of all beige towers made, the gateway ones of that era were the best looking.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-04-14, 18:43:

Also, just out of curiosity... what is in the brown mystery box?

Quark Express (DTP)

luckybob wrote on 2024-05-08, 18:13:

of all beige towers made, the gateway ones of that era were the best looking.

Yes, I still have my original Gateway G6-400 from early 1999 and it is the same style. It was the first modern computer that was personally mine, so I am slightly biased. 😀

... also, since I built my own custom PC within two years of getting that Gateway, I was pretty critical of the integrated-everything, lack of AGP slot, non-removable IO shield, and funky feeling mushy power button... but I have since then really grown to appreciate that system. Integrated Velocity\Riva128 with 8MB of dedicated memory and built in Ensoniq\Creative AudioPCI sound made for a perfectly fine set of hardware even for gaming back then. If only I had known how to properly configure them for the DOS games I wanted to play, or to get proper video drivers installed. I honestly had no idea that the Riva128 was a solid 3D accelerator until years later. I never even had the option to enable acceleration in games before buying a Voodoo3 2000 PCI, so my main complaint was likely just a driver or DirectX issue.

If I knew then what I know now as an adult, I would have probably appreciated that computer a lot more and waited longer to upgrade... but then I would have missed out on tinkering (struggling) with Yamaha XG and Vortex2 sound cards, and having my mind blown by going from software rendering in games to Glide\OpenGL on a Voodoo3. Those were some of the things that got me hooked on PC upgrading... I was doomed basically from the start.

Bad news and I remembered what happened to this tower. It seemed that the RAM slots were having issues. I did update the BIOS in the fall of 2015 to see if the new 256mb ram would work. It did for a while until the computer started to freeze and hang. Spent on and off trying to get it back up and running.

Lack of air flow and possibly electrical issues might have been the culprit. They're were times this steel case didn't have proper air flow. I had installed a new back fan around the same time I had updated the BIOS.

Also, the GPU is dead now so I'll have to get my hands on a spare Video card somewhere.

However, it's powering on and it did POST. I'll try to troubleshoot it tomorrow. I'm glad that I have some spare parts lying around here. If there's anything I should check or any theories. I'm currently open to any ideas on how.

I'll start off by removing parts first.

Crimson Tibbasim wrote on 2024-05-09, 15:21:

Bad news and I remembered what happened to this tower. It seemed that the RAM slots were having issues. I did update the BIOS in […]
Show full quote

Bad news and I remembered what happened to this tower. It seemed that the RAM slots were having issues. I did update the BIOS in the fall of 2015 to see if the new 256mb ram would work. It did for a while until the computer started to freeze and hang. Spent on and off trying to get it back up and running.

Lack of air flow and possibly electrical issues might have been the culprit. They're were times this steel case didn't have proper air flow. I had installed a new back fan around the same time I had updated the BIOS.

Also, the GPU is dead now so I'll have to get my hands on a spare Video card somewhere.

However, it's powering on and it did POST. I'll try to troubleshoot it tomorrow. I'm glad that I have some spare parts lying around here. If there's anything I should check or any theories. I'm currently open to any ideas on how.

I'll start off by removing parts first.

I'm "in the market" for a replacement power switch, or more specifically the clip thingy that holds in place. Currently I'm using a pencil to press the power button behind the faceplate.
So do let me know if you do end up parting it out

Here's what it looks like:

Let me know if anyone here also wants pics of the PC parts.

Horun wrote on 2024-03-17, 04:01:

pshipkov wrote on 2024-03-17, 03:23:

Some ISA cards.

Done playing with a fun 286 board. If somebody wants it ...

I am interested in the ISA cards, specially the XT HD floppy adapter but will wait to say yes. Want to give others a chance.....
Who ever gets that floppy card please dump it's bios and post it here 😀

I got the floppy card and dumped it. Copyright strings in the option rom indicate it's a DTK card.

https://archive.org/details/dtk-floppy-controller

3 isa scsi controllers and one other card that i dont know what it does (lower right).
was not able to make the scsi controllers work with CF cards. so be warned.

kingcake wrote on 2024-05-11, 23:10:

Horun wrote on 2024-03-17, 04:01:

pshipkov wrote on 2024-03-17, 03:23:

Some ISA cards.

Done playing with a fun 286 board. If somebody wants it ...

I am interested in the ISA cards, specially the XT HD floppy adapter but will wait to say yes. Want to give others a chance.....
Who ever gets that floppy card please dump it's bios and post it here 😀

I got the floppy card and dumped it. Copyright strings in the option rom indicate it's a DTK card.

https://archive.org/details/dtk-floppy-controller

Nice ! that bios can be used on a nic or other 8bit card to give HD floppy support to an XT (have one similar in the XT luggable). DTK did make some just like it.

Horun wrote on 2024-05-12, 02:06:

kingcake wrote on 2024-05-11, 23:10:

Horun wrote on 2024-03-17, 04:01:

I am interested in the ISA cards, specially the XT HD floppy adapter but will wait to say yes. Want to give others a chance.....
Who ever gets that floppy card please dump it's bios and post it here 😀

I got the floppy card and dumped it. Copyright strings in the option rom indicate it's a DTK card.

https://archive.org/details/dtk-floppy-controller

Nice ! that bios can be used on a nic or other 8bit card to give HD floppy support to an XT (have one similar in the XT luggable). DTK did make some just like it.

Wow, that's super cool! Is there any technical limitation to using something like that? You just install the card and now a 3.5" floppy drive will read\write 1.44MB disks?

For several years I have had a "needs work" 5160 system that I have wanted to do as many upgrades as possible to and that would make a great addition. I currently have most of my PC\XT ready upgrades installed in my 5150 but being limited to 5 slots really hurts the flexibility of the system, to the point I can't even install a sound card. I don't have space to have all these systems hooked up at once, but it'd be cool to have a mostly original but maxed out (still period correct) 5150 while the 5160 had all the best things that could be squeezed into an 8bit PC (V30 CPU + 286 upgrade card, sound card, solid state storage, EGA\VGA, HD floppy, maybe even some crazy expensive early graphics accelerator if any exist for 8bit slots).

The four cards are claimed.

Glad to see the 8bit isa fdd controller is useful to others.
Good story.

That floppy adapter is used to replace (or add to) the original and no known limits doing that. If trying to use the BIOS separately the FDD controller must be compatible to the UMC and support HD floppy drives, basically works like XT-IDE bios but for HD floppy...
Added: looking at the card it is hard wired with BIOS at CA000h, and no J2 jumpers so set for a 1.44mb 3.5". It only support one floppy type a 3.5" 1.44mb and Cannot find the TH99 doc on it....
Is sorta the basic version of this: https://theretroweb.com/expansioncard/documen … ation/50680.pdf

This motherboard fell silent recently. Not sure why, but won't have time to thinker with it.
Figured i should message the group here in case somebody is interested, before throwing it away.

pshipkov wrote on Yesterday, 22:22:

This motherboard fell silent recently. Not sure why, but won't have time to thinker with it.
Figured i should message the group here in case somebody is interested, before throwing it away.

I'd be interested. Is there any chance you're in the US?

Ozzuneoj wrote on Today, 02:51:

pshipkov wrote on Yesterday, 22:22:

This motherboard fell silent recently. Not sure why, but won't have time to thinker with it.
Figured i should message the group here in case somebody is interested, before throwing it away.

I'd be interested. Is there any chance you're in the US?

Speaking out of turn, yes he is. Board needs the missing Dallas rtc.

Ozzuneoj, i sent you stuff before.
As Horun clarified i am in LA.
Pic is without the Dallas RTC module, but thats not the problem of the mobo.

pshipkov wrote on Today, 05:51:

Ozzuneoj, i sent you stuff before.
As Horun clarified i am in LA.
Pic is without the Dallas RTC module, but thats not the problem of the mobo.

That's right, I forgot. 😁

PM sent.