Refurbishing a Gravis Gamepad using a machine shop and a biolab.

Posted on 2018-01-28, 23:29

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So I recently installed a game onto my Pentium Pro that my wife used to play when she was little (Alex Kidd) and it did run, but she kept dying because of the clunky keyboard interface, stating that it was not fun or how she remembers it. Because I am the greatest husband alive, I decided to rectify …

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Re: Basement find PII 350 with Banshee and CT4670, 128Mb RAM, 10 gig drive.

Posted on 2018-01-16, 04:39

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I started to play with this a little, it has a Shuttle HOT-661 motherboard. From what I can tell, it is not as good as my PII/PIII Aopen 64MX, but it at least has a BX chipset vs VIA for the Aopen. I swapped out the cooling fan in the power supply as it was just covered in dust, and I also replaced …

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Re: Shuttle HOT-661 VRM upgrade

Posted on 2018-01-16, 04:10

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hey, I just received this board. 6 years later, the Shuttle site is still up. Nice work on the VRM soldering, I don't think I'll be tweaking it that far, but I am getting conflicting results about the type of RAM it uses. I replaced the PC100 with PC133 and it seems to have made little (if any) …

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Re: Problems using secondary IDE channel on VLB cards with 486

Posted on 2018-01-03, 01:55

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm ghosting some drives right now and I'd like to add the following trick I forgot but now recall: Pull the jumper out entirely, see if that helps the situation. I had just now a WD 22500 drive that would not be seen by BIOS when a Quantum 7.6AT was in there (both were able to be detected …

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Re: Problems using secondary IDE channel on VLB cards with 486

Posted on 2017-12-30, 17:55

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

They are extremely finnicky: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=57125 I've had nothing but problems with them - seems they don't play well with dual channels. Every one of them I've installed into a dual channel (Primary and Secondary IDE) yielded issues. I've resorted to using them as …

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

Posted on 2017-12-30, 17:50

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I know - one prof gave me a pair of old Compaq laptops (4/25) - One worked right out of the box with 12 Mb RAM and a 212 Mb hard disk. The other one is DOA and many parts don't work on it, also there's no adapter. Both need belts replaced in the floppies though. She also gave me an HP 200LX (4Mb RAM …

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This is a cool thing I found on eBay - Computer badges!

Posted on 2017-12-30, 04:19

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I am in no way affiliated with this seller! I was looking for an "intel inside" sticker for my upcoming Intel processor collection (1996-2011) and I came across this: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Intel-Pentium-Label-Logo-Sticker-Badge-25-x-25-mm-286/182056954235?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid= …

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Re: Most frustrating part of working on old computers?

Posted on 2017-12-30, 04:10

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I recall that taking out a card expansion plate and hap-hazardly/sloppily aligning the new expansion card with your fingers through the back of a poor-quality case often resulted in fingers being cut on the jagged, razor sharp edges of metal. That and plugging in the LED/switches to the motherboard …

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Re: Old hardware you didn't take or buy... but might still want?

Posted on 2017-12-30, 04:06

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I regret that I never asked my primary school whether I could buy or get their old 386/486 systems around the year 2000 when they were phased out of the class rooms. I believe they all went to east Europe for a third life. That's hilarious because I sold my CAD teacher some 386DX40s in like 1997 …

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Re: Old hardware you didn't take or buy... but might still want?

Posted on 2017-12-30, 04:03

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Something I had not only seen but bought and used too - but I gave it away later and I regret it very much. It was a 8087 FPU, back in '93. Now I have a 1000+-piece CPU/FPU collection but no 8087. Holy cow... 1000+ and still haven't come across one? That's crazy. :dead: I've got one in my …

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

Posted on 2017-12-29, 21:06

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

On another note, I found a copy of Spacewrecked! 5.25 inch floppy game and installed it. Everything but the manual is in the box though, so I'll have to get around the DRM somehow...

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

Posted on 2017-12-29, 20:57

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Considering I'm looking at 50-60 hour weeks I think one job is enough. This is my passion and I'm still pretty sure the seasonal grind is going to burn me out. On the bright side ill probably be able to poach some decommissioned old equipment at some point since I'm sure used equipment disposal …

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Re: My AST premium 286

Posted on 2017-12-28, 16:14

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by Jed118

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

PgrAm wrote: Yeah I found the original price for this machine in an old Info World magazine, $2,995 in 1987, by 1990 the price had dropped to $2,395, not sure if that was with or without a monitor. Of course I managed to pick it up for about $25. That's interesting, where in Toronto did you get …

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Re: My AST premium 286

Posted on 2017-12-28, 06:54

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

That looks a lot like my 386 from 1989 - Those grounding straps, and lack of smaller MOLEX connectors for the floppies. XT style power supply too. I ALSO have a "modern" soundcard in mine (from 1993) and I too am looking for either an 8 bit Soundblaster or an Adlib. It'll do for now though.

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Re: My MMX rig

Posted on 2017-12-28, 06:50

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Out of curiosity, how do you store all your computers? I have 4 connected to a KVM, so single key/mouse/monitor, and two more with their own CRT monitors. The rest have to be either set up to be used, or are laptops.

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Re: Best Office suite for 386 W95

Posted on 2017-12-28, 06:44

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I had the Corel suite on an SX-25 back in the day.

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

Posted on 2017-12-28, 06:33

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Wow they just bumped it up to $14 here (CDN) taking in the exchange rate, it's probably on par. If at all possible, try to join a post-secondary IT helpdesk: Best (and 3rd best job on this continent) thing I ever did, in the long run.

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

Posted on 2017-12-28, 04:54

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just putting everyone on notice that all my current projects here are on hold and my activity levels will be dropping due to me getting my first job as a temporary IT Associate at Jackson Hewitt (and if I do well I become a permanent employee and get bumped up to IT Manager since there's is leaving …

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

Posted on 2017-12-27, 22:06

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's alright then. Wish 286 boards were as easy to come by. Gonna just have to repair mine I guess... 😁

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

Posted on 2017-12-27, 21:56

by

by Jed118

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Did you try underclocking the CPU? It could be a bad contact: I had some issues with an older VLB board doing random things like this (albeit if it managed to warm up - that is, be powered on for 20 minutes first, it would then work fine as long as it didn't cool off) - I pulled all the chips I …

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