Re: CD Drive repair?

Posted on 2015-10-26, 10:57

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It really depends on what's failed. If plastic gears in the mech have stripped themselves or the laser is burnt out/lens is damaged there's not much you can do without a donor unit. I did fix a NEC drive once where the arm that holds the lens carriage to the rails snapped off. Just superglued it …

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Re: Tandy TL/2

Posted on 2015-10-26, 10:35

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Installed a Noctua NF-R8 1200rpm fan in the PSU. This one's almost inaudible but seems to push a reasonable amount of air. http://i.imgur.com/pg3PR6Rl.jpg Also fit the Gotek and managed to get it hooked up using the original floppy cable & 3.5 drive. The Tandy has 5V on pins 3,5,9 & 11 and 12V on 29 …

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Re: What do you drive?

Posted on 2015-10-26, 10:16

by

by bjt

in Milliways

in Milliways

^ Need more pictures :lol: That E30 is badass. Liking the styling on the Buenos Aires metro. And good to see the US gas guzzlers still going, what is that Jeep? 5.7L V8? 2007 BMW 130i (hauling arse to the office car... 3.0 litre I6) & 2008 Ford Focus 1.8 (child transporting appliance) http://i.imgur …

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Re: eBay's Global Shipping Programme - Opinions?

Posted on 2015-10-23, 09:13

by

by bjt

in Milliways

in Milliways

Thanks for the input all. It sounds like the effect of the GSP is very much dependant on location. The US-Canada thing is crazy, I would never have thought GSP applied within North America. Although there may be some positive side effect for some people, GSP is ultimately anti-competitive. I can …

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Re: Tandy TL/2

Posted on 2015-10-22, 14:57

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Thanks! I got the 287 from this Chinese seller who has several: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261491056000 Seems to work fine.

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eBay's Global Shipping Programme - Opinions?

Posted on 2015-10-22, 09:50

by

by bjt

in Milliways

in Milliways

Recently I've started to change my opinion of eBay's Global Shipping Programme. Originally I saw it as a cynical attempt to capture a slice of the postage costs associated with each transaction, and I expected it to inflate postage costs on international purchases. However, I can definitely see some …

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Re: Tandy TL/2

Posted on 2015-10-22, 09:05

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Some good progress yesterday. Mainly cleaning, but also installed a 287 and fixed the floppy drive. I also caved in and bought a Tandy Enhanced Keyboard from US eBay, as I'm using the Model F from my XT right now. Rocking the 287! More or less pointless, but for a few quid why not? http://i.imgur. …

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Re: Tandy TL/2

Posted on 2015-10-21, 09:35

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Good to know, thanks!

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Re: Tandy TL/2

Posted on 2015-10-20, 10:27

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Upgraded the memory to 768k. This prevents the Tandy graphics from stealing conventional memory. On the TL/2, there are 4 sockets for 64k x 4 120ns DRAM. No other changes are required. Case off http://i.imgur.com/ybqBpwNl.jpg Empty & populated http://i.imgur.com/8gUvo6Pl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/ …

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Re: Flashing the Gotek floppy emulator with HxC firmware

Posted on 2015-10-19, 10:14

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In file selector mode the Gotek has a number of 'slots' which can each have an image file (.HFE) assigned to them. There are no naming requirements for the images. The file selector software is used to assign images to the slots. You can then change slot using the buttons on the Gotek. The slot …

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Re: At long last...... the finish line appears

Posted on 2015-10-19, 09:18

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Nice system! Admire your restraint in not going straight for the 233MMX. 166 will be plenty I imagine. Hearing you on the NVidia card for 2D. Really good VESA support and great image quality. All the S3 cards I tried, with the exception of the terminally buggy Savage 4, had crap image quality. There …

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Re: Flashing the Gotek floppy emulator with HxC firmware

Posted on 2015-10-18, 07:42

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Glad it helped. Sound like the PC-98 has a few special behaviours with Gotek compared to a regular PC. I'm not at all familiar with PC-98, I wonder though why it doesn't work with normal mode/file selector?

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Re: Flashing the Gotek floppy emulator with HxC firmware

Posted on 2015-10-15, 22:44

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yep, Gotek. I was definitely able to boot a 360k floppy on mine.

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2015-10-15, 14:52

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Installed a 512k RAM/512k ROM upgrade to my Amstrad CPC 😎 Now I can run this awesome demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqjZNnjNu3Y BATMAN!

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Re: Flashing the Gotek floppy emulator with HxC firmware

Posted on 2015-10-15, 09:47

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Actually it supports loads of formats, I've tested it personally with 360k, 720, 1.2MB, 1.44MB and Amstrad CPC disks.

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Re: Tandy TL/2

Posted on 2015-10-14, 11:43

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Wonder what the logic on that daughterboard actually does. I use the diagnostic header on the SB in my XT to get a speaker out, but it's a direct connection in that case. For the TL/2, I could see the following working: Tandy line/speaker out -> SB line in or CD in -> Internal speaker via diagnostic …

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Re: Best motherboard chipset for Cyrix 6x86?

Posted on 2015-10-13, 07:16

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Back in the day FIC PA-2007 was a screamer with the 6x86... VP2 with linear burst.

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Re: Flashing the Gotek floppy emulator with HxC firmware

Posted on 2015-10-13, 07:13

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just buy the cheapest one with 3 digits on eBay. I usually just search for "floppy emulator" and go by picture. I have 3 now, on Amstrad, IBM XT and soon to be Tandy 1000. All working great and using the selector software to browse and switch images.

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Re: Tandy TL/2

Posted on 2015-10-12, 06:34

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Great info and thanks for the floppy offer, I will be in touch if I don't have any luck with my spares. Interesting about the sound cards. I have a spare YMF card but wasn't sure if it would work. May well put it in the Tandy then, and use the SB Pro in my XT. Ideally I'd like the SB sound to be …

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Re: Tandy TL/2

Posted on 2015-10-11, 22:31

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

The case has a pre-moulded slot for the floppy so I can't swap it out. Will try one of my other DD drives, failing that I think a HD drive can be modded.

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