nach wrote on 2023-05-25, 09:45:

Good news! I got today a coin cell battery case. I desoldered the old battery and put the new one and voila! It worked! Thank yo […]
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nach wrote on 2023-05-22, 07:19:

I got today a NOS Mitsubishi Amity SP, a super-ultra-mega rare 486 DX4 @75Mhz tablet pc that was opened only to take pictures of […]
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I got today a NOS Mitsubishi Amity SP, a super-ultra-mega rare 486 DX4 @75Mhz tablet pc that was opened only to take pictures of it but there is no manual.

I tried to boot it up docked at its docking station (and not docked too) and it boots but it stops in the post screen and the screen blinks showing what you can see in the captures i uploaded.

I have seen other more modern models of Mitsubishi amity (amities?) and below the “detected xxx processor at xxxMhz it uses to show the available ram and other more info. I tried removing the installed ram and booting but i get black screen and unfortunately do not have other memory modules that fit so cannot check.

Although the hard disk doesn’t even start to spin i have tired it on a different pc and it works so it is not the hard disk (btw it is a pcmcia hard disk! i thought it was going to be a normal 2.5" ide one).

I also read somewhere that Mitsubishi computers of that era don’t even start if the cmos battery is dead, so it might not be? Anyway it is soldered on the motherboard. (No leaking condensers inside, everything is super clean) not sure if it is worth the effort to unsolder and so on.

Does anybody know what could be the fault? Could be that it is rebooting in an endless loop?
I get no beeps in the post neither, only 4 low volume short beeps when i try to start up with a pcmcia to sd card instead of the hard disk. The BIOS it seems is phoenix if it helps (i cannot even enter the bios, the system halts before being able to)
The keyboard flashed the 3 lights when pushing the power button on the computer so the bios is starting doing its things

Good news! I got today a coin cell battery case. I desoldered the old battery and put the new one and voila! It worked! Thank you very much for the tips about the battery.

The tablet works like a charm. The bummer is that as you can see in the pictures the screen seems half dead as there is a huge zone in the middle where the colors are inverted. I guess this is due to the age and cannot be repaired, right? (i cranked up the bright just to be able to take a proper system properties pic
The problem is that although the tablet has a "VGA out" connector, it is not an standard one. I attach a picture where you can see it.Is it a proprietary connection or perhaps this connection does exist? It is very similar to the vaio PCG-C1 one but the pins are in the middle of the connector, not in the outside. I would like to be able to hook it to a monitor as i would love to use the tablet at least as a minipc.

Thank you.

Excellent news! I'm glad to hear all you needed was a new bios battery. I've had them cause me a whole lot of grief in the past. I've actually gone back through my box of dead motherboards and dearest with fresh batteries and had found about 15-20 boards that worked just fine with the new battery.

FazzaGBR wrote on 2023-05-25, 06:54:

Picked this lot up yesterday all for just £10 - had to drive 60 mile round trip to get them (must be why no one else bid on them […]
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Picked this lot up yesterday all for just £10 - had to drive 60 mile round trip to get them (must be why no one else bid on them on eBay):

20230524_121033000_iOS.jpg

The HP Windows XP Tower weighs and absolute tonne!

The most interesting out of the lot is of course the old Apple Power Macintosh G3 PowerPC...

amazing find for little cash! and they all look in good enough condition, will be fun for you going through them all

Found this CH FlightStick at a thrift store for $5. This is after I took it apart and cleaned the previous owner's pawprints and grime from it. Now nearly new condition.

Funny thing is this is the first PC joystick I've ever owned. The only other was a joystick on an Apple II many years ago.

Time to enable the gameports on my systems and try it out. What are some good DOS games to try this out on?

Those are nice sticks, comfortable and sturdy. Comanche plays well with those, or Terminal Velocity.

I got a CRT!! I had pretty much ruled out ever finding a decent CRT, but I found an eBay listing for a ViewSonic 17" A70 that I'm sure had an incorrect shipping weight entered because the shipping cost from US to CAN was only $50 when it is usually about $250 for CRTs. So, I took a gamble and bought it - and the seller let it go through and shipped it.

And it arrived yesterday! It was packed in an almost malicious amount of styrofoam peanuts and bubble wrap - but that's what's needed to USPS a monitor without the original packaging. Certainly $50 worth!

So the monitor itself is obviously used - has some household-looking paint on the cord. But I don't care - it works and isn't too dim. It also uhhh, kind of dominates my desk:

Did we all used to pull our desks a foot away from the wall for our CRTs to hang off? I feel like that was a thing.

ubiq wrote on 2023-05-25, 21:30:

Did we all used to pull our desks a foot away from the wall for our CRTs to hang off? I feel like that was a thing.

It was opposite, we planted our nose a foot from the monitor which helped with reaction time. 😉

I had a friend that cut a hole in his wall for his huge 20" monitor. He forgot all about it for years until he upgraded to lcd and we had a good laugh.

ubiq wrote on 2023-05-25, 21:30:

Did we all used to pull our desks a foot away from the wall for our CRTs to hang off? I feel like that was a thing.

That Viewsonic is a pretty decent monitor. And it's showing a great demo 😁
Good catch.
Yes, we didn't push them close to the wall. And some placed the monitor in the corner which saves a lot of space but viewing it from an angle is not ideal.
How deep is your desk?

ubiq wrote on 2023-05-25, 21:30:

Did we all used to pull our desks a foot away from the wall for our CRTs to hang off? I feel like that was a thing.

old computer desks also tended to be deeper and more sturdy than nowadays.

HanSolo wrote on 2023-05-25, 22:22:

That Viewsonic is a pretty decent monitor. And it's showing a great demo :-D Good catch. Yes, we didn't push them close to the w […]
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ubiq wrote on 2023-05-25, 21:30:

Did we all used to pull our desks a foot away from the wall for our CRTs to hang off? I feel like that was a thing.

That Viewsonic is a pretty decent monitor. And it's showing a great demo 😁
Good catch.
Yes, we didn't push them close to the wall. And some placed the monitor in the corner which saves a lot of space but viewing it from an angle is not ideal.
How deep is your desk?

When LCD got more affordable my first one was Samung 5:4 1280x1024 19" LCD for three reasons: Larger viewable area, less space needed and much less heat. This replaced a 17" CRT Samsung.

Cheers,

ubiq wrote on 2023-05-25, 21:30:

I got a CRT!!

I'm glad it made so much joy to you, but I little bit don't understand. It's just a crappy CRT, pretty under-average, and 50$ is too much in my view, to be honest, even 20$. These dont have any value here, like every month there is like 10-20 offerings for free, when you stop personally for them. Only trinitrons, highend samsungs 19-20'' and similiar, are for at least some price, but even that for 20$ or 30$, and it already generates hate in retro community, when someone post such auction and ask even 30$.

Or is the situation in your country so bad?

Ran across this on the site people love to hate:

What's in the box?

Is this really just a dtk serial port card with a custom board that plugs into the dip sockets?

HanSolo wrote on 2023-05-25, 22:22:

That Viewsonic is a pretty decent monitor. And it's showing a great demo :-D Good catch. Yes, we didn't push them close to the w […]
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ubiq wrote on 2023-05-25, 21:30:

Did we all used to pull our desks a foot away from the wall for our CRTs to hang off? I feel like that was a thing.

That Viewsonic is a pretty decent monitor. And it's showing a great demo 😁
Good catch.
Yes, we didn't push them close to the wall. And some placed the monitor in the corner which saves a lot of space but viewing it from an angle is not ideal.
How deep is your desk?

Gotta be honest, I didn't try to make it look nice - I just dumped the CRT exactly where my LCD was and was amused by just how different a setup it makes things. Pushed it back now and put my MiSTer mITX thingie under it as bit of a monitor stand. Diggin' it!

Bought some cd-rom and floppies.
Tested, all working.
Stuff is piling up and I don't have that much space anymore.

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-05-26, 00:34:

[...]
Is this really just a dtk serial port card with a custom board that plugs into the dip sockets?

It does seem to be the case, that extra board is probably to add isolation for the midi input
I would classify it along the other lpt/serial midi interfaces that were available.
It is probably only usable with the included software unless there is also a win3x driver available.
Cool find though! It is a unique approach, I wonder if they also did other modifications to the serial card - maybe something clock-related

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-05-26, 00:34:

Ran across this on the site people love to hate: PXL_20230525_231211763~2.jpg […]
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Ran across this on the site people love to hate:
PXL_20230525_231211763~2.jpg

What's in the box?
PXL_20230525_231351701~2.jpg
PXL_20230525_231419521~2.jpg
PXL_20230525_231633891~2.jpg
PXL_20230525_231703427~2.jpg

Is this really just a dtk serial port card with a custom board that plugs into the dip sockets?

Holy cow, that's a weird one. Nice find!

Interested to know more about it.

^ apparently it does have a replaced xtal to achieve midi baud so I guess it works as an UART interface (just like the ones on SB cards)

Asus P2B and P3B-F from same seller for total 25€ (+ local shipping)

Unknown working status. The CPU retention brackets aren't in the pictures but seller will include them.

QDI P5I430VX-250 (Explorer) for 10€ in a broken state.

Seller states every CPU only runs with 66MHz. This will be interesting to debug.
It can't be worse than my experience with the ASUS P/I-P55SP4, can it? 🤣

schmatzler wrote on 2023-05-26, 10:56:

QDI P5I430VX-250 (Explorer) for 10€ in a broken state. […]
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QDI P5I430VX-250 (Explorer) for 10€ in a broken state.

Seller states every CPU only runs with 66MHz. This will be interesting to debug.
It can't be worse than my experience with the ASUS P/I-P55SP4, can it? 🤣

s-l1600.jpg

will be interesting to see the outcome of that!