gdjacobs wrote:

PA RISC servers on the left?

Dang right it is.

FaSMaN wrote:

That depends, what is missing? […]
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ODwilly wrote:

So I have run into the issue that on an ebay auction, I have received an important part less than was advertised in the listing. Now I messaged the seller and they claim that the item missing was never advertised as included. HOWEVER!!! The missing item was included in the title advertisement and described as functioning in the listing WITH pictures. Iv contacted the seller asking about this and they claim it was never advertised as included. . .Iv responded being understanding, referencing that the ad is the opposite of what they responded to me with. My question to ya'll is should I let it go or ask for a full refund if they refuse to even acknowledge their mistake?

That depends, what is missing?

If its something that is absolutely required for the item to work and is allmost impossible to get hold of, ask for a refund, if its not required ask for a partial refund.

What did you order, its difficult to figure out if it is absolutely needed

Not 100% important but pretty valuable by it's self. I sent them a somewhat nasty message and got it all sorted out. Miscommunication between the shipping department and the selling/advertisement departments. So it is on the way. It was a floppy drive for a C64 btw.

kithylin wrote:

Sitting here on the floor working on rebuilding my LGA-775-Core2Duo (I know it only uses 1 of the cores) Win98se system from "parts strewn across the floor" in to a proper system inside a computer case. And working to convert the processor in to custom water loop (cpu only) in the process. Right now is just an allendale core2duo generic chip. Some day later it'll be a Conroe X6800 and need water cooling cause I plan to run it somewhere north of 4ghz in the end.

If anyone's interested I might run a thread on it somewhere.

EDIT: Made a thread on it anyway. ...

i always work in the floor with computers, it's because when i was a kid i played with Lego A LOT and always in the floor. Plus i dont need some anti static bullshit.

Living wrote:

kithylin wrote:

Sitting here on the floor working on rebuilding my LGA-775-Core2Duo (I know it only uses 1 of the cores) Win98se system from "parts strewn across the floor" in to a proper system inside a computer case. And working to convert the processor in to custom water loop (cpu only) in the process. Right now is just an allendale core2duo generic chip. Some day later it'll be a Conroe X6800 and need water cooling cause I plan to run it somewhere north of 4ghz in the end.

If anyone's interested I might run a thread on it somewhere.

EDIT: Made a thread on it anyway. ...

i always work in the floor with computers, it's because when i was a kid i played with Lego A LOT and always in the floor. Plus i dont need some anti static bullshit.

Me either. I sometimes even lay computer parts on a towel on the floor when working. In all my 20 something years since I was 10 working with computers I've as of yet never fried anything due to static. It's just a lot more comfortable for me to work on the floor with all my parts and stuff spread out around me.

CelGen wrote:

gdjacobs wrote:

PA RISC servers on the left?

Dang right it is.

With my new Mac ADB TM FCS in hand, I decided to put it through its paces. Rudder pedal readings tend to wrap around for some dumb reason, but otherwise, it's a pretty solid stick.

However, I didn't have a matching Mac WCS. Turns out I don't need one, either; all the buttons are handled directly by the FCS, the throttle axis pot is exactly where it would be on a PC gameport throttle, and I managed to decipher the pinout after looking up the datasheet on the shift registers within, probing with a multimeter, and watching what button pins corresponded to what actual button in ThrustWare.

Sadly, most PC gameport sticks don't have a fully-wired DB-15 cable. I'm gonna need one if I want to rewire my PC WCS, since it seems to omit pin 15 and possibly other pins I need for the buttons.

Played a few hours of Ultima Underworld II on my 486. Already hooked! Music is amazing and I don't think I've ever heard such low FM notes in a couple of the songs. Just got down to level 5 of the sewers. My druid is level 7.

Yesterday I recapped a 20" 1600x1200 HP 2035 monitor which I would really love to use. It did have a couple bad caps but it still doesn't work. But I know the problem now - it has a bad backlight. I finally managed to see the image with a flashlight. Replacing CFL backlights is an intimidating job, I've never attempted it but I may go for it on this one.

clueless1 wrote:

Played a few hours of Ultima Underworld II on my 486. Already hooked! Music is amazing and I don't think I've ever heard such low FM notes in a couple of the songs. Just got down to level 5 of the sewers. My druid is level 7.

That sounds awesome. I never played UW2 and I really need to. I keep putting these things off until I got an "appropriate" retro PC built, and I never seem to get that stuff finished.

shamino wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

Played a few hours of Ultima Underworld II on my 486. Already hooked! Music is amazing and I don't think I've ever heard such low FM notes in a couple of the songs. Just got down to level 5 of the sewers. My druid is level 7.

That sounds awesome. I never played UW2 and I really need to. I keep putting these things off until I got an "appropriate" retro PC built, and I never seem to get that stuff finished.

My first playthrough as well. Back in the day, I did Ultima 1-5 on the Apple II, skipped 6 (did not have a PC at the time), played The Black Gate, skipped the Underworlds and Serpent Isle, played, but did not finish 8 and 9.
So now I'm going back and trying to fill in the gaps. I finished UU1 (awesome), playing UU2 (even more awesome), and looking forward to Serpent Isle. I'm not as enthused about U6 for some reason.

Kinda wanting to start up my older win98 computer and play me some Diablo II again today. I think I might can make it to the final nightmare or what ever mode.

Painted the fence around our garden, and played around with my 486dx33.

Played AOE2HD this weekend. Put my vintage Digital 5100 on a shelf in the garage. Donated one of my two dining room tables. Hardly have time / energy for vintage gaming anymore. 😀 My sons now have more room to play and run around.

PeterLI wrote:

Played AOE2HD this weekend. Put my vintage Digital 5100 on a shelf in the garage. Donated one of my two dining room tables. Hardly have time / energy for vintage gaming anymore. 😀 My sons now have more room to play and run around.

Yeah....
Know the feeling. Though I am making time, despite all the chores at my place.

PeterLI wrote:

Played AOE2HD this weekend. Put my vintage Digital 5100 on a shelf in the garage. Donated one of my two dining room tables. Hardly have time / energy for vintage gaming anymore. 😀 My sons now have more room to play and run around.

I've tried AOE2 HD. It's terrible and ruins the spirit of the game vs the original in my opnion. I don't remember exactly but they removed a lot of different unique units from certain classes and some other stuff.

I set up my Dual P3 CuMine 1GHz machine to test some graphics cards.

brief specs:
Dual p3 1GHz /133MHz
1536MB SDRAM PC133
Dual 40GB IDE
Sapphire X700 pro AGP
EpoX VIA 133A

AOE2HD is awesome! I have played 600+ games in 1300+ hours to date.

In hindsight I should have studied for the CPA or an MBA: oh well! 😉

PeterLI wrote:

AOE2HD is awesome! I have played 600+ games in 1300+ hours to date.

In hindsight I should have studied for the CPA or an MBA: oh well! 😉

Nice!

I don't have figures, but the only game I think I sunk in similar time was Battlefield 2142. Man I loved that game...

Worked on my netbust machine. XP is loaded up now, just need to install a few last drivers and get some benchmarks, games and other stuff installed. 4ghz seems to be hit or miss with stability but no problems yet at 3.73 😎

Took apart my Creative Prodikeys DM (PS/2 version) to see how it works. I'm still holding out some vague hope of reverse engineering it to hack together a driver for Linux & OSX. This thing:

It's actually super easy to open up. Just remove the 12(!) screws around the outside and pop the cover off. You don't even need to dig under the label. Also, it's built like a tank.

There are apparently NO photos of the inside of one of these on the web. Until now. Enjoy this exclusive world first, right here on Vogons:

...yeah, kinda what I was hoping. Pretty simple device.

^^ Not much to the top side of the control circuit board. Lots of dodgy Chinese sellers claim to have the Creative CA0300-DAD chip "in stock" but none of them want to cough up the datasheet. I think it's the ROM.

The two ribbon cables are for the QWERTY keybed and "special" keys (start/stop/play, sustain, octave shift, programmable keys, etc.) topside. On the right, the white connector (CON2) goes to a simple board that holds the pitch bend & volume wheel. The loose soldered wires (CON1) are the PS/2 plug and the big fat ribbon on the bottom is for the piano keys. More on that shortly...

^^ Unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to disconnect these ribbon cables without damaging them. That would have made my life easier.

The piano keybed is a DEAD SIMPLE diode matrix type with a rubber membrane. It isn't velocity sensitive or anything. It would be virtually trivial to bodge an external DIN5 MIDI port onto this using a Highly Liquid UMR2 or even an Arduino. (Why the hell did I sell my UMR2 last year??) However, that would lose the functionality of the pitch bend wheel & fast octave shift keys, and the ability to plug this into the PS/2 port of anything regardless of whether it even had a MIDI interface. But at least that option's there.

Finally, here's the topside of the circuit board. I was a little surprised to find *three* identical Philips microcontrollers (P87C52X2BA.) The little TI chip is a 7407 logic gate and the SEC chip is a KA558D2 quad timer. And that's it!

SO... any of you reverse-engineering gurus want to help me tackle this thing? For starters, any pointers how I would go about dumping that ROM?

Finally decided to brave a Voodoo3 heatsink removal. Was gently able to pop it off with a razor blade and small flathead. Replaced old thermal sticker with fresh MX4 and zip-tied a spare 60mm fan running at 5v to keep it extra cool. Thankfully it still works after all that manhandling.