Good news - bad news

**parrothead** · 02-23-2012, 09:18 AM

I got my first 486 CPU today.

It is not ceramic and it is soldered to the board. It is an i486 SL.

The same computer also had a 16M Ram "card" the size and shape of a credit card.

**PartTimeScrapper** · 02-23-2012, 09:34 AM

thats kinda cool. I never seen a ram card like that. You may have a rarity on your hands with that one. Everything I could find on quick search says they sell for $20 to $50 each.

**parrothead** · 02-23-2012, 04:03 PM

Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

thats kinda cool. I never seen a ram card like that. You may have a rarity on your hands with that one. Everything I could find on quick search says they sell for $20 to $50 each.

I could not find anything on them looking at E-bay. were you looking at a collector site?

**PartTimeScrapper** · 02-23-2012, 07:03 PM

Originally Posted by parrothead

I could not find anything on them looking at E-bay. were you looking at a collector site?

Nope did a bing shopping search after ebay search showed nothing. Then looked at the stores selling them.

**parrothead** · 02-23-2012, 07:54 PM

Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

Nope did a bing shopping search after ebay search showed nothing. Then looked at the stores selling them.

Selling and actually getting money for are two hugely different monsters. I will hold on to it even though I want to rip it wide open and see all of the gold in it.

**PartTimeScrapper** · 02-23-2012, 08:42 PM

Originally Posted by parrothead

Selling and actually getting money for are two hugely different monsters. I will hold on to it even though I want to rip it wide open and see all of the gold in it.

Yeah there was nothing in the completed listing when I looked thats why I went the web search way just to get a ballpark.

**Bear** · 02-23-2012, 10:00 AM

looks like laptop parts or something. is there a date, or a part number on the cpu ? I'm not positive, but it could be possible they made those on beyond their mainstream life? I found in working with project CURE there are many systems such as xray machines etc, in use all around the world that to this day use programs which will work on nothing else

ahhh, i looked back at the picture and see compaq right there, they got their name from making portable and then laptops

**AuburnEwaste** · 02-23-2012, 01:02 PM

Those 486 processors were still used up until just a few years ago in embedded systems. I am guessing the value is not in line with the ceramic ones, but I could never find an answer on it. They are readily available on Ebay in small lots.

**Bear** · 02-23-2012, 05:20 PM

did you try a search for the part number?

**parrothead** · 02-23-2012, 07:53 PM

Originally Posted by Bear

did you try a search for the part number?

Nope, but just did now. There is one listing for someone asking $35. Nothing under completed listings which is all that really counts.

**pcecycle** · 02-23-2012, 07:12 PM

The ram card was used as storage, not system memory. An early form of today's USB flash drives.

Mike

**parrothead** · 02-23-2012, 07:51 PM

Originally Posted by pcecycle

The ram card was used as storage, not system memory. An early form of today's USB flash drives.

Mike

I was thinking along the same lines. I think there is some built in RAM on this board. Maybe 16 or 32 meg or something like that.

Not going to mess with it right now, just going to set it aside for my future "history of the computer museum".

That would not be a bad project for us through pictures.

**PartTimeScrapper** · 02-24-2012, 06:07 AM

right. I know its not a exact price of what you can get for it. But its a ballpark of what people are trying to sell them for.

**faulguy** · 02-24-2012, 11:02 AM

Can any buyers give a ballpark price for the fiber backed 486 chips? I meant to bid on this ebay listing but got carried away with building a bench with my son and missed the end of the auction by a few minutes.
I've also ran into some like the one listed above on some old compaq laptops and some old apple laptops (although I don't think I ever figured out exactly which of the cards from the apple ones contained the chip - there were about 6 extra boards besides the main motherboard...) I just tossed them in with the motherboards when I sold to my local buyer. I should've saved them until I had a decent amount to sell them to a better informed buyer...

**Dumpster-Dee** · 02-24-2012, 11:27 AM

Someone hit the jackpot for buying those for $26 !!

**AuburnEwaste** · 02-24-2012, 11:35 AM

If those were ceramic 486 that lot would have went for 120.00+. I would really like to know what the bottoms of those look like.

**faulguy** · 02-24-2012, 12:03 PM

Hm. It doesn't look like they had gold caps. They probably should go for green fiber, maybe better. Here's a link to one of the green fiber 486 chips.

**EcoSafe** · 02-24-2012, 12:16 PM

if you pull that chip off, I'm pretty sure, under it ,you will find a 1 to 3/4 inch gold square that will flake off with little effort.

**AuburnEwaste** · 02-24-2012, 01:29 PM

I think with the picture Faulguy posted it looks like these should go as at least black fiber. That looks like heavier gold plating than the green/brown fiber.