I hear getting shocked by medium voltage DC is even more fun.

I got shocked when I was attempting to turn off an AT power supply and when I was turning the lamp I made for my mom off as well. And I have 120V lines in my house.

Also, when I work on my computers, I disconnect the power, remove the battery, and wear an anti-static wristband when I swap out parts. A YouTuber uses one that he connects to his screwdriver to work on CRT monitors wearing high-voltage gloves.

When I used to be a computer tech back in the early 90s someone brought in a computer with PSU issues. I turned it on and an electric arc formed between the PSU and the case. Have no idea why, but if my arm had been in the way at the time I certainly would not be around anymore. Needless to say, I replaced the PSU immediately. Solved the issue. It happened so fast I had no time to react.

brostenen wrote:

125 is nothing.

It's not the volts, it's the amps that kills you. Voltage just increases the ability of electricity to jump through less-conductive materials, like skin, or air.

Also note that with AC, frequency matters, and US 60Hz is slightly more dangerous to the heart than EU 50Hz. But most likely the higher EU voltage would make it more dangerous. Then again, US wiring is famously awful - and the higher currents required at 120V mean the wires get hotter and so are more vulnerable.

Mister Xiado wrote:

brostenen wrote:

125 is nothing.

It's not the volts, it's the amps that kills you. Voltage just increases the ability of electricity to jump through less-conductive materials, like skin, or air.

I know. I wrote that between the lines.

bakemono wrote:

I'm surprised that FF 52 can still display the menu bar, I thought they had already done away with it to fit in with the current (reprehensible, IMO) fashion.

They need to keep the menu bar supported for MacOS builds, so, on other platforms, it's a trivial amount of work to leave it supported via two mechanisms:

1. To show it temporarily, tap Alt. (Or use the Alt+Letter accelerator corresponding to a specific menu.)
2. To show it permanently, right-click any toolbar widget without its own context menu and "Menu Bar" will show up in the list of toolbars that can be toggled.

amadeus777999 wrote:

Received two small Seiko-Epson 486(AMD DX4) computers which were built for industrial duties.

Which models are they? Also do you have more pics of your setup ? I'm digging small industrial retrocomputers!

Mister Xiado wrote:

It's not the volts, it's the amps that kills you. Voltage just increases the ability of electricity to jump through less-conductive materials, like skin, or air.

That is kind of a misconception, since voltage and current are related. While currents of 0.1 - 0.2 amps are considered lethal, the max. current going through your body will depend on the voltage of the electricity source (and your own conductivity may rise significantly if you're wet for example).

So getting shocked by the 12V line of your PC power supply isn't really dangerous even if the unit can provide like 70A on that line, because the current going through you will be a lot less (due to the resistance of your body). On the other hand, a 220-240V shock from the mains it potentially lethal.

To be even more exact, it's not the volts or the amps that kill you, it's the joules.

Replaced the motherboard in my Optiplex 745... it had a leaky cap and a new mobo was cheaper than buying soldering iron + caps.

new

old (see cap above video card)

Just another set of icons that no one will ever use.

^^ those look great! Low-pixel iconography is an art form in itself. 😀 What's the one to the left of Tomb Raider?

Here's the "retro activity" that kept me busy last week - rescuing these beauties from my rapidly-decaying storage room (an old mobile-office trailer / portable building... it should have been fine, but it was built with cheap un-treated wood everywhere & started deteriorating way faster than I would have thought. Long story.)

These are all my & my family's original systems from back in the day. Some interesting machines in there - from left to right, (1) a Duron 850 on an ECS K7VMA in an early media-center-type desktop case, with my original Radeon 7200 All-in-Wonder lying on top, (2) a PII/400 on an ECS board in a really nice compact AT tower, (3) a Cyrix MII 233 on a PC-Chips M571 (the good version), (4) a K6-2/500 on an Asus P5A-B, and (5) my old DOS powerhouse Cyrix 5x86/100 soldered(!) onto a DataExpert EXP8C49 Rev 1.1. All AT cases except the far left silver one (these are the subjects of my power supply thread.)

All are safe now and re-housed in a climate controlled indoor space.

#1 essentially was my ~2001+ casual LAN party rig, until I went to a laptop. #4 was my competitive LAN party rig from 1998-1999 and thoroughly uncompetitive LAN party rig from 2000. Both were long re-housed in different cases instead of the macho full towers I used to lug around, but the guts are the same. (I distinctly remember the K6-2 being a 400, but I must have swapped it out or maybe it's just overclocked. My mum used this system for several years after I upgraded.)

#5 was a beast, it has a GUS PnP, an AWE64, a Cirrus Logic 5430 PCI video card and a Matrox M3D, but somehow I managed to get by with a 250MB & 512MB HDD for the entire time I had it. It was never my primary PC, just a DOS gaming/demo/music rig from before that really got popular. I'll ship it out here eventually but I have another system with the same sound cards and a complete image of both its HDDs, so it's a bit redundant. I should still have the box for that GUS but I haven't found it yet.

I ended up parting out #s 3 and 4, and took the goods home (which involved a plane trip, so I couldn't take the whole things) to have fun with:

^^ incidentally that 4X Mitsumi CD-ROM on top was my original one I installed in my first 486 PC when I was 14-ish. Paid almost $300 of teenage money for that thing. Still seems to work.

^^ these are both hybrid AT/ATX boards which will make my life a ton easier. Incidentally the K6 had a Rendition V2100 and then a Voodoo Banshee in it for most of its life, I yanked those a couple years ago & have them at my place already.

And yes, I took the M3D home too:

Also, here are a few other odd parts I had lying around in there, all now moved to better storage.

An AMD 5x86/133 ADZ (the cooler-running version that "should" overclock to 160 easily) on a generic-looking SiS-based board, another Sound Blaster 16, and an Aztech sound card/modem combo thing.

And,

A 5V DX2/66 overdrive CPU which I didn't even know I had & have no idea where I got. I popped it into my formerly-CPU-less Opti Local Bus board, which it should be perfect for. Will be nice to have that one up & running; I don't have a mid-grade 486 in my setup yet.

gdjacobs wrote:

To be even more exact, it's not the volts or the amps that kill you, it's the joules.

🤣 Have not thought about it that way. Well... True that.

TheMobRules wrote:

Mister Xiado wrote:

It's not the volts, it's the amps that kills you. Voltage just increases the ability of electricity to jump through less-conductive materials, like skin, or air.

That is kind of a misconception, since voltage and current are related. While currents of 0.1 - 0.2 amps are considered lethal, the max. current going through your body will depend on the voltage of the electricity source (and your own conductivity may rise significantly if you're wet for example).

So getting shocked by the 12V line of your PC power supply isn't really dangerous even if the unit can provide like 70A on that line, because the current going through you will be a lot less (due to the resistance of your body). On the other hand, a 220-240V shock from the mains it potentially lethal.

Well.... The thing is. That people always seem to have the habbit of telling, that 120 volt is so deadly and all. People are like "just dare stare at it and it will jump your throat" kind of way. If you have a strong health and body, then 220/240 will not be lethal. It might do some harm. Like making your hand go numb for an hour. Yet if you are an infant, old person or have a heart problem. Then it is a way different thing. Then 220/240 can be deadly. Drawing 10 amps at 220/240 volts, are not good for the pacemaker.

It's far more relevant where it hits you. If the current goes straight across your heart, you're in trouble no matter how fit and strong you may be. Conversely, if the current enters and exits via the same side of the body, you'll just have effects on that side and generally your core functions are safe.

Managed to zap myself with 230V earlier this week. Work on open PSUs is all very well, but if you then plug it in, switch it on, forget about it and then lean on it with your bare underarms, you get a very sharp reminder why that's not a good idea. But yeah, it was a bit numb for a few hours, nothing worse. This was at work and the incident has convinced several project managers that sitting at the workbench/desk next to mine might not be entirely safe, so very much worth it in the end 😉

xjas wrote:

^^ those look great! Low-pixel iconography is an art form in itself. 😀 What's the one to the left of Tomb Raider?

Skyroads. Imagine S.T.U.N Runner, but not in a tube. Also there's nothing to shoot. The one in the upper right is closer to the non-Marvel rendition of Mjolnir, for God of Thunder, and overhead action/adventure game for DOS. Currently working on more; made some for Warcraft 1 and 2, and Netscape (just the Netscape N logo). Nothing better to do. 4 bit color is annoying to work with. No orange makes for a lot of unwanted compromises. I'd like to change some internal Windows icons and images, but that's beyond the software I have access to. Still haven't found a way to hack out the shareware alert for Paint Shop Pro 3, since it's impossible to buy.

Mister Xiado wrote:

Skyroads. Imagine S.T.U.N Runner, but not in a tube. Also there's nothing to shoot. The one in the upper right is closer to the non-Marvel rendition of Mjolnir, for God of Thunder, and overhead action/adventure game for DOS. Currently working on more; made some for Warcraft 1 and 2, and Netscape (just the Netscape N logo). Nothing better to do.

I don't suppose you maintain some kind of catch-up archive I could download so I only have to grab the updates going forward from now? If nothing else. I'm not sure if I'll find a use for them, but my packrat sense is tingling.

Mister Xiado wrote:

4 bit color is annoying to work with. No orange makes for a lot of unwanted compromises. I'd like to change some internal Windows icons and images, but that's beyond the software I have access to. Still haven't found a way to hack out the shareware alert for Paint Shop Pro 3, since it's impossible to buy.

What software have you tried (both for image editing and for hacking PSP3)?

liqmat wrote:

When I used to be a computer tech back in the early 90s someone brought in a computer with PSU issues. I turned it on and an electric arc formed between the PSU and the case. Have no idea why, but if my arm had been in the way at the time I certainly would not be around anymore. Needless to say, I replaced the PSU immediately. Solved the issue. It happened so fast I had no time to react.

In the early 2000s, I was working on a PC at work when I pinched a cable between the chassis and the cover and did not notice. I had a case window and when I turned on the PC, immediately, the cable caught fire. I cut the power and the fire went out. It was a work computer and figuring it was already toast at this point, I turned it back on and saw the fire return. I then spent the next couple minutes turning the computer on and off, watching the fire turn on and off with it, 🤣. Yes, I'm special.