I needed an EPROM eraser to reprogram some old BIOS chips.

The cheap EPROM erasers on Amazon don't have a good reputation for quality, so instead I bought a UV sterilizer designed for disinfecting baby pacifiers.

It has four UV-C LEDs inside. I just taped down the EPROM on top of one of the LEDs.

It does have an annoying 1 minute timer. Fully erasing an EPROM took about 15 minutes, so that meant restarting it 15 times. But it did ultimately work.

amigopi wrote on 2023-08-24, 11:59:

As the same problems happen with an actual hard disk at well, I don't think the CF-IDE adapter is (solely) to blame.

It's worth checking the jumpers on the existing master HDD too in my experience - I had one once that caused problems until some specific jumpers were set on it to allow another HDD to exist in the system.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-08-24, 23:13:

I needed an EPROM eraser to reprogram some old BIOS chips. […]
Show full quote

I needed an EPROM eraser to reprogram some old BIOS chips.

The cheap EPROM erasers on Amazon don't have a good reputation for quality, so instead I bought a UV sterilizer designed for disinfecting baby pacifiers.

Sterilizer 1.jpg

It has four UV-C LEDs inside. I just taped down the EPROM on top of one of the LEDs.

Sterilizer 2.jpg

It does have an annoying 1 minute timer. Fully erasing an EPROM took about 15 minutes, so that meant restarting it 15 times. But it did ultimately work.

I bought one from my local Biglots for about $7 that works amazingly well. Erases an eprom in about 5 minutes. runs on a AA battery. It uses a UV florscent tube which i think works much better then those tiny LED's. I can actually fit 2 chips on it at a time.
the one i got > https://www.biglots.com/product/pure-mobile-u … wand/p810524726

https://www.amazon.com/Ontel-Safe-Healthy-San … B089F8SYFL?th=1 <this is similar to the one I got.

Checked out the Soyo Mainboard I received today. And what do you know - after some jumpering, changing out the CMOS battery and trying out some different RAM configs it sprang to life! No board level repair required. The caps look okay, but I might swap them to some high quality ones anyway, as they seem a common point of failure on this board. The socket retention clip is broken, but I'll find a replacement for that.

Pretty happy with that investment 😀

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-08-24, 23:13:

I needed an EPROM eraser to reprogram some old BIOS chips. […]
Show full quote

I needed an EPROM eraser to reprogram some old BIOS chips.

The cheap EPROM erasers on Amazon don't have a good reputation for quality, so instead I bought a UV sterilizer designed for disinfecting baby pacifiers.

Sterilizer 1.jpg

It has four UV-C LEDs inside. I just taped down the EPROM on top of one of the LEDs.

Sterilizer 2.jpg

It does have an annoying 1 minute timer. Fully erasing an EPROM took about 15 minutes, so that meant restarting it 15 times. But it did ultimately work.

Interesting, I grabbed a "smartphone steriliser" UV box a few months ago, was thinking about trying it for EPROM wiping.

Got Mac OS X Leopard installed on my PowerBook G4 1.5 via USB install and put Sorbet Leopard on the hard drive in place of the Leopard install and it works out well.

My plan is to upgrade the HDD to an SSD or sell it as-is.

Spent an hour straightening pins on some processors. Probably took about twice as long for the Pentium as it did for the pair of 486s.

Before:

After:

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-08-25, 14:56:

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-08-24, 23:13:

I needed an EPROM eraser to reprogram some old BIOS chips. […]
Show full quote

I needed an EPROM eraser to reprogram some old BIOS chips.

The cheap EPROM erasers on Amazon don't have a good reputation for quality, so instead I bought a UV sterilizer designed for disinfecting baby pacifiers.

Sterilizer 1.jpg

It has four UV-C LEDs inside. I just taped down the EPROM on top of one of the LEDs.

Sterilizer 2.jpg

It does have an annoying 1 minute timer. Fully erasing an EPROM took about 15 minutes, so that meant restarting it 15 times. But it did ultimately work.

Interesting, I grabbed a "smartphone steriliser" UV box a few months ago, was thinking about trying it for EPROM wiping.

As long as it outputs UV-C light, it should do the trick.

Tried to free up enough memory to get Ultima 7 Part 2 Serpent Isle to run. Finally got it to run, had to disable EMS also though. Interestingly, it worked fine with my MT32 even without softmpu. Now I'm going to try to gradually restore the stuff I tore out of autoexec.bat and config.sys until I reach the limit of what I can include while still getting U7 to run. Might try dosmax or ctmouse in the process. Weirdly, the mouse driver is loaded but not by config.sys or autoexec.bat. Not sure how it gets loaded, must be a dos 7/windows 95 type thing.

Soldered a new fuse and DIN5 connector on my recent Luckystar P6VBX7 score. Both the connector and fuse came off a dead Biostar 8500TVX.

Now, to recap and replace that AMD flash chip...

Spent yesterday re-educating myself on the topic of 1999-2003 AGP video cards and the difference between x2,x4,x8 slots and their voltages. Honestly its a not stop rock and roll life style I lead 🤣

I needed a high quality but short M/F VGA extension cable for my voodoo card.
Some time ago i got a huge crate full of new 5 meter super high quality VGA extension cables from the dump.

So i took the time to make a cable myself...

The quality of the cable is awesome. Nicely double shielded colour channels and a full pass through. Even the housings are real metal...
I just replicated how they originally made this cable.
This feels like a proper piece of kit 😁 Its thick like a pinky 😁 And thats how i remember the cable i had back in the day with my voodoo...

CF card for scale...

Finally documented how to use a RPi Zero W as "WIFI gateway" via USB for Windows 9x using RNDIS Ethernet (I've been using this for a year now, with good results): https://thp.io/2023/rpizero-usb-win98.html

Adapted an AT power switch (sticky "on/off" state) to a ATX-style power switch (momentary switch, non-sticky) by removing the small bent metal pin following this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyKU2QPyEwc

Then, when looking for a 2-pin connector to solder to it in my parts box, found that one connector already had exactly such an AT switch in "momentary" mode that I think I scavenged from an old broken Aptiva years ago. In any case, my dual-AT/ATX board in its Baby AT case is now powered by an ATX power supply (directly via the on-board ATX connector), with ATX-style switching, while still retaining the power button at the front (connected to the PWR SW mainboard header).

Hiddenevil wrote on 2023-08-28, 08:49:

Spent yesterday re-educating myself on the topic of 1999-2003 AGP video cards and the difference between x2,x4,x8 slots and their voltages. Honestly its a not stop rock and roll life style I lead 🤣

Very recognisable lifestyle. I found myself reading through this the other week on a Friday evening, beer in hand... 🎸

http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html

pan069 wrote on 2023-08-28, 09:33:

Hiddenevil wrote on 2023-08-28, 08:49:

Spent yesterday re-educating myself on the topic of 1999-2003 AGP video cards and the difference between x2,x4,x8 slots and their voltages. Honestly its a not stop rock and roll life style I lead 🤣

Very recognisable lifestyle. I found myself reading through this the other week on a Friday evening, beer in hand... 🎸

http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html

I have a very odd feeling I've been on this site or one very similar. I have a Dell mobo which supports AGP x4, but recently bought a x8 ATI card. My first concern was would it work? But then it shifted to, what kind of hit I'll take running in the GPU in a slowly slot. TBH it's been 20 years since I messed with this era of tech and even the pitfalls and challenges are fun, like putting together a jigsaw 😁

thp wrote on 2023-08-28, 08:52:

Finally documented how to use a RPi Zero W as "WIFI gateway" via USB for Windows 9x using RNDIS Ethernet (I've been using this for a year now, with good results): https://thp.io/2023/rpizero-usb-win98.html

I have tried several USB wireless cards with Windows 98/ME over the years and found none of them to be stable. However, I did this using USB 2.0 adapters, which I've not found to be stable either. This is when combined with a 440BX chipset. I imagine that compatibility will be different for newer chipsets.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-08-28, 10:39:

thp wrote on 2023-08-28, 08:52:

Finally documented how to use a RPi Zero W as "WIFI gateway" via USB for Windows 9x using RNDIS Ethernet (I've been using this for a year now, with good results): https://thp.io/2023/rpizero-usb-win98.html

I have tried several USB wireless cards with Windows 98/ME over the years and found none of them to be stable. However, I did this using USB 2.0 adapters, which I've not found to be stable either. This is when combined with a 440BX chipset. I imagine that compatibility will be different for newer chipsets.

I have this working on a 440BX mainboard with onboard USB 1.1, the 5V USB power is enough to power the RPi Zero from the same port it's connected to -- of course, this means that the connection is limited by USB 1.1 speeds (but only because of the host port, USB 2.0 works just fine if the host supports it).

As far as the Windows 98 SE system is concerned, it's just a USB Ethernet device that hands out an IP via DHCP.

The WIFI connection is fully managed on the RPi alone (you can login via SSH or telnet), so "modern" amenities like WPA2 and such are no problem, Windows doesn't even know/care what is "behind" its standard gateway (Linux on the RPi takes care of routing between the two different interfaces).

There are other gadget drivers, like mass storage, HID, serial, ... -- so lots of potential for fun, as long as the retro PC has some kind of USB ports + support (not sure if mass storage and HID would work also from the BIOS "USB Legacy Mode", never tested).

Prism 2.0 USB wifi works well enough on 98, but of course the protocol support is archaic, so you typically have to gateway it through an older wifi router.

Searching for years to get hold of recovery disk (kickstarts norton ghost) and reload cd (norton ghost) for time pc. lucky enough to find it and it 'recovered' well onto similar line of system using similar components. been piecing this for years. i have the time branded lg 775n crt in box with minimal use and the picture is not as bright as the lcd 😒 rock solid and stable so far 😁
original 1999 spec vs new used parts:
amd k6-2 aladin v ----> athlon xp 2800+ kt400+
maxtor 20gb ----> sd to ide 64gb
onboard ati rage 128vr ----> ati rage 128 pro
onboard sb pci 64v ----> ct4700 sb pci 128
128mb sd ram ----> 512mb ddr ram
lg 775n crt ----> 2007fpb +as501
keytronic ----> dell at102w
onboard usb 1.1 ---> nec usb 2.0
intellimouse ps/2 ----> logitech m590

Does anyone know where I can dump images of the reload cd and the recovery diskette?