@brassicGamer Did you recap your 286 laptop?

Godlike wrote:

@brassicGamer Did you recap your 286 laptop?

Yep - made no difference. The power board is too damaged 🙁

I've decided to sell the parts so hopefully someone else can extend the life of theirs.

That's sad

brassicGamer wrote:

luckybob wrote:

PROTIP: DON'T

The level of commitment to get a ps/2 system going is quite high compared to average white-box stuff.

Yeah - good luck finding an MCA Sound Blaster.

Huh, they actually make one! https://www.chipchat.com/mca/soundcard/soundcard.html.

Well, it's not an SB, and the page, while still alive, is pretty old, but it's SB-compatible.

jade_angel wrote:

brassicGamer wrote:

luckybob wrote:

PROTIP: DON'T

The level of commitment to get a ps/2 system going is quite high compared to average white-box stuff.

Yeah - good luck finding an MCA Sound Blaster.

Huh, they actually make one! https://www.chipchat.com/mca/soundcard/soundcard.html.

Well, it's not an SB, and the page, while still alive, is pretty old, but it's SB-compatible.

Are they for sale?

It sure looks that way, but the page was last updated long ago, and I haven't actually tried to order one. It might be an old derelict, still floating around the net, or maybe they really are still for sale. I don't have anything with MCA slots currently, but if I ever come upon any, I'll try to order one.

jade_angel wrote:

It sure looks that way, but the page was last updated long ago, and I haven't actually tried to order one. It might be an old derelict, still floating around the net, or maybe they really are still for sale. I don't have anything with MCA slots currently, but if I ever come upon any, I'll try to order one.

Like I said, good luck 😀

They ask:

Quantity Price, Each
1-4 $79.00
5-9 $69.00
10-19 $65.00
20+ $58.00

If you have questions, you can email direct to the sales support staff at ChipChat: SoundCard@chipchat.com

Front panel restoration
Making progress in getting home for the parts shiny and bright. There will be 3 stages: front panel, chasis, outer cover plate.
Note that "OPTIMUS SA Plus" sticker is a company name which build that system for home or office use. You can notice here small hole under the sticker, on the other side is a socket for led or switch/button.
I didn't discover any usage of this as there are already POWER/TURBO/HDD leds. However, I will get rid of that fancy "OPTIMUS SA Plus" sticker and create more familiar case badge to the system itself, like 286-16.
What do you think guys? Any suggestions?

BEFORE

AFTER

Chassis cleaning
I could disassemble chassis parts, repaint it, use rivets and rivet gun to put it back together, but after cleaning I realized that chassis have no much rust on it, almost none. I decide to keep it with original painting for now.

BEFORE

PC case doesn't looks that bad, just a bit shabby. Watch the result of cleaning. Not that bad, huh? We'll kepp it like that for now.

AFTER

EDIT
Outer matal cover cleaning
Before

After

Sorry for poor lighting here. Hope you can see the difference. Finally PC case is ready.
I like the style of front panel 😀 What do you think about it?
Making progress soon. If you have similar 286 system you can share your foto here. I looked arond for drivers too. I found them on VOGONS Vintage Driver Library and hope they will work properly. This is pure MS-DOS machine. There will be nothing fancy here like Windows 3.11 or 95. I will go with MS-DOS 5 or 6. What's the difference. What operating system you use on your vintage 286 computer?
Godlike

Godlike wrote:

What operating system you use on your vintage 286 computer?

Definitely MS-DOS 5.0 for me.

It'd be a tossup between MS-DOS 3.3 (especially on an AT-era boxen), MS-DOS 5.0 (which is what my 286 PS/2 came with, back in the day) or PC-DOS 2000, for the features.

Pre-set of KSD-510A turbo display
There where minor changes with getting display work at two modes turbo and non-turbo. Everything is working now.

Thanks folks for sharing your opinion about operating system in your 286 systems. I'll try to go with MS-DOS 5.0 first and then see how it goes. Seasonic SSG-150C PSU this 286 system uses seems to be in great shape. Not much dust over the fan and it is still sealed. However, I'll use hoover to get dust from it as much as I can. Day after tomorrow I'm going to see my friend in his place in order to pick up miroHiscore 3D-II 12MB and search for some Philips SAA-1099 chips for ATI Stereo F/X OPL2 in order to get it compatible with Creative Music System standard . Don't get confused with that 3dfx card, this one is just for the other system that utilize Windows 98 - of course 😀 To your knowledge I'm going to open new thread and use Youtube channel with it for Let's build series. This project will applied from 5 to 10 full builds of PC quality multimedia systems. Systems already exist in my workshop. I wasn't been inspired by some youtube user as Phil, I just finally manage time for my passion. By finding 286 system this gave me an opportunity to think of starting point. You can see that Nocito87's 286 is still cabable of handle MANY MS-DOS games. 286 is the oldest setup I handle for now, several more builds will handle MS-DOS too. Chronologically 286<386<2x 486 and then Pentium era builds. The Pentium era builds will be equipped with 3dfx stuff of course. Did you know that company, nah? What all this is about? You probably saw PhilsComputerLab, Lazy Game Reviews and other interesting Youtube channels. I like to watch interesting videos about retro computing, share the passion and remind good old days 😀 time travels makes me so marvelous, don't you?

Nice job so far. I like that clean and tidy case, good as new!

All this 286 talk made me remember that i should tinker again with my 286 "laptop"(heh, it's quite the suitcase), it's in really bad shape. Maybe i'll try to service it next week.

mongaccio wrote:

Nice job so far. I like that clean and tidy case, good as new!

All this 286 talk made me remember that i should tinker again with my 286 "laptop"(heh, it's quite the suitcase), it's in really bad shape. Maybe i'll try to service it next week.

Thanks, I'm glad you like it. The case you can see was so dirty, I did my best to refresh it as I could. I like to do neat and clean builds. All I could is to encourage you to restore your suitcase.
May be not too late for repairing it. Batery leakage and other threats are dangerous to the hardware itself. Hope is not too late. You can post picture of that retro PC here if you wish.

Time for the final assembly
Many minor problems fixed. I prepare to put all parts together. Drivers found and downloaded. I don't have MS-DOS 5 yet, this could be downloaded freely somewhere? I'm still looking for two manuals, one for the motherboard and other for IDE/FDD Winbond controller. Manual for Winbond is essential in making everything works fine. I search from yesterday for manual to see all jumper settings, but I couldn't find it.
Do you know guys where can I find jumper settings for this ISA controller? I will upload picture so you can see brand and chip name.

Godlike

Well, the good news on that card is that the major jumpers are self-documenting, other than JP1 and JP2 (which might have something to do with the gameport). Looks like there's two blocks for the COM port number and IRQ for the serial ports, and for the parallel port, and then primary or secondary for both IDE and floppy.

Doesn't *look* like there's a way to disable any of the bits, though, which might cause some issues with the gameport/MPU on your sound card. At least those can usually be changed, though.

I'm back !
Finally arrived, brand new, cheap DIL Philips SAA1099P from China. Let's get that ATI Stereo F/X YAMAHA YM3812 OPL2 to make it compatible with Creative Music System standard!
Two chips provided 12 voices, 4 channels, 12 channels of square-wave "bee-in-a-box" stereo sound.

Making progress...

Nice work 😀 Have you tested it out?

I'm glad you like it 😀 Not yet. A very few minor fixes separates me from the final assembly, like solder wires, led's, fixing switches and other things.
I aim to do it today, but 4 now I have other work to do with higher priority. Hope I sort out everything today. The thing is that I have no older MS-DOS like 6.22 and Windows 3.11 in original versions.
I'll definately post here fresh updates. What will be your first software to run on this system. I'm waiting for your suggestions 😁