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Replacing missing hard drive caddy / Compaq Armada from 1997

Posted on 2020-05-14, 06:19

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi, I'm trying to get an old Compaq Armada 7770 laptop working. The hard drive and its caddy is missing. The caddy contains an adapter for connecting a 44-pin IDE drive. I want to connect a hard drive to the machine. How can I replace this adapter (or caddy)? Pictures of the caddy is attached to …

Re: PC-XT (Amstrad PC1640) low free memory under MS-DOS

Posted on 2020-05-10, 19:05

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Maybe we had a memory expansion card, like this one https://monotech.fwscart.com/MicroRAM_640K_UM … 4_19914752.aspx and loaded some EMS pages into the ROM area above 640k. Guess that's the only explanation, then

PC-XT (Amstrad PC1640) low free memory under MS-DOS

Posted on 2020-05-10, 18:21

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

According to my memory, we had more than 600k free under MS-DOS on our Amstrad PC1640, as reported by the mem command. Now, I can't seem to get more than 561k. The usual tricks of using himem.sys and dos=high,umb does not work for me , as himem reports "requires 80x86", and .. "cannot load dos HIGH …

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

Posted on 2020-05-10, 15:15

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's currently at MS-DOS 3.2, but this image can be booted in qemu, so now I can make it all good and perfect for my sweet Amstrad :) The HD in mine died so I don't have a real image to boot with it, but all the floppies work (inc DOS Plus). I can recommend the XT-IDE CF card I bought on eBay, it …

Re: MS-DOS 3.2 boots, but not 6.22 - PC XT/8086

Posted on 2020-05-10, 08:21

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Made it work! What I did was to boot the 3.2 image with qemu and then with 3.2 booted, I installed the DOS 6.22 upgrade from floppy images, selecting vendor=Amstrad in the start of the process. In other words, when upgrading instead of installing, it worked. Curiously I did not get the option to …

MS-DOS 3.2 boots, but not 6.22 - PC XT/8086

Posted on 2020-05-10, 08:05

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

MS-DOS 3.2 boots OK on my Amstrad PC1640 (XT/8086). I'm booting from an CF-card, using XT-IDE. With MS-DOS 6.22, no output is shown after the bios and "booting drive c". How is this possible? My process: I boot qemu-386 with the CF-card from a new machine, and run the official MS-DOS upgrade, …

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

Posted on 2020-05-09, 19:57

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Managed to get my Amstrad PC1640 (PC-XT/Intel 8086) to boot from Compact Flash (XT-IDE 8-bit ISA card). It has a broken harddrive, so this is great. Now the machine can be resurrected. It's currently at MS-DOS 3.2, but this image can be booted in qemu, so now I can make it all good and perfect for …

Re: How to diagnose 5.25 floppy drive that doesn't read disks?

Posted on 2020-05-09, 10:02

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Miphee wrote on 2020-05-09, 09:12: Replace all electrolytic capacitors without checking them, and: https://dfarq.homeip.net/5-25-floppy-drive-maintenance/ Thanks! I'll practice on an unimportant drive I have first. This looks promising, it should reduce noise and extend the lifetime of my other …

How to diagnose 5.25 floppy drive that doesn't read disks?

Posted on 2020-05-09, 08:45

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've got an Y-E DATA YD-580 floppy drive that fails to read disks. There are no damaged parts visible, and the motor spins around as expected, perhaps with a slight wobble. Another floppy drive works well in the machine. What steps should I go through to diagnose the drive, and find the cause of the …

Re: Can you identify this Socket 7 motherboard?

Posted on 2020-05-08, 19:22

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks, that's really helpful! 😀

Re: Can you identify this Socket 7 motherboard?

Posted on 2020-05-07, 19:37

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

dionb wrote on 2020-05-07, 16:14: But jumper settings seem pretty well documented on the board - what are you trying to do that you're stuck with? I didn't see how to select frequency and multiplier for the CPU

Re: Can you identify this Socket 7 motherboard?

Posted on 2020-05-07, 19:35

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not at all sure that 60p connector is for SCSI - for starters there don't seem to be any SCSI controller chips on the board, also 50p and 68p SCSI were a thing, 60p wasn't. That makes sense, I noticed a label saying SCSI somewhat close to the header, that's where my guess came from. EDIT: the …

Can you identify this Socket 7 motherboard?

Posted on 2020-05-07, 15:13

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A mystery motherboard has found it's way to my house! Can you identify this Socket 7 motherboard? I can't find the model and manufacturer of this Socket 7 motherboard, nor it's jumper settings documentation On the back of the board, TGS 90200 REV B 960228 is printed. It's using the Intel 430fx …

Re: Compaq Presario 433, my 486 pure DOS machine

Posted on 2020-05-06, 15:07

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

2) What kind of RAM are you using? I feel like I've tried a bunch of RAM but could still only get it to work with 16 MB (i.e. 4MB onboard + 4MB + 8MB). It requires 72-pin FPM non-Parity SIMMs. It can be ECC or non-ECC. It can be 70 or 60 ns. I've tried both. I'm currently using these in my Presario …

Re: Compaq Presario 400 (425, 433) Series Mini Overview

Posted on 2020-05-06, 15:02

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

My Presario 425 uses a 486 dx4-100 ODPR - it is hot, but that should be within specs for that CPU. The ODPR variant regulates the current so that it becomes the expected higher voltage number.

Re: Compaq Presario 425/433 aio series mb differences?

Posted on 2020-05-06, 14:52

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Is it possible it's for added cache? I got a similar slot on a socket 7 motherboard that adds cache to the motherboard. I have a Presario 425 with this slot as well and would love to discover what its purpose is!

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

Posted on 2020-04-26, 09:08

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've been tinkering with my 486 DOS-machine, setting IRQs and loading drivers to make sure the soundcard and the network card both load. Preparing for DOS TCP networking support, with SFTP, and possibly SMB.

Re: New account on vogonswiki.com?

Posted on 2020-04-26, 09:03

in Milliways

in Milliways

Thanks, I just sent the request, and included my username. I've not yet accumulated enough points/posts to send PM .

New account on vogonswiki.com?

Posted on 2020-04-19, 08:49

in Milliways

in Milliways

(Don't know where else to ask) I'd like to register for a new account on vogonswiki.com, to add some information, but it fails with an error. "Error sending mail: authentication failure [SMTP: Invalid response code received from server (code: 535, response: 5.7.0 Authentication failed)] " Who should …

Re: Ethernet options for old DOS-machine (8086, 8-bit isa, serial and parallell ports)

Posted on 2020-04-17, 15:12

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

mdog69 wrote on 2020-04-17, 06:46: I've got a spare 3C503 which works in 8bit slots... Thanks for offering, I'll keep that in mind.

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