Today I managed to plug everything in, and get a family photo of sorts going with almost all of my Apple hardware.

I'm packing things to go into storage since I'm going to be moving quite soon and I have enough time to finish up this project at least, a few months back I bought this Kapok 5400PT laptop - the flower means it's got a TFT and it's got a gamepad on the palm rest???

The four buttons are actually buttons 1 and 2, with the extra 1&2 buttons having a little circuit added so they're turbo 1&2.

Of course, the hinge plastics are disintegrating so today I made a 3d print to reinforce that area then epoxied it on. Had to grind loads away because I put plastic in the area that the hinges rotate into when opening the screen and they don't want to glue down but it'd holding.

It has this strange little port on the side that looks like it'd be for a floppy drive since it's a 26-pin thin connector that clips in like you'd see on external floppy drives, but this one has it built in already. Nope, that port is for the gameport dongle of course, it does have a little bat in a diamond shape that looks sorta like a joystick printed by it.
I traced this out to how they connect into the ESS sound chip and derived a pinout:

edit: I should add, pin 1 is on the edge facing towards the keyboard, not the front of the machine.

Using a scrap 0.8mm PCB segment from a dock adapter PCB I made - with 1.27mm spacing between each pad, I was able to wire up a gameport and it works just as well as it was designed - which is not very well 😀

For some reason they only wired up one set of the x & y axis and only 2 buttons. It also likes conflicting with the built-in gamepad and switching between joystick and gamepad seems to often require a reboot.

But midi out works and that's great!

BetaC wrote on 2023-05-24, 21:29:

Today I managed to plug everything in, and get a family photo of sorts going with almost all of my Apple hardware.
IMG_1849.jpg

Awww, lookit 'em all! 😊

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-05-24, 21:37:

I'm packing things to go into storage since I'm going to be moving quite soon and I have enough time to finish up this project a […]
Show full quote

I'm packing things to go into storage since I'm going to be moving quite soon and I have enough time to finish up this project at least, a few months back I bought this Kapok 5400PT laptop - the flower means it's got a TFT and it's got a gamepad on the palm rest???
kapok-5400pt.jpg

The four buttons are actually buttons 1 and 2, with the extra 1&2 buttons having a little circuit added so they're turbo 1&2.

Of course, the hinge plastics are disintegrating so today I made a 3d print to reinforce that area then epoxied it on. Had to grind loads away because I put plastic in the area that the hinges rotate into when opening the screen and they don't want to glue down but it'd holding.

It has this strange little port on the side that looks like it'd be for a floppy drive since it's a 26-pin thin connector that clips in like you'd see on external floppy drives, but this one has it built in already. Nope, that port is for the gameport dongle of course, it does have a little bat in a diamond shape that looks sorta like a joystick printed by it.
I traced this out to how they connect into the ESS sound chip and derived a pinout:
5400pt-gameport.png
edit: I should add, pin 1 is on the edge facing towards the keyboard, not the front of the machine.

Using a scrap 0.8mm PCB segment from a dock adapter PCB I made - with 1.27mm spacing between each pad, I was able to wire up a gameport and it works just as well as it was designed - which is not very well 😀
IMG_1371-crop.jpg

For some reason they only wired up one set of the x & y axis and only 2 buttons. It also likes conflicting with the built-in gamepad and switching between joystick and gamepad seems to often require a reboot.

But midi out works and that's great!
IMG_1378 (Custom).JPG

what an interesting project and great way to make the incompatible compatible! i enjoy reading about these kinds of things

ubiq wrote on 2023-05-23, 23:47:

RedSarg99 wrote on 2023-05-23, 06:55:

How do you get the fdd or odd in there 😂
Which SD card adapter do you use in the build?
I may look at going back as the install I have (smallest sata 2,5" I could find on a ide to sata adapter) seems to be hanging and not quite sure what is causing it..

No removable media in this build, other than the CF card reader - which can be limiting obviously, depending on what kind of retro activity you're looking to get into. I'm using a Promise S150 card because my BF6 mobo doesn't have EIDE. SD to IDE adapters are all pretty much (exactly?) identical. I've got mine tucked back where this case has room for 2.5 SATA drives:
IMG_4411.jpeg

it is a nice clean build!
Which PSU are you using and do you get enough molex/fdd connectors on it?
Also you added a seperate card for EIDE?

I got a NuXT Turbo XT last year and I had been looking for a case for it. The other week I came across this Thermaltake S100 Micro ATX Case that I thought would be a nice fit so I ended up ordering it. It's a bit bigger (fatter) than I expected it would be but I think the White edition looks pretty "cool". I currently have a Seasonic PSU in there, not sure if I'm going to swap it out with something else. The Seasonic doesn't really fit the case, style wise, and might be a little bit to beefy and I could probably use it elsewhere at some point.

The NuXT and the Blasterboard make a good combo. Very happy with both of them.

RedSarg99 wrote on 2023-05-26, 19:34:

it is a nice clean build!
Which PSU are you using and do you get enough molex/fdd connectors on it?
Also you added a seperate card for EIDE?

I'm using the NZXT C850 that I got with the case. Totally overkill, but at least I know it will do everything i will (ever) need. Fully modular, so I just plug in whatever cables I need. I keep a bunch of SATA to floppy power adapters around, very handy.

And yeah, I added a Promise FastTrak 100 card, mostly just so I could use those nice black ASUS 80-pin cables. With my BF6 mobo by itself I would have had to use some gungy old grey 40-pin cables. 😅

pan069 wrote on 2023-05-26, 21:33:

I got a NuXT Turbo XT last year and I had been looking for a case for it. The other week I came across this Thermaltake S100 Mic […]
Show full quote

I got a NuXT Turbo XT last year and I had been looking for a case for it. The other week I came across this Thermaltake S100 Micro ATX Case that I thought would be a nice fit so I ended up ordering it. It's a bit bigger (fatter) than I expected it would be but I think the White edition looks pretty "cool". I currently have a Seasonic PSU in there, not sure if I'm going to swap it out with something else. The Seasonic does really fit the case, style wise, and might be a little bit to beefy and I could probably use it elsewhere at some point.

The NuXT and the Blasterboard make a good combo. Very happy with both of them.

PXL_20230526_032200295.jpg
PXL_20230526_032251198.jpg

Awesome look! XT computing isn't my bag, but putting old (looking) thing in new case certainly is - I like it!

Today I put a card sideways because I thought it would be goofy, and it was, and it amused me.

So since I have 2 slot 1 motheboards on the way. I retrieved from the storage the PII that was in my first PC of 1999.

But this doesn't look right. Like it seems that the heatsink sticks out too much, there won't be enough clearance from the motherboard. Am I right?

Perhaps the motherboard of that PC (a preassembled of italian build maker, now defunct) had the slot with a 90° angle? Is it possible?

mrfusion92 wrote on 2023-05-27, 13:28:

So since I have 2 slot 1 motheboards on the way. I retrieved from the storage the PII that was in my first PC of 1999. […]
Show full quote

So since I have 2 slot 1 motheboards on the way. I retrieved from the storage the PII that was in my first PC of 1999.

But this doesn't look right. Like it seems that the heatsink sticks out too much, there won't be enough clearance from the motherboard. Am I right?

Perhaps the motherboard of that PC (a preassembled of italian build maker, now defunct) had the slot with a 90° angle? Is it possible?

PXL_20230527_132327080.jpg

Yes, it's possible! Take a look at the Compaq DESKPRO EN SFF Slot1 system.

Can anybody ELI5 why PCI (not PCIe, PCI) graphics cards are going nuts all of a sudden? These use to be worthless, now common ass Radeon 7000s, 9250s, TNT2 M64s, etc are going for $40-$60 constantly.

They are literally useless for 3D gaming, even the GeForce2MX basically falls flat on its face when attached to a PCI bus. Like to the point Intel ExtremeGraphics (which usually has a AGP bus connecting it) sometimes will out perform it.

Onto what I've actually been doing: My P5N-D for some reason has decided it no longer wants to work with 8GB of memory. I think the controller for the second memory channel is either dead or near to it. I swapped the 8GB of 800MHZ memory I had in it for 4GB of OCZ 1066 memory. This memory runs at a higher 2.2v so that might be why it works. I'm considering grabbing another kit to see if I can get back up to 8GB but the machine this is in literally only exists for playing games from 2012 or back, and nothing from that time frame actually needs 8GB so eh, why risk finishing off the known sketchy nForce memory controller.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-05-28, 02:32:

Can anybody ELI5 why PCI (not PCIe, PCI) graphics cards are going nuts all of a sudden? These use to be worthless, now common ass Radeon 7000s, 9250s, TNT2 M64s, etc are going for $40-$60 constantly.

They are literally useless for 3D gaming, even the GeForce2MX basically falls flat on its face when attached to a PCI bus. Like to the point Intel ExtremeGraphics (which usually has a AGP bus connecting it) sometimes will out perform it.

Onto what I've actually been doing: My P5N-D for some reason has decided it no longer wants to work with 8GB of memory. I think the controller for the second memory channel is either dead or near to it. I swapped the 8GB of 800MHZ memory I had in it for 4GB of OCZ 1066 memory. This memory runs at a higher 2.2v so that might be why it works. I'm considering grabbing another kit to see if I can get back up to 8GB but the machine this is in literally only exists for playing games from 2012 or back, and nothing from that time frame actually needs 8GB so eh, why risk finishing off the known sketchy nForce memory controller.

There's nothing left to buy is my best guess, haha...

Last night I unpacked a General MIDI message, by following the documentation of WinMM (hello, Windows 3.11 !), and old VBA forums:

1private static void ExtractAndProcessMidiMessage(uint packedMessage, Synthesizer synthesizer) {
2        byte[] bytes = BitConverter.GetBytes(packedMessage);
3
4        // Extract MIDI status from the low word, low-order byte
5        byte midiStatus = bytes[0];
6
7        // Extract first data byte from the low word, high-order byte
8        byte data1 = bytes[1];
9
10        // Extract second data byte from the high word, low-order byte
11        byte data2 = bytes[2];
12
13        byte command = (byte) (midiStatus & 0xF0);
14
15        if (command is < 0x80 or > 0xE0) {
16            return;
17        }
18
19        // it's a voice message
20        // find the channel by masking off all but the low 4 bits
21        byte channel = (byte) (midiStatus & 0x0F);
22
23        synthesizer.ProcessMidiMessage(channel, command, data1, data2);
24    }

That was quite retro !

Tested a CT1330A I have had sitting on a shelf for ages. Everything worked perfectly, digital sound, adlib, and even PC speaker. Have not tested the dual-OPL yet, need to research which game and how, but I feel it will work after today's test.

Recently (friday-saturday) - tested all of this buyed lot :

And my Alienware died - RIP.

Got my dual Slot 1 build up and running with Win2K. Going to do a separate post about the build in System Specs forum.

ubiq wrote on 2023-05-29, 00:22:

Got my dual Slot 1 build up and running with Win2K. Going to do a separate post about the build in System Specs forum.
IMG_4862.jpeg

how do you even get a OS or files on it? there are no 5.25 or 3.5 bays on that case

Windows9566 wrote on 2023-05-29, 00:42:

ubiq wrote on 2023-05-29, 00:22:

Got my dual Slot 1 build up and running with Win2K. Going to do a separate post about the build in System Specs forum.
IMG_4862.jpeg

how do you even get a OS or files on it? there are no 5.25 or 3.5 bays on that case

On USB or FireWire ... doooh... it's 2k dual , not 80286 , I managed to load files on my 486 with extracting hdd from it so anything is posible.

ubiq wrote on 2023-05-29, 00:22:

Got my dual Slot 1 build up and running with Win2K. Going to do a separate post about the build in System Specs forum.
IMG_4862.jpeg

i like that look you've selected for this build, 'modern' with 'retro' - can see all that goodness on display

ubiq wrote on 2023-05-27, 01:44:

Today I put a card sideways because I thought it would be goofy, and it was, and it amused me.
IMG_4622.jpeg

you did that for airflow right ? 😀