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[Olecranon]

I'm speechless how much this is going for :-o

Phase 5 Blizzard PPC

[dillinger]

yep. That is a - what - 11 year old piece of outdated hardware? You could buy a brand new 1GHz PPC based Pegasos for that.

The words lost grip and reality spring to mind.

[dnelsonfl]

I'd be a little concerned about that brand-new 0-feedback Ebayer pushing up the price (registered 8/8). Probably nothing, I mean we all had to start somewhere at 0-feedback. Or maybe I'm just too cautious. :-D

[dillinger]

yeh, Mr. 0 Rating from Turkey does seem a little suspect. Well, at least he is serving a purpose - seems to be whipping the other guys up into some kind of rabid bidding frenzy. You'd think they'd pace themselves and wait until a little closer to the end. Play it tactical-like :-)

I think what we are about to witness is known as group panic and hysteria. :-P

[bloodline]

When I see stuff like this, it makes me want to sell mine :-(

[weirdami]

Isn't that more than they costed new?

[PulsatingQuasar]

The price can be partialy explained because of:

- it's the fastest model there is;
- it has SCSI;
- it is rev2 board whilst so, so, so many are not.

Especially the last part is interresting for someone that wants to use a Grex in the best way.

[justthatgood]

The Price can be explained fully:

-Some people have way too much time on their hands
-They can't bare to live without
-They have TOO much money on their hands.

Geez, for $755, I would actually be eating. I guess it takes a bout of poverty to actually see how foolish many people are with their money, and to realize the materialistic gluttony many people have succumbed too.

[dillinger]

"- it is rev2 board whilst so, so, so many are not.

Especially the last part is interresting for someone that wants to use a Grex in the best way."

That's probably the most _unimportant_ aspect of any BPPC card, unless for some strange reason you feel you must have G-Rex support. And who would be silly enough to attach a BPPC card to a busboard that has been known to _fry_ cards in the past. But then I guess you could argue who would be silly enough to pay $750 for ancient electrical hardware too!! All revisions work perfectly with any other busboard. (Mediator, etc) So anyone who finds value in BPPC board-revision numbers does not know much about the card to begin with.

Actually, the most "interesting" thing for me about this particular auction would be the fact that the board was originally a 040 based BPPC which has had a 060 hacked on. If you take a close look at the colour tone of that 060 cpu you will see it is a light mauve colour. Original BPPC card 68k chips were all a much darker tone. They also had the Motorola logo printed near the top edge and an angled "half-square" to the left of that, this one doesn't. The 060 chip in this auction is not standard Phase5/DCE issue. Perhaps this is why there are no photos showing the underside of the board where the 060 CPU resoldering job could be seen! :-)

Take a look at the seller's purchase history and you will spot the ORIGINAL 040 BPPC card which was almost certainly used in the "hack job" imo. £130 he paid for that! So not a bad profit margin there I'd say :-) The bidders should just prey that he has done a better job than in the past with the hack and that really THIS card is not one he forgot to include in one of his previous"Spare Parts" auctions. Seems he has screwed-up the hack once or twice in the past (RIP) :-) Which is not difficult to do

If I was insane enough to spend this type of cash on an old accelerator, it would have to be in absolute _perfect_ condition, boxed, with manuals - not a dodgy hack-job! After all, these eBay-loonies are going to endup paying MORE for it than it would have cost to buy 12 years ago brand new. They seem to have no common sense!

[x56h34]

dillinger wrote:

That's probably the most _unimportant_ aspect of any BPPC card, unless for some strange reason you feel you must have G-Rex support. And who would be silly enough to attach a BPPC card to a busboard that has been known to _fry_ cards in the past. But then I guess you could argue who would be silly enough to pay $750 for ancient electrical hardware too!! All revisions work perfectly with any other busboard. (Mediator, etc) So anyone who finds value in BPPC board-revision numbers does not know much about the card to begin with.

I'd use Grex1200 over Mediator any day. No 8MB ZII window is a huge advantage, not to mention the local BPPC bus which makes Grex1200 run faster even than Mediator 3000/4000. If you have proper installation spacers for your tower case, a rubber spacer that you paste over one of the CIA chips, and a rubber spacer that you paste over one of the chip ram memory chips (all supplied with Grex), a rev 2 BPPC card updated to Grex 2.2 firmware, supposing that you plug everything correctly, then all will work fine, stable, and nothing will be fried. People who fried their PPC cards were obviously users who never even had a rev 2 BPPC in the first place or didn't correctly plug in the PCI board to the logic board connectors, or didn't have right spacers installed or any spacers at all.

True, Grex is not for everyone as you really need a hard to find rev 2 BPPC card, but if you have it, then there's no reason why not to use it.

Rev 2 PPC cards supposedly also have a better power management system, so they should be more reliable than rev 0 cards. This is in fact one of the reasons why Grex1200 2.2 firmware requires a rev 2 card.

Actually, the most "interesting" thing for me about this particular auction would be the fact that the board was originally a 040 based BPPC which has had a 060 hacked on. If you take a close look at the colour tone of that 060 cpu you will see it is a light mauve colour. Original BPPC card 68k chips were all a much darker tone. They also had "Motorola" printed near the top edge and an angled "half-square" to the left of that, this one doesn't. The 060 chip in this auction is not standard Phase5/DCE issue. Perhaps this is why there are no photos showing the underside of the board where the 060 CPU resoldering job could be seen! :-)

100% agreed on this part. It's obviously a conversion job. The MC68060RC50 chip is a dead giveaway. Perhaps if AmigaFrance did the job, then it may not be so bad at all as JJB does an amazing job with these conversions. He even installs a socket for the 060 chip. ;-)

[Lando]

Looking at photo 3, he's put too much thermal paste on the PPC. Just a little ball a few mm in size would be enough.

[ElZorro]

755 us dollars or 400 GBP is about 680 euro.

This is redicules! :-? I do not get it.
Why so fast? Why to obtain a speed matching the PC?
Fot this price you van buy a 1GHz PC with a lot of options!

But I guess it is like pieces from the local museum:
rare, hard to find, special way of conserving (keep it in good condition), searched by freaks (with mo money) and from another century and culture.

I always saw my miggy as a part of wasting SPARE time, more like a HOBBY. If I have a hobby which will cost me more than 700 us dollar/400 GBP, my wife can not divorce me, because there is no money left :-D

Guys, be honest. Would you place your bid on this?
(Start the clock, you have 10 seconds......)

Frisby

[dillinger]

quite simply: no! tbh, I think this amazing price hike is all to do with AOS4. As its - supposed - release draws closer with no real signs of any new h/w to run it on, people see old rusting 240MHz BPPC cards as the only currently available hardware option for AOS4. They're all in a tizz-wozz to grab the last remaining few (literally whether they are dead or alive) and you see the bloody lunatic battles that ensue on eBay for yourself.

Anyhow, I have decided to jump the loonie-PPC-AOS4 Amiga ship and join the Pegasos2-PPC-MorphOS revolution! Fantastic OS, highly compatible with PowerUP Amigas and many times more power than any BPPC card.

[pedro7]

I think this is the icing on the cake:

Another Blizzard PPC card on ebay.

Same speed PPC + SCSI. The 68k is an 040. The bidding is red hot with 1 at £10

[whiteb]

Oh wow, and the zero feedback bidder, is a brand new bidder (august 06).. thats gotta be a shill bid account surely ?

I hope his fake account wins the auction lol.