3DO ZONE Forums

I want to dedicate this thread to my plan/project, building a PC with a 3DO Blaster card!

Most important ingredient: Creative Labs 3DO Blaster card
I have at least 3 of those cards, all untested and all potentially dead,
since none of them have ever been tested by me.

As for now they are NOT for sale - I might think about it once I have a machine up and running and tested them all!

Eep, I just realized I "only" have 2 boards here - in the US!
The rest most likely is still in one of several already packed packages at a friends house over in Germany, waiting to be shipped!
(moved over a few months ago)

Here is some proof... 2 cards, inner boxes, controllers and cables.
http://h8h.org/jan/moeb/DSC00759_resize.JPG
http://h8h.org/jan/moeb/DSC00760_resize.JPG

I also have a few Creative / Panasonic CDR-563B CD-Roms in the garage, already shipped over from Germany
and a couple of compatible Creative Soundblaster cards.

Sorry for my English - after all, I am German...

Here is a bit of my plan:

Moherboard:
IBase MB 800 or MB820
( I have several of both flying around - RMA returns, untested,
potentially dead - but had good experiences with other IBase RMA stuff

http://www.ibase.com.tw/mb800.htm
http://www.ibase.com.tw/mb820.htm

It is a P4 based motherboard, meant for the industry where you might want to combine old ISA hardware
(like a 3DO Blaster *g) with the power of a P4.
Yes, I know, the P4 wont do anything, playing 3DO games, but having a 2Ghz 3DO sounds cool
and with multi-boot (the Blaster Software requires Win3.11) I also might want to use the machine for MAME.
Case
Standard 4U rackmount case - short version!
Its sturdy, boxy and with the front handles you can also carry it around easily.
Soundcard
Creative Soundblaster AWE32
CD-Rom
There is only one choice - Creative / Panasonic / Matsushita CDR-563B
Harddrive
Something with 80-120GB - mainly for all MAME crap
Graphics
Well, I need a card with a 26pin VGA feature connector.
The fastest cards you find are for AGP and have ~32MB Ram.
Because of drivers etc. I might have to go for 2 separate cards.
An old PCI card with good Win3.11 drivers an something with decent acceleration for Mame.

I have no real Win3.11 experience and NO idea if this will work out.
Biggest problem I can see right now are the drivers & comparability of some listed hardware with Win3.11.

Be patient with me! It might take 2-3months to get it up & running!

Please feel welcome to post any comments, opinions, questions, information, etc. you have!

To avoid complications, you should probably stick to the requirements as much as possible. After all, the 3do Blaster was an unusual piece of hardware. A 3do on a board merely using your computer for input and output.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Compaq-486- ... dZViewItem

I'd pick up a machine like the one above to use exclusively (or at least test the cards). Of course, I wouldn't buy that one, wayyyyyyy too much money!

To avoid complications, you should probably stick to the requirements as much as possible.

True, but since I want both, 3DO and MAME, I will give the combination a try.
As you said - it merely interferes with the rest of the PC - the Blaster, Soundcard and CD-Rom create some kind of sub-system within the PC.
As long as I create it as the manual says, I should be ok.
Once I got Win3.11 up and running without drivers & hardware problems, the 3DO should also do.

I volunteer at http://www.vscavengers.org, they have huge amounts of hardware - from the mid 80s to Pentium 4s, you have a chance to find it there. An old system would always be at hand.

But hmm.. your view at it has one more point! Since I have no clue if the cards are running,
I should build some bulletproof old system according to the requirements and go from there, once I have results!
Off to bed with me, lets hope I wake up convinced to go for the more practical solution.

Yeah as long as the criteria is met all should be good to go! I think the only difficulty in building a dual purpose machine will be the 3do blaster requiring a VGA Feature Connector, some kind of old vesa crap. That pretty much limits your video cards to really old AGP video cards at best. Unless you run dual video cards

This could be an interesting project for ya!