well I'm back to thinking this being a bad hard drive in my pentium 4 machine. It is a seagate afterall and has a few years on it. I reconnected it and even swapped sata cables it it doesn't want to boot at all. just says disk read error, hit control+alt+delete to restart. I mean I suspected that the drive had issues even before I put it my pentium 4 but it did seem to work a time (though it was slow and often never was able to shutdown properly).

FIred up my M321 and the keyboard doesn't work.
Tested another one and no joy. Keyb no. 1 is good on another pc.

I now have to get everything out and see what's wrong 😀
I like surprises like that water buffalo in Apocalypse Now.

Bring alive AMD K6-2+ system from 2000, with manual and original price-list))) $410 in year of 2000 😉
K6-2+, ASKA MVP3 motherboard, 32Mb of RAM, 8.4Gb Maxtor HDD, SIS6326 8Mb AGP, Aztech 3328 PCI soundcard

PS. There K6-2 600MHz computers in “price-list”… lazy cheaters)))

Tested out an original Roland MIF-IPC card in a Tandy 1000 TL/2.

Wikipedia claims that it "turned out not to work reliably with 286 and faster processors. " Since the Tandy TL/2 uses a 286 processor, I was wondering if that would present an issue even though the system's architecture is still XT-based.

Testing it with several Sierra games, it fortunately seems to work just fine in this system.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-10-22, 01:10:

Tested out an original Roland MIF-IPC card in a Tandy 1000 TL/2.

Wikipedia claims that it "turned out not to work reliably with 286 and faster processors. " Since the Tandy TL/2 uses a 286 processor, I was wondering if that would present an issue even though the system's architecture is still XT-based.

Testing it with several Sierra games, it fortunately seems to work just fine in this system.

There is really something about the glow of a CRT...

Today was repair day.

Disassembled and clean a vintage laptop, oiled the fan, removed the calcified thermal paste with a screwdriver and gave it a fresh application, soldered a replacement power button, and rebuilt the CMOS battery from the salvaged leads.

I cleaned corrosion off of a Slot 1 motherboard that had gotten over a portion of the board and into some of the slots. I did this carefully with vinegar and a tiny wire brush that is meant to be used to clean between dental work.

I also replaced about 25 capacitors between two motherboards. They are now working great.

Bashing my head with a Pentium 4 machine. I have to bomb-test its PSU (recased Spire Jewel 420W - Sun Pro OEM, recapped with Panasonic CE primaries and Nichicon/Sanyo secondaries (with a few Rubycons here and there) ) as it had two resistors that seem to have silently given up the ghost (small sparks in their area every time I flip the switch, as well as the NTC thermistor was pretty abused.)

Specs, for now:

P4 HT 3GHz - great chip but I don't have adequate cooling for it, to my sadness, hence why I'll probably dig up my old 2.8GHz Northwood HT (which runs considerably cooler and still has HT)
Radeon X1650 Pro 512M DDR2 from Sapphire
4x512MB DDR400 sticks (333 and 400 sticks as I couldn't find a full round of 400 sticks.)
Pinnacle SAA7131E TV tuner that I have to figure out its "VIDEO" connector pinout (it looks like standard S-Video but I have high suspicions it isn't.) - I may replace it with a Gigabyte branded Philips tuner tho.
Gigabyte GA-8IG1000 Pro - neat board, basically a more feature packed 8IPE1000 with iGP variant of the i865, as well as DualBIOS, 1394, Intel CSA LAN and thankfully, an actively cooled chipset heatsink.

HDDs are a "82GB" Hitachi Deskstar (wtf Hitachi!?) and a lovely 74GB Raptor.

PcBytes wrote on 2022-10-22, 10:48:

HDDs are a "82GB" Hitachi Deskstar (wtf Hitachi!?) and a lovely 74GB Raptor.

Maybe they were trying to match the formatted capacity? How large is it after formatting?

Turns out I was premature in declaring that the Roland MIF-IPC card works in a Tandy 1000 TL/2.

While it worked with the few Sierra games I tested (PQ2, SQ3, and KQ4), it did *not* work when trying a couple LucasArts games (Loom and The Secret of Monkey Island). Those games would get stuck on a black screen and fail to load.

So I swapped it for a Lo-tech MIF-IPC-B card and now the MT-32 works with everything I've tested so far (Sierra and LucasArts games).

That's very interesting! There must be a timing issue with the MIF-IPC-B.

Found FX-8350 Computer in trash, deconstructed it and cleaned all with water and soap. Now i will fit my Ryzen System inside the cool Thermaltake Case.

Later clean the FX-8350 & Board and CPU Cooler and try if it works.

Cloned baseline amd64 build using Seagate free licensed acronis. Hard drive are sata Seagate so pass the test connected via USB dock. Wiped ssd enclosure and stuck main drivers. Also played around with drivespeed 2000. Can set cd and dvd speeds now so minimise the annoying sound of spinning media. Set it at 4x atm

matze79 wrote on 2022-10-22, 20:46:

Found FX-8350 Computer in trash, deconstructed it and cleaned all with water and soap. Now i will fit my Ryzen System inside the cool Thermaltake Case.

Later clean the FX-8350 & Board and CPU Cooler and try if it works.

The FX 8350 is a great platform. I bought the FX 8120 at release, later upgrading to he 8370, and used it up until I upgraded to a Ryzen 1800X, which I'm still using today.

Not exactly a retro activity, just watched this amazing video from Ardian's Digital Basement. One of his best videos IMO. it's about a very rare find. Adrian is so natural and sincere in his passion that makes one share all his emotions.
https://youtu.be/ewtRCdwbTEw

Bondi wrote on 2022-10-23, 14:57:

Not exactly a retro activity, just watched this amazing video from Ardian's Digital Basement. One of his best videos IMO. it's about a very rare find. Adrian is so natural and sincere in his passion that makes one share all his emotions.
https://youtu.be/ewtRCdwbTEw

I watched this one too, it's really lovely to see a piece of history survive and work like that. I also began my computing adventure with the 6502, first with a Commodore VIC 20, then Acorn Electron and finally a BBC model B. I still have the VIC and Beeb 😀

@Shponglefan
are we just going to gloss over that glorious orange carpet?

luckybob wrote on 2022-10-23, 17:09:

@Shponglefan
are we just going to gloss over that glorious orange carpet?

I think it's actually beige, and it's just the lighting. Although a pumpkin carpet would be pretty cool.

Just finished all upgrades and work that I had to do on my Toshiba T3200SXC.
Here is the overview video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX30t3lYezs

Now it has:

• an internal Wireless LAN + USB storage ISA card (ethernet card with OpenWRT module and SMB server for USB)
• WPA2 network scanning and connecting from within the MS-DOS
• Internal stereo speakers
• New DC-DC power supply, which can be powered from USB-C powerbanks
• Replaced LCD screen
• Replaced lithium battery
• MS-DOS 6.22 + Win 3.11 with boot menu properly set up

Old power supply and new (smaller) custom power supply:

This is how the network card looks like. The base is a generic NE-2000 compatible card. Currently it works in 8-bit slot, so it might even be XT-compatible. The bracket is 3D printed, not only to hold the wireless module (A5V11), but also to let the wireless signal go inside (metal bracket obviously would not work). +5V power is stolen from the ISA card via two wires soldered to GND and +5V pads, with a 500mA polyfuse in series.

Here is USB drive accessed as a automatically mounted network drive in Windows 3.11. It works in MS-DOS too with MS Network Client software. Reading, writing and execution works fine.

Wi-fi scanning and connecting works fine from pure MS-DOS with some client-side and server-(OpenWRT)side scripts. I can even pair this laptop with my digital camera, which currently has no use, but looks fun. I probably could even take some photos and download them by sending proper HTTP requests.

I need to put together the instructions on making such an USB+WiFi ISA card and configuring OpenWRT properly. Probably will post that in a separate thread when it's done.

adalbert wrote on 2022-10-23, 18:13:

Just finished all upgrades and work that I had to do on my Toshiba T3200SXC. Here is the overview video: https://www.youtube.co […]
Show full quote

Just finished all upgrades and work that I had to do on my Toshiba T3200SXC.
Here is the overview video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX30t3lYezs

t3200sxc-overview1.jpg

Now it has:

• an internal Wireless LAN + USB storage ISA card (ethernet card with OpenWRT module and SMB server for USB)
• WPA2 network scanning and connecting from within the MS-DOS
• Internal stereo speakers
• New DC-DC power supply, which can be powered from USB-C powerbanks
• Replaced LCD screen
• Replaced lithium battery
• MS-DOS 6.22 + Win 3.11 with boot menu properly set up

Old power supply and new (smaller) custom power supply:
t3200sxc_twopsus.jpg

This is how the network card looks like. The base is a generic NE-2000 compatible card. Currently it works in 8-bit slot, so it might even be XT-compatible. The bracket is 3D printed, not only to hold the wireless module (A5V11), but also to let the wireless signal go inside (metal bracket obviously would not work). +5V power is stolen from the ISA card via two wires soldered to GND and +5V pads, with a 500mA polyfuse in series.

isa_usb_wifi1.jpg

Here is USB drive accessed as a automatically mounted network drive in Windows 3.11. It works in MS-DOS too with MS Network Client software. Reading, writing and execution works fine.
usb_win31.jpg

Wi-fi scanning and connecting works fine from pure MS-DOS with some client-side and server-(OpenWRT)side scripts. I can even pair this laptop with my digital camera, which currently has no use, but looks fun. I probably could even take some photos and download them by sending proper HTTP requests.
wifiscan1.png

I need to put together the instructions on making such an USB+WiFi ISA card and configuring OpenWRT properly. Probably will post that in a separate thread when it's done.

Nice work fixing And upgrading that laptop. Your WiFi solution is brilliant.

adalbert wrote on 2022-10-23, 18:13:

Just finished all upgrades and work that I had to do on my Toshiba T3200SXC. Here is the overview video: https://www.youtube.co […]
Show full quote

Just finished all upgrades and work that I had to do on my Toshiba T3200SXC.
Here is the overview video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX30t3lYezs

t3200sxc-overview1.jpg

Now it has:

• an internal Wireless LAN + USB storage ISA card (ethernet card with OpenWRT module and SMB server for USB)
• WPA2 network scanning and connecting from within the MS-DOS
• Internal stereo speakers
• New DC-DC power supply, which can be powered from USB-C powerbanks
• Replaced LCD screen
• Replaced lithium battery
• MS-DOS 6.22 + Win 3.11 with boot menu properly set up

Old power supply and new (smaller) custom power supply:
t3200sxc_twopsus.jpg

This is how the network card looks like. The base is a generic NE-2000 compatible card. Currently it works in 8-bit slot, so it might even be XT-compatible. The bracket is 3D printed, not only to hold the wireless module (A5V11), but also to let the wireless signal go inside (metal bracket obviously would not work). +5V power is stolen from the ISA card via two wires soldered to GND and +5V pads, with a 500mA polyfuse in series.

isa_usb_wifi1.jpg

Here is USB drive accessed as a automatically mounted network drive in Windows 3.11. It works in MS-DOS too with MS Network Client software. Reading, writing and execution works fine.
usb_win31.jpg

Wi-fi scanning and connecting works fine from pure MS-DOS with some client-side and server-(OpenWRT)side scripts. I can even pair this laptop with my digital camera, which currently has no use, but looks fun. I probably could even take some photos and download them by sending proper HTTP requests.
wifiscan1.png

I need to put together the instructions on making such an USB+WiFi ISA card and configuring OpenWRT properly. Probably will post that in a separate thread when it's done.

Amazing work, adalbert! That network/usb solution is really cool!