bjwil1991 wrote:

Got an iMac G4 for $9.99 and a new CardBus 802.11g wireless card for $4.99 on my thrifting adventures (pics to follow). Passed on an NES, games, and accessories since they wanted over $200 for the whole lot.

Sweet, let's spread the G4 love around here. 😀 You got the "lampshade" I guess? Those are neat!

^^ I have two of those, but they both have flaky DVD drives that won't read DVD-Rs. (DVD-ROMs are OK). Is this a common problem?

I just replaced the drive in my G4 tower because it wouldn't read DVD-R's (i.e. bog-standard minus-Rs) even though it should theoretically be capable. It seems so.

The old one was a Hitachi GD-7000 DVD-ROM, manufactured August 2000. New one is a Lite-On DVD+/-RW with dual-layer support from 2007.

Errius wrote:

^^ I have two of those, but they both have flaky DVD drives that won't read DVD-Rs. (DVD-ROMs are OK). Is this a common problem?

The drives laser and/or firmware logic simply doesn't support DVD-R media. It's a problem all early DVD drives have. The same thing happens with CD-Rs and 1-4x CD drives. It also wouldn't surprise me if it was some sort of anti piracy measure by Apple given there track record.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Errius wrote:

^^ I have two of those, but they both have flaky DVD drives that won't read DVD-Rs. (DVD-ROMs are OK). Is this a common problem?

The drives laser and/or firmware logic simply doesn't support DVD-R media. It's a problem all early DVD drives have. The same thing happens with CD-Rs and 1-4x CD drives. It also wouldn't surprise me if it was some sort of anti piracy measure by Apple given there track record.

With CD-Rs, it is because the laser in the really old drives doesn't have a high enough output to reflect off of the CD-Rs. You can open up an old drive and adjust the laser output in order to get them to read CD-Rs properly.

I have never tried the same with an old DVD drive.

The following items arrived at my door today (and yesterday):
- 2x1GB DDR-400 DIMM RAM modules for my eMac G4
- A floppy drive caddy for my Dell Dimension 4600
- An 8GB Transcend 133x CompactFlash card for my Powerbook G3 (an IDE adapter came about a month ago for preparation)

What a busy day for me.

xjas wrote:

I just replaced the drive in my G4 tower because it wouldn't read DVD-R's (i.e. bog-standard minus-Rs) even though it should theoretically be capable. It seems so.

The old one was a Hitachi GD-7000 DVD-ROM, manufactured August 2000. New one is a Lite-On DVD+/-RW with dual-layer support from 2007.

Good to know that some older DVD-ROM drives have trouble reading DVD-Rs, I was thinking about replacing the DVD drive in my PowerMac G4 at some point anyway. I do remember having difficulty with reading DVD-Rs on the Toshiba DVD-ROM drive in my Dell Inspiron 8100, but the use of a CD lens cleaner solved the problem.

How do you put a modern optical drive in a G4 lampshade? Is it even possible?

Another Sony Vaio laptop arrived today. A pristine PCG-SR5K. Seller said it was in excellent condition. The thing looks almost brand new... and for $25 + shipping it was definitely a steal.
This one also has the Yamaha YMF-744 sound chipset.
PIII-500
192MB RAM (stock is 64MB)
9GB HDD (will be getting replaced with an SSD)
10.4" SVGA (800x600) TFT screen
Neomagic Magicmedia 256AV+ with 3MB SGRAM video (no D3D)
The battery, manufactured in May of 2000 shows only 35 charging cycles and full battery health according to the Sony utility in Windows.

Came with the original manual and restore discs, Office 2000, power adapter, vga cable and a usb adapter cable.
Not sure what the USB adapter cable is from.

EDIT: Well, now I have a "not working" PCG-SR7K on the way.. $10 + shipping. Same specs as above, except for:
PIII-600
128MB RAM stock - maybe I'll get lucky and this one has been upgraded to 256MB.
10.4" XGA (1024x768) TFT screen with XBRITE polysilicon technology
12GB HDD
NeoMagic Magicmedia 256XL+ with 6MB SGRAM (supports D3D)

If it really doesn't work, at least it will be good for parts.
/EDIT

Have these on the way for use with the PCG-C1VN and with the laptop above as they don't have CD or floppy built in. They are a couple of the the official accessories for these laptops.
The CD drive uses a cardbus adapter that stores in the bottom case of the drive.

I have a P3 Sony Laptop that uses the same external drives. I actually use that floppy drive with Windows 10. Written quite a few DD MSX floppy disks with it.

Errius wrote:

How do you put a modern optical drive in a G4 lampshade? Is it even possible?

Buy IDE drive with eject button in right place (but depends on Mac, some only use software controlled eject) and of correct dimensions (for the more cramped machines), remove bezel, put in place. Solved.

Drives from broken Macs will also work fine in PCs.

A good thrift day has bestowed upon me an ESS Audiodrive 1868F that was packed in an incorrect box, Diamond V550 (Riva TNT), COAST module and a little thing that will make my life 10x easier - PS2 to Serial mouse adapter!

Got 3 additions to my private collection: an iMac G3 (Blueberry), an iBook G3 (Orange) and a Mac G4 tower. Those are all in full working condition (with harddisks, keyboard, mice and everything else). They have been upgraded (both SW and HW). The iMac G3 for example has 1Gb of memory, 80Gb Hdd.

This brings my collection to 47 working systems (of which 9 are Apple, from Apple II all the way to G4). I tend not to collect systems made earlier than year 2000 so those 3 are at the edge.

Shit...this morning I picked up a 30 kg lot I won at Ebay for 100€. Mainly because of 2 286 boards and some EMS cards I spotted. The seller asked me what I am going to do whith it. I told him I am a collector and will sell again what I dont need. I asked him where he got the stuff from....and he told me that a school in his area threw away old computers. He picked them up and removed the boards for recycling because he was thinking the remaining parts are worthless

😵 😵 😵 😵 *ahhhhhhh* 😠

I told him that he would have got around 100€ for each complete 286 class PC and he got big eyes. I had difficultties to hide that I was angry that he destroyed this hardware...

Counting the number of MFM controllers I got he had a minimum of 10 of these PCs... 😠

Then the EMS boards...one is proprietary. Hope I will get drivers for these.

Some interesting PCI VGAs and a Voodoo Rush

Then the Mainboards: There are 4 identical Suntac boards 😎 Have seen only one on sellers photo. Somebody interested in one? 😉 Are quite corroded but should be fixable...

cyclone3d wrote:

Continuing the quest for tiny laptops (full blown computers), I found this for sale for cheap. Looks to maybe have a BIOS passwo […]
Show full quote

Continuing the quest for tiny laptops (full blown computers), I found this for sale for cheap. Looks to maybe have a BIOS password, but it is easy to clear out. Just have to reset the BIOS.

closeup.jpg

all.jpg

Not sure of the exact model, but it has either a 1.06 or 1.2 Ghz Core Solo CPU and either 512MB or 1GB RAM. (Edit : found the specific model number. It is the one with the 1.2Ghz CPU and 1GB RAM) 😀
Screen is 4.5" with a 1024x600 resolution.
Looks like it comes with all accessories AND the optional port replicator 😀
Should make a nice little portable DOSBOX machine or maybe even Win98SE with dos games from Windows command prompt machine... doubt it will do Win98SE though as I really doubt that I can find all the needed drivers, especially touchscreen.
The specs say the sound is Windows Sound System compatible, so who knows exactly what sound chip it has... maybe something that I can get working in real DOS.

Edit: The screen slides down to cover the keyboard.

Cool machine, I have a VGN-UX90PS 😀
And I have the restore disc for those, stashed somewhere...

AMD Athlon XP 3200+
AXDA3200DKV4E
2003.05.13.

Logitech Wingman Extreme
1994.12.

Yesterday I met an older guy who runs electronic workshop where he fixes industrial hardware. He told me he had some vintage PC hardware so I visited him at his place.

Man, there was a lot! Nothing very fancy, but he had an extreme amount of NOS 286 and 386 motherboards and some industrial 486. There was also some early XT stuff.

Out of this selection, I have chosen three items - all brand new and without corrosion (no leaky batteries were ever soldered):

1) Juko ST motherboard (NEC V20 @ 4.77, 10 or 12), up to 1mb RAM. Very nice and new!

2) Generic OPTI 386 DX40 motherboard. Nothing fancy, but brand new and fresh. As you can see, there's also an interesting industrial 8-bit card. It's a static RAM/ROM card. I can imagine some uses for it, so I picked it up. The memory can be seen as usual partitions.

All this cost me 10USD equiv. Not bad.

Predator99 wrote:

his morning I picked up a 30 kg lot I won at Ebay for 100€.

Dude. That is an awesome haul.

Predator99 wrote:

Then the Mainboards: There are 4 identical Suntac boards 😎 Have seen only one on sellers photo. Somebody interested in one? 😉 Are quite corroded but should be fixable...

I would love to try and get one working if shipping to the UK isn't too high 😀

Munx wrote:

A good thrift day has bestowed upon me an ESS Audiodrive 1868F that was packed in an incorrect box, Diamond V550 (Riva TNT), COAST module and a little thing that will make my life 10x easier - PS2 to Serial mouse adapter!

P_20180225_140230[1].jpg

Please be aware that those adapters require a serial compatible mouse. You may have to find something like this beauty:

@tikoellner
ooo... I wanna play with that sram/eprom board