Chip Stories

[Windmiller]

I think it would be fun to post interesting stories about finding chips. Maybe you bought a bunch of es for $10.00 or you found a box of NexGen, etc. You get the idea.

I know there are a few threads scattered about but I thought it would be fun to have them all in one thread.

[Cpuswe]

I bought this one at a local auction site in sweden at the very beginning of my collection career... The image was out of focus but from the text i could read that this was a Cyrix 686MX-PR200 75MHz Bus 2x. Since my collection at that time was reaching only 30 chips or so this was my first Cyrix.

Auction image...


When it arrived in the mail it looked like this...



I have only seen one more of this chip in the wild. The seller said he had found it at a flea market in the bottom of a box with electronic junk. Paid ~$10 incl shipping.

[chipcollector]

I was on ebay looking for an intel c8008, when a new listing had just popped up.

Asked the seller to put a buy it now, $100. Came in the mail and I received this



Turned out to be a military intel M8008. I've only seen 3 in existence, and mine is the rarest, with the gold strap, as well as the grey traces. I have a ton of other stories, this is only one, I'll post more when others do. Don't want to hog the thread

[Windmiller]

Nice!! Keep em coming!

[Chiefish]

Well you guys have witnessed my story, i bought a lot of chips off of ebay and find one noones ever seen before. It wasnt even in the picture of the auction lot. How much dumb luck can i have, i really didnt even know what it was when i placed my first bid on them i liked the other proms and chips i saw. But after recieving it i must say its a striking looking chip with the black and white print. So it seems to me that in the future there will still be plenty of stuff to be collected and shared with each other here.

[andamus]

About 2 years ago, like cpuswe I've bidded on an auction with a awful photo and I get this baby :

[FDIV]

It certainly isn't the best buy I have ever made or the prize of my collection but the strangest acquisition I ever made was finding this sx842 in a gateway Pentium 60 computer I bought at a garage sale at the local middle school. It just seemed strange to find such a very rare chip in the only computer they even had at the sale. Just sitting there among the old crappy work out equipment, children's books, vhs tapes, and cheap cookware. a non sequitur collecting moment if I ever had one.

[CPUShack]

I got a P4004 on ebay for $20 on accident (low ball bid)

Plane old P4004 nothing special, sold it a week later fot $202.50 on eBay

I also bought 6 C4040's from a professor at university. cost? $40 each

[Windmiller]

I wanted to revive this thread and see if we could get some more interesting stories posted.

[Windmiller]

bump

[Cutabove]

Well windmiller(and a few others) knows my story.I don't "collect" but I process gold out of computers.I recieved a call a few months back from a customers son,asking me if I wanted a bunch of computer stuff.When I arrived,it was most of the computers from a navy destroyer,most of which were fine.I have already found countless chips that were neat and some that were rare.I still need a lot of training in knowing what is what,but Ive learned a lot on the past month of being on here.My biggest regret is knowing how much super old stuff I have processed (or sold to be processed) that could have been worth so much.
Johnny

[Chook]

There's a computer shop I used to visit regularly about 8 years ago that had several bargain bins with old motherboards and assorted hardware and a cabinet containing many 2nd hand cpus. They had several socket 4 Pentiums there (I think I eventually bought their entire stock of those) among many other chips. I bought this chip there just becuase it had different print to the ones I already had. I only found what it was when I joined this forum last year.

[hugo929]

It happened about one year ago.
I found a Cyrix 6x86 100GP for sale at about $100, I bought it with no hezitation.
Then I waited for the reply of the seller.
Several days later I was told it was already sold to his friend
This is one of my sad stories

[iguana]

It was happened in 1997. And over the time of 10 years I didn't know how it was sad
Thenadays I earned some money by reselling computer accessories.
I got an order for 10pcs of K6-166.
I visited local wholesale store and a storeman shown me 10 BLACK K6 CPUs. I was wondered why they are black?
I didn't want to buy them! And he checked one of them on site - it was working well.
I bought 10 black K6 CPUs afair for $60 per chip and resold all of them for $62 next day.
Now I know that was a very sad story...
But! Which of you held in your hands 10pcs of K6 samples?

P.S. Nice thread, Windmiller!

[smithy]

I just picked up a couple of PII Xeon ES for $1 a piece.....made my day!