Tiido wrote on 2024-03-08, 15:25:

I'm pretty sure the assembly lines to make the kinescopes are long sold off and scrapped so getting good newly made kinescopes will be quite difficult and very very expensive...

Indeed.
You don't actually need an assembly line. But similar to makers of vacuum tubes and glasswork, you will need a large kiln, an extremely high-class vacuum pump, various spot-welding machines (for making the CRT gun and grid), and probably a slew of other very specific / large tools and equipment that pretty much makes it cost-prohibitive for any one individual or small business to invest into. And there's not really such a high demand for mass-producing CRTs, so no large company will venture into this business either.

In short, CRTs and the making of, is a lost art now.
Whatever surviving tubes there are will be the last ones we see.

On the electronics side, things aren't that complicated at all and you can still get high-voltage & current transistors needed for the horizontal output. Proprietary all-in-one RGB amps may be gone now too, but they can be built from discrete transistor easily. In fact, my older Sony CRT monitors all have mostly discrete RGB amplifiers. It's the newer models that switched to special all-integrated RGB amps.

Has anyone looked into the possibility of using the southbridge of a SS7, P2, P3, socket A, ... mainboard to add ISA capabilities on newer mainboard that only have PCI ? ... possibly pcie ? will also likely need some bios/uefi code I guess.
for example using the VT82C686B .

Open source GM module emulators that work like Munt.

FPGA based chipsets for new 286/386/486 boards

weedeewee wrote on 2024-03-10, 18:07:

Has anyone looked into the possibility of using the southbridge of a SS7, P2, P3, socket A, ... mainboard to add ISA capabilities on newer mainboard that only have PCI ? ... possibly pcie ? will also likely need some bios/uefi code I guess.
for example using the VT82C686B .

Ah, you shook a neural clot loose, was trying to remember a thing I was gonna mention in this thread when it popped up again... it wasn't this but...

PCI riser for VLB boards... I think it's maybe just slap a PCI bridge on a VLB card... and then all the fiddly boring bits.

megatog615 wrote on 2024-03-09, 10:51:

This is in progress for the PicoMEM. You need a Pico W to do it

This universalization of such a projects seems to me like "Jack of all trades, master of none".

momaka wrote on 2024-03-10, 15:57:

On the electronics side, things aren't that complicated at all and you can still get high-voltage & current transistors needed for the horizontal output. Proprietary all-in-one RGB amps may be gone now too, but they can be built from discrete transistor easily. In fact, my older Sony CRT monitors all have mostly discrete RGB amplifiers. It's the newer models that switched to special all-integrated RGB amps.

Deflection side is definitely not an issue, you can use a modern SiC MOSFET and get results that old stuff could only dream of but the end of video path is absolutely a problem, at least when you need more than few tens of MHz bandwidth.

Most transistors with more than 100V breakdown voltage have FT that is just barely 100MHz or capacitances that are so high there's no way you get much out of them beyond SDTV, even reaching vanilla VGA bandwidth is very hard with currently available selection...

This is one part I have researched a lot, since I am working on something fun to get maximum out of those remaining kinescopes, beyond of top of the line commercial offerings. The low voltage signal side is easy, there are a number of fast opamps or RF transistors to use, but at the cathode end there is pretty much nothing to use. Some very expensive RF modules have the needed higher end bandwidth and can put out 100V+, but none of them have performance starting from DC which is an absolute requirement in this task.

Schule04 wrote on 2024-03-10, 18:22:

Open source GM module emulators that work like Munt.

It's not exactly same, but mt32pi has a GM sound font feature, in addition to LA synthesizer emulation.

https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi

Schule04 wrote on 2024-03-10, 18:22:

FPGA based chipsets for new 286/386/486 boards

I still hope for lithography for the hobbyist.
I hope an 80286/80386 core rated 6 to 12 MHz can be eventually printed on glass (plastic).

Sharp had achieved something like that about 20 years ago.
The company printed an oversized Z80A on glass. Maybe it works with an 6502, too.

https://www.idealine.info/sharpmz/z80glass.htm

- Serious AGP slot diagnostic card, ideally with a display
- SATA controller VLB or ISA as silly as it may sound
- SAS controller for PCI (not that silly but it seems that none exist)
- ASUS 5V to 3.3V PCI power card replica (see here)

pvlst wrote on 2024-03-10, 21:22:

- Serious AGP slot diagnostic card, ideally with a display - SATA controller VLB or ISA as silly as it may sound - SAS controlle […]
Show full quote

- Serious AGP slot diagnostic card, ideally with a display
- SATA controller VLB or ISA as silly as it may sound
- SAS controller for PCI (not that silly but it seems that none exist)
- ASUS 5V to 3.3V PCI power card replica (see here)

An isa sata card wouldn’t be that hard. Vlb either. One would simply use bridge chips, and an xt-ide bios there is a singal that earlier bios/controllers looked for that disappeared later on, there is a thread around here about how to spoof that signal.

In reality, one really doesn’t need to design such a card as one can simply assemble it from adapters and I/O base cards. And add xt-ide bios.

I definitely get the convenience of an all in one purchasable solution though

Not a power card, but in my pcb projects in sig is a 3.3v conversion project

Well, I have an obscure one - and only because I suddenly finding myself needing it and unable to get it: An audio interface (USB or PCIe) that takes multiple SPDIF inputs and digitises them independently (clocks and all). This is less retrocomputing than it is synth/music, but since this is all for retro computer-music synths, I don't feel overly guilty.

It'd be nice if there was something like a four-input version of the Cubilux E52-Z10-19BK. That said, for my actual current use-case I'm just going to get a single one of those and call it done; and if my primary audio interface could handle 48k, even that wouldn't be necessary. Still annoying though. Means I can't be tempted to buy more 30 year old synths. Sad.

pvlst wrote on 2024-03-10, 21:22:

- ASUS 5V to 3.3V PCI power card replica (see here)

I made one of these. The problem I ran into is that most motherboards don't have the +3.3V pins routed between slots.

kingcake wrote on 2024-03-11, 04:22:

pvlst wrote on 2024-03-10, 21:22:

- ASUS 5V to 3.3V PCI power card replica (see here)

I made one of these. The problem I ran into is that most motherboards don't have the +3.3V pins routed between slots.

Is there an easy way to tell, such as with a multimeter?

megatog615 wrote on 2024-03-11, 14:47:

kingcake wrote on 2024-03-11, 04:22:

pvlst wrote on 2024-03-10, 21:22:

- ASUS 5V to 3.3V PCI power card replica (see here)

I made one of these. The problem I ran into is that most motherboards don't have the +3.3V pins routed between slots.

Is there an easy way to tell, such as with a multimeter?

Sure just probe between slots on the +3.3V pin(s). You can check on the back of the board on the solder joints.

Here's a mini version I made. Ignore the sloppy soldering, this was a prototype.

got a link to a gerber and BoM?

kingcake wrote on 2024-03-11, 16:39:

Sure just probe between slots on the +3.3V pin(s). You can check on the back of the board on the solder joints. […]
Show full quote

megatog615 wrote on 2024-03-11, 14:47:

kingcake wrote on 2024-03-11, 04:22:

I made one of these. The problem I ran into is that most motherboards don't have the +3.3V pins routed between slots.

Is there an easy way to tell, such as with a multimeter?

Sure just probe between slots on the +3.3V pin(s). You can check on the back of the board on the solder joints.

Here's a mini version I made. Ignore the sloppy soldering, this was a prototype.

IMG_1729.jpg

Oh nice. Can you post that in the adding 3.3v to pci thread?

megatog615 wrote on 2024-03-11, 16:43:

got a link to a gerber and BoM?

Here ya go: https://github.com/chadr/PCI-Voltage-Blaster

I made like 10 of them. If you want a few I can send you some.

Tiido wrote on 2024-03-08, 15:25:

I'm pretty sure the assembly lines to make the kinescopes are long sold off and scrapped so getting good newly made kinescopes will be quite difficult and very very expensive...
Electronics side proposes some challenges too, particularly final cathode amps where there's nothing modern that will work there. Most rest can be done without much problems at all. Perhaps some of the old parts can be revived through places like Rochester Electronics who seem to specialize in making legacy parts, although at very uncompetitive prices 🤣.

I'd be more interested in flat panels with built in high quality upscalers than actual CRTs to be honest. There is probably a market for this, and it is not tech that does not exist - most good TV sets from late 2000s had this feature.

leileilol wrote on 2024-02-07, 03:20:

the3dfxdude wrote on 2024-02-06, 15:43:

leileilol wrote on 2024-02-04, 03:33:

Automatic on-demand Plus! desktop theme parsing/adapting/loading for <insert Linux DE here>

Is this automatic enough?
https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95/blob/m … /Plus/README.MD

ah. i assumed that died from GTK regressions in new XFCE

Tried this recently and that huge inkscape dependency is an oof as it fatals there.

That's what needs done, fork linux from ubuntu 16.x or 18.x, redo it with XFree86, repair all the crap that got broke going into 14.x, standardise on KDE, don't let any stupid "ideals" or window dressing or feature creep mess it up, just a solid freaking linux that everything from 2000-2020 works on again, and go back to where a live CD could have 50 useful apps on it, instead of a live DVD having 5.

I don't know that KDE is a good target for something that runs on 2000 hardware. Personally I'd go with Xfce, and I wouldn't for Ubuntu but probably fork something more stable and less bloated like debian itself.