I had a wonderful time with Windows ME. As with all OSes, it's primarly a matter of good driver support. Especially on old Windows.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2022-11-14, 18:47:

I had a wonderful time with Windows ME. As with all OSes, it's primarly a matter of good driver support. Especially on old Windows.

I fondly remember having to repair a good number of installations of ME, was a wonderful time full of happiness and joy .. not a single bad word was ever said while repairing ME installations.

Thankfully as a retro OS its ok but its had a good number of updates and a ton of driver support added so its much better than it ever was upon release.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-11-14, 08:28:

Edit - Also bought a bunch of spares for my Compaq Armada 1750, so when they arrive the 1750 will be back in mint condition again. Also going to start to crazy task of restoring the HDD back to factory, for some reason the previous owner put Win98 FE on it and while it does work I'm almost sure the BIOS partition got nixed when they did it as I have not found a way to get into the BIOS. Win98 FE is an abomination that shouldn't ever be put onto any system except for shits and giggles and trying to get it to play nice is an experience in patience and pulling the power cord.

So ill be exercising the well known maneuver of Nuke and Pave as I have the original Win95 OSR2 restore CD along with the diagnostics and system restore disks which can restore the BIOS partition.

What a coincidence, I'm also waiting on a bunch of parts for an Armada 1750. My 1750 works but it's...rough, and I found a guy on eBay selling all the plastics I need to get it back into shape.

frankmonk wrote on 2022-08-14, 15:14:

Finally found a boxed rampat! Plus that might go into a Tandy 1000TL/2
Screenshot_2022-08-14-17-11-16-560_com.miui.gallery.jpg

Hello frankmonk,

I also eventually managed to get ahold of an Acculogic Rampat plus for my 1000 TL.
However, after searching only extensively, I could not find the drivers that are supposed to come with it (only the regular Rampat driver disk is available).
The Rampat Plus floppy disk is clearly different. Also I can see by the the instructions it's different (https://archive.org/details/ramp-at-plus-boar … age/n1/mode/2up ).
Do you think it would be possible for you to image the disk and share? If so I'd be immensely appreciative.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-11-14, 19:08:

I fondly remember having to repair a good number of installations of ME, was a wonderful time full of happiness and joy .. not a […]
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xcomcmdr wrote on 2022-11-14, 18:47:

I had a wonderful time with Windows ME. As with all OSes, it's primarly a matter of good driver support. Especially on old Windows.

I fondly remember having to repair a good number of installations of ME, was a wonderful time full of happiness and joy .. not a single bad word was ever said while repairing ME installations.

Thankfully as a retro OS its ok but its had a good number of updates and a ton of driver support added so its much better than it ever was upon release.

Every operating system is.....

EvieSigma wrote on 2022-11-15, 02:28:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-11-14, 08:28:

Edit - Also bought a bunch of spares for my Compaq Armada 1750, so when they arrive the 1750 will be back in mint condition again. Also going to start to crazy task of restoring the HDD back to factory, for some reason the previous owner put Win98 FE on it and while it does work I'm almost sure the BIOS partition got nixed when they did it as I have not found a way to get into the BIOS. Win98 FE is an abomination that shouldn't ever be put onto any system except for shits and giggles and trying to get it to play nice is an experience in patience and pulling the power cord.

So ill be exercising the well known maneuver of Nuke and Pave as I have the original Win95 OSR2 restore CD along with the diagnostics and system restore disks which can restore the BIOS partition.

What a coincidence, I'm also waiting on a bunch of parts for an Armada 1750. My 1750 works but it's...rough, and I found a guy on eBay selling all the plastics I need to get it back into shape.

Might be the same seller from the UK that I got some of my parts from, I sadly missed out on the batteries they had but I did get replacement keyboards and a few other plastic bits.

MarkP wrote on 2022-11-15, 03:54:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-11-14, 19:08:

I fondly remember having to repair a good number of installations of ME, was a wonderful time full of happiness and joy .. not a […]
Show full quote

xcomcmdr wrote on 2022-11-14, 18:47:

I had a wonderful time with Windows ME. As with all OSes, it's primarly a matter of good driver support. Especially on old Windows.

I fondly remember having to repair a good number of installations of ME, was a wonderful time full of happiness and joy .. not a single bad word was ever said while repairing ME installations.

Thankfully as a retro OS its ok but its had a good number of updates and a ton of driver support added so its much better than it ever was upon release.

Every operating system is.....

no not every operating system is . .some are still dogs even after 15 years and many updates.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-11-14, 19:08:

I fondly remember having to repair a good number of installations of ME, was a wonderful time full of happiness and joy .. not a […]
Show full quote

xcomcmdr wrote on 2022-11-14, 18:47:

I had a wonderful time with Windows ME. As with all OSes, it's primarly a matter of good driver support. Especially on old Windows.

I fondly remember having to repair a good number of installations of ME, was a wonderful time full of happiness and joy .. not a single bad word was ever said while repairing ME installations.

Thankfully as a retro OS its ok but its had a good number of updates and a ton of driver support added so its much better than it ever was upon release.

I don't have access to Windows Update with WinME these days. I just don't use bad drivers, nor OEM crapware.

Windows ME itself was innocent.

Ah, when two eBay saved searches ping at the same time and you realise it's the same seller. Had to snap up the Chaintech 5RSA2-C150 as it was a very reasonable price, and the Asus P5PE-VM may make for a cheap alternative to an ASRock 775i65G. Unfortunately they were packed in bubblewrap so I hope I managed to extricate them with minimal static discharge.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2022-11-14, 18:47:

I had a wonderful time with Windows ME. As with all OSes, it's primarly a matter of good driver support. Especially on old Windows.

I've been to paradise--Windows 2000--but I've never been to ME. One of these days I'll have to sit down and spend some quality time with it. Really liked Vista, so I'll probably dig Millennium, right?

I used it from the day it came out until I switched to Windows 2000 Pro for college (so I probably used it for 1.5 years). I never had any issues with it, but people in online forums raged about it constantly. For me, Win2k was the first Windows that didn't feel like it was on a death timer.

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2022-11-15, 23:30:

xcomcmdr wrote on 2022-11-14, 18:47:

I had a wonderful time with Windows ME. As with all OSes, it's primarly a matter of good driver support. Especially on old Windows.

I've been to paradise--Windows 2000--but I've never been to ME. One of these days I'll have to sit down and spend some quality time with it. Really liked Vista, so I'll probably dig Millennium, right?

Now I have that terrible song stuck in my head!

Big Pink wrote on 2022-11-15, 19:11:

Ah, when two eBay saved searches ping at the same time and you realise it's the same seller. Had to snap up the Chaintech 5RSA2-C150 as it was a very reasonable price, and the Asus P5PE-VM may make for a cheap alternative to an ASRock 775i65G. Unfortunately they were packed in bubblewrap so I hope I managed to extricate them with minimal static discharge.

Hey, was that Chaintech board from the UK? If it was, I soo tempted to buy it but I've got too many Super Socket 7 boards, even if they are all AT rather than ATX. Pretty much perfect, it's a shame Chaintech boards are so rare.

I found a Model M keyboard for a price I thought was fair and it was sold as 'untested', it was a bit grubby but has cleaned up very nicely:

The keys are only partially on there right now since they're drying a bit still. I did test it before I cleaned it though, on my IBM Thinkpad 240Z no less and it's working fine. I can see now why people are so fond of these keyboards, this one's from 1995 (3rd gen) and has barely even yellowed, the keys aren't even really worn.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-11-15, 03:58:

MarkP wrote on 2022-11-15, 03:54:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-11-14, 19:08:

I fondly remember having to repair a good number of installations of ME, was a wonderful time full of happiness and joy .. not a single bad word was ever said while repairing ME installations.

Thankfully as a retro OS its ok but its had a good number of updates and a ton of driver support added so its much better than it ever was upon release.

Every operating system is.....

no not every operating system is . .some are still dogs even after 15 years and many updates.

And you put up with it? You poor thing. Can't say I ever used that one......

MarkP wrote on 2022-11-16, 07:57:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-11-15, 03:58:

MarkP wrote on 2022-11-15, 03:54:

Every operating system is.....

no not every operating system is . .some are still dogs even after 15 years and many updates.

And you put up with it? You poor thing. Can't say I ever used that one......

All part of the job description when you repair PEBKAC problems for a living.

Still it’s better than repairing older macs or weird custom Linux installs that a Luser got from some website.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2022-11-16, 02:31:

Hey, was that Chaintech board from the UK? If it was, I soo tempted to buy it but I've got too many Super Socket 7 boards, even if they are all AT rather than ATX. Pretty much perfect, it's a shame Chaintech boards are so rare.

Yes. I didn't jump on it immediately because I'm more interested in Slot1/Socket 370, but once the seller sent an offer I figured it was too good a deal to pass up.

Got a new lot in. Haven't had a chance to test anything yet.

Shuttle HOT-205B - Harris Headland chipset 286 motherboard with a socketed 16Mhz Siemens CPU. I have an almost identical board but with a soldered 12MHz AMD cpu. This one seems to be missing all of the ram chips and has SIPP sockets for memory (witch I will promptly replace with SIMM slots as soon as I can - if the board works).

Found theretroweb.com page for this board, no picture. I'll get in touch with the site admin and send a good quality pic as soon as I start testing the board. In the meantime, this picture can be used on the site.

ECS PD386 mainboard for a socketed 40MHz 386. Also came with a 40MHz Am386DXL cpu and 128kb of L2 cache (cpu pics are a bit lower down). Would make a great board for my TI486DLC-40, but unfortunately there is an IC missing right next to the CPU sockets... I found a pic on ebay and the IC originally had a label on it with the model number and "U23". Not a good sign... if anyone knows what that IC does, please drop me a line... maybe I can source a compatible part off another board....

And here's what the missing U23 looks like:

Zida 4DPS socket 3 board with missing BIOS chip. I have EEPROMs, I'll flash a new chip and give her a go. Hopefully she runs, I love my 486 PCI boards.

Jetway J-648A SiS chipset socket 7 board. I have some late super-7 sis chipset mainboards but nothing this vintage. No page for it on theretroweb.com either. I'll dump the BIOS and try to put together some resources for it and contact the site admin.

Fujitsu Siemens S26361-D990-A11 ATX socket 7 mainboard. I'll hold on to this, see if she runs, maybe I can find the OEM case it goes into at one point. On board Matrox mystique graphics and Crystal 4238 audio codec - this thing must have been really high end back in the day. No COAST module and seems like the board doesn't come with any L2 cache, but maybe it can take a generic COAST module. At first glance it seems like the BIOS chip is missing but that's actually a socket for some sort of wavetable... found a video about this exact board and wavetable on youtube.

Two AGP voodoo 3 cards - one is a 3000, the other is missing the heatsink and bracket so I won't know until I test/repair it.

Acorp ST-543X/4X PCI Cirrus logic card:

Paradise Bali 32 PCI video card - LBG-1000PV. That sticker is hiding an ARK 1000 chip.

HIS Branded S3 Virge

Very rough looking VLB S3 Trio64 card.... video bios is missing. Hopefully someone on the forum has an identical card and can help me out with the vBIOS...

Compaq ESS 1868F ISA sound card. She even comes with a rear header for the in-case speaker! This might replace the Sound Blaster 16 in my Deskpro 2000. IF it works.

Another ESS 1868F sound card. Looks like some of the jumpers for audio pass-through may be missing.

And lastly sone ISA and VLB multi I/O cards:

And lastly here are the CPUs:

One Am5k86-P75 - unsurprisingly came in the ZIDA 4DPS.
One Am386DLX-40 - came in the ECS mainboard.
One intel DX4
One AMD K6-233
The two Cyrix chips I managed to save from the scrappers CPU box. Pins are fairly bent but fixable with enough patience.

Socket3 wrote on 2022-11-16, 21:48:

Got a new lot in. Haven't had a chance to test anything yet.

Shuttle HOT-205B - Harris chipset 286 motherboard with a socketed 16Mhz Siemens CPU. I have an almost identical board but with a soldered 12MHz AMD cpu. This one seems to be missing all of the ram chips and has SIPP sockets for memory (witch I will promptly replace with SIMM slots as soon as I can - if the board works).

Looks like a Headland chipset to me. I see no Harris chips at all.

debs3759 wrote on 2022-11-16, 22:05:

Socket3 wrote on 2022-11-16, 21:48:

Got a new lot in. Haven't had a chance to test anything yet.

Shuttle HOT-205B - Harris chipset 286 motherboard with a socketed 16Mhz Siemens CPU. I have an almost identical board but with a soldered 12MHz AMD cpu. This one seems to be missing all of the ram chips and has SIPP sockets for memory (witch I will promptly replace with SIMM slots as soon as I can - if the board works).

Looks like a Headland chipset to me. I see no Harris chips at all.

Corrected. No idea why I wrote harris. They don't even make chipsets (as far as I know). Guess I was thinking of sourcing a 20 or 25mhz Harris CPU for it while I was typing and wrote harris instead of headland. Oh well.

Finally got myself a Socket 5 System.

Yes, a Socket 5 Mac Clone.