Reply 26940 of 27744, by PcBytes
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Thermalwrong wrote on 2024-03-10, 13:26:Heh I was gonna congratulate you on that in the other thread. How can you tell it's a 5x86? Apart from it being an AMD part it l […]
PcBytes wrote on 2024-03-10, 11:36:Tested an very cute SBC - Advantech PCM-4823. POSTs fine, someone ripped the 3.6v battery tho and I have to figure out what kind of IDE it uses.
Guess I got myself a (very smol) 5x86 machine in my hands 🤣
Heh I was gonna congratulate you on that in the other thread. How can you tell it's a 5x86? Apart from it being an AMD part it looks like the lettering isn't visible?
I've got a PCM-4825 which I'm pretty fond of, I even made an LCD adapter for it 😀 It gets quite hot so you'll really need to add some cooling, I still haven't really sorted that out for mine so I just put a fan over it when I use it.
I soldered a coin cell holder in where the original soldered battery was, mine was missing or dead too.
For the IDE I use a 44-pin IDE cable with a CF to IDE adapter that has both 44-pin and 40-pin headers, I'm guessing it's designed for a 44-pin disk-on-module. Hmm, I should really get some CF adapters that have a female 44-pin header for this instead since they're very cheap.
Just needs a PC104 soundcard and some kind of housing and this would be one fantastic little retro PC. Now that I look at it, it might be cool to squeeze it into a laptop chassis which could use the LCD. Probably not so easy though since the laptop membrane keyboard would need a controller made up.------------
The other day I got hold of a Tecra 8100 for cheap because I wanted to see what it was about. These are now very rare and the ones I do see available are broken. It was sold for parts and the faulty video memory was visible in the listing but I thought it was a faulty screen - it was not, the VRAM is bad *and* the screen's polariser is breaking down. This is the 3rd worst corroded laptop I've ever worked on, but the most corroded one that still works. Even had to drill out a screw and the rear parallel port shield has a hole rusted in it:
Tecra8100 (1) (Custom).JPGTecra8100 (2) (Custom).JPGTecra8100 (3) (Custom).JPG
It works for now, but the fan is busted, the PCMCIA ports are gone, the screen is un-usable and there's more corrosion on the PCB so it might not last for long. But it did install Windows 98 okay! Doing that with stripes on the screen and selecting all my usual options is an experience.OH YES - the floppy drive stopped working because the corrosion messed up the disk-detect / density-detect microswitches and then the battery pack started making strange cracking / something expanding noises when I put it on charge so that's now gonna live out in the garden in a covered pot to discharge.
Found out from the POST screen. Also CHIPS graphics chip resolution be funky stuff.
"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB