Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga

Posted on Today, 10:29

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here's a video about the laptop: https://youtu.be/L7SPiA3uzBQ Had to dismantle the system to replace the dead CMOS battery and will be put back together in the afternoon. Pros: LIF socket for upgrading the CPU (3.3V only) ESS AudioDrive ES688 Coin Cell Lithium battery (soldered on the board and will …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on Yesterday, 02:11

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Won this rare in existence board. A Super micro P54VL-PCI Socket 5 board. Filename Screenshot_20201129-211042.png File size 202.16 KiB Views 332 views

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-11-29, 07:23

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My Packard Bell had a 486 SX2-50 in it. Upgraded it to a DX2-66, then to a DX4-100 OverDrive, and now with this Micro Firmware BIOS, an AMD Am5x86WB-P75 133-ACZ with the Aeries VRM CPU socket.

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Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga

Posted on 2020-11-27, 05:56

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Getting an AMS laptop of some variant (cannot determine the model number, let alone the screen type and color, sound card, and other items). Pics soon once I receive the laptop (have it on vacation mode at the moment for the laptop).

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-11-27, 05:35

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bought a CMSLPT and TNDLPT from the 8-Bit Guy's site (the CMSLPT is for my Packard Bell and the TNDLPT is for my 486DLC machine). Might get an MPU-401 card for the 486DLC machine and a parallel port switch box for the joystick, audio, and MIDI ports to switch between systems without a big mess of …

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PB450 motherboard went from 2MB vRAM to 512KB vRAM

Posted on 2020-11-27, 05:22

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

One of my Packard Bell PB450 Firehawk motherboards decided to drop the video RAM from 2MB (1MB ZIP RAM upgrade chips installed with the 1MB onboard video RAM) to 512KB. I've never had onboard RAM for a video card do that before and I have a general question here. Can a bad video RAM IC cause the …

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Re: What modern activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2020-11-27, 04:21

by

by bjwil1991

in Milliways

in Milliways

Changed cases for my main desktop: http://imgur.com/gallery/i4L9w50 Now to figure out how to fix the 480GB SSD for my laptop that won't boot after changing it to GPT for the partition mode so the UEFI option can be utilized. Going to make a backup of my desktop's 480GB SSD as an image in case …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-11-27, 04:13

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

@Predator99: the Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro 16. Got that card myself (NIB) in my 486 and it's amazing. Gotta love multiple CD-ROM support with Covox Speech Things, Disney Sound Source, Windows Sound System, Adlib/SB Pro, and WaveTable (except the WaveTable only works in Windows and not DOS is my …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-11-25, 05:30

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

psychofox wrote on 2020-11-24, 11:54: Todays find - SB 2.0 combined with IDE and floppy controller. Pretty rare card i guess? Unfortunately it has no sockets for CMS […] Show full quote Todays find - SB 2.0 combined with IDE and floppy controller. Pretty rare card i guess? Unfortunately it has no …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-11-23, 19:58

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Oh, that one.

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Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread

Posted on 2020-11-23, 19:21

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

https://i.imgur.com/21B9xcjm.jpg My retro PC setup. The KVS just needs some male to female VGA cables so that the monitor can be connected to the KVS box. My future plan is to use a Printer Parallel switch box (4-way) as a switch box for both audio and a joystick by making special cables for the …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-11-23, 19:13

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

@nikosyr, how much was that card? I've seen the RAP-10 for sale on eBay for a price of 1/2 of the exhaust for my car ($300 USD).

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-11-20, 21:55

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bought an AMS laptop (no known info found about it). Says Sound Pro on the right side of the laptop and says AMS S/N ECP 1 1730, FCC ID ID4PN486E. Filename Screenshot_20201119-151720.jpg File size 71.33 KiB Views 157 views

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2020-11-20, 21:50

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The one PB450 board decided to throw the video RAM down from 2MB to 512KB for some odd reason. So I put in the other board I have and installed the ZIP RAM for the video card and all of the chips from the other board and got all 2MB video RAM. Might go buy some RAM ICs and replace the bad ones and …

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Re: IRC channel recommendations, and maybe a VOGONS IRC?

Posted on 2020-11-20, 21:41

by

by bjwil1991

in Milliways

in Milliways

Here's a mind blowing thing: FireFox 1.0.1 on my Packard Bell has an IRC chat software, which is nice.

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Re: Bought this (Modern) hardware today

Posted on 2020-11-18, 04:25

by

by bjwil1991

in Milliways

in Milliways

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2020-11-17, 06:20: Went to the store to buy cookies and fruitcake. Came home with this thing: […] Show full quote Went to the store to buy cookies and fruitcake. Came home with this thing: Wow. Beautiful machine.

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Re: IRC channel recommendations, and maybe a VOGONS IRC?

Posted on 2020-11-17, 09:28

by

by bjwil1991

in Milliways

in Milliways

Which IRC software would suit me best on my 486 DX5-133 machine running Windows 95? Visual IRC '96 doesn't have a lot of options to enter channels or other things, except for the IRC URL. Got it sorted. Using the old fashioned Microsoft Chat.

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2020-11-11, 05:03

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Figured out why the PB450 boards weren't working (the 2 from recent eBay purchases): I put the POST card upside down (the 4x 7 segment display needs to be side up, not down) and they are working as intended. Almost done rebuilding the system, just need to add 2 more sound cards currently in my 386DX …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-11-06, 01:06

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got the Biostar board yesterday and cleaned off a lot of corrosion off of the board. Next on the list: new resistors and 30AWG wire to patch the broken traces.

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2020-11-05, 17:41

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got a Biostar MB-8433UUD-A v 3.1 board yesterday and decided to clean most of the corrosion off of the board. Needs a new resistor, some 30AWG wire, and a new Dallas RTC CMOS chip or solder a CR2032 battery holder by the PS/2 mouse port and use that, but I'll check to see if the battery on the Odin …

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