bjwil1991 wrote:

That looks interesting. Which system do you use for the NAS OS? I remember using NAS4Free on my Socket 7 machine and a worn down Compaq Presario C700 several years ago.

I'm using OpenMediaVault on an Odroid HC2 from HardKernel. I used the following guide by Explaining Computers to help me set up the system, and then did some additional things to set it up as so (adding FTP support). A very simple, "cheap", small purpose-built one-drive NAS solution, I would think (the WD Green 2TB HDD I got for $20 USD at a local buy-sell-trade store, and the whole NAS setup (minus the SD card for OMV, which I saved some money and bought it off Amazon for $6.19) I paid $84.10 for straight from HardKernel).

Also, question: Has any one had any experience with the Creative Extigy external USB sound device? I saw one at that same buy-sell-trade store, and was wondering is it worth picking it up for anything.

Today I began building a Kickstart relocator, because the 2-in-1 kickrom-switcher, will not fit when using the CPU relocator that I use with the TF-530 accelerator. The first relocator that I build, was too thick and the keyboard will not fit. So I soldered a second one. It is all trial and error when doing something homemade.

This is the first one that I did. Ribbon cable and because the wires were under the board, and I had to isolate it from shortening out. Wich made it too high. Anyway... I did a second more slim one after this failure.

The second one, were I used an old harddrive ribbon cable and soldered it straight onto a socket's pins. Then I isolated it from shortening. It just takes a lot of time, soldering 40 wires this way.
Both relocators are not tested with a power on in the Amiga, yet a test with the multimeter on continuity, show no errors during build. Too late to test it all (it is after midnight), as I have to clean the table after all the trash. Hopefully the slim version kickrom relocator will work.

the_ultra_code wrote:

Also, question: Has any one had any experience with the Creative Extigy external USB sound device? I saw one at that same buy-sell-trade store, and was wondering is it worth picking it up for anything.

its a creative product. The answer is almost always YES.

luckybob wrote:

the_ultra_code wrote:

Also, question: Has any one had any experience with the Creative Extigy external USB sound device? I saw one at that same buy-sell-trade store, and was wondering is it worth picking it up for anything.

its a creative product. The answer is almost always YES.

That's a semi-valid reason. 😀

Why would I want it? Also, is it a good product?

find out for yourself.

if you don't like it or have a use for it, drop it on ebay and someone will want it. The last ones sold for ~$30, so the likelihood of breaking even is excellent. Plus you will have had some fun with it.

ITS FREE FUN!!!

Tested some stuff I recently aquired.

1. VLB ATI Mach 32 - 2MB VRAM version. Also have a 2MB DRAM version.

2. 8GB CF card - supposedly PNY but not branding on them because they came from some OEM system. Had to use my Windows 10 machine to delete all the partitions before it would partition with fdisk on my DX4 system.

3. Keytronics AT and maybe XT keyboard. One version of this keyboard had an actual XT/ AT Enhanced/XT switch. This one the hole for the switch is there, but no switch. Will have to text with an XT machine to see if this one auto-senses or is just an AT keyboard.

Modified the non-stock heatsink that came on a Hecules 3d Prophet 4500 AGP video card (Kyro II) so the mounting holes lined up enough to actually work... When I got it, it just had some double sided tape on there that of course had failed. Also found that there were a couple SMD capacitors missing so I replaced them with slightly larger size ones I salvaged form a dead card. Next step is to test the card to see if it actually works.

Well...
The relocators have too long ribbon cable, so there is no way they make decent contact when the machine tries to talk to them. Oh well.... Back to the drawing board. 😁

Decided to give my shelf a little break and moved about 50kg of HDD's and CD-roms to a more convenient and safe location: on the floor. I previously bought some plastic boxes, castor wheels and boards, which I put together.

Just browsing Vogons after a looooong hiatus, trying to catch up with the happenings.

So far I've read about the great PPro haul, anything else I shouldn't miss?

This isn't "today", but rather "multiple hours last night when I should have been in bed." I made a spreadsheet that tracks the names of all my PCs, after I discovered I'd accidentally re-used the same name on three different machines. Because clearly that was a productive use of my time.

You can peruse the sheet if you want, or laugh at my senseless pedantry here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xqEtb … dit?usp=sharing

For reference, only machines that go on my network or have permanent renameable local storage (i.e. a HDD volume label) get names. Phones don't, because I can't be bothered, but I think my one Android tablet might have a name. Shame I can't find the damn thing.

Organized my bedroom/workshop. When you have a lot of stuff and limited space knowledge of how to cram stuff is essential. 😵

cj_reha wrote:

Organized my bedroom/workshop. When you have a lot of stuff and limited space knowledge of how to cram stuff is essential. 😵

My mommy said I can come over to play at your house!

Gotta love the John Deer curtains.

the_ultra_code wrote:

Also, question: Has any one had any experience with the Creative Extigy external USB sound device? I saw one at that same buy-se […]
Show full quote

Also, question: Has any one had any experience with the Creative Extigy external USB sound device? I saw one at that same buy-sell-trade store, and was wondering is it worth picking it up for anything.

Yes! I had one when they first came out. It depends what you want from it.

It has a plethora of inputs and outputs.

It connects to 5.1 speaker systems.

It had good software with all the EAX effects.

It can ups 2 channel audio to 5.1 audio.

Yesterday evening fellow Vogon Thandor came over for a few beers and to pick up a big pile of stuff (I'm a city slicker, he has a whole barn to play in). We also had a bash at some boards I hadn't been able to get working. A nice little 386DX-40 board with VLB and So1 LIF that looked good at first sight but refused to do anything turned out to have horrendous corrosion from a leaked battery on the reverse. We stopped counting after ten dead traces, and it looked like it had seeped deep into the PCB. Total loss.

However these two were pleasant surprises:

On the left is a NIB EISA+VLB board I'd had for some time, had never been able to get even close to booting, but didn't want to give up on because rather impressive. Turns out it has two issues at present:
1) the VLB slot seems to short something out (as in PSU doesn't even power up when it's populated). Stick an ISA card in and that goes away though.
2) RAM... normally you fill bank 0 first. This board doesn't even start POST if bank 1 isn't populated. Once you do that. it's happily alive 😕

Still need to figure out what's going on with the VLB slot, and then there's that RTC - dead of course, and not only soldered but also located snugly between various other high components. Still, even now, it's alive!

On the right is a socketed 386/486 board with VLB. I'd written it off due to what looked like bad corrosion and not immediately booting when I tried it, but turns out the corrosion was mainly superficial, and there are mercifully few traces in the affected area. Also, the "light" in LIF is a misnomer. After having had some trouble extracting the 486 from another board's LIF socket, I was adamant we shouldn't press the CPU too hard. Thandor insisted though and I was glad he did - after a good hard press, it came to life. Still not entirely happily booting DOS, but definitely worth spending some more time on.

it's getting to the point where this is all I do anymore.

Made a safety copy of my original Windows 95 floppies, using Winimage.

luckybob wrote:

Gotta love the John Deer curtains.

Only the classiest curtains for the workshop! 🤣

Did a blog post.... 😀

Managed to migrate save (two .HUD and one .SAV file) and game data from NFS Porsche on one pc to another pc and getting it to work right. It didn't work right at first because I got errors in the form of 'unable to open file x' with a reference to a code line, but I could force it to run ignoring the errors. It turned out that all I had to do was to unselect 'read only' in properties of the files which the game couldn't open (or write to?). Now the game seems to run error free and it saves me tons of time completing evolution mode with all cars 😀