VOGONS


What retro activity did you get up to today?

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Reply 13000 of 28625, by FAMICOMASTER

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The only way you're going to damage a CRT with an improper video signal is if you have an improperly wired connector or you manage to put too much power through the signals. If you somehow put, say, an RGBI signal into a VGA monitor, then you'll likely end up damaging the monitor's electronics.

CRT televisions are designed for one resolution and one scan rate. They operate at a fixed frequency and only interpret the signals coming into them. Monitors with a fixed frequency are much more forgiving of improper signals, they'll just interpret whatever they're being given.

You can't damage your television by plugging a PAL game console into an NTSC set, and those timings are *wildly* off. An improper video signal will cause the picture to lose color, roll, or just be generally unrecognizeable if the monitor doesn't simply cut off.

Reply 13002 of 28625, by FAMICOMASTER

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derSammler wrote:

"Older CRTs"

Most televisions from the 1950s have protection against these problems. If your computer monitor doesn't at least some built in protection against this, it's probably not approved for sale in the United States and you probably should look into getting something else.

Any even halfway decently engineered monitor will have protection against this, and if not, the driving transistors will overheat and die long before the coil does or the tube is damaged. Driving transistors are cheap and easy to replace.

Old monitors are considerably more resilient than most seem to think.

Television picked up out of a desert trash heap that was repaired relatively quickly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQv64DlSuWE
Television abandoned in a disused mine that was repaired with the mouse nest still in it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc8EYLpOvS4
Another set abandoned in the desert made to work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSRuGtpmBs4

There's no way a decently engineered monitor will be damaged by a bad signal. There's always some sort of cutoff electronics which either stop it from locking on or blank the picture.

Reply 13003 of 28625, by Thermalwrong

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Thanks guys

That was quite educational - the reason I panic is that this is my potentially unreplaceable Dell Trinitron monitor and I did get an out of range message a couple of times, but it's good to know it's unlikely to have real problems running a standard VGA card 😀

Reply 13004 of 28625, by Duouk2000

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I got sucked into GTA 3 for the first time in years. It's still a damn good game.

Reply 13005 of 28625, by MrSmiley381

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I went on a 286 repair binge. Specifically, the machine would work fine except the onboard speaker header didn't work. No beeps, not from the POST, nor from Duke Nukem.

Originally, I tried tracing the connections all over the board to see if there were any broken traces. There were some rough traces but I eventually abandoned that endeavor and looked elsewhere. I learned that tapping the OUT 2 from the chipset works but not really; you'll get sound but after the first sound effect plays it'll leave a constant hum. Well, that's no good. So I traced further and found the AND gate that properly controls the speaker output. Tapped that and sound worked! And then the machine would lock every time. Turns out you need an open-collector gate to properly handle the signal. Maybe that's why the traces on the board go cold on the AND gate's output point, next to a ground pin and another pin that... ends at another dead end with three solder points? And one of those solder points connects to P17 on the P8242 chip on the board? And the other pin connects to a series of traces that dead-end at a point where a capacitor is marked but not soldered, which if bridged or replaced would complete a circuit to the speaker output pin, even though that same speaker output pin also traces back to where I saw a series of damaged traces..

Oh hell. I got the thing to output some speaker audio well enough and it even routes through the Blasterboard fine. I tried making a filter capacitor circuit but everything went silent with the capacitor in place. I'll take any recommendations at this point. I feel like I've learned something about hardware and troubleshooting that I never meant to. It feels good but it sure was a pain in the ass.

I spend my days fighting with clunky software so I can afford to spend my evenings fighting with clunky hardware.

Reply 13006 of 28625, by gex85

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Replaced the tactile switches on my SC-55. Although I feel the new switches have slightly too much resistance, everything works really well again. 😎

My retro computers

Reply 13007 of 28625, by bandicoot67

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I did a search on it and i think this is the safest place for it. Hardcore old school gamer's will see the irony in these pics.
Was recently given three PS3's and a Wii with a bunch of games. Cleaned them up, two of the PS3's worked. Modified them so they breathe easier. Then started looking at some PS3 history. The first thing i couldn't help but notice with these slim PS3's(MkII's?) is that they have similar design lines when sitting next to this old 3DO-FZ10. Intriguing me thinks. They do say look to the past to predict the future? I don't know where i heard that said.
Now, im all for the whole "backward compatible game" thing and do understand there are limits moving forward, but i was also one of the fools who bought the 3DO in the first place believing the adds when they told us it was a "Future Proof" system, ...that was ultimately doomed to fail. The M2 (Bulldog) along with the 32bit "expansion" pack for the original 3DO were never going to work. Didn't matter how many fancy polygon pushing RISC chips you put under the hood when the choke point is a redundant 2x speed CD-ROM drive 😒

Well, it seems this model PS3 won't run PS2 games, yet all PS3's run all of the first playstation games? So i rustled up my old PS disc collection and found a couple of Playstation "Studio 3DO" releases to test. It gave me a brief momentary nostalgic flash back. Then the anger rage eventually set in, once i remembered these titles and more, were originally scheduled for 3DO release before myself and many others got rather unceremoniously abandoned by Trip Hawkens. I had such high hopes back in the 90's when both of my ears worked properly...but then i lost count of how many nights i cried myself to sleep over losing my mojo 🙁

One more for the useless information department while im here, the old 32bit 3DO was apparently the first game console to sport an internal fan for cooling, you know...if you felt the need to play it for days on end at a time. 😊

Reply 13008 of 28625, by OldCat

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I finally had a bit of time for myself and played a bit with my two Dell M70 laptops... only to discover, one has a screen that has aged much worse than the other:

The attachment 2x_Dell_M70.jpg is no longer available

Or maybe they are indeed different? It almost looks like the left one is TN and the right one IPS. Theoretically, they both are the same model with the same resolution 1680x1050. In practice, though, the difference is staggering. Anyone has any suggestions or opinions why is that so?

The Windows install base and drivers are the same in both cases.

Reply 13009 of 28625, by Murugan

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Cleaned and tested my Olivetti M240 + Olivetti EGA screen (I was really happy to get the last one)
The first few attempts it came to life once or twice, HD was not detected etc...
Today, the PC boots fine and the HD decided to work too 😀 It makes an unhealthy sound at boot but then it goes buttery smooth.
EGA screen seems to work fine too!
Gave the 5 1/4 drive a head cleaning and some greasing on the rails, works like a charm.

Here is my set now:

23IVJrnl.jpg

Adding an Adlib clone and maybe xt-ide seems to be ideal to make this my XT workhorse. I have IBM 5150 and 5160 but no 5154. I like to have things as a set :p OCD 😊

My retro collection: too much...

Reply 13010 of 28625, by Cyrix200+

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Murugan wrote:
Cleaned and tested my Olivetti M240 + Olivetti EGA screen (I was really happy to get the last one) The first few attempts it cam […]
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Cleaned and tested my Olivetti M240 + Olivetti EGA screen (I was really happy to get the last one)
The first few attempts it came to life once or twice, HD was not detected etc...
Today, the PC boots fine and the HD decided to work too 😀 It makes an unhealthy sound at boot but then it goes buttery smooth.
EGA screen seems to work fine too!
Gave the 5 1/4 drive a head cleaning and some greasing on the rails, works like a charm.

Here is my set now:

23IVJrnl.jpg

Adding an Adlib clone and maybe xt-ide seems to be ideal to make this my XT workhorse. I have IBM 5150 and 5160 but no 5154. I like to have things as a set :p OCD 😊

Lovely. I have almost finished restoring my M24, also with the EGA monitor. Mine was so dirty not all the stains will go out though 🙁

1982 to 2001

Reply 13011 of 28625, by derSammler

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FAMICOMASTER wrote:
derSammler wrote:

"Older CRTs"

Most televisions from the 1950s have protection against these problems.

You apparently did not take the time to read more than a single sentence from that link. Televisions are not affected, since unlike with everything up to VGA, the video signal for a TV does not drive the tube directly and hence you can not damage a TV this way.

Also, "older CRTs"..? Of course, what do you think we are talking about here? It should be obvious to ANYONE that none of this applies to digitally-controlled monitors at all.

Reply 13012 of 28625, by appiah4

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OldCat wrote:
I finally had a bit of time for myself and played a bit with my two Dell M70 laptops... only to discover, one has a screen that […]
Show full quote

I finally had a bit of time for myself and played a bit with my two Dell M70 laptops... only to discover, one has a screen that has aged much worse than the other:

2x_Dell_M70.jpg

Or maybe they are indeed different? It almost looks like the left one is TN and the right one IPS. Theoretically, they both are the same model with the same resolution 1680x1050. In practice, though, the difference is staggering. Anyone has any suggestions or opinions why is that so?

The Windows install base and drivers are the same in both cases.

One of them probably has a backlight that has been used considerably more.

For such LCD screens life duration is often defined as the screen retaining at least 50% of its full brightness out of the gate.

The one on the right probably saw a lot more use. If there is diagnostic info in the BIOS (ie. uptime, runtime etc.) check it out.

Reply 13013 of 28625, by Murugan

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Cyrix200+ wrote:
Murugan wrote:
Cleaned and tested my Olivetti M240 + Olivetti EGA screen (I was really happy to get the last one) The first few attempts it cam […]
Show full quote

Cleaned and tested my Olivetti M240 + Olivetti EGA screen (I was really happy to get the last one)
The first few attempts it came to life once or twice, HD was not detected etc...
Today, the PC boots fine and the HD decided to work too 😀 It makes an unhealthy sound at boot but then it goes buttery smooth.
EGA screen seems to work fine too!
Gave the 5 1/4 drive a head cleaning and some greasing on the rails, works like a charm.

Here is my set now:

Adding an Adlib clone and maybe xt-ide seems to be ideal to make this my XT workhorse. I have IBM 5150 and 5160 but no 5154. I like to have things as a set :p OCD 😊

Lovely. I have almost finished restoring my M24, also with the EGA monitor. Mine was so dirty not all the stains will go out though 🙁

Same here. But I'm going to have another go at the monitor with the magic sponge 😀 It seems also a bit yellowed but as long as it's clean....
My M290 has a relative to talk too now :p
Just a 5154 and I can make an IBM set too! This is really my unicorn it seems.

My retro collection: too much...

Reply 13014 of 28625, by OldCat

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Murugan wrote:
Here is my set now: […]
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Here is my set now:

23IVJrnl.jpg

What's the game pictured?

Reply 13015 of 28625, by Cyrix200+

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OldCat wrote:
Murugan wrote:
Here is my set now: […]
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Here is my set now:

23IVJrnl.jpg

What's the game pictured?

Kings Quest I think, not sure of the version. 3? OP will know 😀

1982 to 2001

Reply 13016 of 28625, by Murugan

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Look at the box in the left corner 😉

But Cyrix is correct 😀

My retro collection: too much...

Reply 13017 of 28625, by FAMICOMASTER

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OldCat wrote:

Or maybe they are indeed different? It almost looks like the left one is TN and the right one IPS. Theoretically, they both are the same model with the same resolution 1680x1050. In practice, though, the difference is staggering. Anyone has any suggestions or opinions why is that so?

Dell has a tendency to source display panels from different companies all the time. It's likely that, if one isn't just higher hour than the other, that they came from different manufacturers who used different materials.

I have five Toshiba Librettos and all five have different models of LCDs, despite all being 640x480 active matrix.

Reply 13018 of 28625, by FAMICOMASTER

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derSammler wrote:
FAMICOMASTER wrote:
derSammler wrote:

"Older CRTs"

Most televisions from the 1950s have protection against these problems.

You apparently did not take the time to read more than a single sentence from that link. Televisions are not affected, since unlike with everything up to VGA, the video signal for a TV does not drive the tube directly and hence you can not damage a TV this way.

Also, "older CRTs"..? Of course, what do you think we are talking about here? It should be obvious to ANYONE that none of this applies to digitally-controlled monitors at all.

No, I repeat, absolutely NO CRT computer monitor is driven directly by the video card. There are exactly ZERO video cards which produce high voltage deflection and bias signals onboard - Everything is generated inside the monitor. There is always at least SOME kind of buffer internally to translate the TTL signals (RGBI) or analog voltages (VGA) to the deflection of the electron beam and the bias on the grid of the tube.

Again: There are ZERO video cards capable of producing several hundreds of volts to drive a CRT directly. In any IBM compatible. Even portable machines have their high voltage electronics completely separate from the computer. The video card will NEVER control the CRT directly. EVER.

If your monitor is set to only display at one frequency, it's internal construction is probably not much different from a television which also operates at one set frequency.

Last edited by FAMICOMASTER on 2019-09-30, 20:20. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 13019 of 28625, by FAMICOMASTER

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Murugan wrote:

It makes an unhealthy sound at boot but then it goes buttery smooth.:

Unhealthy sound meaning what? Some drives will make whining or grinding sounds while spinning up because of dry bearings causing the motor to get up to speed slowly - The heads don't float for longer and they ride against the surface of the disk. If it was parked properly, it shouldn't matter that much.

Otherwise, the sounds are probably normal for an old MFM / RLL disk drive. They all make weird buzzing, beeping, clunking, and squeaking sounds when they're spinning up and then generally quiet down once they're operating.

For example:
Seagate ST277-R1
https://youtu.be/DBNi8VpuIq4
Miniscribe 3650
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMpa4h_SRmI
Maxtor with dry bearings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExSGjrmxwQc

Probably nothing to be worried about, more than likely it's just a seek test or head calibration before it's ready.

Beautiful setup by the way! It's an XT class, is it a normal 8088 or is it a V20? Got a coprocessor?