Put together an XT - USB mouse adapter ....

Just for LOLs so far. I have not actually gotten it to work yet.

douglar wrote on 2020-03-07, 21:10:

I have not actually gotten it to work yet.

It will only work with a mouse that supports the serial protocol. These converters do not do any protocol conversion.

I was wondering whether PlayStation1 games can output digital audio via Toslink cable when played on a PlayStation2.

Tested that out today and it turns out they can. Sounds awesome, and makes for a great setup for gameplay audio capture.

Messing around with multiple unknowns is never a good thing. After upgrading my son's retro-machine to GUS+AWE64 and adding MIDI-capabilities had challenges getting the joypads working again. Turns out two things were problematic:

1) my MIDI-Joystick Y-cable didn't work (at least the joystick part
2) GUS joystick port doesn't like Gravis GrIP Multiport

Replaced the cable and moved it all to the AWE64 and everything is working again, and OMF2097 sounds better than ever - or rather: like it did in the late 1990s on my P60+GUS Max setup.

derSammler wrote on 2020-03-07, 21:20:

It will only work with a mouse that supports the serial protocol. These converters do not do any protocol conversion.

The mouse works with the ps2 adapter, and the serial card works, so it must be the 25to9 adapter or the 9toPS2 adapter that isn’t functioning as expected.

douglar wrote on 2020-03-08, 00:48:

derSammler wrote on 2020-03-07, 21:20:

It will only work with a mouse that supports the serial protocol. These converters do not do any protocol conversion.

The mouse works with the ps2 adapter, and the serial card works, so it must be the 25to9 adapter or the 9toPS2 adapter that isn’t functioning as expected.

derSammler is 100% correct. Not all PS/2 mice are serial compatible. Not all USB mice are PS/2 compatible. Hardly any (if any) USB mice are serial compatible. The required signals to a Serial port are far different than USB can supply without using the +5 or GND pins to carry one of the needed signals. PS/2 has 6 pins so can be serial adaptable but USB has just 4.

Finally got my 8088 XT 10MHz working.. at first the 360k floppy drive was giving me trouble. When you close the latch, it doesn't like to center the disk right and it spins off-center causing it not to read. I figured out if you relatch it a few times, it centers the disks and they can be read properly. I got through the DOS 5.0 install to my 128MB CF Card using the XT-IDE.

However, it doesn't want to boot from the CF Card. If I boot from a DOS 5 floppy and exit to the command prompt, I can then start autoexec.bat on the C:\ drive. I think Cylinder 0 of the CF card is screwed up. I tried to do a DOS Debug low-level format on it a while back and it would no longer be seen by several computers, then I finally got it to be recognized and formatted, but it behaves oddly sometimes and won't be seen by certain formatting utilities. I may need to bring it into a disk editor and try fixing it.

Anyhow... here's some pix. Now onto some games with the Adlib. 😁

Jed118 wrote on 2020-03-07, 07:07:

https://i.imgur.com/hT3J43d.jpg […]
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I gotta do something about that Turbo LED. I recall over a decade ago I redid my first wife's HVAC controls on her Tiburon. The answer was: Sand the LED down.

Fast forward to now - I'll use a grinder.

The shiners can be converted to glow-er by replacing the empty space or directly to the LED (partially cut off to make room for), with diffuser by using any white translucent material. Can be a off white translucent hot glue, translucent white epoxy etc.

Diffuser is what scatters the direct beam into light-glow that you can see. Sanding helps very little.

Or replace the water-clear LED with 5mm diffused LED of same color.

Cheers,

PTherapist wrote on 2020-03-07, 18:43:

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-03-07, 05:12:

Oh, got my old 8" Windows 8 tablets (Z3740, 2GB RAM, 32GB eMMC) out of storage and updated their software stack (latest Win10 32 bit Build), threw DOSBox+MUNT into one of them, and paired it to my bluetooth keyboard + trackpad to it. Let's see what I can do...Let's start with the easy emulation stuff...

Those cheap Intel based Windows Tablets are pretty cool. I have a 7" tablet with a slightly earlier CPU and 1GB RAM still running Windows 8.1. I took it on holiday with me last year for emulation purposes, playing Mega Drive, SNES, N64, Commodore 64, Atari 8-Bit & PS1. I tried Dreamcast too, but the poor Atom just wasn't up to the task. 🤣

We used PS4 controllers for gaming and controlled the mouse & keyboard in Windows over WIFI via the Unified Remote phone app.

Well, 1GB of RAM is a bit low, and if it's that low it's probably coupled with 16GB of eMMC, which makes it a bit of a dead end, upgrade-wise. Technically the Miix 2 8 that I have doesn't offically support Win10, but I was able to drag it kicking and screaming (mostly by booting up Linux (god, that EFI32 implementation makes that 64 bit CPU half utilized 99% of the time), killing that useless Lenovo Win8 recovery partition and then resize the machine accordingly so it'll work with the full 32GB eMMC). The headache with these machines have always been that small RAM allocation. Win10 1909 32 bit only leaves about 500MB free on 2GB, and you never ever want it to, say, run Chrome for too long. It's almost like dealing with the PowerPC Macs back in the MacOS 8 days: every time you play a game you want to reboot right afterwards just to ensure there are no zombie processes eating up RAM.

The Bay Trail that I have seems to do okay with Demul (Dreamcast emulator) - was able to get 31 fps with Air Force Delta. I use an 8BitDo NES30Pro with mine - works well enough.

wiretap wrote on 2020-03-08, 04:00:

Finally got my 8088 XT 10MHz working.. at first the 360k floppy drive was giving me trouble.

Looks Great. Good job !

wiretap wrote on 2020-03-08, 04:00:

However, it doesn't want to boot from the CF Card.

Did you transfer the system and create an MBR record? SYS c: and FDISK /MBR? From the same version of DOS that you set up the drive from. Never hurts to double check.

Jed118 wrote on 2020-03-07, 05:21:

In it, a beautiful Kompakt Serie III case, with (as always with these cases) anything but a 386 SX inside. Instead, a DX-40 386.

That is a beautifuly butterfly!

Shagittarius wrote on 2020-03-08, 06:31:

wiretap wrote on 2020-03-08, 04:00:

However, it doesn't want to boot from the CF Card.

Did you transfer the system and create an MBR record? SYS c: and FDISK /MBR? From the same version of DOS that you set up the drive from. Never hurts to double check.

Yes. I tried all the normal tricks to get it to boot. I believe it is a cylinder 0 issue that needs to manually be corrected with a disk editor.

Edit: Got it working now! Had to reset Cylinder 0 to a "1". I used Acronis Disk Editor.

Horun wrote on 2020-03-08, 01:36:

derSammler is 100% correct. Not all PS/2 mice are serial compatible. Not all USB mice are PS/2 compatible. Hardly any (if any) USB mice are serial compatible. The required signals to a Serial port are far different than USB can supply without using the +5 or GND pins to carry one of the needed signals. PS/2 has 6 pins so can be serial adaptable but USB has just 4.

I 100% agree. I'm fortunate enough that I still have the mouse that came with the adapter. I've tested it on other computers and the mouse works with the ps/2 adapter.

It's Battery Day at my house.

It's DST, so along with correcting the watches and clocks, all battery items that can be remembered are tossed in a central basket. Rechargeables that aren't in current use get charged as sockets/chargers become available. Non-rechargeables are inspected for leakage and dates. This usually catches the forgotten toys and back-of-drawer stuff. Unused hardware with CMOS batts get checked for date.

Of amusement, I still have one working pair of nicads. The last Dynacharger set gave up just a couple years ago.

Pewpewpew,

I had to take double take at that charger, been long ago, that was in 1980's, this killed batteries in few months as that thing has dumb circuit that does not quit charging when fully charged, this is exact same charger. Dual red LED and tear drop shaped wall wart transformer in white we had from Radio Shack long ago. Dad and I opened that charger up and found nearly nothing, just wires and passive components. I was just a kid under 10 back then!

This is proven again when I had Dewalt power driver with a semi-dumb charger, the battery that was charging and taken out when completed kept working for 5 years and still strong and other one that sat in charger all the time died.

The NiMh batteries I still have is more than 5 years old and is strong (AA mostly) and other set of AAA still ok but dying after 6 years. This is due to smart chargers I have now.

Cheers,

Everything on the 8088 XT 10MHz now works from a cold boot. Very happy with the way the Adlib I built sounds. 😁

Planet X3 menu screen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce0eHgUOydI

Fully recapped and adjusted my (35 years old according to the date stamp on the chassis) Technics SP10 mk2 turntable.

That's what it looks like inside. Very complex circuit (this model was designed in 1975), in 1983 they packed all control electronics except the 3-phase drive amplifier into a single IC and the result was called Technics SP10 MK2A. Of course, if that single IC fails, you're screwed because they're no longer available from Panasonic. This model with its fully discrete circuit is infinitely repairable.

Drive and logic boards recapped:

The control PCB was recapped as well but I forgot to photograph it.

Old parts. I tested the old capacitors on my LCR meter. The dark blue capacitors tested perfectly. The light purple ones, however, were way out of spec.

PLL timing adjustment. Yes, I did it on the floor in our spare bedroom 😀

ShovelKnight wrote on 2020-03-08, 21:33:

Fully recapped and adjusted my (35 years old according to the date stamp on the chassis) Technics SP10 mk2 turntable. […]
Show full quote

Fully recapped and adjusted my (35 years old according to the date stamp on the chassis) Technics SP10 mk2 turntable.

That's what it looks like inside. Very complex circuit (this model was designed in 1975), in 1983 they packed all control electronics except the 3-phase drive amplifier into a single IC and the result was called Technics SP10 MK2A. Of course, if that single IC fails, you're screwed because they're no longer available from Panasonic. This model with its fully discrete circuit is infinitely repairable.

44DA5514-B9D1-427A-934E-E867372FC8BB.jpeg

Drive and logic boards recapped:

E51492F8-3EC3-4801-A172-C82D840AB12F.jpeg

Good Work !
Wow that is a lot of circuitry.
I re-worked my old Kenwood KR-8010 from 1978 in about 1998 and it still runs great. It is mostly discrete with IC's only for the Tuner section, the power amps are fully discrete... iirc

Those old Kennys are very nice receivers...