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

Posted on 2021-09-14, 16:48

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Decent tape machines seem harder to find than the 8 bits these days. When I get around to playing with my CoCo 2 I'll probably try using an MP3 player, or an old android phone to keep the miles off the capstan of the single tape mechanism in the house I know works. Watch out for the lack of REM …

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

Posted on 2021-09-14, 12:13

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today's activity was probably one of my least favourite parts of collecting retro hardware, but had to be done - I completely disassembled the Dragon 32 computer I recently purchased and started to clean it all up. Soap & water for the case & keys, removing various dead spider and other associated …

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

Posted on 2021-09-13, 18:25

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today's activity was probably one of my least favourite parts of collecting retro hardware, but had to be done - I completely disassembled the Dragon 32 computer I recently purchased and started to clean it all up. Soap & water for the case & keys, removing various dead spider and other associated …

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

Posted on 2021-09-11, 17:27

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I received a new addition to my collection today - a Dragon 32 computer. Bought as "Untested", but thought I'd have a gamble since the price was better than what most of these sell for lately. WhatsApp Image 2021-09-11 at 11.43.49.jpeg First thing I did was to open it up, disconnect the power …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-09-11, 11:03

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bought a couple of days ago from eBay and received today - WhatsApp Image 2021-09-11 at 11.43.49.jpeg WhatsApp Image 2021-09-11 at 11.43.49 (1).jpeg I've been contemplating getting a Dragon 32 for some time, but they've generally been selling for over £100 and many of the cheaper sales are lacking …

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

Posted on 2021-08-31, 21:30

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nothing really retro lately, but definitely old, I replaced a cheap Chinese no-name CPU cooler with another even cheaper Chinese no-name CPU cooler to eliminate vibration noise. It did the trick, the new cooler is nice and silent and more than sufficient to cool an LGA1155 Xeon in my recent …

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Re: Help to set up a NAS server

Posted on 2021-08-31, 15:10

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If I'm reading this correctly, then the laptop is going to be acting as both NAS and connecting to a TV to run Kodi directly? This does limit your choice of OS from Windows 7 or above, as Kodi won't run on Vista or below. You really don't need a server OS to achieve your needs on a home network. Do …

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Re: Compaq Portable I/II and XT-IDE Universal BIOS (incompatible)

Posted on 2021-08-29, 15:32

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Did you try configuring the XTIDE BIOS to boot in 80x25 Monochrome mode?

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Re: What should I upgrade in my new Windows 98 gaming build?

Posted on 2021-08-17, 14:13

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

CPU upgrades For now I will hold off on upgrading the CPU. I just got the system up and running and am keen to sink some game time into it. If I were to look into CPU upgrades that would mean sourcing new RAM and maybe even a motherboard too, which means pulling the whole build apart. If this were …

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

Posted on 2021-08-17, 09:51

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

After building a sketchy cable out of a Generic 9V 3A wall wart and a figure-of-8 cable from amazon, I finally got my VIC-20 running. I'm still missing keys, and have absolutely nothing to run on it, but hey, I'm only like $25 in to this system, $5 of which was the system alone. image0.jpg I am …

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

Posted on 2021-08-16, 21:32

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not really "retro" but old activity - today I continued putting together a cheap frankenstein LGA1155 Sandy Bridge PC. Bought a low-cost Intel Desktop Board from eBay, to use instead of the Intel Server Board I was previously tinkering with. The Intel Server board had some quirks which made it less …

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

Posted on 2021-08-11, 21:26

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Was working on an old/not-so-retro build today and decided to run 3DMark 2003 to test out the 11 year old graphics card. Half way through benchmarking it "died" and upon rebooting the PC the BIOS was beeping away to indicate no graphics card detected. I tried reseating it several times, to no avail. …

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Re: Little Quizz about my 486 Mainboard

Posted on 2021-08-10, 12:19

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's a custom LPX motherboard. For finding any info at all you'd be better searching for the make & model of the PC itself instead of just the motherboard. What PC is it?

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

Posted on 2021-08-07, 21:07

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A retro-related, " old but not retro " activity this weekend: Started to build a new "old" PC to become the family's main PC for light usage, based around an LGA1155 Intel Server S1200BTS motherboard removed from a server. It's basically a frankenstein parts system with old parts from the old Family …

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Re: 2nd Gen Apple iMac Rebuild

Posted on 2021-08-06, 14:09

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you want to wipe absolutely everything: easiest option would be to just download a Mac OS 9.2 ISO (can't link to it here, but a quick google for OS 9.2.2 Universal Install will give you what you need) and burn it to a CD. This will let you wipe the HDD and reinstall the OS. Though you'll lose any …

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Re: Olivetti PCS33 (386 SX)/M-300 - Repairing

Posted on 2021-07-28, 16:03

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As the pinouts between the PCS-33 & PCS-11 appear to be the same (please correct me if I'm wrong here) , I'm wondering if it's not actually the power supply at fault here (assuming all your voltages are correct of course) and in fact something wrong with the Motherboard or Riser itself. The reason I …

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

Posted on 2021-07-23, 11:41

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got my first video up that actually stars my voice.. Not amazing but learned some good editing bits along the way and also learned that recording your own voice is not as easy as I imagined. A few pppPOPpps in it but I will get better. Repair and restore a Pentium 3 TINY laptop. https://youtu.be/ …

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Re: Olivetti PCS33 (386 SX)/M-300 - Repairing

Posted on 2021-07-20, 14:11

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I would disconnect the -5V and put a button there, good chances are that even with some protection resistor (which might not be there) the -5V is stressing some logic input quite a lot. If it's some easy to replace TTL chip it's no big deal short term but I would hate to fry the chipset inputs... …

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Re: Olivetti PCS33 (386 SX)/M-300 - Repairing

Posted on 2021-07-20, 10:08

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes I was checking the connections from the photos and it would seem that you connected what for me is the reset to the white cable or am I wrong ?. You are correct, I connected the -5V to pin 22 as per the pinout in the pic. I didn't connect Pin 21 at all and the PC doesn't seem to care. …

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Re: Olivetti PCS33 (386 SX)/M-300 - Repairing

Posted on 2021-07-19, 22:47

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Don't want to hijack the thread, but would just like to say thanks for the power connector pinouts provided here. Just helped me immensely to resurrect my PCS-11, it's original PSU failed today - couldn't get it to start back up again like I did at the weekend. Soon I'm going to replace the PSU with …

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