Re: Cracked chip

Posted on 2021-02-17, 12:08

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Wow, that is necroposting and a half... Anyway, after the years I found out that this kind of a board is a piece of $#!t... Had 5 of them in my possesion, all of them dead with no apparent reason. Seems like the chipset tends to die somehow.

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Landmark Research Kickstart 2 POST and diagnostics card

Posted on 2020-10-31, 09:46

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi, Some time ago I got this card. P_20190902_160410.jpg P_20190903_221556.jpg It is an oldschool POST card with more features built in. In the box it came with three dongles and three EPROMs with some features. The deal is, of course, mine came with no EPROM whatsoever, it is a dumpster saved card. …

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BIOS needed for Forex chipset 386 board

Posted on 2020-10-08, 20:05

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi, I got my hands on a nice 386 motherboard. Problem is that somebody threw it to the recycling facility and it got stripped from all chips including BIOS. I can not find usable copy anywhere. P_20201008_215511.jpg Phil from Philscomputerlab has similiar one on his website, but sadly he does not …

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Re: How about a MR-BIOS ROM file repository?

Posted on 2020-02-16, 11:50

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Huh... I just got my hands on a Forex 421 based board, but without BIOS. When Google found this post, my heart jumped a little, but seems that I have no luck... Anyway, on one computer I have MR BIOS, I think the board is Octek Hippo OP. For sure I will take a look if I could back it up

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Re: Soundblaster 2.0 restoration

Posted on 2020-02-02, 22:37

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Few months later the OPL chips arrived. I was happy, immediately pulled one out of the packaging and stuffed it in the card. Aaand...? P_20191221_143614.jpg Nothing. It made bunch of awful sounds and garbage came through the speakers. It seemed like it was playing only one tone and than froze on …

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Re: Soundblaster 2.0 restoration

Posted on 2020-02-02, 22:20

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

So, the other card was a no-no. That meant the bus driver had to be removed from this card and transplanted on the other one. So, next order of business was as usual. Cleaning, removing broken parts, waiting on new ones. P_20190807_182414_1.jpg There it was ready for reassembling. But one thing was …

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Re: Soundblaster 2.0 restoration

Posted on 2020-02-02, 22:10

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

And I mean, I have a little bit of a free time so I will show you all one more. This started on an Retro Computers party. We were drinking with my friend and other friend started his "selling spree" as usual. I don't know how he managed to find these, but he had tons of stuff. But I mean TONS. He …

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Re: Soundblaster 2.0 restoration

Posted on 2020-02-02, 20:47

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

By the way, those awfuly big 1uF 450V caps were eventually removed and replaced by more sensible 1uF 50V caps. So the bunch at the top of the card is not a problem anymore 😁

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Re: Soundblaster 2.0 restoration

Posted on 2020-02-02, 11:47

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

And then I had to wait for parts. But they came shortly after and I started rebuilding it back. P_20181118_003817.jpg P_20190222_172335.jpg As a final touch, add C/MS chipset and ready to go! P_20190329_152743.jpg But sadly, I can't find the video of a test. It was funny, but I have no idea where it …

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Re: Soundblaster 2.0 restoration

Posted on 2020-02-02, 11:01

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Okay, at least one person said that he wants to see more. So here it is :D This is the one which started it all. I got this offered from my friend for free. But knows his stuff since he resells old computer stuff for many, many years so I knew something's fishy. And sure it was. He doesn't like to …

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Re: Soundblaster 2.0 restoration

Posted on 2020-01-28, 22:30

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Well I mean, it sounds crappy even when new, so I don't think you can improve it too much. But it sounds indistinguishably from original card, so it is good...? 😁 Nothing beats EMU8k from the Soundblaster family in my opinion.

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Soundblaster 2.0 restoration

Posted on 2020-01-28, 21:54

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I was just looking through my email and found out that I have not been active here for past 2 years. A lot of things has changed since my last post, I advanced A LOT in solving computer problems. Well I am not saying I am a pro now, but I do know what I am doing more and more. Last week I got my …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-06-12, 07:09

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

also moving it around the room I've heard something is loose inside... so I removed the cover and... wow, tell me it's not original HDD and they didn't mounted it with just one screw... because if they did then I'm glad Commodore is no longer around... I was lucky it didn't happened in shipping... …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-06-11, 22:24

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

On the way home I grabbed second part of today's haul... I didn't expected this PC20-III to be in such good shape! A bit of cleaning and it will look almost new. Apparently all three in working condition, although the lowest one emits funny smells when powered on... What revision is your …

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

Posted on 2018-09-01, 22:14

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yesterday I got this super duper nice beast to my Siemens Nixdorf collection. P_20180831_184347.jpg It came with no floppy drive and harddrive, so I have to replace them both. Had some issues with setting it up, but that was just because I didn't obey the original poster with specs - originaly it …

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Re: Resurrecting 5.25" floppy drive

Posted on 2018-08-29, 07:52

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

5,25" drives die quite regularly, but only some of them are really worth saving. And this drive isn't one of them since it has worm mechanism for heads positioning. I have quite a number of them dead, but it is just because the plastic worm mechanism gets so stripped it can't move precisely at all …

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Re: Capacitors (same rating but different sizes?)

Posted on 2018-08-26, 08:28

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Never ever reuse capacitors. It just isn't worth it. New ones are cheap and easy to find. Always buy low ESR ones and you'll be golden 😀

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Re: Unusual MFM controller

Posted on 2018-08-24, 16:21

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The FCC ID is FHH5UA-UDC, but I didn't find anything.

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Unusual MFM controller

Posted on 2018-08-24, 08:10

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi, Yesterday I got my hands on an unusual MFM controller. Seems like it is built from pretty standard stuff, but some really nice guy decided stomping on it and stripping off all the XTALs. I already ordered new PLCC82 socket, figured out that the WD10C20B Data Separator works with 10MHz crystal, …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2018-08-23, 20:33

by

by krivulak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Cyrix200+ wrote: And now the real good stuff: The real good stuff is the HDD. I have almost the same one in my museum, but not RLL and mine has headcrash. I envy badly 😁

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