nfraser01 wrote on 2023-09-30, 09:54:

Bought this lovely PCG-N505X today (been after one for ages)

Unfortuantely the hard drive died about 5 minutes after I started it up. I find that it is really common with Sony's of this age to have faulty hard drives - anyone else noticed?

Now starts the hunt for the correct recovery CD (usually impossible with VAIO's)

Why this specific one? Just curious. Always looking for more neat old laptops to add to "the list".

vutt wrote on 2023-10-03, 18:26:

Mice everywhere :) […]
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Mice everywhere 😀

So since I'm back messing around with 486 era HW I was forced to shop around for serial mouse. I don't like much idea of getting used one. I came across this new old stock. Was inside blister pack.
I actually used Genius mice back in days, but never blue coral design - very fancy. It's relatively big boy, feels sturdy in hand
sermouse.jpg

I also have floppy disk now ... ...and no FDD drive!

You're looking for a serial mouse and have no floppy drive! That's sacrilegious.

3lectr1c wrote on 2023-10-03, 20:07:

Why this specific one? Just curious. Always looking for more neat old laptops to add to "the list".

I have a thing for small laptops...

Any of the 10" 505 range would have done, this happened to be the first that was available in my budget...

I also have a Picture book 😀

somewhat retro hardware, a VIA Epia-5000 mini ITX motherboard.

It only has one PCI slot but I think I will do something fun with it. will be fun to play around with it and see what it can do.

Came earlier today, definitely not NOS, but unused. Top left front face clip broken, so will superglue or resin(?) fix it back
Lian Li PC-A77FR

Joakim wrote on 2023-10-04, 20:29:

somewhat retro hardware, a VIA Epia-5000 mini ITX motherboard.

It only has one PCI slot but I think I will do something fun with it. will be fun to play around with it and see what it can do.

I had one of these, used it as a low power NAS for a long time.

Picked up this bit of Kit for a Win98Se build, Its a ASRock P4i65G which has the 865 chipset so it should be really nice for a late 98 machine, I think the Ti4600 I got recently should be a really nice fit for this build. Comes with 2Gb of Ram and a 3.2Ghz Presshot. The board should be able to handle a 3.4 Presshot but in all seriousness I doubt itll be any better performing than the 3.2, might be better at boiling water though, seriously considering switching it to a 3.4 Northwood I have just to avoid the heat from the Presshot and stock cooling. (I do have a pair of Copper Core coolers which will help, have a couple of 256Mb DDR 500 sticks to keep it to 512Mb limit)

And finally got a AWE64 Gold at a not stupid price, trying to figure out the best way to add a DreamBlaster X16GS to it via the midi port, Serdashop has a few options but Im unfamiliar with external midi setups. Would a ChillandPhil work for this ?

Got this nice late 286 machine - Olivetti M290-20.
No HDD, dead battery, corrosion marks but it can boot 😀
In addition got a box with the lot of unknown 5.25 floppies (around 100pcs.)
Seagate ST-157A HDD.

Susanin79 wrote on 2023-10-06, 07:33:

Got this nice late 286 machine - Olivetti M290-20. No HDD, dead battery, corrosion marks but it can boot :) In addition got a bo […]
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Got this nice late 286 machine - Olivetti M290-20.
No HDD, dead battery, corrosion marks but it can boot 😀
In addition got a box with the lot of unknown 5.25 floppies (around 100pcs.)
Seagate ST-157A HDD.

looks good, a little work and it is ready for use!

there was a time i used to enjoy going through lots of floppy disks to see what was on there. 100 of them though, that would take some time!

Susanin79 wrote on 2023-10-06, 07:33:

Got this nice late 286 machine - Olivetti M290-20.

Maybe you dont know this channel yet. A lot of interesting Olivetti PC content:
https://www.youtube.com/@TiBosRetroComputers

DerBaum wrote on 2023-10-06, 10:12:

Maybe you dont know this channel yet. A lot of interesting Olivetti PC content:
https://www.youtube.com/@TiBosRetroComputers

Thanks so much! It will be useful for me.

This.... For the equivelant of 42,50 USD plus shipping. (sellers photo)

Just saw there industrial pc cases yesterday evening.
https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/indust … 773912-228-1285
https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/indust … 771052-228-1285
Advertised as cases but it turns out the PCs are still in there.

It wasnt too far away so i picked them up just 2 hours ago.

One is a PISA SBC with a nice huge backplane with a lot of ISA and PCI slots.
As a bonus this one came with some kind of PCI card wich i dont even know what it is.
It looks some kind of professionally built... not homemade.
It came with a "service tag".

The other one is a full size Pentium M SBC also with a very large backplane.
This one had more cards in it. A PCI 4x Serial card. Some kind of controller wich was labeled "CAN" on the case , and a super long ISA card wich was labeled "DSP" on the case.

Both came with nice power supplies (+- 5/12 V), CD drives, Floppy drives, HDDs.

I would say that is ok for 10 Euros each plus 2x50 Kilometers driving.

DerBaum wrote on 2023-10-06, 19:40:

As a bonus this one came with some kind of PCI card wich i dont even know what it is.

That Meinberg card is for receiving DCF77 radio signal, to synchronize the computer clock.

Grzyb wrote on 2023-10-06, 20:00:

DerBaum wrote on 2023-10-06, 19:40:

As a bonus this one came with some kind of PCI card wich i dont even know what it is.

That Meinberg card is for receiving DCF77 radio signal, to synchronize the computer clock.

Oh. Thats neat. Thanks. Maybe i can get it to work if i find an antenna and software.

Edit ... That was easy ... Here is the software ... if somebody is interested :
https://www.meinbergglobal.com/english/produc … dcf77-clock.htm

DerBaum wrote on 2023-10-06, 20:21:

Oh. Thats neat. Thanks. Maybe i can get it to work if i find an antenna and software.

They are still online...
this card looks similar - https://www.meinbergglobal.com/english/archive/pci32.htm
and they have the antennas - https://www.meinbergglobal.com/english/produc … cf-antennas.htm
though I suspect that any ferrite antenna would work, really, there's no rocket science in receiving Long Wave radio.

Edit: oops, time warp 🤣

Grzyb wrote on 2023-10-06, 20:30:

though I suspect that any ferrite antenna would work, really, there's no rocket science in receiving Long Wave radio.

I am not far away from the sender of the clock signal. Just 300 Kilometers.
Maybe just a longer piece of wire is enough 😁 ... I have no iead 😁

Edit: I had a brilliant idea. I take apart a radio controlled clock and salvage the antenna... that should be the right one i guess...

DerBaum wrote on 2023-10-06, 20:35:

I am not far away from the sender of the clock signal. Just 300 Kilometers.

I can see it from my kitchen window 😉
Nice catch btw. 😀

DerBaum wrote on 2023-10-06, 19:40:

Just saw there industrial pc cases yesterday evening. https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/indust … 773912-228-1285 https://ww […]
Show full quote

Just saw there industrial pc cases yesterday evening.
https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/indust … 773912-228-1285
https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/indust … 771052-228-1285
Advertised as cases but it turns out the PCs are still in there.

It wasnt too far away so i picked them up just 2 hours ago.

One is a PISA SBC with a nice huge backplane with a lot of ISA and PCI slots.
As a bonus this one came with some kind of PCI card wich i dont even know what it is.
It looks some kind of professionally built... not homemade.
It came with a "service tag".
2023-10-06 20.59.46.jpg2023-10-06 20.52.13.jpg2023-10-06 20.52.28.jpg

The other one is a full size Pentium M SBC also with a very large backplane.
This one had more cards in it. A PCI 4x Serial card. Some kind of controller wich was labeled "CAN" on the case , and a super long ISA card wich was labeled "DSP" on the case.
2023-10-06 21.07.24.jpg2023-10-06 21.10.31.jpg

Both came with nice power supplies (+- 5/12 V), CD drives, Floppy drives, HDDs.

I would say that is ok for 10 Euros each plus 2x50 Kilometers driving.

I play with SBC stuff. That "PISA" is somewhat rare. Good to see you have complete set.

Most common ISA/PCI design of backplane had PCI in front of the ISA slot.
Most rarer one is AGP backplane. Very rare, only one maker made these.

Cheers,

Went to the flea market today and picked up some power supplies and a Radeon 6870. The video card isn't exactly retro, but it should work pretty well in a Windows XP rig - and I have just the system for it - IF it works.

The power supplies all work. The 500w antec had a sliced ground cable on the PCI-E 6 pin line, but I'm going to solder it back up good as new. The gold psu - I've never heard of this brand, but it weighs a ton and has a pretty beefy 5v rail. No SATA or PCI-E connectors and it sais pentium iv on the label 😁 - might be a great unit for a fast socket A PC, alltrough 500w is a bit overkill for that.

I'm going to take all of them apart, clean them and check the capacitors.

All in all not bad for 24 euro.

[UPDATE]

The 6870 works! Kind of hard to believe since it's been sitting on god knows what for god knows how long, no anti static bag. People here sell this stuff from blankets laid out on the ground outside. There was a 6850 there too, and some DDR3, but I didn't pick any of it up since the 6850 had some wierd aftermarket zalman cooler that was missing the cover, and the asking price for the DDR3 was a bit much.