Attempted to repair the DFI MF-100 and it needs new chips and IC sockets.

Cleaned the last bits of flux off my SixtyClone, and checked if all socket's are connected fully to ground.
Then checked if there were solder bridges between all legs on all sockets.
Then checked if volt in pins are all connected to the right voltage lines.

Did a smoke-test, without any chips inserted, and nothing blew up.

Finally measured voltages on all volt-in pins on each socket.
All 5 volt pins have exactly 5.02 volt and all 12 volt pins have exactly 12.20
All volt lines are completely stable, and nothing drops or raises (might be due to no chips)

This is really looking promising... And thinking about the fact that the last big thing i build by soldering
was a variable bench PSU in primaery school around 1990, then I kind of did good so far.

EDIT:
And ordered some 2.0 and 1.5 amps voltage regulators. Better go overkill on that one for good and stable operation.

I decided to switch my Pentium MMX system out so that I can fart around with my Pentium 3 system. I still need to figure out why TES Battlespire refuses to install properly in Windows 98 SE, but that's really not a high priority. I also picked up original copies of the soundtracks for "You Only Live Twice" and "Diamonds are Forever". They're in remarkably good condition for records as old as my parents.

Spent ages trying to iron some bugs out of Windows 98 setup, all in aid of getting a particular game controller working. Which involved the equivalent of simultaneously balancing 15 fine china plates on top of toothpicks and hoping one doesn't fall down before you're done. After many hours and iterations of failure, my dumb self finally decided "NOW is the time to engage Lateral Thinking, and solve the problem another smarter way". And within 10 minutes, discovered I had another suitable controller, which worked first time, plug in and go, no worries.

During the course of this, I thoroughly re-educated myself about what a flaky, fussy, asylum of a production Win9x (and much of the software written for it) was. 🤣

Which I'll temper by saying: I was very pleasantly surprised to find that my recently-bought-from-Aliexpress Xbox360 clone controllers work with Windows 98 out-of-the-box, no extra drivers, no nothing! <shock> P.S. Fuck you, Gravis Xperience.

Spent an hour trying to coerce the pins of a 84pin PLCC socket to cooperate only to ultimately snap a pin off. So this weekends adventure is replacing the PLCC socket.

* Saved an i815 motherboard with a P3 667 from the trash.

* Added another Slot1 Pentium II to a HP NetServer completing this build.
- Dual Pentium II 450
- 128MB RAM
- 2x Ultra 320 SCSI 10K RPM HDDs
- Plextor CD Burner
- AGP Riva TNT2
- ISA Sound Blaster 16

Now to decide what to install on it 😀

Gathered every game box I could find. Some discs are lost, but on some day those might show up.
There are some decent games and very bad ones. If I remember correct, most played ones by me are Utilma VII & IX, Lands of Lore and POD. The most time consuming and annoying game has been Windows 95 Update.

Today I received another Gotek that I ordered from China, to replace the one I now have permanently installed in my Atari ST.

Flashed it to the latest FlashFloppy firmware via the USB method, added the OLED screen & then connected it externally to my BBC Micro.

Wasn't working properly at first with the BBC, until I realised I had to jumper the MO pins which sorted it out.

I decided to try Windows Me on my Core i5-3570 retro PC. I never used it back in the day (except on my in-laws' computer). I had gone all-in on NT-based systems a few years earlier and used Windows 2000 exclusively by that point. WinMe never held much interest for me.

It installed smoothly enough, but I had a lot of trouble getting the Intel USB 2.0 ports working. While I found a Via driver for my PCIe USB 1.1/2.0 add-on card, I could not find an Intel driver that recognized the 7-series ports. In the end, I extracted NUSB 3.6 and forced WinMe to use the NUSB .INF and EHCI driver. Worked like a charm.

So far it's been pretty stable (just for the afternoon so far), but I haven't tried to push it with any games or benchmarks yet.

I also like that Windows Me recognized the processor's ID string without requiring any modification. It's the little things...

Was messing around with my WIn 3.11 VM today! When I set it up a few years ago I managed to get TCP/IP installed and working. I used to be able to chat with friends on AIM until AOL shut it down 🙁 Now I can still use telnet and play old MUDs. A few retro type websites will work with IE5 or Netscape. I have Pegasus Mail installed on it but can't get it to connect to any modern mail services.

I still remember seeing Win 3.1 for the first time in our computer lab in highschool back in '92. It was also in use at the college I went to (3.11) and I remember the biggest risk back then was the dreaded boot sector viruses that would pop up from time to time.

I cleaned up a little residue that was present on my TMC Reaearch PAT38PX board. I had removed the barrel battery as it had just started to leak. Now I have to rig up some sort of external battery. Fortunately, the board appears to have the header and jumper to utilize one.

Got my hands on a Dell CRT today, so I fired up the 486 and took it for a test drive. Unbeatable contrast, razer sharp, and bright even at 40% - this one's a keeper!
Oh, and as a bonus, I also managed to beat Realms of Chaos. I remember rage-quitting this game when I was like 13 years old because I couldn't beat one of the bosses. Probably that rock dude at the end of the second episode - took me half an hour to defeat the bastard today! 😀

....retrobrighting some more....

I'm tempted to buy a new case as my storage area has a case sized gap in it 😉 I'm not sure if this is an interesting or incredibly horrible looking case.

http://www.evercase.co.uk/index.php?route=pro … &product_id=119

Really I want a M-ATX Case that is small and can also be persuaded to take a Baby-AT motherboard.

Today I tested the power supplies that arrived days ago.
One is an ATX, quality is poor, but the voltages are good, plus it has both -5V and -12V, so it could fit on a 486 using an ATX-AT adapter.
The other two are AT, the ignition switches were missing, I put a couple that light up when it turns on.
One of the ATs is fine but the Wattage is not specified.
The other one is a 200W, it has a problem with the 12V too low, we are below 11V and just above 10V, the HD cannot turn, or if it does it is very slow, obviously I use a faulty one for the test.

Finally managed to make a passthrough cable for my Miro HISCORE 3D, and it works! This was my second atempt, after waiting for almost 2 months for the 9 pin mini DIN connectors from China. Good thing, I ordered three of them...
This card will go into my P233MMX build.😀

Mixed day.

Good:
Did some re-ordering of the 'guest room' where my retro stuff is located. Freed up quite a bit of shelf space, managed to get some heavy boxes with PSUs and cables down from almost unreachable positions to somewhere useful. Moved things in original boxes up to the high shelf. Net result more room, less clutter and my back will thank me for the better location of the heavy stuff.

Bad:
Recently bought a box of assorted CPUs. The previous owners let them rattle around in that box and the pins were in a dreadful shape. Bending back So7 is bad enough, but So478 is really, realyl awful. Have managed to save a few, but in messing around lost pins om two, which of course turned out to be data pins. Goodbye Willamette P4 1.7 and Prescott P4 3.0 🙁

Had to bury and wave a goodbye to an Acer Extensa 710T from early/mid 90's, the first notebook we've had in our family. It was simply completely dead and destroyed by the passing of time (30+ years).

That computer marked my first interaction with Microsoft Windows 95.

Bruninho wrote on 2021-03-07, 22:20:

Had to bury and wave a goodbye to an Acer Extensa 710T from early/mid 90's, the first notebook we've had in our family. It was simply completely dead and destroyed by the passing of time (30+ years).

That computer marked my first interaction with Microsoft Windows 95.

Nothing salvageable? I guess at the time, the only non-proprietary thing would have been the hard disk.

I finally addressed my cooling issue in my MMX. For the longest time, I ran it with the case open, as the 15000 RPM drive ran HOT and so did the rest of the system (the one time I dared to close it up, after 45 minutes, the drive clicked and powered back up - INSTANT hard power off. The cooling fan I had provided underneath it failed. But because my two year old is curious and has little fingers (the high speed CPU fan will tear the fleshy bits of skin off if he touches it) and also likes putting metal cars everywhere, I decided that I need to go ahead with this. Space is very scarce and this is the only place for the fan.

So, I marked off a template on where to fit this 120mm fan, measured it out and translated it onto the case cover, then drilled the mounting holes:

Then I cut out a pizza in 4 cuts through the centre with a grinder, then carefully nicked the outer edges. I then used large pliers to fatigue the metal, breaking off the slices. I used an end mill bit on a dremel to fine tune the circle, then a stone to attempt to make it as round as possible:

Then I hit it with a small drum sander to deburr it:

From both sides. I manually filed off what was left.

I then shot some white paint from the inside along the lip to coat it and prevent rust. I used the same paint on the fan mesh.

While I was in there, I reversed the flow of the CPU cooler so it pulls air up, so it matches the direction of the fan that's cooling the hard disk, centimeters away from it. This 120mm fan is positioned to pull air out, which works with the local fan direction. The only issue is that the PSU ALSO pulls air out. I will address that when I put in a good quality ATX power supply to replace this original unit.

Came out OK. I have to touch up some minor spots where the end mill scratched up the case slightly. Mostly for corrosion protection.

I didn't realize it had LEDS in it until I put it all together:

I'm not sure how I feel about them, but they're there. Can't really see them with the lights on though:

I'm just happy I can bring it up to my retro corner and plug it into my KVM and start using it in my new setup 😁

I was replacing the 84 pin PLCC socket on my Amiga motherboard, when I decided to give up. To me it appears that someone had done some repairs to the traces on this motherboard at some point and by desoldering the socket I removed their fix. I'm very much a novice at this so I doubt I could properly rebuild the traces or the holes at least one of which appears that it may not have any metal left in it. Anyways I'm posting this because want your opinions.

How much of this was my fault? All I did was desolder with a solder sucker manually. I had trouble with the 2 pins where you can see the PCB had the masking scratched away but I don't think I'm responsible for that. This is however very disheartening. I have done several repairs and I was starting to feel more confident but now this has shattered my confidence.

Don't go easy on me, let me know what you think. Here are images after I had removed the socket:

download/file.php?mode=view&id=104781

download/file.php?mode=view&id=104782

I'm going to keep the board for parts at least, but perhaps I can revisit someday when I have more skill, it doesn't look too bad but I don't know how to go about dealing with those traces in the state the board is in.

Thanks for your feedback. I want to learn from this.