PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

...and a copy of the manual for the DEC version (has some better representations of the caddy / operation)

DEC rrd40.pdf

thank you, that helps a lot, now I understand the mechanism 😀
still going to be hard to reconstruct without detailed measurements.

but I don't have a fitting controller right now anyways, so there's time for this project to see if the drive even works at all ^^

If you want to part with it, let me know. 😉

Not sure of the LMSI / Philip equivalent, but the DEC part number for the caddy would appear to be RRD5X-AA - might be worth checking to see if anyone still holds stock.

Found a boxed CD burner to replace my old one, nice to have the audio cable too as IDE beige drives are getting harder to find locally.

^^^ Which reminds me. Finally found a beige SATA burner for a sleeper build. There is a batch of beige Teac SATA optical drives on Ebay, but they are slightly darker than a standard beige case (I know because I bought a couple). This one fit the bill perfectly. Had to scrub off drive letters that were in ink and pencil on the front bezel, but it came out nicely.

That's neat, some come with interchangeable ivory/black faceplates which is very nice for switching builds.

liqmat wrote:

^^^ Which reminds me. Finally found a beige SATA burner for a sleeper build. There is a batch of beige Teac SATA optical drives on Ebay, but they are slightly darker than a standard beige case (I know because I bought a couple).

satabeigefront.jpg

[attachment=0]satabeigeback.jpg[/atachment]

What is standard beige? From what I remember pretty much every computer had its own version of beige. The later beige computer cases were practically white, so these drives would probably be perfect for early 90s builds.

my 486 dx2 setup:

btw - swap to ESCOM possible 😁

Anonymous Coward wrote:

liqmat wrote:

^^^ Which reminds me. Finally found a beige SATA burner for a sleeper build. There is a batch of beige Teac SATA optical drives on Ebay, but they are slightly darker than a standard beige case (I know because I bought a couple).

satabeigefront.jpg

[attachment=0]satabeigeback.jpg[/atachment]

What is standard beige? From what I remember pretty much every computer had its own version of beige. The later beige computer cases were practically white, so these drives would probably be perfect for early 90s builds.

There was a very common shade of beige in the 90s that most cases followed. When building PCs throughout the early 90s at a PC shop I worked at, most cases we ordered from different manufacturers were very close in color and most magnetic and optical drives followed the theme. It did not vary much.

retropol wrote:

my 486 dx2 setup: […]
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my 486 dx2 setup:

I just fell in love with your case.

retropol wrote:

https://i.imgur.com/wEE0SUX.jpg […]
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Is that unmodded? It looks super modern! Sweet case.

What a pretty case... It's a full tower, right?

this is standard case which was offered by polish computer producer - JTT - brand ADAX in early 90's. 1993-94-95 I think
it is midi-tower. They had full line of this cases, but no idea if they designed it on their own or they just imported them from china or somewhere.

My CRT monitor bit the dust a week ago, lasting for just eight months of use, despite it was a new old stock item. According to a repairman, the flyback transformer is shorting the circuitry, and since I don't know the manufacturer, I have no way to repair it. 😵

So, I just bought a replacement monitor, this one:

An Olivetti CDU 1458MS/HA71. On paper seems to be a good model: it supports 1024x768 at 60Hz, stores size and position settings per resolution, and has even pincushion controls and horizontal and vertical size controls, something you don't see often on early VGA monitors from the early 1990s. Plus it was made by Hantarex, which was known for its high quality CRT tubes. We shall see. I always liked the look of these Olivetti monitors, since they carried on using the same design starting from the mid 1980s up to the mid 1990s.

I got myself a CD-ROM drive too 😀

Pioneer DRM-600. I guess it is from the early 90's. I plan to connect it to my IBM PS/2 P70, but cannot test it yet, because I don't have a suitable cable (IBM and their stupid micro centronics connector...).

It suffered a bit during transit. Laser lens had come loose and volume knob was smashed in. I glued the lens back in place, and glued the broken knob back together. At least it looks good, hopefully it also works. Seems to be common problem that these lenses come loose no matter how good the packaging is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7zR2lkmOiM

I already had a Pioneer CD-player that uses the same 6CD-cartridges, so it is nice to have some company for it 😀

nice, I almost got one of those too, but got a smaller one instead a few pages back... I'm really developing this weird affection for old/odd CD-Rom drives 😁

Got an IBM P260 monitor locally, time to learn WinDAS I suppose.

also this cute thing :3c

it's astonishing what they crammed in there, even place for a 8bit ISA card 😀

unfortunately the PSU is missing, but that shouldn't be too hard to figure out... but it also seems like someone already had a go at this, the front had a broken clip and some of it is missing, the HDD power cable is missing and one of the screws was rattling around inside, the speaker broke off and the FDD wasn't screwed in at all and bent a bit so the door wouldn't close properly, also the power button sticks.
I hope that I will be able to get it to work cause I really like that small form factor, and it's a 286 😀 ...from checking the chips it seems to only have CGA graphics though, not much I can do about that.
also need to find a sound card that'll work in the 8bit slot and is short enough to fit inside the case.

retropol wrote:

my 486 dx2 setup: https://i.imgur.com/wEE0SUX.jpg […]
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my 486 dx2 setup:

OMG that case is an absolute thing of beauty.

I really hated the way pretty much every computer came in a shade of beige back in the day, ...I really hated beige... like really hated it.. and was quite happy when stylish non white computer cases started hitting the market (P4 era onwards)... but that thing could quite happily sit under my desk and I would be proud 😀.

Is it possible to have some close-ups of the panel LED's? Do these things come up often on polish market places?

retropol wrote:

btw - swap to ESCOM possible 😁

🤣 thats exactly what I thought it was when I first saw it!

retropol wrote:

my 486 dx2 setup: […]
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my 486 dx2 setup:

Falls in love with an AT case.. 😊

spiroyster wrote:

I really hated the way pretty much every computer came in a shade of beige back in the day, ...I really hated beige... like really hated it.. and was quite happy when stylish non white computer cases started hitting the market (P4 era onwards)... but that thing could quite happily sit under my desk and I would be proud 😀.

COMPAQ, IBM, Fujitsu and even Escom already offered black pc's in the 90's.