OldCat wrote:

I don't like to boast, but today I will, because I am overjoyed and have to share it with someone. I managed to grab something I […]
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I don't like to boast, but today I will, because I am overjoyed and have to share it with someone. I managed to grab something I wanted for a long time: CGA/EGA/Hercules monitor:

mon_CGA.jpg

What's truly unique, though, is the switch that allows changing between colour and monochrome (green / amber) display:

mon_korolove.jpg

mon_amba.jpg

mon_gringrin.jpg

I have a very similar (perhaps the exact same? laptop) but I can't get it to work on external monitor - how did you do it?

Cga.8086 wrote:

i was searching the usual places online looking for fpm memory and then i saw this lot of cache and simm memory […]
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i was searching the usual places online looking for fpm memory
and then i saw this lot of cache and simm memory

then opened my eyes

opened my eyes again

bought 7 cache sticks for 10dollars. (2 of those where m919 coast modules)

:snip:

Do you by any chance have a COAST module (L2 cache FRU) for an IBM PS/2 Valuepoint in there?

kanecvr wrote:

OldCat wrote:

I don't like to boast, but today I will, because I am overjoyed and have to share it with someone. I managed to grab something I […]
Show full quote

I don't like to boast, but today I will, because I am overjoyed and have to share it with someone. I managed to grab something I wanted for a long time: CGA/EGA/Hercules monitor:

mon_CGA.jpg

What's truly unique, though, is the switch that allows changing between colour and monochrome (green / amber) display:

mon_korolove.jpg

mon_amba.jpg

mon_gringrin.jpg

I have a very similar (perhaps the exact same? laptop) but I can't get it to work on external monitor - how did you do it?

Please let us know exact brand and model of your laptop, just to be sure. Toshiba T3100 and T5100 and their variants will use Fn key plus End / Home to toggle between external and internal monitor. It's fairly obvious on T3100e, because these keys have little writing in blue on their front side (not top one) that says Ext Disp and Int Disp. On Toshiba T5100 these keys look the same as all the others.

For Toshiba T5100 the following keyboard shortcuts work:

1) Change CPU speed
Fn + PgUp 16MHz CPU speed
Fn + PgDn 8MHz CPU speed
2) Character font
Fn + Right arrow Toggles display font
3) Display select
Fn + End External display
Fn + Home Plasma display
4) Extending the display area
Fn + Down arrow Toggles between 350 and 400 rows in EGA mode
5) Keypad overlay
Fn + NumLock Toggles keyboard overlay
6) Fn key
Fn + F1 F11
Fn + F2 F12
Fn + Ctrl Simulate IBM enhanced keyboard Right Ctrl
Fn + Alt Simulate IBM enhanced keyboard Right Alt
Fn + Enter Simulate IBM enhanced keyboard numeric keypad
Enter
Fn + power on Force T5100 to CMOS setup screen

Munx wrote:

Gigabyte GA-5486al with a 133MHz AMD 5x86!

486 boards are allways nice. I really hope that you can get that thing going, and the damage are fixable.
If it can be fixed. What plans do you have for it? I am thinking in terms of GFX and sound.

brostenen wrote:

Munx wrote:

Gigabyte GA-5486al with a 133MHz AMD 5x86!

486 boards are allways nice. I really hope that you can get that thing going, and the damage are fixable.
If it can be fixed. What plans do you have for it? I am thinking in terms of GFX and sound.

Its live! 😀

Too bad my only AT keyboard is screwed up and I cant navigate the bios properly. Not that I need to w/o a battery.

For sound it will most likely be Aztech waverider 32. Doom 2 sounds great on that 😎

(don't mind the noise and cracks, that just my crappy recording)

For now there are 2 Virge PCI cards that can take care of the gfx, however they have the darkness level issue so I'll be keeping an eye out for alternatives.

Got a copy of Area 51 that's ported to the IBM PC (Arcade game) last night. Amazing game, but my joystick doesn't play nicely. Did they make Zapp guns for the IBM PC?

Munx wrote:

Its live! :happy: <snip> Too bad my only AT keyboard is screwed up and I cant navigate the bios properly. Not that I need to […]
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brostenen wrote:

Munx wrote:

Gigabyte GA-5486al with a 133MHz AMD 5x86!

486 boards are allways nice. I really hope that you can get that thing going, and the damage are fixable.
If it can be fixed. What plans do you have for it? I am thinking in terms of GFX and sound.

Its live! 😀
<snip>
Too bad my only AT keyboard is screwed up and I cant navigate the bios properly. Not that I need to w/o a battery.

For sound it will most likely be Aztech waverider 32. Doom 2 sounds great on that 😎

doom 2.mp3

(don't mind the noise and cracks, that just my crappy recording)

For now there are 2 Virge PCI cards that can take care of the gfx, however they have the darkness level issue so I'll be keeping an eye out for alternatives.

If you have a PS/2 keyboard, AT-PS2 converters are pretty cheap when you can still find 'em. As for graphics, maybe try that Permedia2? I've never used one on a PC, but I've used a bunch of Sun workstations that had them, and the image quality was pretty good, IIRC. Not as good as, say, the Elite3d or XVR-500, but pretty nice.

jade_angel wrote:

As for graphics, maybe try that Permedia2? I've never used one on a PC, but I've used a bunch of Sun workstations that had them, and the image quality was pretty good, IIRC. Not as good as, say, the Elite3d or XVR-500, but pretty nice.

Looking online it seems to have quite a few DOS game issues. Not too great to pair with a 486. Though it would the the first card I'd stick in an NT PPro system, if I ever manage to get one.

Munx wrote:

Too bad my only AT keyboard is screwed up and I cant navigate the bios properly. Not that I need to w/o a battery.

Put it over your knee and spank it...

Seriously, upside down and whack it a few times, gets the crap out and wriggles the oxide loose on bad connections.

Not sure if this counts or not, but I digress.

I went on another thrifting adventure today and got the following:

HP Pavilion 7955 for $10

1Specs:
2Pentium 4 1.5GHz Socket 423
3256MB SD-RAM 133 (you read this right)
4nVidia Riva TNT2 M64 with 32MB SDRAM (why I bought this computer)
5FireWire 400 PCI Card
656k modem
7Integrated sound (AC'97 most likely)
8Integrated Ethernet (either RealTek or Intel)

External LS-240 USB SuperDisk Drive for $9.95

bjwil1991 wrote:

External LS-240 USB SuperDisk Drive for $9.95

pics or it didn't happen.

I won an auction full of of things for $7

there is a pcchips motherboard M577 i belive that someone is selling for USD249.95 on ebay ?? WTF is wrong with those ebay scamms

Pabloz wrote:

I won an auction full of of things for $7 […]
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I won an auction full of of things for $7

there is a pcchips motherboard M577 i belive that someone is selling for USD249.95 on ebay ?? WTF is wrong with those ebay scamms

Drug addiction most likely?

Though to anyone who was around "in the day" it's kinda hilarious to see PC Chips stuff a) still alive and kicking and b) fetching decent prices never mind the space cadet ones.

Though I had good luck with PC Chips stuff and thought their bad rap was a bit overblown, due to things like cheap PC syndrome where every single part was lowest cost available, and PC Chips copped the blame where other components could have been at fault, and lack of attention to proper set up and tuning.

Munx wrote:

Its live! 😀

Wonderfull... Congrats on the board. 😀

luckybob wrote:

bjwil1991 wrote:

External LS-240 USB SuperDisk Drive for $9.95

pics or it didn't happen.

As requested:

damn, I hear those ls-240 drives are near unobtainium, and its boxed even! I tip my hat to you sir.

luckybob wrote:

damn, I hear those ls-240 drives are near unobtainium, and its boxed even! I tip my hat to you sir.

I was lucky today, plus the desktop was also a nice score since it has the Riva TNT2 M64 card in it, which will go into my Socket 370 system since the TNT2 card that it had decided to have problems. The TNT2 card the Pavilion has is an ASUS brand (same as the motherboard). I also hooked up the LS-240 into my ThinkPad R40 and it's a nice drive to use to copy files in between computers that use either floppies or SuperDisk, and I can even format a floppy diskette into a 32MB diskette.

bjwil1991 wrote:

luckybob wrote:

damn, I hear those ls-240 drives are near unobtainium, and its boxed even! I tip my hat to you sir.

I was lucky today, plus the desktop was also a nice score since it has the Riva TNT2 M64 card in it, which will go into my Socket 370 system since the TNT2 card that it had decided to have problems. The TNT2 card the Pavilion has is an ASUS brand (same as the motherboard). I also hooked up the LS-240 into my ThinkPad R40 and it's a nice drive to use to copy files in between computers that use either floppies or SuperDisk, and I can even format a floppy diskette into a 32MB diskette.

32MB per 1.44MB disk sounds nice, but is that still at the average floppy data transfer rate of 32K per sec? That would take awhile if so.

After reading a few articles apparently this drive did read regular 1.44 media much faster than a standard floppy drive.

Picked up a machine consisting of the following for 15 local:

Generic and unimpressive AT Minitower
Matsonic Socket 7 Board (Apollo VPX based)
Intel Pentium 133
64MB RAM
2GB HDD
Matsonic Virge DX 4MB PCI (Dead, replaced with Diamond Virge 325 2MB)
Yamaha OPL3-SAX based ISA sound card (a lot of static, but it works)
24x CD ROM
Zip Drive
3.5 Floppy
Windows 98

Tomorrows project will be getting Windows 3.1 onto it. I think this is another machine that will be used for DOS.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Picked up a machine consisting of the following for 15 local: […]
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Picked up a machine consisting of the following for 15 local:

Generic and unimpressive AT Minitower
Matsonic Socket 7 Board (Apollo VPX based)
Intel Pentium 133
64MB RAM
2GB HDD
Matsonic Virge DX 4MB PCI (Dead, replaced with Diamond Virge 325 2MB)
Yamaha OPL3-SAX based ISA sound card (a lot of static, but it works)
24x CD ROM
Zip Drive
3.5 Floppy
Windows 98

Tomorrows project will be getting Windows 3.1 onto it. I think this is another machine that will be used for DOS.

$15 is a good price for that type of system. I paid $17 for the Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus, keyboard, and mouse at a thrift store back in February. Went through upgrades and features from the HDD up to sound (2GB CF Card, 48x CD ROM Drive, Dual FDD, Conner Data Tape Drive (uses the floppy port), Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro that is repaired successfully (Line-in volume is still weak, but still gets sound), Gravis Analog Pro 4-button joystick, SX2-50 to DX2-66 upgrade, 8MB to 32MB upgrade, Lo-Tech Tandy Compatible Sound Card, Music Quest MIDI MPU-401 Clone Card, 3Com EtherLink III 10BaseT Ethernet card). It still runs smoothly, just needs L2 cache and a DX4-100 upgrade (Overdrive since the system supports 5V processors only).