creepingnet wrote:

Started pulling out my 286 parts to put that back in it's original case and put the 486 guts back in the XT case becasue I bought a XT PSU (200 Watt) new in Box off E-Bay for a pretty good price I'm willing to pay.

XT... That's 8086 and 8088 stuff only, as far as I remember. Even 286 is AT.
One could argue that XT is 8-bit and AT is 16 or 32 bit. Or something like that.

I've managed to acquire a Sound Blaster CT2290 for the paltry sum of $27

I bought it Dec 16th but seller forgot to set their vacation and I finally heard back from them today. Sending it out immediately and issuing a full refund

So I got a Sound blaster for free 😊

now I just have to buy/build a machine with ISA slots to put it in 😠

brostenen wrote:

creepingnet wrote:

Started pulling out my 286 parts to put that back in it's original case and put the 486 guts back in the XT case becasue I bought a XT PSU (200 Watt) new in Box off E-Bay for a pretty good price I'm willing to pay.

XT... That's 8086 and 8088 stuff only, as far as I remember. Even 286 is AT.
One could argue that XT is 8-bit and AT is 16 or 32 bit. Or something like that.

The case makes not a licks worth of difference, the power supplies all provide the same voltages from the same connectors up to the ATX form factor stuff which is a whole other animal.

It's actually not too uncommon to see something faster than an 8088/8086 or 286 in an XT or full AT lay-flat desktop, a lot of those systems were upgraded to 386/486/early Pentium back in the day. I've done a lot of swaps like that over the last 17 or so years because I love the XT/full AT Form factor look more than the Baby AT stuff from the early 90's - plus that's all I have now because you can't even find Baby AT in the wild anymore. The one place in town who has one, does not want to sell it.

creepingnet wrote:

Or if I get stupid lucky and find this case again, I'm snagging it at almost any cost.... […]
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Or if I get stupid lucky and find this case again, I'm snagging it at almost any cost....

I had that case!

Before I took a hack saw to it... 😈

386_Junkie’s duo core 386; The modified Systempro!

Went to use my 1997 CTX laptop for the first time in several months today...only to have both screen hinges literally SHATTER when I tried to open the screen. No, they didn't break loose from the screen bezel or case frame, the pot metal in the hinges themselves just...exploded.

Computer still works of course...but now the screen won't stay standing, and the only thing still physically holding it to the case is the video cable. Doubt I can fix it. 😵

To be honest tho, I'm not surprised...because the exact same thing happened to my original CTX laptop when I had it back in the 90s. I guess if I absolutely want to, I can do what I did with that old system and use JB Weld on the hinges...but I'd prefer to avoid that since it wouldn't look good. :p

An entire day of flipping between some things and working on the 486.....

Installed Multi-I/O Controller Card - PTI-255W I believe it is. This messed a few things up on the system though b/c I had been running a FutureDomain Power IDE 4 channel ISA controller instead which had a custom driver for Windows 3.1x. So time to rebuild Windows for Workgroups 3.11 - not like that's a bad thing since my 3.1x installation had become quite bloated and chaotic from being used for over 4-5 years without a wipe and reload.

Got Windows 95 On there and use OSR2FIX to update 95 OSR2 to allow me to dual boot WFWG311 and Windows 95 off the same DOS Win95 uses.

A bunch of time was spent debugging the network drivers in Windows 95, for some reason Networking prefers the generic NE2000 compatible drivers to the actual LinkSys EtherFast PNP drivers I have on the OEM disks that came with it in the box, go figure. Also, WFWG prefers the opposite setup....whatever works I guess.

Currently finishing up on the 3.11 For Workgroups install - all drivers loaded except the network drivers, currently trying to install AfterDark 4.0 on it and start building back my program groups/items again. Not too much trouble since I keep all the installers on a higher partiton of the machine. Just a lot of finding "setup.exe" and the like.

So I got a Roland SC55-mkII for christmas from my lovely lady.

Some of you might know how I 3D model some of my gear... So I did this:

And just for the fun of it, here is something you'll never see:

Here's the links to the original imgur copies, if you want:

http://i.imgur.com/p6NfgfL.png - Original
http://i.imgur.com/2kzm85L.png - White

Wow those renderings look amazing! So detailed! How long did it take you to do that?

Malvineous wrote:

Wow those renderings look amazing! So detailed! How long did it take you to do that?

Thanks 🤣

I probably spent about a weeks worth of evenings (so maybe 5 or 6 hours?) to do that. Everything is measured from the real thing as I wanted it to be as accurate as I could get it. I still need to model the rear, but for now, it works 😊

Jawdrop every time.

Repaired the NEC monitor last night (SyncMaster JC-1402HMA), turns out the input logic board was CRACKED! Also some corrosion under the connector causing traces to lift, no wonder why I had to rattle the cable around to get this thing to work.

Did a nice little Point-to-Point wiring job between the pins on a brand new D-SUB and the other end of the traces they connected to and we are working for the most part now. Have not tried it on the Tandy 1000 yet but I plan to at some point this week or this weekend.

Also while at Vetco getting a new DB-9 for the monitor, I picked up another 486 Heatsink, and a pair of small fans that fit my on-motherboard power port for the CPU plus 2 back panel slats, getting ready to move the 486 back in the XT case once that replacement PSU arrives and I have time to do the case swap. Then it's time to find CRT for the other two PC.

The eventual plan is this....have all three PC on display with monitor, keyboard, and pointing devices at ready, and all networked, and all one has to do is walk up, power one on and go gaming or doing whatever.

Scraped my windscreen with a knackered socket 3 board as it was the only implement I could find for the task. Worked surprisingly well.

brassicGamer wrote:

Scraped my windscreen with a knackered socket 3 board as it was the only implement I could find for the task. Worked surprisingly well.

20170119_074722-1200x2133.jpg

No man 😲 Now the glass is scratched. Old car?

Skalabala wrote:

brassicGamer wrote:

Scraped my windscreen with a knackered socket 3 board as it was the only implement I could find for the task. Worked surprisingly well.

20170119_074722-1200x2133.jpg

No man 😲 Now the glass is scratched. Old car?

14 years old - no scratches 😀

Made a few adjustments to the NEC MultiSync last night - I got rid of the blue hue, now POST shows up properly, and I can use 320X200 and 640X480 modes without the H.Sync or V.Sync being off, turns out I put one of my patches too far ahead in the circuit.

However, have a new problem to debug, for some reason text is blue and turning up like some kind of v-sync problem (smeared sideways in 320x200, barely visible or messy in 80x25 text) when attached to a TTL device (Tandy 1000) so I'm thinking I may be off on a connection somewhere. Looking at the schematic, the DB-9 connector is attached to a electrically controlled switch/relay that switches which path the wiring is connected to based on what is attached to the monitor when it's powered on/plugged in. So I may have to move a few things around.

After it warms up it does need a little bit of focus/voltage adjustment needed, I know it's vintage but to preserve it's longevity I'll look to put some holes in the case so I can hit the focus/voltage pots without taking the back off, I don't feel right with 25KV openly available in my man cave.

brassicGamer wrote:

Skalabala wrote:

brassicGamer wrote:

Scraped my windscreen with a knackered socket 3 board as it was the only implement I could find for the task. Worked surprisingly well.

20170119_074722-1200x2133.jpg

No man 😲 Now the glass is scratched. Old car?

14 years old - no scratches 😀

Pretty new compared to the socket 3! 🤣

Today refused a very good offer. Was talking online with someone (local person) who offered me 550 euro for my boxed voodoo5 pci mac edition and (card only) voodoo5 pci! Both cards are working perfectly and i knew they were worth something but this was a BIG offer.... Don't want to let them go but will never see an offer like that again that's for sure! 😵 🤣

Also recieved a quadro fx1000 agp today (aka lower clocked fx5800 vanilla). Will test now and see if it works (fingers crossed).

Pretty new compared to the socket 3! 🤣

Got you beat on that, I have 2 vehicles - one of them is AS old as a Socket 3 - I really should restomod that thing and throw a 486 based Car-Puter in it, 🤣.,

creepingnet wrote:

Pretty new compared to the socket 3! 🤣

Got you beat on that, I have 2 vehicles - one of them is AS old as a Socket 3 - I really should restomod that thing and throw a 486 based Car-Puter in it, 🤣.,

Hah - that reminds me of looking on the web of projects back in 1999 where people were installing a PC in their car powered via an inverter so they could listen to MP3s.

TTL on the NEC MultiSync is fixed, just forgot one little wire to patch the new DB-9 in.1

Also started a blog and posted the full repair there.

http://creepingnet2017.blogspot.com/

Actually planning a new build, this time based on this socket 478 Gigabyte motherboard, for XP era gaming or 'new' re-proposal of old classics, like Freespace or others:

Gigabyte GA-8PE667 Ultra:

What VGA would be a good and correct choice, for this model?