VOGONS


Reply 17420 of 27186, by Namrok

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

So I beat StarCraft on my Budget '99 Retro PC. Installed off the original CD I bought 22 years ago in April 1998.

Victory Screen
20201206_StarCraft.jpg
Filename
20201206_StarCraft.jpg
File size
1.41 MiB
Views
1337 views
File license
CC-BY-4.0

I've beat a couple games on this build. Some I'd beaten before, some that were games I'd overlooked at the time. One thing that is constantly blowing my mind is that I totally forgot in 1998, when I was 14 years old, I almost always beat games with cheat codes. Especially strategy games. Playing them without now makes me realize how much I was missing.

Not sure what my next main focus will be. Been slowly playing through Unreal, and dabbling in Syndicate as well.

Win95/DOS 7.1 - P233 MMX (@2.5 x 100 FSB), Diamond Viper V330 AGP, SB16 CT2800
Win98 - K6-2+ 500, GF2 MX, SB AWE 64 CT4500, SBLive CT4780
Win98 - Pentium III 1000, GF2 GTS, SBLive CT4760
WinXP - Athlon 64 3200+, GF 7800 GS, Audigy 2 ZS

Reply 17421 of 27186, by Brutek

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Hey Guys

found an old DFI Board at my attic.
Nice Color and true cool PCB Design for 2007 😀

Attachments

Reply 17423 of 27186, by Spitz

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

After fixing 3 laptops had to tidy up little bit to do some tests (benchmarks!) and post it later on 😉
Siemens 486 (PCD-4ND)
Toshiba 486 (t4850ct)
Toshiba P120 (700CT)
2nd Toshiba P120 (Tecra 510CDT)
Toshiba P133 (430CDT)
Toshiba P166 MMX (300CDT)

Attachments

Well... I miss 80/90s ... End of story

Reply 17424 of 27186, by Caluser2000

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Dragged 3 dot matrix from out of the ceiling that have been stored there for over 25 years. A Super 5 24pin line feed printer, Panasonic KX-1191 and Pansonic kx-p-1180. I'll make a good printer out of the Panasonic ones as internally they share the same component using the KX-1191 body as that has not yellowed like the KX-P-1180. Shouldn't take long.

I replaced DR Dos 6.0 on my Redstone Computers XT Turbo system with IBM Dos 5.02. IBMs first version of Dos for consumer use on non IBM systems. It seems to run a faster than DR Dos 6.0 when executing programs. Also fitted the blacked HDD floppies in it. It looks rather smart.

Attachments

  • DSC_0000212.jpg
    Filename
    DSC_0000212.jpg
    File size
    192.85 KiB
    Views
    1278 views
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • DSC_0000215.jpg
    Filename
    DSC_0000215.jpg
    File size
    205.56 KiB
    Views
    1278 views
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 17427 of 27186, by Mister Xiado

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Ordered an Atari BASIC cartridge to troubleshoot the ROM BASIC issues in my Atari XE GS. I still haven't ordered (physically) smaller capacitors for my Gigabyte P4 board. Motivation for this stuff is in critically short supply.

b_ldnt2.gif - Where it's always 1995.
Icons, wallpapers, and typical Oldternet nonsense.

Reply 17428 of 27186, by Horun

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-12-07, 22:25:

I can't speak to their 486 boards but I've never had any issues with BioStar motherboards in general.

Their 486 VLB boards are built well, have a few and they are as good as an Asus, DFI, Giga or FIC of the same period imho

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 17429 of 27186, by Horun

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Got a new TL866ii plus BIOS programmer and have been playing with it. Also made a pdf of a manual for a old PcChip motherboard, going to make another after I scan/photo the pages of the Opti 495 SX cache manual (Artek board).
And going to drink a few American beers from a company opened in 1852 here, if that is not vintage then what is 😀

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 17431 of 27186, by ragefury32

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Spent the weekend trying to get BeOS installed on my single-spindle Thinkpad 240. The T21 is still down (somewhat) due to the blink-of-death issue, and it doesn’t really have a caddy that can be used for SD-to-IDE adapters. What to do? The Compaq Evo N600c to the rescue. It’s a Tualatin P3m laptop, one of the last machines with both AC97+Legacy SB Pro hardware support (albeit with software wagetable FM synth).

It also has a HDD mounting rail that works well with SD2IDE setups - this is something often overlooked when working with 2-spindle vintage laptops.

Rail in...

MicroSD is great for testing like this. It’s (relatively) cheap and easy to work with.

E924CA56-B893-4D63-BCE9-1656284EFEEE.jpeg
Filename
E924CA56-B893-4D63-BCE9-1656284EFEEE.jpeg
File size
1.39 MiB
Views
1187 views
File comment
Rail in
File license
Public domain

Rail out...

Although for heavy write situations this really need to be swapped out with an mSATA SSD and an adapter.

F836D00D-61F6-420C-8BAE-533C11D58FCA.jpeg
Filename
F836D00D-61F6-420C-8BAE-533C11D58FCA.jpeg
File size
1.42 MiB
Views
1187 views
File comment
Rail out
File license
Public domain

Was able to get the BeOS R5 Installer image working - too bad not much drivers are available.

714C6399-CB20-4B9B-AAF0-EEAF2CD1B82C.jpeg
Filename
714C6399-CB20-4B9B-AAF0-EEAF2CD1B82C.jpeg
File size
1.31 MiB
Views
1187 views
File comment
BeOS installed
File license
Public domain

What about Haiku?

D9D2F1F2-5B79-4206-A37C-5B9B4AC21BEA.jpeg
Filename
D9D2F1F2-5B79-4206-A37C-5B9B4AC21BEA.jpeg
File size
1.63 MiB
Views
1187 views
File comment
Haiku fail
File license
Public domain

For some reason Haiku refused to boot up on the Evo n600c (freezing up on GPU init) but running the SD card as the virtual drive in VMWare player seemed to have worked. Not that it mattered that much, mind you. Haiku doesn’t work well on vintage hardware like this - on Beta1 r2 it’s missing drivers for Pre-AC97 audio, PS/2 trackpoint support is DOA, and apps like NetPositive requires SSE2 (which implies at least a P4/Pentium-M). It worked “okay” on the Tp240, but not enough for me to actually want to retain it.

Had to swap the DVD Reader/CD writer on the Evo to another unit that burns DVDs - not that I need the DVD burning capability. Actually, I was more miffed that the default drive does not read the DVD-Rs I burn. I swear, someone needs to make a JAE50 compatible optical drive emulator or something.

Oh well, swapping out the original in its caddy isn’t difficult. Just not that great for the machine cosmetically speaking. And at the end, not really needed.

6073BE60-3F39-4C70-AAF7-38A3EEE1FFBF.jpeg
Filename
6073BE60-3F39-4C70-AAF7-38A3EEE1FFBF.jpeg
File size
1.36 MiB
Views
1187 views
File comment
DVD writer mod
File license
Public domain
Last edited by ragefury32 on 2020-12-09, 03:10. Edited 4 times in total.

Reply 17432 of 27186, by RandomStranger

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I was just scrapping an older budget PC case for not particularly valuable, but convenient parts to have, like the front panel, buttons 5.25-3.5" bay converter when I thought, I always wanted a test bench, but I think 30$ for a piece of uATX sized plexi board and twice for an aluminium one with 6 motherboard stand-offs are shamelessly overpriced so I drilled out the full ATX sized motherboard tray.

sreq.png retrogamer-s.png

Reply 17433 of 27186, by HanJammer

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Built MCE2VGA, which required me to solder this SRAM IC, I think I never soldered anything this small so it was 'first time' for me, but I think it came out nicely...

Now I need to find somebody to program Altera FPGA for me as the cheap clone of USB Blaster causes bluescreens in my system (or maybe there's some solution to this problem?).

Also built some Atari 8-bit (XEGS/65XE/800XL) carts which use Flash ICs to store software, designed (some time ago) and printed enclosures as well...

Attachments

New items (October/November 2022) -> My Items for Sale
I8v8PGb.jpg

Reply 17434 of 27186, by Caluser2000

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Swapped the black front facia of an unreliable Sony 3.5" floppy drive and fitted it to a reliable TEAC 3.5" floppy drive. A bit of filing was required but I got there in the end.

Attachments

  • DSC_0000217.jpg
    Filename
    DSC_0000217.jpg
    File size
    238.95 KiB
    Views
    1059 views
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 17435 of 27186, by PTherapist

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Did some slight modifications to a Commodore Plus/4 today. I was missing the Commodore key on the keyboard, plus the key plunger was damaged and spare parts for the Plus/4 are a little harder to get hold of.

So I bought a replacement key from a C64 keyboard from eBay. Of course the keys differ in fitting & size on the Plus/4, so some modding was required to make it fit -

I got out the hand saw and cut the key down to the correct size, then sanded the bottom to make it smooth & level.

SLIusvmm.jpg

I cut and mashed up the underside of the key, to remove the C64 fitting and then I cut up a small plastic tube and super glued it in place (tube is a little longer than normal Plus/4 fitting, this was because I intended to retain the broken plunger, don't want to be opening this up again to replace it). Then I found a spare spring and cut that down to size to fit the Plus/4 keyboard.
5mj3YXAm.jpg

It may not be the prettiest looking, but it's a close enough fit for now and most importantly it works and fills a hole on the keyboard!
2Kyo5RGl.jpg

I'm still keeping an eye out for a replacement keyboard though, so I probably won't bother to try and retrobright this one.

Reply 17436 of 27186, by Caluser2000

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
PTherapist wrote on 2020-12-09, 16:38:
Did some slight modifications to a Commodore Plus/4 today. I was missing the Commodore key on the keyboard, plus the key plunge […]
Show full quote

Did some slight modifications to a Commodore Plus/4 today. I was missing the Commodore key on the keyboard, plus the key plunger was damaged and spare parts for the Plus/4 are a little harder to get hold of.

So I bought a replacement key from a C64 keyboard from eBay. Of course the keys differ in fitting & size on the Plus/4, so some modding was required to make it fit -

I got out the hand saw and cut the key down to the correct size, then sanded the bottom to make it smooth & level.

SLIusvmm.jpg

I cut and mashed up the underside of the key, to remove the C64 fitting and then I cut up a small plastic tube and super glued it in place (tube is a little longer than normal Plus/4 fitting, this was because I intended to retain the broken plunger, don't want to be opening this up again to replace it). Then I found a spare spring and cut that down to size to fit the Plus/4 keyboard.
5mj3YXAm.jpg

It may not be the prettiest looking, but it's a close enough fit for now and most importantly it works and fills a hole on the keyboard!
2Kyo5RGl.jpg

I'm still keeping an eye out for a replacement keyboard though, so I probably won't bother to try and retrobright this one.

That's the type of repair I like. Thinking outside the box...

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 17437 of 27186, by Dmetsys

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Rebuilt the Tiger GT200 K6-2 desktop yesterday. Sure enough, the M577 that came with it shit the bed. No beeps, no signs of life. Replaced the M577 with my P5A-B, and now it runs like a treat. Just have to find ways to tidy up the cabling mess that comes with these older Baby-AT based systems.


A7N8X-LA | 2800+ | GeForce2 MX400 | Audigy 2 ZS
BE6-II 1.0 | PIII-933 | Viper 770 TNT2 | Live 5.1 Value
MS-5169 | K6-2 450 | Voodoo3 3000 AGP | AWE64 Value
P5A-B | P200-S | 64MB | MGA Millennium | Yamaha 719
LS-486E | Am5x86-P75

Reply 17438 of 27186, by Brutek

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-12-07, 18:38:

That's a nice board. I've always liked the DFI lanparty boards.

Yeah, most have reset + power Button and also debug LED.
Standard parts for good mainboards.

Reply 17439 of 27186, by Caluser2000

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Purchased a can of beige matching touch up paint to refresh two 486 cases with surface rust. While I was in town I visited Cash Convertors. Got a set of speakers with AV connections and a HP 19" model L1910 lcd 4:3 monitor for the handsome sum of $nz14. The monitor is fine with no dead pixels.

Attachments

  • DSC_0000218.jpg
    Filename
    DSC_0000218.jpg
    File size
    164.86 KiB
    Views
    955 views
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉