PD2JK wrote on 2021-12-17, 07:54:

Restoring the Highscreen AT with original parts, so the FIC VA-502 came in with only a few bent jumper pins.

Within days, the mighty (read: slow) Quantum Bigfoot will whir and rattle once again...

Hi PD2JK, i see you have this motherboard (VA-502 pcb v1.1), could you please take a look on this topic :
VA-502 motherboard with missing components, see photo
I need information about some components, take your time , there is no hurry...

Thankyou in advance.
SDumas

Bought a curious looking mb. I expect it to be a dual socket 5. Pending further investigations though as the left socket heatsink seems to be permanently attached.

That's the single socket version unfortunately. Also as far as I could find, there's no way of adding the 2nd socket, even though the whole silkscreen + solder pads are there.

Mice.

First 4 work with ctmouse /s to test them.

Genius and Reckon need ctmouse /m /s to work.
Need to learn why.

Some mice are single mode, some mice are dual mode hardware switched, with a switch underneath, some are partial hardware switched by holding a button down either when powered on or when the driver is loading, some are completely software switched by the driver and put into one mode or another by the arguments.

Another PCMCIA CD-ROM drive (complete): I/O Magic 24x PCMCIA drive with the manual(s), driver diskette, audio cable, and the original box.

Seller's photos:

Nooo, not I/O Magic!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJC-_j3SnXk

Stopped at my favorite thrift store on my way home from work and somehow found a ThinkPad 760LD???? Even at $50 this was well worth it. Unfortunately it's not initializing the hard drive, though, it gets stuck on that screen forever.

I don't know how I managed to do it but I got it into Windows 95, and holy shit, this thing has a working CMOS battery! Unbelievable!

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-12-17, 22:58:

Nooo, not I/O Magic!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJC-_j3SnXk

What's wrong with I/O Magic? Guessing because they're cheap quality or like lemon cars?

EvieSigma wrote on 2021-12-18, 00:41:

Stopped at my favorite thrift store on my way home from work and somehow found a ThinkPad 760LD???? Even at $50 this was well worth it. Unfortunately it's not initializing the hard drive, though, it gets stuck on that screen forever.

PXL_20211217_235255821.jpg

PXL_20211218_003616952.jpg

Nice find! This is a very sought-after thinkpad. It's really well suited for DOS gaming. I have one as well.
The only thing I don't like about it is the rounded front edge, not a classic shape at all.

bjwil1991 wrote on 2021-12-18, 05:44:

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-12-17, 22:58:

Nooo, not I/O Magic!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJC-_j3SnXk

What's wrong with I/O Magic? Guessing because they're cheap quality or like lemon cars?

Heh, hard to describe. They sorta preyed on the gullibility of less computer savvy people who had bought unexpandable proprietary systems and made a lot of workaround type products for that market. Also some things that were kinda novelties, so in some respects the computer industry version of Sharper Image. Acted and advertised like they were top tier, big glossy ads. When they had something "normal" it was twice the price and half as good as other options. Their stuff could be worth buying, the once in a while they cleared out a line to surplus dealers.

Also got some dim suspicion that they had one or two things that they appeared to have "patented the problem" with, which made ppl mad. Not sure it stood up long, or they just got end-run around eventually, or problem didn't exist long... you know the sort of omission that exists a year then manufacturers realise it.

They surprisingily still exist.
https://iomagic.com/

The funniest thing I saw on their site just now is that holographic keyboard. It's like yhey're keeping ECS, Deer, L&C and PCChips' tradition of being cheap, sketchy and yet never going out of business.

Hey whats wrong with ECS. The SI5PI and K7S5A are legendary.

PD2JK wrote on 2021-12-18, 16:48:

Hey whats wrong with ECS. The SI5PI and K7S5A are legendary.

You must be joking... Horrible quality, very unreliable boards.

No, he's actually right.

The SI5PI was before the PCChips merger so no issue with it.

The K7S5A however, is one of the VERY VERY few boards that were actually decent in the post-PCChips merger. The other few I know of were the K7S6A (SiS748 I think?), K7VZA (KT133) and that's about it.
Oh, and their whole Socket 370 lineage wasn't bad either, as long as they weren't horribly crippled iGPU SiS chipsets (VIA was a bit better in that regard - not by much but miles better than SiS' absolutely abysmal iGPU performance.)

HanJammer wrote on 2021-12-18, 16:58:

PD2JK wrote on 2021-12-18, 16:48:

Hey whats wrong with ECS. The SI5PI and K7S5A are legendary.

You must be joking... Horrible quality, very unreliable boards.

Nah man. Their early boards weren't bad at all in the 90s. Their Socket 8 board (P6FX1-A) was a solid board and I archived it here from the Great Pentium Pro Haul of 2018. That model was also a looker. Very nice aesthetics with its white ISA slots. We've had this discussion before here at Vogons. Best not to generalize.

Bought two video cards, old EGA one based on Citygate D10 chip, and CGA/EGA/VGA combine OAK-VGA-16.
Mostly interested in playing with TTL outputs with old non-VGA timings.

GMIO470

vstrakh wrote on 2021-12-18, 17:25:

old EGA one based on Cigygate D10 chip

Weird, an EGA without the feature connector...
I thought it's some Hercules clone, but no, there's 256 KB of RAM...
and that 50 MHz crystal... obviously it supports greater resolutions than normal EGA.