VOGONS


A couple of retros I'm working on.

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Reply 380 of 452, by jaZz_KCS

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PS: Vipersan, I never managed to get EZ Drive (or any other overlay software) to work with SSDs. Only with CF/SD-adapters as well as regular IDE HDDs. Their main purpose is to make use of the full capacity of an CF or SD card which is more than likely to be more than the BIOS can handle (and in many cases its not as easy to mod the BIOS like it is with these Toshibas), therefore I use them on all my SD/CF adapter situations. This can also come in handy of course for normal IDE HDDs which are bigger than anticipated from the BIOS.

Sorry for the confusion, as you seem to have tried it with an SSD 😀

Reply 381 of 452, by Vipersan

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So ..I repeated this test but with the sloping ally plate re-fitted under the Keyboard ..
this presses down on the copper at the curled end thus making ..I hope better contact ..and increasing the heat dispersal surface area from the copper..
Still no thermal paste used ..so contact wont be as good as it might be ..
I also monitored the temperature by taping a sensor onto the top of the copper plate directly above the cpu ..
I guess this could also be done better ..thus..
I'm allowing myself 10 degress of possible error .
But after one hour of running Win3.1 ..just diplaying the start up windows ..the meter reads around 44 degC ..
so ..add to that my 10 degree error ..and I'm happy with 54 degrees C ..
Obviously there is vetilation insofaras the upper plastics are not fitted.
I would expect another possible 10 degree rise with these fitted ..so I'm now going to throw a towel over the whole thing and check back in another hour.
Fingers crossed I dont get thermal runaway.
rgds

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Reply 382 of 452, by Vipersan

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The ambient temerature in the room has dropped a couple of degrees ..so difficult to make direct comparisons.
But after a further hour of running with a towel over the whole assembly it the meter still only read 48 degrees ..so I guess this mod will work.
rgds
VS

Reply 383 of 452, by Vipersan

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jaZz_KCS wrote:

PS: Vipersan, I never managed to get EZ Drive (or any other overlay software) to work with SSDs. Only with CF/SD-adapters as well as regular IDE HDDs. Their main purpose is to make use of the full capacity of an CF or SD card which is more than likely to be more than the BIOS can handle (and in many cases its not as easy to mod the BIOS like it is with these Toshibas), therefore I use them on all my SD/CF adapter situations. This can also come in handy of course for normal IDE HDDs which are bigger than anticipated from the BIOS.

Sorry for the confusion, as you seem to have tried it with an SSD 😀

Thanks JZ ..
so I guess I will just have to wait until my 44 pin ide to CF adapters arrive to test further.
rgds
VS

Reply 384 of 452, by Vipersan

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A quick (related) question ..
Since I want to keep my 16 bit full length ISA slot free in the 5200 for a sound card ..
I'd like to fit a 8 bit, (half/slot) ISA to Ethernet card as well ..
Does such a thing exist ?
I've done a little searching and keep drawing blanks.
I'm guessing ..even if I found one it would not have a twisted pair socket ..and would most likely be a bnc ether connection.
Is this true ?
Then there would be driver issues I guess..ie ..finding them.
Am I wasting my time ?
advice welcomed.
rgds
VS

Reply 385 of 452, by Vipersan

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The replacement bios battery arrived today (3 bead type) for the Toshiba Tecra 510CDT.
Sadly not an easy straight swap job ..as the corrosion had indeed dissolved both the 3 pin bios plug and the 7.2v short term data battery connector.
The corrosion was so bad in fact they simply could not be unplugged or removed..
I cut the wires to see if they wer still connected ..at least to ground..
They were not ..the pins inside plug and the sockets theselves were nothing but corrosion.
So set to work with some chipquik and special flux ..plus fine soldering iron tip..working what was basically ..down a hole.
I eventually got the 2 mini connectors off taking the corroded pins/sockets/contacts with them .
This made it possible to clean the area ..scrape the pcb lands back and re-tin.
The results are in the photos.
I doubt I will be able to replace these sockets ..but at least I can now solder a new bios directly to the pcb.
I really must love my retro to go to these lengths..
Not an easy job ..and no guarantee it will work.
rgds
VS

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Last edited by Vipersan on 2018-03-05, 20:36. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 386 of 452, by Vipersan

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So ..hopefully this will provide a removeable solution.
I didn't want to take the battery wires directly to the main pcb ..
I wanted it removeable ..and also the wires not to apply a tugging action at the delicate main board solder pads..
A tiny piece of verro superglued to the plastic battery carrier.
here is a photo with the new rtc battery and the old 7.2v resume battery side by side..
neither connected ..but only the new rtc will be used.
I dont think I need replace the 7.2v battery..so I'll just leave it out.
rgds
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Reply 387 of 452, by Vipersan

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I'd like your opinion of this Ian ..
took a punt and won it on fleabay..
related to your EXPRO 80 ..a distant cousin perhaps ?
rgds
VS

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Reply 388 of 452, by jaZz_KCS

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I have two Satellites of the same model range.

On both the connectors show slight corrosion but they are still intact. These models have very thin connectors for their batteries , but the climate here in more central Europe is more kind to them I guess.

One BIOS battery I had to replace I had to use a barrel type that doesnt fit where it would normally go.
So I made the cable longer and it resides in the HD tray now 😀 there is more space as I use a SD adapter.

I dont replace the resume battery normally, as it is not needed. (and I never use standby in DOS or Win9x.)

Reply 389 of 452, by Vipersan

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jaZz_KCS wrote:
I have two Satellites of the same model range. […]
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I have two Satellites of the same model range.

On both the connectors show slight corrosion but they are still intact. These models have very thin connectors for their batteries , but the climate here in more central Europe is more kind to them I guess.

One BIOS battery I had to replace I had to use a barrel type that doesnt fit where it would normally go.
So I made the cable longer and it resides in the HD tray now 😀 there is more space as I use a SD adapter.

I dont replace the resume battery normally, as it is not needed. (and I never use standby in DOS or Win9x.)

Well JZ ..fwiw ..all reassembled and working just fine ..
Turned my attention to the external floppy unit I also have for this lappy..
As before ..belt driven and perished.
The drive in question is a Citizen LR102061
..and believe it or not ..I found the belts for sale on ebay (new) ...but quite expensive at nearly £5 each plus another couple of ££s postage ..
Then of course there is the issue of actually replacing it ..which is not an easy task.
I therefore opted to try and fit a TEAC - FD05HG just like on the T4900CT.
I grabbed the last one at £5 (ebay) and free postage.
so less than the cost of a belt and hopefully ..less work.
we shall see.
The external caddy is an interesting beast as it looks like I could fit the CD drive in it and the floppy in the lappy ..or vice versa.
A really nice laptop this one..and currently has a 2gb HD with win98 already installed.

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Last edited by Vipersan on 2018-03-05, 23:59. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 390 of 452, by jaZz_KCS

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Yes, the caddies were actually designed to hold either floppy or CD drives.

And one of my drives in the external caddies perished as well so I replaced it with another drive that has the same flat cable connector.

You probably have already opened it and see what I mean. It should be a standard connector.

Reply 391 of 452, by Vipersan

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jaZz_KCS wrote:

Yes, the caddies were actually designed to hold either floppy or CD drives.

And one of my drives in the external caddies perished as well so I replaced it with another drive that has the same flat cable connector.

You probably have already opened it and see what I mean. It should be a standard connector.

Indeed I have already opened it..
I also like that the front slot which takes either CD or floppy appears to be hot swappable.
Hopefully my choice to try and fit a non belt driven floppy will make it future proof as well as a cheaper repair.

..and the ribbon in the citizen drive is a MIF ..not ZIF socket and really tight to pull out..as expected
😉
rgds
VS

Reply 392 of 452, by Hamby

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Vipersan wrote:
A quick (related) question .. Since I want to keep my 16 bit full length ISA slot free in the 5200 for a sound card .. I'd like […]
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A quick (related) question ..
Since I want to keep my 16 bit full length ISA slot free in the 5200 for a sound card ..
I'd like to fit a 8 bit, (half/slot) ISA to Ethernet card as well ..
Does such a thing exist ?
I've done a little searching and keep drawing blanks.
I'm guessing ..even if I found one it would not have a twisted pair socket ..and would most likely be a bnc ether connection.
Is this true ?
Then there would be driver issues I guess..ie ..finding them.
Am I wasting my time ?
advice welcomed.
rgds
VS

I'm actually looking the other direction.
There are 8-bit ethernet adapters available, but the only ones I've seen are AUI and coax (correction; I saw one 8-bit TP, but its price on Ebay was nearly $200 US). You can get an AUI to TP converter, but by the time I connect it to a mobile wireless access point, that's a long string of boxes.

I had read somewhere, and I'm still looking for confirmation, that you can use a 16-bit (full-slot) sound card in an 8-bit (half-slot) ISA socket, you just lose any CDROM or other capabilities.
I *have* an 8-bit Soundblaster card. Yes, half-slot. Unfortunately, it's so long it extends beyond the size of my full-slot 16-bit ethernet adapter, and therefore won't fit in the 8-bit slot.

I've been looking at some HP Aztech based cards, and some ESS cards, those of which are precisely the size of a full-slot (or, some seem slightly smaller...) to try them in the 8-bit slot and see if they'll work.

Reply 393 of 452, by Vipersan

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Thanks Hamby..
I suspected I might have problems.
The reason I chose the direction I did is that I already have a 16bit ISA sound blaster..so it seemed logical to persue a short card for networking.
oh well..
worth an ask.
One bit of good news ...re the toshiba laptops.
I placed a bid on a 10.5 gb 44 pin ide drive today in working condition and no bad blocks/sectors.
I really expected to be outbid..but I was the sole bidder and won it for £1..with £2 postage..
which was nice.
😉

Reply 394 of 452, by Vipersan

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Something for the weekend sir ?
A common question heard in barber shops back in the day ..but I suspect they meant something rubber..😉
Anyhoo ..this arrived this morning ..and Ill hopefully get to play with it at weekend..
A dual CF unit..
..quite speedy from AliEx ..just a couple of weeks delivery time.
Nice..

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Reply 395 of 452, by IanB

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Vipersan wrote:
A quick (related) question .. Since I want to keep my 16 bit full length ISA slot free in the 5200 for a sound card .. I'd like […]
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A quick (related) question ..
Since I want to keep my 16 bit full length ISA slot free in the 5200 for a sound card ..
I'd like to fit a 8 bit, (half/slot) ISA to Ethernet card as well ..
Does such a thing exist ?
advice welcomed.

Like the soundcards, some 16 bit network cards will fit in an 8 bit slot and will work as long as you configure them to use only the resources (IRQ etc) that are available on an 8 bit slot. I'm using NE2000 compatible ISA network cards and I think at one time I had one running in an 8 bit slot.
This appears to be an NE2000 compatible type which should just about fit in the 8 bit slot:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Sealed-Genius- … eT/263393636428
If you look at the photos, the one from the manual says "Auto-detect for 8/16 bit bus interface" so it seems to support that.

Vipersan wrote:

I'd like your opinion of this Ian ..
took a punt and won it on fleabay..
related to your EXPRO 80 ..a distant cousin perhaps ?

Yes that does look like a related product to mine, the ISA card looks identical although the programmer has smaller sockets (maybe 28 or 32 pins instead of 40 on mine).
I think it's quite possible it will work with your obscure Commodore compatible EPROMS.

Reply 396 of 452, by Hamby

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Vipersan, you may find this message thread useful:

http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?145 … I-3c509-TPO-ISA

It appears maybe my Etherlink card may work in the 8 bit slot (Etherlink III 3c3509 TPO), but probably not.
But they assert that Realtek cards will work. I have a couple Realtek cards... PCI... 😢

Reply 397 of 452, by Vipersan

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Thanks guys for the responses..
Ian ..I have grabbed one of those genius cards...
fingers crossed it will fit.
..and thanks for casting an eye over the progger...which should be here for weekend.
rgds
VS

Reply 398 of 452, by OldCat

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@Vipersan

Nice mod and nice results. First of all, some thermal paste will go a long way (and it's generally cheap, so I think I'd go for it. Secondly, you can perhaps salvage heatsink from some dead 386/486/early pentium era, such as this one: http://freakedenough.at/infoseiten/upload/files/img_0427.jpg I think I had an old Zalman radiator somewhere, entirely made of copper, perhaps will experiment a bit there, too...

Reply 399 of 452, by Vipersan

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So ..
finally got win98se installed on an 8gb CF in the Tecra 510CDT ..
I divided it into 2 partitions C and D or 4gb each ..
D being a logical drive in an extended partition.
All good so far and everything went smoothly but I am having problems finding suitable installation software and drivers for the only suitable pcmcia wifi card I have that will work in this laptop.
Made by ZyAIR ZyXEL B120 802.11b wireless lan
can anyone help here ?

I repaired the Floppy drive module which fits in an external caddy and plugs in at the side.
Fitted a new 26 pin floppy drive ..which was a pita ..mainly on account the ribbon cable had to be creased and folded up to fit in the space.
I also upped the ram with a 64mb simm ..
now around 80mb
The hard drive CF caddy is dual so in theory I can add more hard drive space.
All in all ..this lappy which now has a working RTC ..is a beautiful bit of legacy kit...and having an active matrix screen should make a very nice retro gaming laptop.
and I wont easily misplace the psu ..as it is internal ..so no psu brick to lose.
rgds
VS

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