"Ultimately, you probably need someone who's used - or maybe is still using - really obsolete stuff. Maybe *Foolestroupe will be able to help if you bribe him with a tyranosaur bone?"

Well, John, funny you should choose to bring the topic of obscure TV cards...

A year or so ago, I was walking with a friend past a dumpster, and we saw an on PC sitting in there. It had no HD, but it was otherwise intact, including one RAM chip - (probably all the good working stuff had been removed!) - and an old sound card, and some sort of an unidentifiable TV tuner card.... The PC MB seems to be a P2 chip btw... no fan, just a heatsink... have been wanting to get the thing working... or even put that TV card (for Aussie standards) in a spare box... thanks everyone for the useful hints so far...

I have been wondering about trying to get some SW that can identify various weird obscure cards, and there used to be some web sites that would help identify various weird crap from numbers printed on the cards... I was told that there was often some sort of FCC licence code number on plug in PC cards that was very helpful for this purpose - this being for RFI noise emission level approval...

Btw, I was able thru Google itself to track down some useful info for some old 'micro-size' CB handsets, just from the Brand name and Model number...

I really want however, to get a Linux box working - it seems to be able to better identify 'old junk' on install than Windows... and I have a friend who needs to get a working sound card in her Fedora machine to replace the blown output section on her MB - more identification issues - no manuals you see...

I won't be going Vista, at all, at all, at all with my old HW, and the length of time that XP will be supported now makes it uneconomic to acquire... so I am currently studying up on the current state of Linuxes, being an old UNIX hacker from way back... I personally am looking for two types - one simple 'plug and play' for my friend, and one that I 'can tweak'...

BTW, I have noted that Intel have recently released the drivers for its P965 Express graphics adaptor chipset (which suitable motherboards handles Dual CPUs) for Linux Open Source.... :-) which means that should I be able to afford new HW, it will be far better to go Linux, than the Expensive MicroCrap path...


Oh, John, you were sending me up, again, eh, well, I'm not making all this up you know... ;-)

:-P

Some of us have very good financial reasons ...