Spent all day mapping out the SQ2500 Vortex 2 for an upcoming capacitor overhaul:

It's a pretty big bunch of caps and this was my first time, but it was actually fun for the most part.

brostenen wrote:

Pripyat too.... Man... The list goes on and on. […]
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Pripyat too.... Man... The list goes on and on.

Anyway.
Went to the toyshop today and bought two presents for my son. Totally retro, yet nothing to do with computers.
He is goig to get pokemon bedsheets and a pokemon figure. He just loves that shit.

The difference is that Pripyat was not a weather phenomenon.
The only part that the weather was playing was the direction of the spreading of further nuclear particles
Pripyat was human made.

Early this morning I made some progress on Ultima Underworld. Still on level 5, but got the haft of Caliburn, had Shak repair it into the Sword of Justice, then had Marrowsuck make me cool lava-walking boots out of the dragon scales and spider thread. Think I'm nearly done with level 5 now.

Then later this evening I got through Level 8: Steam on Far Cry and started level 9: Regulator.

My IBM 5150 has been having intermittent hard drive problems (it has a 3.5" 20MB Miniscribe MFM drive), so I over-confidently opened up the drive to see if it just needed the rails to be lubricated (I'd fixed a similar age 5.25" Miniscribe disk by doing this recently). It was pristine, so that was apparently not the problem. A tiny tiny bit of dust landed on the platters of course, which isn't as big of a deal with these old drives as with newer ones. So, I did what any normal human would do and lightly blew it away. Keep in mind, it was very very late and I was sleep deprived and had no business messing with these kinds of things in such a state... so when I blew the second time I apparently didn't notice the tiny bit of moisture on my lips and I managed to actually spit the tiniest bit on the stinking hard drive platter... >_<

Talk about failure...

After feeling incredibly stupid I looked up online the easiest way to clean a hard drive platter, because I was pretty sure that the hard surface and magnetic nature of the storage made it less prone to data loss by physical means. People suggested using isopropyl alcohol and Q-tips, so I tried that but it still left slight splotches, and when I tested the system it wouldn't load some of my games. So my next step was to use something that was better at removing all residue, so there I was, buffing a 10MB hard drive platter with a (brand new) microfiber lens cleaning cloth, dampened with isopropyl alcohol. In the end, it actually worked. It was an incredible waste of time because I think the problem actually lies in the poorly designed power connector on the drive, so the drive never needed to be opened... but I was able to load everything I needed to load during testing, and my 2 1/2 year old daughter was able to play Alley Cat in glorious CGA. She really grew to hate the bulldog in that game though and started yelling at him, so I had to cut her off... GOOD TIMES!

firage wrote:

Spent all day mapping out the SQ2500 Vortex 2 for an upcoming capacitor overhaul:

It's a pretty big bunch of caps and this was my first time, but it was actually fun for the most part.

I have one of these (and had one back ~2000 as well)... what kind of problems are you having that are leading you to recap it?

Nothing aside from some cosmetic dings on the caps, and it is already a fine quality card. Just happens I have extras going unused, so one is going to give up her original caps and probably the amps, too, in the name of science. 😀

Replaced all the Nichicon HM and HN series capacitors on a Intel D865GLC Motherboard, they were all bulged or had already vented. Nichicon messed up in the early 2000s by overfilling the entire series and thus they all fail.
Curiously the board still ran perfectly fine regardless.

Major pain in in butt this, massive ground planes and multi-layer PCBs do not lend well to hand soldering since the heat goes anywhere but the part you're working on.
I'm using a fairly high end Hakko soldering station but ideally you'd want a proper powered desoldering tool.

Spent the entire weekend moving house, seeing as 90% of my stuff is all retro , I consider that a Retro Activity 😜

Got my new workbench set up!!

FaSMaN wrote:

Spent the entire weekend moving house, seeing as 90% of my stuff is all retro , I consider that a Retro Activity 😜

Sounds like my week ☺

Might have to change my name to PhilsComputerHouse ☺

In the process of recapping a IBM 486 motherboard. Hope it all goes well.
So far, 50% done today. I have marked the old with color on top.
Using some good old-school lead tin. So easy to work with. 😜

Nobody hand solders lead-free unless held at gunpoint 😵 , 60/40 (and 63/37) are very much still the gold standard.

Put together a pc out of the am3 parts I bought awhile back to give to my step-brother as a Birthday present. One more person to drag into online gaming sessions muwhaha.

brostenen wrote:

In the process of recapping a IBM 486 motherboard. Hope it all goes well.
So far, 50% done today. I have marked the old with color on top.
Using some good old-school lead tin. So easy to work with. 😜

Hey, I think that's the same board I have! Do you have documentation for it?

I haven't tried it yet, but I may get back to you for jumper settings etc. if you don't mind.

oerk wrote:

Hey, I think that's the same board I have! Do you have documentation for it?

I haven't tried it yet, but I may get back to you for jumper settings etc. if you don't mind.

This is on the backside of the case cover.... Hope you can use it.
I have not resized the pictures, so they are easy to read, though a bit big.

brostenen wrote:

This is on the backside of the case cover.... Hope you can use it.
I have not resized the pictures, so they are easy to read, though a bit big.

Yes, absolutely! Thanks a lot!

You wouldn't happen to know what the "5V/3.3V jumper" looks like, right? I suspect it's a small PCB with a voltage regulator on it, since the board doesn't appear to have one, but that is only speculation.

Nope... Sorry. 🙁
I think it is controlled by the row of jumpers, found on the edge of the board, close to the CPU.
Otherwise, I have no clue. Mine is set up to a Dx2-66. (Factory default)

Did a little house keeping and sorted through some of my rare book collection, mostly 19th century and some early 20th. Creepy even got a book that was printed the same year the Titanic sank but some of this collection can't even be found on google wow.

I played some Epic Pinball this morning before going to work. Man, the music for the Deep Sea table kinda reminds me of the Fletch theme song. 🤣

built a new workbench, so now I have room to put my ISA boxes on the shelf!

now I dont have to futz about on the floor with backplanes and cords! whoooo.