Tested my 72-pin SIMM RAM collection and wrote Mb on them.

Started putting a USB/PS2 mouse port bracket together for my newly acquired P5A-B, using some old connectors and a blank bracket I had lying around.

GigAHerZ wrote:

But yes, youtube has probably changed codecs or something, that requires better cpu. (Either in raw power or some instruction sets that this tiny Atom cpu just doesn't have) I remember, the older eee 901 even was very capable with youtube back in days...

YouTube defaults to VP9 these days to save bandwidth but it's more CPU-intensive. Try the h264ify add-on for Chrome or Firefox to force H.264.

Just testing more older hard drives I've got laying about. On Seagate 8.4gig had Xandros 2 Business loaded. I'll get usb and sound going on my P166MMX test rig. Customised the the desktop a bit while installing some apps from the Debian Sarge archives. Seems someone is still maintaining some of the packages as there were quite a few updates. Forgot I'd replaced the default Xandros servers because they are all dead years ago..Netcape 1.7.8 seems to post here alright.

The system had two separate issues a and was locking up on start up. One was the virus guard software in the bios was stopping the kernal from doing its thing. The second one was a two port pci usb card. Sorted those out and no issues. The usb card is now confined to that big trash can in the sky.

Changed the PRAM battery on my iMac G4/800 and cleared all of the dust out as well. Nasty, but it was worth it replacing that PRAM battery.

Quite a lot of retro activity going on here.

First of all I've short circuited two USB sticks (smelled nasty). Turns out that the USB header wires in my new Thermaltake mATX enclosure are wired reversed, so I couldn't just plug the header red on red, black on black, white on white and green on green in the USB cable which goes to the USB 2.0 card. Really strange, so I've reversed the header of the USB 2.0 and now it does work properly.

Secondly I have tried to get some old games working on my PII 300 / 440LX / Riva 128 / AWE64 / W95 system. You would say that's a run of the mill highly compatible DirectX 5 pc. A lot of my old 3D games indeed do work excellent, but two of them do not work as intended. Gex - Enter The Gecko does not even start and Need For Speed III Hot Pursuit does kind of work but shows glitches (graphics and sound). I've searched for solutions but I couldn't find any, so I've installed those two games on my Voodoo2 system and guess what? They just work fine on that system. Overall I'm impressed by what a great 3D graphics card the Riva 128 is. In the end I've tried to install Unreal on the PII system but unfortunately the game is too new for the Riva 128 and software render mode is really not a playable option with a PII 300.

Next in the line is Serious Sam The First Encounter which I'm going to install on my PIII 1000 system.

liqmat wrote:

Agreed and found a local store with a stack of used Zip media. Probably will snatch it up as it is being thrown away. Also, got the detection sorted at post. Loose cable issue.

I'm a little jelly.

I built new retro PC instead P4, which I gave yesterday to my brother.

Core 2 Duo E7400, 2 GB DDR2/667, Radeon HD 4850, Chieftec GPS-450AA-101A (good brand is important for me!), Windows XP

Good or not idea? Should I take back P4 3.06HT/GF6600? Of course, for playing NFS MW/U2, CoD2, GTA:SA etc...

Been working on doing some SB Pro 1.0 recordings.

Also repaired an LG 52x32x52 CD-RW drive in the process of getting one of my machines going. It wouldn't eject and so I took it apart and found out that the tray was belt driven. Didn't have an o-ring / belt the correct size so I grabbed one of my daughters' rubber band style hair bands and used that instead. Works like a charm.

I also finished the refurb of the 1988 IBM Model M keyboard that I pulled out of a dumpster probably 25 years ago. I thought about posting pics of all the grime that it had on the keys and inside it but I didn't want to make anybody barf. I left it with my parents probably 15 years ago and my Dad had been using it ever since. Then I bought him a new keyboard last time we went to visit and reclaimed this one from him.

Pretty sure the weird black marks / messed up plastic in between the arrow keys and the number pad was there when I got it.

Fixed my Macintosh color classic with NEW logic board more ram and a NEW larger hard-drive.
Fresh install of Mac OS System 7.5.3

Works great now. Display is like NEW.

Working on restoring my IBM PS/1’s with original IBM hard-drives and Original DOS/3x imaging.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Fixed my Macintosh color classic with NEW logic board more ram and a NEW larger hard-drive.
Fresh install of Mac OS System 7.5.3

Works great now. Display is like NEW.

Is there anyone here who sees old Macs of this generation and *doesn't* associate them with high-school?

More playing around on my P166MMX test rig with a customised Xandros 2 on it. Now upgraded to USB 2.0 by fitting a four port pci USB 2.0 card in it. Now I can transfer files from my Samsung Galazy to the P166 direct. Basically a twenty year difference between hardware. I changed the desktop enviroment from KDE 3.x to XFCE4. Once XFEC4 is loaded performance is on par with Windows 95, a LOT quicker than KDE, With a more modern look having more features and programs available.

Next I'll be giving wireless a go.

Wiped and checked the newly acquired Western Digital 4.3GB HDD for bad sectors, wiped successfully and no bad sectors. Even SMART showed good on there, which is a good sign and this HDD will go into my Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus (will format to FAT32, and use Norton Ghost to clone the CF to the HDD), and I also tested the Logitech serial mouse that was in a Microsoft Basic Mouse box on my Socket 370 system (had a hiccup as I plugged in the mouse into COM2, which was disabled, but enabled it in the BIOS and got detected using both COM1 and COM2 in both Windows 98SE and DOS mode using CuteMouse 2.0b4, so, win-win. Cleaned the mouse up and it's looking real good.

Morning. Jmark SIS530 still lagging (MEM lags, POST C3-6 / 06-06 / 00-00, helps CMOS earse), probably get rid of her.
Bought some random stuff.

kolderman wrote:

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Fixed my Macintosh color classic with NEW logic board more ram and a NEW larger hard-drive.
Fresh install of Mac OS System 7.5.3

Works great now. Display is like NEW.

Is there anyone here who sees old Macs of this generation and *doesn't* associate them with high-school?

Sort of? We had a few System 7 based all-in-ones in an unused room next to the "Communications" technical classrooms (i.e. photography, drafting, video equipment) that I never saw used but for some reason were always on.

We used mostly eMacs and P1, then P4 era Dells.

Just made a Ghost image of the current situation of my RDD. After fixing the choppy scrolling issue in Firefox, web browsing at 1024x768 on ATI cards is finally how it is supposed to be. Still waiting for the Olivetti CRT I bought a week ago, though.

Picked up a fanless 5200FX to replace my 6800GT in my 9x machine. Installed the 45.23 drivers which instantly solved the stuttering I was having in Baldur's Gate II and fixed the glitching in Sanitarium. Plus the PC is quieter now. It was cool to have the 6800GT in there but it was giving me too many issues. The only game not playing ball right now is KOTOR which I know works fine with this card because that's how I first played it. Maybe a fresh install with XP will help.

Did some more tweaking to my original Xbox console.

Installed and configured "XBMC4Gamers" and then set it as my default dashboard. Tweaked it's profile settings to auto load my profile and now my Xbox boots straight into my Games list, all with nice cover art & details etc.

kolderman wrote:

Is there anyone here who sees old Macs of this generation and *doesn't* associate them with high-school?

Older ones, perhaps. My high school used various iterations of the Mac, I believe the Mac Plus and maybe the Mac II. I barely ever touched them, as they were primarily administration systems. The computer lab that I was later banned from had mainly low-end 486 systems running Windows for Workgroups, with the server running a version of Windows NT. The school didn't like me opting out of an AP program that was 100% busywork, without actually covering anything in greater depth or breadth. As in, while in regular algebra, you would have to do the odd-numbered problems on a section, in the AP algebra, I was required to do all of the problems, and provide my longhand word on a separate paper. If you know anything about mathematics, you can immediately see how this is stupid. When you can solve most problems my looking at them, writing them out is pointless busywork, and if you do 20 problems and get one wrong, it's not because you didn't know what you were doing, it's because you made a mistake. Doing 40+ problems isn't going to make you "lern mor gooder". School administration got upset when I explained it to them in a less-terse manner, and they erased all of the credits I had earned in the program (making me have to re-take classes I had cleared with a 4.0), and blocking me from taking any technical electives (computers, typing, electronics, and all shop classes). Then they banned me from the office for complaining about it. Goes without saying that this had made me a very, very bitter person.

Replaced the CR2032 socket that I had added to my Legend of Zelda cartridge, as the one I'd installed almost twenty years ago was a pretty janky job. Alas, none of the sockets I can find will both fit in the slots on the board, and also be low-enough profile to fit inside the cartridge casing, whether mounted on the front or the back of the board. SNES is not a problem. Haven't even looked into any battery-save Genesis games, as I'm not super-sure if I have any. Sonic 3 uses a whole other method of saving games, so it's not a concern.

Still slowly picking through CDROM drives to see which my HP Vectra 486 will tolerate, if any. The problem is that the drives won't eject when anything other than power is connected, but as a 52X drive sorted that same issue out on my P166 tower, I may have to do the same with the 486. I acquired a bunch of floppy and CDROM drives from a failing computer repair store, so I guess I'm okay for parts for a while. Too bad the majority of ISA cards I got were MPEG cards (no cables) and various serial port and modem cards.

Dragging my feet on installing the 3 Farad capacitor I got for my Xbox.

Same with replacing the microswitches in a few of my MS Optical Wheel mice, and I think I have to replace the cord in one, due to a break somewhere near the mouse. As people want $8+ for just a cable, I'm not super-excited to spend lunch money on a non-urgent issue.