Finally have my Seagate ST-238R running!
Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Realized that it is not possible to get this running on a MFM controller. Low-level format was possible with SSTOR, but I was not able to read any data afterwards.

So I used a Seagate ST11R 8-bit RLL controller with build-in BIOS. With the BIOS-Routine I was able to low-level format the disk with 0 bad sectors! I like that the BIOS shows me the installed disk at startup. But its incredible slow compared to a MFM-drive on a 16-bit controller...

Unfortunately I erased all data that has been on the disk potentially during my experiments on the MFM controller. Always curious to find some "lost" drivers/software on such disks. But it is unlikely anyway to read anything on a differnt controller then the one it was formatted with.

I macgyvered up a power adapter adapter for a Dell Latitude XPi laptop - it didn't fit my other Dell chargers and I didn't feel like buying a new power adapter just to test the laptop, so a connector from my parts bin and some thermoplastic makes a secure fitting adapter:

Tiido wrote:

When I used an Radeon 9200 instead of the Banshee I actually could get the machine to boot at 83MHz but it wasn't stable. There's two 83MHz options, one that freezes at RAM count and other than freezes when boot process begins, difference is in PCI/AGP divider it seems. There's two 75MHz settings too and only one of them works, other won't post and difference is also PCI/AGP divider. PLL is ICS9148BF-04

440LX won't work with non 1/2 FSB PCI bus dividers, intel chipsets doesn't support asynchronous PCI bus mode, unfortunately. If AGP card checks out, then most likely some device on the PCI bus causes system instability as 41.7MHz freq. is way over the specs for it.

Set up my new Thinkpad T41 to dual boot LUbuntu and Windows XP SP3. So far it is working well!

SSTV2 wrote:

440LX won't work with non 1/2 FSB PCI bus dividers, intel chipsets doesn't support asynchronous PCI bus mode, unfortunately. If AGP card checks out, then most likely some device on the PCI bus causes system instability as 41.7MHz freq. is way over the specs for it.

Then that source of instability is the southbridge, since that's the only other PCI device left during my testing. All other cards besides video that I plan to use in the machine work fine at 50MHz PCI even. I have ruled out power supply issues, there's no meaningful ripple at any rail present in the system and everything is within tolerances.

That is very well possible, you could try bumping 3.3V Vcc to about ~3.5V for the whole chipset, stability should greatly increase then.

Page 666 😈

Anyways, @Predator99 I'm currently trying to do the same with two Seagate ST277R and a Tando TD 362, but so far no luck (and the bearings of the head mechanism are starting to fail on the tandon, so the head don't move as far as it should go on the disk ...)

Repaired traces, replaced crystal oscillator and two transistors on an 286 motherboard, that refuses to count BIOS time.

Finally cleaned up this Turbo XT machine I bought recently (after cleaning this machine is almost immaculate - certainly less dirty than my modern PC 🤣)... browsed through the HDD (it seems between 90 and 94 it belonged to some PhD lady from Warsaw University of Technology - a lot of scientific stuff and her projects) and paired it with recently purchased monitor...

Turbo -> wrote:

Repaired traces, replaced crystal oscillator and two transistors on an 286 motherboard, that refuses to count BIOS time.

Oh! I have very similar motherboard an simiral problems, but in my case - it counts time too quickly (like skips 2-3 seconds instead of 1)... Similar dammage too... I replaced ceramic caps which were cracked, but it didn't helped... which oscillator you replaced?

^ Kick-ass combo.

HanJammer wrote:

Oh! I have very similar motherboard an simiral problems, but in my case - it counts time too quickly (like skips 2-3 seconds instead of 1)... Similar dammage too... I replaced ceramic caps which were cracked, but it didn't helped... which oscillator you replaced?

14.31818MHZ - usually 286 motherboards had oscillators with such frequency.

Set up my trusty EGA Wonder card to test out my color monitor some more. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work with EGA resolutions (400 lines), but it works BEAUTIFULLY as a normal CGA monitor. The EGA board can display 16 glorious colors simultaneously on it. I think the EGA Wonder is even doing some hardware magic to get more colors out of it - At least that's what the manual seems to imply. It will even run some EGA software without losing sync!

Either way, it produces an excellent, bright picture with great contrast.

Now I need to get the buttons on the front of this monitor working. Anybody know how to work on these things? The 4 touch sensitive buttons on the front don't seem to work at all. This monitor definitely needs a good cleaning and retrobrite too, the yellow is really ugly.

I'm also wondering... Is it possible to modify any of these monitors to take an EGA signal natively? I'm sure there's a mod out there somewhere that can change the frequency to a wider range.
If it is possible, I might mod this one while I'm restoring it, and pick up the other one I know is for sale to use in it's original configuration.

Turbo -> wrote:

HanJammer wrote:

Oh! I have very similar motherboard an simiral problems, but in my case - it counts time too quickly (like skips 2-3 seconds instead of 1)... Similar dammage too... I replaced ceramic caps which were cracked, but it didn't helped... which oscillator you replaced?

14.31818MHZ - usually 286 motherboards had oscillators with such frequency.

Agree, the smaller oval shaped xtals back then were the 14.31mhz ones. And your Turbo XT looks great !

FAMICOMASTER wrote:

Now I need to get the buttons on the front of this monitor working. Anybody know how to work on these things? The 4 touch sensitive buttons on the front don't seem to work at all.

Maybe some thing disconnected or gunge preventing contact. Odd they are all not working though.

Caluser2000 wrote:

FAMICOMASTER wrote:

Now I need to get the buttons on the front of this monitor working. Anybody know how to work on these things? The 4 touch sensitive buttons on the front don't seem to work at all.

Maybe some thing disconnected or gunge preventing contact. Odd they are all not working though.

I know they're not disconnected, because if the monitor is on and warmed up, switching the computer on will put it into a random mode and the "Mode" button will work 2-3 times and then it will quit. No other buttons will work, though. I've cleaned them numerous times with different chemicals but nothing changes this operation.

Also, the monitor can sometimes just switch modes at random and flicker between colors.

FAMICOMASTER wrote:

Set up my trusty EGA Wonder card to test out my color monitor some more. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work with EGA resolutions (400 lines), but it works BEAUTIFULLY as a normal CGA monitor.

Nice monitor! Have you used the EGA wonder driver disk to switch modes on the card? The EGA Wonder 800+ can display EGA hi-res modes on a normal CGA monitor, thanks to interlacing. I would assume the standard EGA wonder can do the same thing...

FAMICOMASTER wrote:

Caluser2000 wrote:

FAMICOMASTER wrote:

Now I need to get the buttons on the front of this monitor working. Anybody know how to work on these things? The 4 touch sensitive buttons on the front don't seem to work at all.

Maybe some thing disconnected or gunge preventing contact. Odd they are all not working though.

I know they're not disconnected, because if the monitor is on and warmed up, switching the computer on will put it into a random mode and the "Mode" button will work 2-3 times and then it will quit. No other buttons will work, though. I've cleaned them numerous times with different chemicals but nothing changes this operation.

Also, the monitor can sometimes just switch modes at random and flicker between colors.

Take out the button controller and replace all the components on it, especially any electrolytic capacitors. (even if they look fine) There is a ground reference that is becoming elevated -- this is why it seems to work initially, then quit, and why it can change at random.

Nothing that special, but since I have many loose HuCards for the PC Engine, I quickly made a 3d-printed sleeve to hold 7 HuCards in place. Turned out quite well. 😀 (ps: why 7? because the number of HuCards I own is a multiple of 7)

wiretap wrote:

FAMICOMASTER wrote:

Caluser2000 wrote:

Maybe some thing disconnected or gunge preventing contact. Odd they are all not working though.

I know they're not disconnected, because if the monitor is on and warmed up, switching the computer on will put it into a random mode and the "Mode" button will work 2-3 times and then it will quit. No other buttons will work, though. I've cleaned them numerous times with different chemicals but nothing changes this operation.

Also, the monitor can sometimes just switch modes at random and flicker between colors.

Take out the button controller and replace all the components on it, especially any electrolytic capacitors. (even if they look fine) There is a ground reference that is becoming elevated -- this is why it seems to work initially, then quit, and why it can change at random.

Before doing that, replace the buttons themselves ( the switch part, not the button caps). They can wear out, and not switching on anymore is the usual symptom.