Put a new screen in my Powerbook G4 - that now works fine. Ironic that the old girl came apart again with no troubles, yet my crappy Acer Aspire V5-531 was a nightmare. Pro tip: do NOT buy an Acer "thin and light" laptop. The build quality is atrocious, and so is the design.

Found a WD FileCard 30 for a good price on eBay, I'm gonna use it in my AT&T PC 6300 to replace the Seagate I used to have in there (which unfortunately self-destructed). This'll also allow me to put the second floppy drive back in the system since it doesn't use a bay.

BTW, does anyone happen to know the CHS parameters for this drive? I need to low-level format it, but without this info I won't be able to properly configure it. I know it's actually a Tandon drive, but looking up that model number brings up a 21MB drive, not 30MB.

dirkmirk wrote:

How much was that If you dont mind me asking, looks like an interesting device but the price is always tooooooo high.

About 10 EUR.
Too bad it did not came with passive ISA backplane 🙁

torindkflt wrote:

...

IMG_20151007_191624064.jpg

BTW, does anyone happen to know the CHS parameters for this drive? I need to low-level format it, but without this info I won't be able to properly configure it. I know it's actually a Tandon drive, but looking up that model number brings up a 21MB drive, not 30MB.

http://maben.homeip.net/static/S100/disk/spec … ive%20Specs.pdf

4 heads, 615 cylinders and 17 sectors. And yes, it is a 20MB MFM drive. The funny thing is, according to what I find, WD30IFC-1 should have a 30MB RLL drive on it. I think HDD is replaced. Please be aware of the fact that, a RLL controller is able to format a MFM HDD with 50% more capacity than advertised, (26 sectors instead of 17 if I remember correctly), but formatting a MFM drive with RLL encoding is NOT GOOD for your data reliability.

There is no such thing as a RLL drives.
All MFM drives can be formatted as MFM, or as RLL.
All you can talk about - that some drives is officially labelled to support write data with RLL encoding, but physically it's absolutely same device.
P.S. may be the only early MFM was buided with not good surface, and may have higher error rate, if RLL encoding is used. But for most MFM drives there is no affect.

easy_john wrote:

There is no such thing as a RLL drives.
All MFM drives can be formatted as MFM, or as RLL.
All you can talk about - that some drives is officially labelled to support write data with RLL encoding, but physically it's absolutely same device.

My mistake in wording. You are correct. But the thing I wanted to say is still same. The drives are physically same, but some (early, not RLL certified(?) ones) are sometimes not good enough to have 26 sectors instead of 17, and that results in data corruption (had that problem in my ST something 40MB MFM drives in the past, when the wise guy (which is me) formatted them with RLL encoding to 60MB).

Does reformatting an MFM drive as RLL change the number of cylinders? I thought doing so only changed the number of sectors per cylinder. I ask because FDISK 3.3 reports 939 cylinders, even after low-level formatting (It never asked me for the CHS parameters, so I presume it just reused the old parameters). I partitioned and formatted the drive under 3.3, then booted into 6.22 and ran ScanDisk with surface scan, no errors found. FDISK 6.22 reports a capacity of 30MB. I then installed the AT&T DOS 3.3, and it seems to be working perfectly fine. Only time will tell though if this remains so.

Obviously I cannot be 100% certain since this is flimsy reasoning, but the professional manner in which the power cables were ziptied together leads me to believe this drive was likely the original (They're not ziptied in the photos because I removed the drive from the bracket for power testing before installation). Perhaps this is one of the few MFM drives that can tolerate RLL formatting with no issues?

Got some REAL goodies today folks! 😎 😎 😎

Finally, a Gravis UltraSound ACE Rev 1.0 ISA (Boxed) (1994). Now if I could just find a boxed PNP or Extreme version....

How about a New-Old-Stock Yamaha MU10 (Hello!Music! MAC Packaging) (NOS) (1996) ?!?! Basically the module version of the well-known DB50XG daughterboard.

I just won this very nice SUPERMICRO S2DG2 dual Slot-2 board. 😀

The price ended up ~11 Euro + rather expensive 20 euro shipping from the UK but I think 31 euro total still is reasonable if not cheap.

I have never owned a Slot-2 system so its a new platform for me. 😀

The sellers image of the SUPERMICRO S2DG2

I bought a 286 two weeks ago because I wanted the case for a 486 build as I reused exactly the same model of case for a 486 build close to 21 years ago.

The 286 was made by a company named Moretec and had all its original parts. How can I be sure that its the original parts? Look at this image!

Matching numbers! 😀

I will keep all the parts so I can restore the 286 just as it was, It needed the battery replaced anyhow so I dont feel bad for dismanteling it.

Some people wanted to know who made the case, it has lots of Moretec stickers on it and the PSU is also branded Moretec, I doubt Moretec did either the case or PSU though.

Bought one of these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/252006128840?_trksid= … K%3AMEBIDX%3AIT anybody have any idea if it will support a Pentium D? In any case this looks like a great platform to build an overkill 9x box around or a solid XP/7 machine if you so desire.

ODwilly wrote:

it will support a Pentium D?

No.
Pentium 4/Celeron D only.

That ACE is a nice purchase... Keyword = The RAM upgraded. 😜

Gamecollector wrote:

ODwilly wrote:

it will support a Pentium D?

No.
Pentium 4/Celeron D only.

Oh well have a 3.0ghz Cedarmill chip to throw in it at least, one of the nice 65watt ones. $15 shipped can not really complain that is for sure! Have a 5950 Ultra to pair it with

Artex wrote:

Got some REAL goodies today folks! 😎 😎 😎
[goodies listed]

damn man, you get all the shiny stuff! 🤣 🤣 🤣

keropi wrote:

Artex wrote:

Got some REAL goodies today folks! 😎 😎 😎
[goodies listed]

damn man, you get all the shiny stuff! 🤣 🤣 🤣

Hahah! You KNOW this! 😀

Lol...Artex is always a hard act to follow.

Great finds Artex!!

Here is my sad addition (next to your finds) for this week to my retro collection.

A simple 386 motherboard with AMD 386-SXL 25 CPU and 4MB RAM . Missing the co-processor 😢 , but no big deal, will still make a nice retro system for WC and old sierra games one day.

Paid $10 for it as part of a complete desktop system.

@Artex

Nice finds! I also have a boxed Gravis Ultrasound ACE. I also have a MAX, but i would really like a boxed classic.

The compact MU modules are awesome.

Try playing some XG midis with it and you'll see it really shining. It's already good in games but XG stuff is just beautiful.

retrofanatic wrote:

Lol...Artex is always a hard act to follow.

Great finds Artex!!

Thanks! I don't always post retro stuff, but when I do, I make it count! 😎 Go big or go home right?!

carlostex wrote:

@Artex Try playing some XG midis with it and you'll see it really shining.

I'm very excited to hear some actual XG stuff - I love the GM output of the DB50XG but never actually tried any XG material!

72 CPUs/FPUs arrived today. Mostly Intel 386 & 486. About $100 for all of them.

Pics in this thread: Rare CPUs