Awesome rescue! 😀

Fiddling with a new machine. Doesn't look like much but that's a PDP-11/73.

I want to possibly stuff it in a PC case but between the card cage and the power supply I might have to find a full-on AT tower or ATX cube case. I don't think even an AT clone desktop case will fit it all.

PeterLI wrote:

Awesome rescue! 😀

Thanks! 😀

I fixed the BIOS chip I broke off a leg of yesterday.

The leg stump remaining was ~0.5 mm too short to make contact with the socket but I cut a thin piece of copper to bridge the gap.

I just tested the board, its a Biostar MB-8500TVX-A i430 VX board. It seems to work perfectly eventhough it looked liked it spent the winter outside before I gave it a bath. 😀

So far two working boards and one non working board out of the lot of 6.

Well done, Skyscraper!

clueless1 wrote:

Well done, Skyscraper!

Thanks 😀

Im testing some boards from the other lot of 11 "untested" boards now as I want to be done with all untested Socket-7 boards before I start with the Socklet-3 ones. The FIC VA-502 VIA VPX board did not want to post at first but like with the Soyo i430TX board it was only the included memory that was faulty.

Last monday i payed a visit to a local thriftshop i visit every now and then. I have a good connection with the guy doing the computer stuff, and he knows i'm into old computers. So he puts aside the old stuff so i can get the nice stuff.
I also help them to put a price on stuff i don't want. They got a bondwell 14, in pretty good condition. But it's a but to big for my collection, and i really don't collect lugables/portable/laptops. They wanted to throw it away, but i said that they should sell it. So now it's for sale for 45 euro.
Anyways, when i was there last monday he showed me some stuff they got, like a atari mega st keyboard, a old pentium 90 pc. Didn't get those, but i might go back for the atari keyboard. Hopefully the mega st is there also.
But in the corner stacked away behind a pile i noticed a ibm ps/2. So we dug it out, and it was a model 30 8530-021. I bought it for 10 euro, untested.

Back home, i modified a vga cable so it would fit the mcga socket. Powered the system up and it counted it's system memory, but then it halted after trying to access the hdd, giving a missing command line error. Tried booting from disk, but nothing.
Opened the system up, and noticed that the drive was connected as a B-drive. So i thought easy fix, swapped the cable and nothing.
The disk was spinning, the head was moving but no loading. Moved the hdd to my other ps/2 and tried to reinstall dos, but the disk was giving errors. So i used the systemdisk to do verify the disk, and a lot of errors where on the disk. Tried a unconditional format, after that i tried to install dos, but it gave me a bootsector error. I can still use the drive, but not as a bootdrive any more.
So then i tried to clean the diskdrive to see if i could fix it. Found a article online where somebody installed new capacitors and that fixed his drive. So since it looked like my drive did everything correct, except reading the disk, i thought this could be a fix worth trying.
So today i bought some new capacitors, replace all of them on the top and bottom pcb's and now...

It's working again. I can boot and read/write disks again. So i have a fully working ps/2 (hdd booting isn't that important).

seob wrote:

Last monday i payed a visit to a local thriftshop i visit every now and then. I have a good connection with the guy doing the co […]
Show full quote

Last monday i payed a visit to a local thriftshop i visit every now and then. I have a good connection with the guy doing the computer stuff, and he knows i'm into old computers. So he puts aside the old stuff so i can get the nice stuff.
I also help them to put a price on stuff i don't want. They got a bondwell 14, in pretty good condition. But it's a but to big for my collection, and i really don't collect lugables/portable/laptops. They wanted to throw it away, but i said that they should sell it. So now it's for sale for 45 euro.
Anyways, when i was there last monday he showed me some stuff they got, like a atari mega st keyboard, a old pentium 90 pc. Didn't get those, but i might go back for the atari keyboard. Hopefully the mega st is there also.
But in the corner stacked away behind a pile i noticed a ibm ps/2. So we dug it out, and it was a model 30 8530-021. I bought it for 10 euro, untested.

Back home, i modified a vga cable so it would fit the mcga socket. Powered the system up and it counted it's system memory, but then it halted after trying to access the hdd, giving a missing command line error. Tried booting from disk, but nothing.
Opened the system up, and noticed that the drive was connected as a B-drive. So i thought easy fix, swapped the cable and nothing.
The disk was spinning, the head was moving but no loading. Moved the hdd to my other ps/2 and tried to reinstall dos, but the disk was giving errors. So i used the systemdisk to do verify the disk, and a lot of errors where on the disk. Tried a unconditional format, after that i tried to install dos, but it gave me a bootsector error. I can still use the drive, but not as a bootdrive any more.
So then i tried to clean the diskdrive to see if i could fix it. Found a article online where somebody installed new capacitors and that fixed his drive. So since it looked like my drive did everything correct, except reading the disk, i thought this could be a fix worth trying.
So today i bought some new capacitors, replace all of them on the top and bottom pcb's and now...

It's working again. I can boot and read/write disks again. So i have a fully working ps/2 (hdd booting isn't that important).

Nice!

I really like those old PS/2 computers, I had one as my first PC! 😀

Working on a Windows XP/Socket 478-oriented build [Good Socket 478 XP build] and an Apple LC475 I bought times ago (have to change battery, these MACs don't allow the output of video signal without PRAM battery...):

Cool! You can use INTERLNK/SVR to use another PC's HDD.

I am modding my PS/2 Model 30 8530 8086: V30, 8087 & SCSI HDD.

I'm about to get a hold of another Super Socket 7 board (one with AGP, for a change) for use inside my AMD K6-III+ build and I'm about to get started on rebuilding my original retro gaming PC from 2010 based around an AMD Athlon 1.4GHz CPU (Socket 462). Same CPU, same motherboard, but with 1GB of RAM, a Windows 98/XP dual-boot and a GeForce 6200 to replace the Radeon 9000 this computer originally had (mainly because the GeForce 6200's DVI output can upscale to 1920x1080 in both DOS and Windows 98).

However, I would like to ask one thing regarding the sound card. Given the choice between an Ensoniq AudioPCI/SoundBlasters based on the AudioPCI, any version of the SoundBlaster Live! and a Diamond Multimedia Monster Sound MX300, which of these cards would be best suited to a Windows-only computer? I don't plan on running any DOS games on this computer, so legacy support is irrelevant in the final decision.

For Win98, Diamond all the way. Better resampling and A3D. Of course, if you have lots of games that only support EAX, then go with a SB Live.

Skyscraper wrote:

So far two working boards and one non working board out of the lot of 6.

Proud ey ya!

Good to see another salvage / repair / restoration of vintage hardware.

Keep it up. 😎

Well...

I've spent half the day... most of tonight testing and benching my EISA graphics card collection.

The reason it's taken / taking so long... is because I had to figure out first a conflict between the fixed disk controller and each EISA configuration file, indirectly however... and as a result, each time I've uploaded new configs... i've had to wipe the system ROM to clear the fixed disk entry and do a full system restore.

Once I figured this out... it's got routine, and so far i'm on card 4 of 6.

Results will be here and around shortly!

PeterLI wrote:

Cool! You can use INTERLNK/SVR to use another PC's HDD.

I am modding my PS/2 Model 30 8530 8086: V30, 8087 & SCSI HDD.

Have to check the cpu, it's a nec, but i haven't check what version. Have to find myself a 8087 someday. Are you going to tap the powercables for the scsi from the psu?

The ST-01 and ST296N work together just fine.

LLF with AHA-1520. Complete.
Running verification with AHA-1520. Complete.
FDISK. Complete.
FORMAT. Complete.
XCOPY / FastLynx. Complete.
Boot in PS/2. Fail.
Ran FDISK / FORMAT and it now works. Need to copy again. 😀
SYS / DEBUG / FDISK active did not help.

I use a spare AT PSU: no splicing. The ST296N is 5.25" HH so does not fit anyway.

The SCSI is a lot faster than the ESDI.

8087s and V30s are cheap from CN: < $10 each shipped.

PCBs:
ST-01
MIF-IPC-A
CT-1350

Cleaned out my lab again. After a few projects it looks very "creative" 😊

I like it clean and ready to for the next project. I bought quite a lot of Pentium 4 and Athlon 64 gear, eagerly awaiting for the parts to arrive.

Started the process of organizing and downsizing my stuff. The stack of 10 projects in various states of completion is a tad bit ridicules. Going to be getting rid of a silver 27inch Sylvania CRT with audio problems so that should open up about 1/4 of my bed room for use as a work area. Instead of using my bed + cardboard, which is a slight PITA.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Cleaned out my lab again. After a few projects it looks very "creative" 😊

I like it clean and ready to for the next project. I bought quite a lot of Pentium 4 and Athlon 64 gear, eagerly awaiting for the parts to arrive.

Hmmm....
Sounds like you are stretching you'r legs on the Socket 939 and 775 fields in the near future.
Stuff like Asus A8N-SLI-Premium/Deluxe perhaps? Mid-00's Gaming era?

brostenen wrote:

mmm....
Sounds like you are stretching you'r legs on the Socket 939 and 775 fields in the near future.
Stuff like Asus A8N-SLI-Premium/Deluxe perhaps? Mid-00's Gaming era?

I've got the standard A8N and quite a few 754 boards for AMD. For Intel I actually got a lot of 775 boards now. 915, 945, 975, P35 chipsets to choose from 😀 Most boards are Intel from machines I took apart for work when I heard they get thrown out 🤣

Lets play a game!

What CPU is this?
Bonus questen No1: At what speed is it running?
Bonus question No2: What motherboard did I use?

Clues:
The L2 cache is activated in WB mode.
The L1 cache is of course active.
The motherboard has full support for the CPU.
All memory is cached.
All memory, cache and other BIOS settings are set to the fastest values.
The memory is 1x64MB 168pin SDRAM.
No slow down utilitys used and the system is not bugged or defect in any way.
Nothing is running in the background.
The PCI bus is running at its normal speed, in this case 33 MHz.
The only thing done is to set the CPU to the slowest (and lowest) combination of FSB and multiplier.
The OS is a clean install of Windows 98SE.

The picture is only cut so I could fit the BMP on a normal floppy as I diddnt install jpeg support on the very speedy system.