VOGONS


A couple of retros I'm working on.

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Reply 180 of 452, by Vipersan

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Looking promising ..
Cmos battery replaced ..
Mitsumi ultra slim floppy ...fitted
Correct date and time ..and reads disks
I have also repaired the 800mb hard drive with original win 95 O/S on it..
There was a 2 amp surface mount fuse on the control board open circuit ..
took a chance and replaced it..
result !!
and the mitsumi floppy isn't a bad colour match either..
I luv it when a plan comes together..
Still got some reassembly ..but another hour should sort it.
Then I may even consider re-building the Battery Pack ..
😁
VS

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Reply 181 of 452, by Vipersan

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Bonus !!
you'll never guess what I think I've found on the 800mb hard drive I repaired today..
Only the software for my micromaster 1000 programmer ..
🤣
Seems this was the drive I used over 20+ years ago ..
Yep I cant believe I still have it on a working win95 OS
life is strange..

Reply 183 of 452, by Vipersan

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jaZz_KCS wrote:

Very nice that it turned out to be a generic ultra slim floppy drive 😀

Yes indeed ..
Seriously pleased with this little lappy..
Thanks for all your help JZ
Now got it reading from a pcmcia CF reader ..
So I can get large files in and out.
If only I could get it working with my Panasonic KXL-D721 scsi CD drive..
for some reason I cant get the CD recognised as a D: drive.
It will see the Panasonic pcmcia scsi card ..but thats as far as it goes..
rgds
VS

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Reply 185 of 452, by Vipersan

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That is good to know JZ ..
Have you used it on a win95 lappy ?
If so ..can you outline the procedure for install ..
I'm sure I'm doing something wrong.
All I got with it is a floppy install disk and until the floppy drive was fixed ..I couldn't even try it out.
Basically I just want to add CD capability to this laptop.
It recognised the pcmcia card was inserted..and asked for the floppy ..which I gave it.
But there has to be more than this ..
No windows applications on the disk as such ..
What did you get with yours JZ ?
rgds
VS

Last edited by Vipersan on 2018-01-30, 10:42. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 187 of 452, by jaZz_KCS

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That's soo cool. You have the Sound version with speaker that is also Soundblaster compatible. 😁

But from what I can see you have the wrong driver disk. You have model 721, but that is the 740 driver diskette.

The correct driver diskette should have DOS and win95 drivers.

Reply 189 of 452, by Vipersan

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I have a selectable output voltage smpsu on order to replace the 10v DC < 110v AC transformer that came with it ..
Dont know if it does 10v ..but definately 230vAC > 9v DC 1 amp
..but on batteries atm sadly
rgds
VS

Reply 190 of 452, by Vipersan

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jaZz_KCS wrote:

That's soo cool. You have the Sound version with speaker that is also Soundblaster compatible. 😁

But from what I can see you have the wrong driver disk. You have model 721, but that is the 740 driver diskette.

The correct driver diskette should have DOS and win95 drivers.

I suspected as much ..but that was what the US seller included ..
Any Idea where I might download the correct drivers JZ ?

..also you now have me wondering if this is the correct pcmcia card ?
I trusted the seller to include the correct parts ..but who knows ?

Reply 191 of 452, by jaZz_KCS

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Vipersan wrote:
I suspected as much ..but that was what the US seller included .. Any Idea where I might download the correct drivers JZ ? […]
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jaZz_KCS wrote:

That's soo cool. You have the Sound version with speaker that is also Soundblaster compatible. 😁

But from what I can see you have the wrong driver disk. You have model 721, but that is the 740 driver diskette.

The correct driver diskette should have DOS and win95 drivers.

I suspected as much ..but that was what the US seller included ..
Any Idea where I might download the correct drivers JZ ?

..also you now have me wondering if this is the correct pcmcia card ?
I trusted the seller to include the correct parts ..but who knows ?

That is indeed the right PCMCIA card. Mine says "CDROM Card" and yours says "SOUND CDRom Card". Which is correct for the models that have Soundblaster compatibility.

Turns out that your model has two disks. Here are the driver disks for DOS/W3.1/W95.

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Reply 192 of 452, by Vipersan

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jaZz_KCS wrote:
Vipersan wrote:
I suspected as much ..but that was what the US seller included .. Any Idea where I might download the correct drivers JZ ? […]
Show full quote
jaZz_KCS wrote:

That's soo cool. You have the Sound version with speaker that is also Soundblaster compatible. 😁

But from what I can see you have the wrong driver disk. You have model 721, but that is the 740 driver diskette.

The correct driver diskette should have DOS and win95 drivers.

I suspected as much ..but that was what the US seller included ..
Any Idea where I might download the correct drivers JZ ?

..also you now have me wondering if this is the correct pcmcia card ?
I trusted the seller to include the correct parts ..but who knows ?

That is indeed the right PCMCIA card. Mine says "CDROM Card" and yours says "SOUND CDRom Card". Which is correct for the models that have Soundblaster compatibility.

Turns out that your model has two disks. Here are the driver disks for DOS/W3.1/W95.

Thanks JZ..
Gonna take a while though to sort this installation out ..
The directory structure has been destroyed within the zip ..
When unpacked and written back to a blank floppy 'setup' run from the root expects to find some files in the root ...and some in a sub directory called 'KMESETUP' which doesn't exist ..so I'm trying to work throughhaving created the directory and shuffling files beteen locations on the A drive..
hope this makes sense..
rgds
VS

Reply 194 of 452, by IanB

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Hamby wrote:

I'll try doing a rom dump tomorrow.

OK thanks

Hamby wrote:

I've never shipped anything from the UK, is there any way I can figure out what the costs will be? The chip, of course, your time, of course, and the shipping cost.

I had a look on the post office web site and it doesn't look like it would be that expensive: £3.15 (about $4.50) for standard shipping assuming weight and size limits are met, it's nearly treble that for a tracked service but the chip itself is worth a lot less than the extra cost so I don't think it's worth using that option.

Reply 195 of 452, by Vipersan

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Postage is always the deciding factor when buying from the US Ian ..
..and probably the reverse is also true..
Small items dont usually incur extra duty charges ..particularly when sent as a gift..
I repair AV equipment for a living and once needed a CD drive not available in the UK ..to repair an audio book player for a blind customer.
I found what I needed for sale in Phoenix Arizona ...
luckilly I had a friend on satellites.co.uk where I am a mod ..
He lives in the US ..over 400miles from the seller ..
he bought it for me and it shipped to him for a nominal amount..he then sent it to me as a gift ..
It took a while to get here ..but job done ...happy customer ..and saved a whopping £50+
Logistics eh ..
It's often not what you know so much as who you know..
rgds
VS

Reply 196 of 452, by Hamby

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IanB,

I ran DEBUG along with the commands you instructed.

It created two files; BIOS.BIN and VGA.BIN. Both are 64k in size.

Now I have to figure out how to get them off that machine and onto my main computer so I can upload it.

(I've an old K6-300 desktop running DOS 6.22/WFW3.11 on my network, but I haven't had it on in a year and I'm not sure its floppy is working)

I'll probably try running that Hiterm program on the T5200, and using a serial cable run hyperterm on my main computer, and see if I can do a transfer that way.

yes, if the costs of shipping are that low, and the chip price is as low as you you and Vipersan have been discussing, I'd be thrilled if you could send me a new bios chip. Let me know what you need for your time.

Reply 197 of 452, by Hamby

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Well, I tried running the Hiterm terminal program, and I can't really figure out how to get it to talk to Hyperterm on my PC. I think it was specifically designed for prom burning or similar functions.

But I did confirm that the left-alt key is dead 🙁

I did copy the files to floppy, and tomorrow I'll fire up my old dos desktop and see if I can copy them onto it.

Reply 198 of 452, by Vipersan

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I spent most of last night constructing a Win95 floppy installation kit..
As yet untested though..but if it functions will be a useful addition to my toolkit.
I made it primarily for installing 95 on the likes of the T4900CT which has no CD of course ..but does have a working floppy drive now.
If anyone wants to try this ..it appears to be fairly straightforward ..though time consuming ..
Dig out 23 x1.44mb HD floppys ..
thoroughly test them ..
label them BOOT and 1 through 22 ..
Format disks 2 through 22 to DFM using Maxidisk ..(dont forget to give the disks labells at format DISK1 > DISK22)
DFM makes the disks hold larger file data ..1.7mb +
http://www.herne.com/mdisk1.htm
Download a copy of the floppy installation from say.. winworld (Windws95B OSR2)
decompress and have them ready ..
Drop the contents of BOOT onto the diskette labelled boot
Drop the contents of disk 1 on the disk labelled 1 (standard 1.44mb format)(2 CAB)
Drop the contents of disk 2 on the disk labelled 2 (First DFM formatted disk)(1 CAB each per disk)
Repeat for all othe rest up to 22

rgds
VS

Reply 199 of 452, by jaZz_KCS

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Vipersan wrote:
I spent most of last night constructing a Win95 floppy installation kit.. As yet untested though..but if it functions will be a […]
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I spent most of last night constructing a Win95 floppy installation kit..
As yet untested though..but if it functions will be a useful addition to my toolkit.
I made it primarily for installing 95 on the likes of the T4900CT which has no CD of course ..but does have a working floppy drive now.
If anyone wants to try this ..it appears to be fairly straightforward ..though time consuming ..
Dig out 23 x1.44mb HD floppys ..
thoroughly test them ..
label them BOOT and 1 through 22 ..
Format disks 2 through 22 to DFM using Maxidisk ..(dont forget to give the disks labells at format DISK1 > DISK22)
DFM makes the disks hold larger file data ..1.7mb +
http://www.herne.com/mdisk1.htm
Download a copy of the floppy installation from say.. winworld (Windws95B OSR2)
decompress and have them ready ..
Drop the contents of BOOT onto the diskette labelled boot
Drop the contents of disk 1 on the disk labelled 1 (standard 1.44mb format)(2 CAB)
Drop the contents of disk 2 on the disk labelled 2 (First DFM formatted disk)(1 CAB each per disk)
Repeat for all othe rest up to 22

rgds
VS

Very nice, indeed. This is one of the main reasons I always use CF/SD cards in adapters instead of HDDs if possible so in cases where you cannot use a CDRom drive you can always get the card out, insert it to a modern machine and quickly copy over all the (in this example) Win95 setup files. Done.

Of course, not always is the card removable easily, it depends on the model. But this is also the reason I always keep a separate partition on the CD/CF-card with the setup files stored. So one can easily format c: and thereafter go to d> and install again. I also keep all custom drivers and stuff needed pre- and post-install on that partition so that re-installation of an OS is a breeze.

This is handy, since having the setup files on a seperate partition also speeds up the installations process dramatically
.