Re: Connect ESP8266 to serial port on old PC? (Wifi modem!)

Posted on 2021-01-17, 18:55

by

by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

OK so the bits turned up early! I can dial up to a telnet session (e.g. StarWars ASCII :) ) but how do I dial up to just be 'online' on the Internet? I'm now thinking a Raspberry Pi might be a better choice for a PPP server? I have a few laying around.... time to do some Googling! Edit - this looks …

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

Posted on 2021-01-15, 23:52

by

by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Decided to put my AST Bravo desktop back to the original P75 CPU - I had replaced the faulty motherboard with one that took a P200 MMX but with no extra graphics cards (I can't put any ISA or PCI cards in as I don't have a riser card)! it's a poor Windows gaming box (1Mb ATI Mach64) and too much for …

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Ruined memory of an old game by playing it!

Posted on 2021-01-15, 22:13

by

by SteveC

in DOS

in DOS

I thought I had fond memories of Megarace with all its FMV glory... just ran it for the first time in over 25 years and it is awful! Turns out I mis-remembered and confused Screamer with Megarace haha!! Anyone else wish they never re-ran an old game that you had good memories of and it turned out to …

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Re: Connect ESP8266 to serial port on old PC? (Wifi modem!)

Posted on 2021-01-15, 21:16

by

by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just ordered the two parts to give this a go when they turn up on Monday! I have no way of putting any expansion cards into my old PC (no riser card!) so this will be my route onto the Internet :) I'll follow this - http://subethasoftware.com/2018/02/28/wire-up-your-own-rs-232-wifi-modem-for-under- …

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Re: CPU collectors: do you collect each and every revision or just one?

Posted on 2021-01-13, 10:35

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by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have to be careful reading this thread. I have around 30 CPUs but I'm wondering if I should become a "CPU Whore" 😁

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

Posted on 2021-01-13, 01:01

by

by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What on earth why no information on these twin computers? Are they intel-made servers? Have some time taking these pictures and describe them in detail what are they? Web search is thin and your extra information will help big time. Cheers, Youtube premiere on the Unisys Aquanta HS/6 (aka ALR 6x6) …

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Re: Intel smashes Ryzen

Posted on 2021-01-13, 00:19

by

by SteveC

in Milliways

in Milliways

Why is it that when confronted with the choice of an AMD or Intel system, where the AMD system vastly outweighs the Intel system in the price/performance ratio, I still opt to spend more for the Intel system which is often two generations behind, performance-wise. Is this a shortcoming on my part, …

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

Posted on 2021-01-12, 22:26

by

by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Currently 3D printing this https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3543297 for my IDE to SD Card adapter It's pretty good but could do with a bit of extra stiffening. I noticed on the original link there's a link to an updated one someone's done which is exactly that! (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing: …

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

Posted on 2021-01-12, 20:50

by

by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sounds good, but would need to find the right slightly yellow off-beige 3D printer filament 😀

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

Posted on 2021-01-12, 20:37

by

by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Currently 3D printing this https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3543297 for my IDE to SD Card adapter Cool! Someone did something similar here on VOGONS before, yours apparently is to be connected from the rear view, the one I saw before was for the front view, I can't recall who and where. I can't …

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

Posted on 2021-01-12, 19:49

by

by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Currently 3D printing this https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3543297 for my IDE to SD Card adapter

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Re: Socket 7 CPUs and their voltages

Posted on 2021-01-12, 12:02

by

by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks all! The board doesn't do 3.5x unfortunately. I never had the guts to try an MMX at 3.3v and I just tried an old school ceramic P200MMX and it's working perfectly! Getting a little warm so need to beef up the heatsink and fan.

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Socket 7 CPUs and their voltages

Posted on 2021-01-12, 10:51

by

by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi all, Does anyone have a list of CPUs and their voltages? I'm just wondering what options I have with a socket 7 board that only does 3.3v Cheers, Steve

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Re: Need help to improve the support of 486/586/686 class CPUs in CPU-Z

Posted on 2021-01-12, 10:47

by

by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

RayeR wrote on 2021-01-12, 02:26: Hehe, get a fine tweezer and a bit of patience, those pins bend easily but they are tought to break completly... Done on cuntless pins of refurbished CPUs... Yeah took me about half an hour and a really aching hand afterwards but it worked!

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Re: Warning for POST code ISA/PCI diagnostic

Posted on 2021-01-12, 00:09

by

by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Apologies I didn't do a search beforehand! Yeah this is a piece of junk... don't buy it 😀

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Re: Need help to improve the support of 486/586/686 class CPUs in CPU-Z

Posted on 2021-01-11, 20:28

by

by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here's a few. AST Bravo MS Motherboard (HX chipset) with an Intel P133 (@133MHz), a Cyrix 6x86L P200+ (@133MHz - I can't do 75MHz bus on this board!) and a Cyrix 6x86 P150+ (@120MHz, and a million bent pins, and this got HOT!). The board has 16Mb (2x8MB FPM SIMMS), no L2 cache (no COAST module) and …

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Warning for POST code ISA/PCI diagnostic

Posted on 2021-01-11, 19:09

by

by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi all, I bought one of these from Amazon even though the reviews said they blow up! Turns out they do! The problem is the card edge connector for the 8 bit ISA slot is a fraction too short and so it can be inserted in the slot with pins shorted out. Just a warning if you buy one, make sure the pins …

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Re: AST Bravo doesn't like the cold

Posted on 2021-01-11, 16:20

by

by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Have hair dryer or heat gun? Gently warm the power supply then try again, if not, Heat one chip at a time on the motherboard and try. If not, heat another chip then try. So on. Cheers, Yeah I found it was the BIOS chip and I don't have the tools or equipment to replace it :( But good news! The …

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Re: AST Bravo doesn't like the cold

Posted on 2021-01-10, 19:36

by

by SteveC

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

OK I've recapped the board but to no avail, still the same. However I've been playing with heat again and I've been making cardboard ducting to apply heat to particular chips! The culprit is the BIOS chip! This kinda makes sense as as few times I've had the beep codes saying it needs to flash. It …

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Re: Bought these games today

Posted on 2021-01-09, 22:25

by

by SteveC

in Milliways

in Milliways

Received these in the post today from the Centre for Computing History (http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/) eBay store. For some reason I never owned the original Sonic for the Mega Drive!

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