to remove the lid:

Same with the Pentium:

And the 486:

And the 386:

Back in my day, when we switched RAM types we just bought a fancy expander to reuse our old RAM:

 

[gbeirn]

Coolest CPU I think I have, I 286 -> 386 upgrade kit with spare socket for math co-processor. I also have the utility on floppy to enable the 8k! of cache:

Anyone remember High and Low or Odd and Even BIOS chips?

Vacuum tubes:

OverDrive processors, for 486 and Pentium systems:

The first Pentium ever: The 60MHz

486DX4-75 and 100 Overdrive chips:

Pentium 60 and 66MHz:

A terminator for an unused 287/387 socket, there are resistors in there, hard to tell from the photo:

 

[gbeirn]

8088s!

8086

286/7s

Also one by AMD:

And a cool one without pins held down by the heat spreader on top of it:

386/7s:

More 286s:

More 386/387s:

Pentium over drive to upgrade your Pentium 66 to 133MHz!:

 

[gbeirn]

Overclocking once involved swapping out clock crystals:

486DX-33:

And the super popular 486DX2-66, began this crazy multiplier craze:

One manufactured by IBM:

The bastard SX which had the math co-processor in it, just fused off:

Various flavors by AMD:

Also very popular Pentium 133MHz

K6 and K6-2s!

IBM 6x86

 

[gbeirn]

AMD 5x86, these actually went in 486 sockets:

Cyrix MII, we used to have CPU choices!

Cryix 6x86:

Made in Canada:

6x86 and MII:

And the reverse side:

Pentiums:

Anyone remember the iComp index?

K6-200 and 233:

 

[gbeirn]

K6-2 350MHz:

Pentium with MMX tech, you cannot remove the heat-spreader with a blowtorch on these:

One of each speed:

De-lidded K6-2 to see the die size, tiny!

AMD K5s:

More K5s, designed for Windows 95!

When you take a blowtorch to the Pentium MMX chips, this is all you end up with:

Pentium Pro:

COAST (Cache on a stick):

 

[gbeirn]

K6-2 and K6-2+:

And de-lidded:

Mobile Pentium II:

Regular Pentium IIs

Front side:

Bottom:

What they look like with the case off:

Pentium II and III in the newer style case:

And their differences inside:

 

[gbeirn]

Terminator for an unused slot in a dual CPU board:

And a whole box of Pentium II and IIIs

180MHz Pentium Pro

486 Cache

Pentium L2 Cache stick, for VX chipset:

These were used to extract socketed CPUs before the invention of ZIF sockets:

And an example:

Slot 1 Celerons, sadly I have never come across a cacheless 266MHz, hopefully one day:

And what Celeron's look like:

Slotkets!, Back in my day when CPU sockets changed, we just bought adapters:

 

[gbeirn]

SlotKet III

Original AMD Athlons:

From first speed of 550MHz all the way to 1GHz:

Socket 423 Pentium 4s

A 1.7GHz:

A poor cracked K6-2

Another RAM expander:

RAMBUS and it's heat-spreader removed:

30-pin SIMMS

 

[gbeirn]

And a whole bunch more:

64K of 120NS RAM!

4MB 72-Pin SIMMS

Various different 72-pin SIMMS

Some more 72-pin:

And a massive! 8MB chip:

Comparison of different size RAM:

Pentium-era/486 CACHE chips, before the COAST modules:

Speed star BIOSs:

ODD and EVEN video BIOS chips:

And that's all I have for tonight, I have Pentium 3 and up, but that is for another time and not nearly as neat I don't think.

Enjoy!!

 

[Virgorising]

It's always nice to have a hobby.

Aftermarket thought: bet you could sell some of the sticks for serious money. Old ram phenomenon.

Too bad the chips are too heavy to make French wire earrings. But you could maybe make statement necklasses out of them.()

Bet some creative jewelry maker might even buy the whole lot!

 

[postmortemIA]

sex without condoms, eh? what are you teaching younger masses.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

Great reminders of how technology advances.

 

[NTMBK]

Wow, that's an impressive collection! How long have you been collecting for?

 

[SammichPG]

It's always nice to have a hobby.

Aftermarket thought: bet you could sell some of the sticks for serious money. Old ram phenomenon.

Too bad the chips are too heavy to make French wire earrings. But you could maybe make statement necklasses out of them.()

Bet some creative jewelry maker might even buy the whole lot!

The gold alone in those packages (ceramic cpus had up to 1-2g of gold!) is worth some hundred dollars, how did you manage to collect so many cpus? Worked in some computer shop or scrapyard?

 

[gbeirn]

I started collecting maybe 15-20 years ago. It was more just keeping the old CPUs I had since no one really wanted them anymore. Then I really began to notice that technology was way more disposable than most things so I thought it would be neat to keep them as a reminder of where we have come from.

I have been working as a repair technician as a career for the past 14 years so I easily have access to old CPUs as people recycle machines.

 

[Megatomic]

So much nostalgia stirred up by your pics. Thanks for the trip down memory lane, gbeirn.

 

[Dahak]

Ahh the good old days. I had started to work with computer around the time of the late pentiums / pentiums with mmx I remember 486's as well. had fun with the slocket cards

Now the real question is build a machine one

 

[dawheat]

Awesome posts - thanks OP.

 

[KingFatty]

Wow, seeing the groovy logos for the 386 and 486 chips, where it's like horizontal lines, with the stylish SX or DX text, definitely triggered a nostalgic response. I totally forgot all about how it looked until seeing that, and then wham!, nostalgia.

 

[Virgorising]

The gold alone in those packages (ceramic cpus had up to 1-2g of gold!) is worth some hundred dollars, how did you manage to collect so many cpus? Worked in some computer shop or scrapyard?

O! Gold? I had NO CLUE!!!!!!!!!

 

[parvadomus]

Loved the 386/486 era. So many upgrades, caches, different processors on same socket, overdrives..

 

[SlowSpyder]

You just brought back a lot of memories! I know that technology is so much further now, but somehow for me it was more fun in the 90's. I guess it was because it was new to me and I was young... haha. Very cool collection!!

 

[gbeirn]

You just brought back a lot of memories! I know that technology is so much further now, but somehow for me it was more fun in the 90's. I guess it was because it was new to me and I was young... haha. Very cool collection!!

I agree it did seem more fun back then. Not sure why

 

[ViRGE]

Humina humina humina!

That's one heck of a collection. Nicely done.