I'm thinking about a thing.

I got a bunch of 80s laptops (and one 92). One of them functions fine, about 6 of them are designed not to power up without a functional battery... the others are kind of slightly disassembled.

I started working on power supplies a little while ago but I think I need to do a deep dive into the subject. Most old laptops for sale come without power supplies and may of those are kind of non-standard in various ways (multiple voltages, multiple pins, communication between the external PSU and the device, etc).

A lot of older laptops actually have separate PSU boards inside the laptop, which could be electrically duplicated (and probably smaller, lighter, and with less power consumption).

I hope to make some progress soon and if I actually get one working I'll make a separate post about it with the steps I took.

Downloading the whole Stason.org TULARC website for my personal archive. (tons of retro hardware info like motherboard models, diagrams, jumper settings, video card info, I/O card info, etc) I'm using HTTrack for the download.. I'm at about half a gig worth of information right now and there's no end in sight, 🤣.

wiretap wrote:

Downloading the whole Stason.org TULARC website for my personal archive. (tons of retro hardware info like motherboard models, diagrams, jumper settings, video card info, I/O card info, etc) I'm using HTTrack for the download.. I'm at about half a gig worth of information right now and there's no end in sight, 🤣.

*scoffs derisively*

I recently downloaded the ENTIRE Packard Bell public FTP site recently in an attempt to find a manual and/or bios for a NEC Ready 9716. 60 gigs. It will accompany my Abit website mirror nicely.

luckybob wrote:

wiretap wrote:

Downloading the whole Stason.org TULARC website for my personal archive. (tons of retro hardware info like motherboard models, diagrams, jumper settings, video card info, I/O card info, etc) I'm using HTTrack for the download.. I'm at about half a gig worth of information right now and there's no end in sight, 🤣.

*scoffs derisively*

I recently downloaded the ENTIRE Packard Bell public FTP site recently in an attempt to find a manual and/or bios for a NEC Ready 9716. 60 gigs. It will accompany my Abit website mirror nicely.

Nice. My new goals are along those lines.. Hoard all the data I can (and upload to archive.org) in case I need something in the future that is very difficult to find.

wiretap wrote:

Downloading the whole Stason.org TULARC website for my personal archive. (tons of retro hardware info like motherboard models, diagrams, jumper settings, video card info, I/O card info, etc) I'm using HTTrack for the download.. I'm at about half a gig worth of information right now and there's no end in sight, 🤣.

Does the Stason website not have the same content as this ?:
http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=229&menustate=0

root42 wrote:

liqmat wrote:

It was considered awful and a rush job back in the day. I remember as a kid how disappointing the 2600 version was. The homebrew […]
Show full quote

appiah4 wrote:

How good (bad?) is the 2600 version of Pacman?

It was considered awful and a rush job back in the day. I remember as a kid how disappointing the 2600 version was. The homebrew version decades later looks MUCH better.

https://youtu.be/uqdcayWamRc

Same with Donkey Kong.

https://youtu.be/3PPoAXcuNxE

Wow, this is night and day. I definitely HAVE to get the homebrew version. Awesome!

Had to throw this your way. Indie Retro News just put this up today. There is a downloadable demo ROM of Galaga up on AtariAge. It looks incredible and TBH it's amazing how good it looks for the 2600. Shows you... right dev, right tools and amazing things can happen with very limited resources.

http://www.indieretronews.com/2019/06/galaga- … ming-atari.html

Today I wanted to write a CD some driver +other useful programs. I did at 4x speed with Nero 6, but I must have messed up something, since my older (than XP) PCs can't read it and that's where it would be the most important. I tried to revrite it in my Pentium 4 build, but it failed at 98% and now I'm out of CDs.

I also reinstalled my ASUS L7200 with Windows 95. I can't install the network card (the driver would be on the previously mentioned CD) and wasn't lucky with the USB so far either. Otherwise it works as I imagined.

RandomStranger wrote:

Today I wanted to write a CD some driver +other useful programs. I did at 4x speed with Nero 6, but I must have messed up something, since my older (than XP) PCs can't read it and that's where it would be the most important. I tried to revrite it in my Pentium 4 build, but it failed at 98% and now I'm out of CDs.

My only good luck with CDs reading in older systems has been using Verbatim 52X CD-R's, with the SuperDrive in my MacBook Pro, writing at 10x speed. I haven't tried other types of CD-R's.

keenmaster486 wrote:

My only good luck with CDs reading in older systems has been using Verbatim 52X CD-R's, with the SuperDrive in my MacBook Pro, writing at 10x speed. I haven't tried other types of CD-R's.

Yeah, I wrote probably the exact sameVerbatim yesterday at 8x speed with a bunch of Build engine games and it was alright. The one I wrote today what doesn't work. I should have started with the drivers 😵

Someone gave me a 45 record so I was motivated to troubleshoot the big ol' Magnavox (looks similar to below) which didn't track too well the last time I tried it. I discovered the needle is a removable piece and it has a rubber bushing in it that had gone soft so instead of resting on the tip the whole head was basically laying on the record. Also looks like it's designed to play LPs with one side then it flips over to play 78s, not that I have any 78s. Got a replacement, put that in, and managed to play through several records without skipping once 😄

PARKE wrote:

wiretap wrote:

Downloading the whole Stason.org TULARC website for my personal archive. (tons of retro hardware info like motherboard models, diagrams, jumper settings, video card info, I/O card info, etc) I'm using HTTrack for the download.. I'm at about half a gig worth of information right now and there's no end in sight, 🤣.

Does the Stason website not have the same content as this ?:
http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=229&menustate=0

I don't know, I haven't cross referenced everything. But I have that already too. 😎

Received an Abit VP6 dual socket 370 board today off Ebay.. it was listed USED, which means fully functional per Ebay descriptions. Seller description said it wasn't tested in a few years but was working when it was pulled. Seller description said AS-IS and no returns (which if it is listed as Used/working, that would mean it just comes as it is shown with no accessories, etc) Well, I tested it out today and it is deader than a doornail. Tested it with a few different processors (even with a single processor + terminator socket in the other). No post, no beeps, no codes shown on a POST card. Tried different RAM, different video cards, nothing. Filed an Ebay dispute. I don't know why people just don't list things as "For Parts or Not Working".. very frustrating.

Yeah, sold untested and as-is really means "I've tested it and it doesn't work, but lets pretend otherwise, some sucker who still has some faith in humanity will snap it up".

I try to avoid things like that. Been burned a few times. Usually get money back.

However, I am more likely to bite if it was being sold for cheap. Sometimes fun to take a punt, especially on old fully assembled systems.

Got a 100% overclock on a s775 Pentium e2140. 1.6GHz -> 3.2GHz.
Using a cheap Foxconn G45M board, stock cooling, and no crazy voltage.
If anything deserves to be a spiritual Celeron 300A successor, this would be it, not that lame Anniversary Edition Pentium G3258.

RandomStranger wrote:

Today I wanted to write a CD some driver +other useful programs. I did at 4x speed with Nero 6, but I must have messed up something, since my older (than XP) PCs can't read it and that's where it would be the most important. I tried to revrite it in my Pentium 4 build, but it failed at 98% and now I'm out of CDs.

I also reinstalled my ASUS L7200 with Windows 95. I can't install the network card (the driver would be on the previously mentioned CD) and wasn't lucky with the USB so far either. Otherwise it works as I imagined.

Damn, I forgot that I can just transfer files through the LPT prot. It's not gigabit ethernet, but at least does the job for small files like drivers.

Received a Memory Card for the PS1 I bought recently, as the one I got with it was dead, nothing would work. I tested out the new card, made a couple of saves and it was working fine.

So just for curiosity I decided to see what would happen if I tried to copy game saves from the new card to the "dead" card.... and it just copied fine and both cards are now working perfectly ok. 😕 😕 😕 😕

I slapped in my new ti500 in my Tualatin rig to replace the ti4200 that was in it. Didn't update any drivers or do a clean install. ti500 performed about on par with the ti4200 in Quake3 and 3Dmark2000, but lagged behind a little with 3Dmark2001. My Windows98 computer is finally complete. A perfect Q4 2001 PC.

RandomStranger wrote:

RandomStranger wrote:

Today I wanted to write a CD some driver +other useful programs. I did at 4x speed with Nero 6, but I must have messed up something, since my older (than XP) PCs can't read it and that's where it would be the most important. I tried to revrite it in my Pentium 4 build, but it failed at 98% and now I'm out of CDs.

I also reinstalled my ASUS L7200 with Windows 95. I can't install the network card (the driver would be on the previously mentioned CD) and wasn't lucky with the USB so far either. Otherwise it works as I imagined.

Damn, I forgot that I can just transfer files through the LPT prot. It's not gigabit ethernet, but at least does the job for small files like drivers.

I used LPT to transfer Windows 95 onto a Thinkpad 760e, and it worked great until some idiot stepped on it and shattered the screen.

If thinking counts as doing, I've been trying to think up more early-nineties-appropriate wallpaper designs (without the need for classic-style 3D rendering), and maybe more Windows 3 icons, but the 192 I already made have just about completely burned me out.

Tested a Matrox Mystique. No POST at first, then spotted two of the pins for the memory expansion were touching. Fixed that and it worked fine. Now running X-VESA to check RAM is all OK.

Unfortunately managed to break a 3.5mm jack when turning the PC. Unusually I do actually have a spare for that cable type (1x 3.5mm stereo to 2x 6.3mm mono 1.5m length), but of course I just completed cable management that I now will have to redo 🙁

130 sounds about right for a 386DX, time to resotre it into one as such 😀