brostenen wrote on 2020-08-26, 20:15:

In the process of making backup copies of all my Amiga floppy disks. These are disks from the late 1980's and early 1990's (circa 1987/1992), so I need to preserve the content. For the image backup, I am using an Amiga with HDD and Workbench installed. Running Tracksaver-GUI for the task. So far I am half way through all the disks, only slightly under 300 to go. (two box's are not in the picture)

Amiga-Floppy-Stash.jpg

I would say from one vintage software archivist to another "I do not envy you.", but I am in the middle of multiple archival projects myself so I completely feel your pain.

liqmat wrote on 2020-08-26, 21:53:

brostenen wrote on 2020-08-26, 20:15:

In the process of making backup copies of all my Amiga floppy disks. These are disks from the late 1980's and early 1990's (circa 1987/1992), so I need to preserve the content. For the image backup, I am using an Amiga with HDD and Workbench installed. Running Tracksaver-GUI for the task. So far I am half way through all the disks, only slightly under 300 to go. (two box's are not in the picture)

Amiga-Floppy-Stash.jpg

I would say from one vintage software archivist to another "I do not envy you.", but I am in the middle of multiple archival projects myself so I completely feel your pain.

floppy_powers_eject.gif

I actually enjoy this task. So rewarding to have a backup, and each disk only takes 47 seconds on my 500-Desktop. (Amiga500 based, 68000, 1mb ChipRam and 8mb FastRam) I think it depends on what type of person you are as well. Some hate to reattach the keycaps when a keyboard have been cleaned. I simply love to do it. However I hate taking a keyboard apart for cleaning and restauration.

The good part of having all the ADF files on an 3.5 inch PATA drive. Is that I can just mount the AmigaFFS filesystem directly on Linux, and copy the content without having to use any emulator. Just love it....

Well then, I guess I am in pain all by my lonely as my projects involve not only disk imaging, but tons of document scans and photography. I suffer in silence.

liqmat wrote on 2020-08-26, 23:14:

Well then, I guess I am in pain all by my lonely as my projects involve not only disk imaging, but tons of document scans and photography. I suffer in silence.

Been there ! Back years ago was archiving many old floppies, cd's and manuals. Had to tell my friends I could not game until done with the current set, they thought I was nuts but it was a duty to do it as it is yours !

appiah4 wrote on 2020-08-26, 20:38:

I have a problem with a build I made using a NOS case that sat in a damp mouldy storage apparently. It looks clean as a whistle but when I turn it on it fills the whole room with a rich mouldy smell. Yuck.

How to get rid of this? I think the smell is from within the PSU. Remove and give it a good soap wash, rinse and dry?

Clean with ISO (works well for old cig smoke smell in a PSU) or get some Tree's or Glade plugins 😀

Horun wrote on 2020-08-27, 01:44:

liqmat wrote on 2020-08-26, 23:14:

Well then, I guess I am in pain all by my lonely as my projects involve not only disk imaging, but tons of document scans and photography. I suffer in silence.

Been there ! Back years ago was archiving many old floppies, cd's and manuals. Had to tell my friends I could not game until done with the current set, they thought I was nuts but it was a duty to do it as it is yours !

I've been doing it for years as well as I run across something that hasn't been archived yet. I half jest though as I know it helps others. The endless scanning does get tiring though. Hopefully this winter all the Socket 8 disks and docs will be done from the haul from almost two years ago.

Today I built and tested one of those converter for connecting a Sega Genesis/Atari 2600 gamepad to the parallel port of a PC. I tested it with my 489 thinkpad and it worked...kind of. I tested it with a 6-button Genesis pad, and while the main buttons work fine (D-pad, start and A,B,C) for whatever reason the buttons X,Y, Z and mode do not work. Not only that, but the keypresses for those buttons are registered when I press up/down/left/right (the D-pad buttons register two keypresses each). I don't know if I assembled the converter wrong or what, because the sneskey documentation explicitly says it works with the Genesis 6-button pad. Guess I'll google a bit and see what i get.

Speaking of, I always have huge game manuals to scan... Those that are so big that by the time you approach the middle of it, the pages are hard to make flat enough for the scanner.

I do it rarely because it takes all day, and because I do not want to damage them at all.

If only there was a faster way. Or maybe scanners other than a two decades old Canon LiDE 25 are worth it ?

brostenen wrote on 2020-08-26, 21:58:

The good part of having all the ADF files on an 3.5 inch PATA drive. Is that I can just mount the AmigaFFS filesystem directly on Linux, and copy the content without having to use any emulator. Just love it....

Don't forget the backup, what a terrible waste of work if the drive decided to crash ..

H3nrik V! wrote on 2020-08-27, 06:48:

brostenen wrote on 2020-08-26, 21:58:

The good part of having all the ADF files on an 3.5 inch PATA drive. Is that I can just mount the AmigaFFS filesystem directly on Linux, and copy the content without having to use any emulator. Just love it....

Don't forget the backup, what a terrible waste of work if the drive decided to crash ..

Yup. That is the plan. Once they are all backed up, I will make a second backup on my Linux laptop.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2020-08-27, 06:22:

Speaking of, I always have huge game manuals to scan... Those that are so big that by the time you approach the middle of it, the pages are hard to make flat enough for the scanner.

I do it rarely because it takes all day, and because I do not want to damage them at all.

If only there was a faster way. Or maybe scanners other than a two decades old Canon LiDE 25 are worth it ?

In my case I sacrifice the technical manuals for the greater good of the collecting and preservation community. I have the spine cut off so all pages can be scanned easily. When it comes to game manuals though, you are right, it is almost impossible as many of those cannot be damaged to keep their value. So what I do is take a high resolution photo with good lighting and call it a day. Below is a very rare Capcom Steel Battalion brochure documenting who the developers were in Japan. I did not want to damage it in a scanner as not all the pages would go flat. I found it through a trader living in Japan as I was an all things Steel Battalion collector at one time. I eventually donated my entire collection to The Strong. The image below is compressed down to 2MB so it fits within Vogon's forum limitations.

Today's retro activities:

- Recapped the defective FX 5900 XT and added some knocked off SMD caps. The missing MOSFET should be in the mail tomorrow, so let's hope it can be brought back to life.

- Moved my dual Tualatin build (MSI Pro266TD Master-LR) to an adequate case. I recently found a Cooler Master ATC-220 in great shape for a reasonable price. It's not the nicest case to work with, but it does look great! Once I have mounted the original Cooler Master aluminium front bezel for the optical drive, I will take some beauty shots and open a separate thread in the System Specs subforum.

- Started building the "all things dual" system (Dual Slot 1 + V5 5500) since the case (Sharkoon M25-W) arrived today and I just had to start putting everything together. This is going to come out really clean and slick. Will share pictues once it's done.

liqmat wrote on 2020-08-27, 14:48:

I was an all things Steel Battalion collector at one time.

I had the Steel Battalion controller with everything, big box and all complete...
I purely bought it because I loved the controller, I wanted to mod it to work on PC eventually... but never got around to it so I sold it to a friend for pretty cheap, way under market value back then, I didn't even have a Xbox in the first place and I didn't really have another use for it... and they were collecting console stuff... at least I hope they never got rid of it ^^

imi wrote on 2020-08-27, 18:08:

liqmat wrote on 2020-08-27, 14:48:

I was an all things Steel Battalion collector at one time.

I had the Steel Battalion controller with everything, big box and all complete...
I purely bought it because I loved the controller, I wanted to mod it to work on PC eventually... but never got around to it so I sold it to a friend for pretty cheap, way under market value back then, I didn't even have a Xbox in the first place and I didn't really have another use for it... and they were collecting console stuff... at least I hope they never got rid of it ^^

Yeah, I had two sealed (one European variant and one U.S.), one mint open box and one for parts. Both the blue and green button variants as well. The problem with that controller is that it was rather delicate compared to most controllers of that size (think flight simulator controllers) so many of them would break due to kids being rough on them. The funny thing is about that game was the most complex part about it was trying to figure out how to repack it into the box correctly. It was like a damn puzzle. 🤣

I even had the slightly rare Steel Battalion: Line of Contact "Pilot Test" beta disc. Unfortunately, unlike Line of Contact it was completely dependent on the Xbox Live service whereas the full commercial release you could play via LAN.

liqmat wrote on 2020-08-27, 18:17:

The problem with that controller is that it was rather delicate compared to most controllers of that size (think flight simulator controllers) so many of them would break due to kids being rough on them. The funny thing is about that game was the most complex part about it was not even the gameplay, but trying to figure out how to repack it back into the box correctly. It was like a damn puzzle. 🤣

well I never really got to use it anyways, and I'm usually careful with my stuff so it was pretty pristine ^^

even my box was pristine apart from... uh... the glue just giving up... it simply fell apart, the box was still nice though it just didn't hold together by itself anymore.

Installed a Sound Blaster 16, an Ethernet card, a Compact Flash drive and a CD-ROM in my IBM PS/1 2155, then proceeded to copy over the contents of a 1994 PS/1 HDD image. It works fine, although a bit quirky. Randomly spits out date time errors at boot, and at times when I go into bios the second counter goes from 29 to 2; to 2: etc. Something seems to be wrong with the RTC, but I can't figure out what. Works fine, otherwise.

aha2940 wrote on 2020-08-27, 03:03:

Today I built and tested one of those converter for connecting a Sega Genesis/Atari 2600 gamepad to the parallel port of a PC. I tested it with my 489 thinkpad and it worked...kind of. I tested it with a 6-button Genesis pad, and while the main buttons work fine (D-pad, start and A,B,C) for whatever reason the buttons X,Y, Z and mode do not work. Not only that, but the keypresses for those buttons are registered when I press up/down/left/right (the D-pad buttons register two keypresses each). I don't know if I assembled the converter wrong or what, because the sneskey documentation explicitly says it works with the Genesis 6-button pad. Guess I'll google a bit and see what i get.

So, after googling a bit, I found that the issue with the "ghost keys" was that the Genesis gamepad was not getting 5.0V correctly. The solution to this wal soldering a USB cable to the +5V pin of the DB9 male plug on the converter, and the ground to the common ground of the converter. After this, and plugging the USB cable to a PS/2 to USB converter, I got the 5V the gamepad needs and it works fine. I put a switch to, so that I can choose between external +5V or the usual connection of the adapter, because some pads do not need +5V to work.

imi wrote on 2020-08-27, 18:08:

liqmat wrote on 2020-08-27, 14:48:

I was an all things Steel Battalion collector at one time.

I had the Steel Battalion controller with everything, big box and all complete...
I purely bought it because I loved the controller, I wanted to mod it to work on PC eventually... but never got around to it so I sold it to a friend for pretty cheap, way under market value back then, I didn't even have a Xbox in the first place and I didn't really have another use for it... and they were collecting console stuff... at least I hope they never got rid of it ^^

Ah! I too lusted after (but never acquired) the full Steel Battalion controller setup with the same dream to mod it to work on PC for some mech games. Never did, unfortunately.

liqmat wrote on 2020-08-26, 23:42:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2020-08-26, 20:59:

You really, really need to make a thread for that 😎

I will over at VCF. I mostly lurk and do light commenting here nowadays.

🙁

Stiletto wrote on 2020-08-28, 03:44:

imi wrote on 2020-08-27, 18:08:

liqmat wrote on 2020-08-27, 14:48:

I was an all things Steel Battalion collector at one time.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2020-08-26, 20:59:

You really, really need to make a thread for that 😎

I will over at VCF. I mostly lurk and do light commenting here nowadays.

🙁

Yeah I went the other way, started posting more here then there. Will not go into details but have learned that people here are more helpful and friendly, just my opinion...

appiah4 wrote on 2020-08-27, 23:03:

Installed a Sound Blaster 16, an Ethernet card, a Compact Flash drive and a CD-ROM in my IBM PS/1 2155, then proceeded to copy over the contents of a 1994 PS/1 HDD image. It works fine, although a bit quirky. Randomly spits out date time errors at boot, and at times when I go into bios the second counter goes from 29 to 2; to 2: etc. Something seems to be wrong with the RTC, but I can't figure out what. Works fine, otherwise.

I have seen RTC's act weird when the battery voltage was too low.