AppleSauce wrote on 2022-01-27, 08:16:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-27, 08:14:

Found a local seller here that is selling a Gravis Gamepad Pro with the MS DoS controller card for it, also has a boxed wireless Dexxa Gamepad with the MSdos controller card and accessories .. might hit him up and see if he is willing to do a deal for both.

The wireless one looks interesting .. I think its is using IR for it judging by the wireless receiver.

Ooo infra red , that sounds very cool.

Sounds very interesting for science and unique hardware. My experience with IR has been terrible, though. Line of sight and tremendous input delay. This one could be an exception, though. You never know.

Meatball wrote on 2022-01-27, 08:23:

AppleSauce wrote on 2022-01-27, 08:16:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-27, 08:14:

Found a local seller here that is selling a Gravis Gamepad Pro with the MS DoS controller card for it, also has a boxed wireless Dexxa Gamepad with the MSdos controller card and accessories .. might hit him up and see if he is willing to do a deal for both.

The wireless one looks interesting .. I think its is using IR for it judging by the wireless receiver.

Ooo infra red , that sounds very cool.

Sounds very interesting for science and unique hardware. My experience with IR has been terrible, though. Line of sight and tremendous input delay. This one could be an exception, though. You never know.

Would IR lag be a huge issue for DOS games tho, I could see it being a big issue for twitch gaming in online games but not sure it would pose a big issue for DOS based stuff, only one way to find out . .FOR SCIENCE !

Edit - dude also has a NOS 6 bay ATX tower case with removable MB tray that is coming with me too.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-27, 08:27:

Meatball wrote on 2022-01-27, 08:23:

AppleSauce wrote on 2022-01-27, 08:16:

Ooo infra red , that sounds very cool.

Sounds very interesting for science and unique hardware. My experience with IR has been terrible, though. Line of sight and tremendous input delay. This one could be an exception, though. You never know.

Would IR lag be a huge issue for DOS games tho, I could see it being a big issue for twitch gaming in online games but not sure it would pose a big issue for DOS based stuff, only one way to find out . .FOR SCIENCE !

Edit - dude also has a NOS 6 bay ATX tower case with removable MB tray that is coming with me too.

Platformers, like Keen forget about it. I don’t know if you ever used IR for Windows Media Center keyboard mouse, but ouch…. It’s good enough to open a browser and extremely light typing. But you’re not going to be using this combo, and remotes seem to respond well enough. As long as there is no urgency involved, it might be OK. Maybe this one is so finely tuned it works great. I wouldn’t have high hopes because of the era. IR never took off as a viable control standard, but still Interesting, none the less, though. If you get a good deal, why not? I could be all backward on this thing and you discover a great alternative.

I am biased, though. Even for my other wireless capable controllers I always keep them plugged in.

Every IR peripheral we owned through the years other than Remote controls got donated ages ago. Eat through batteries and the response from the receiver even up close was atrocious to the point of getting into the bios being an issue on some PC's

ODwilly wrote on 2022-01-27, 08:57:

Every IR peripheral we owned through the years other than Remote controls got donated ages ago. Eat through batteries and the response from the receiver even up close was atrocious to the point of getting into the bios being an issue on some PC's

Expert testimony. I rest my case!

Hmm
I found this nice Palit SIS 305 ... Diamond Voodoo Banshee.

I love finding badly labelled items. This is one of the few way you can still beat the insane prices that now plagues any single interesting piece of retro hardware
Its all about knowing how the card looks like, knowing the history, the brands, PCB layouts. Passion is something scalpers cannot have with auto-bidding bots. And it feels good !

Bought it untested however. "found in a garage", so it was a gamble. I got it for around 20€ inc shipping if i remember well.
But it works perfectly.

Not the best 3dfx card. But it will perfectly fit in the ~1998 slot1 build i planed with an OC Celeron 300A.

I also recently bougth 3 (!!) GTX 295 (double PCB) for a 2009 i7 + Quad SLI setup. (2x 289W TDP... yes, the global warming and polar bears will hate this build).
Tested them one by one because i don't have any suitable power supply (~1000W) . Will probably use 2 GTX and have the 3rd on display/storage/sold.
I will have to clean them before because the original paint seems to age like milk and turned into something sticky. Hmmm yummy !

And finally, an IBM Microdrive (with box and PCMCIA adapter. USB drive for scale). I have a thing for microdrives. I wanted one so badly around 2000 for my PDA. But i could only buy a 16Mb CF instead (for the equiv. of 100$/100€ in inflation corrected prices)

Meatball wrote on 2022-01-27, 08:39:

IR never took off as a viable control standard, but still Interesting, none the less, though. If you get a good deal, why not? I could be all backward on this thing and you discover a great alternative.

Anything's possible. I'd tend to agree with you. IrDa and it's cowboy proprietary equivalents are usually high laggards.

🤣 I don't mind the Light part of the journey, speedwise. That, we can live with 🤣 It's just hard to imagine the 90's computer-IR protocols being anything other than highly inefficient. But I will join you in the Love to be Proven Wrong gang* - these funny controllers are an interesting novelty at the least.

*or, the Love gang, for short

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-01-27, 11:09:

Anything's possible. I'd tend to agree with you. IrDa and it's cowboy proprietary equivalents are usually high laggards. […]
Show full quote

Meatball wrote on 2022-01-27, 08:39:

IR never took off as a viable control standard, but still Interesting, none the less, though. If you get a good deal, why not? I could be all backward on this thing and you discover a great alternative.

Anything's possible. I'd tend to agree with you. IrDa and it's cowboy proprietary equivalents are usually high laggards.

🤣 I don't mind the Light part of the journey, speedwise. That, we can live with 🤣 It's just hard to imagine the 90's computer-IR protocols being anything other than highly inefficient. But I will join you in the Love to be Proven Wrong gang* - these funny controllers are an interesting novelty at the least.

*or, the Love gang, for short

Hear, hear! And welcome! The membership in this gang is remarkably low!

Meatball wrote on 2022-01-27, 11:42:

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-01-27, 11:09:

Anything's possible. I'd tend to agree with you. IrDa and it's cowboy proprietary equivalents are usually high laggards. […]
Show full quote

Meatball wrote on 2022-01-27, 08:39:

IR never took off as a viable control standard, but still Interesting, none the less, though. If you get a good deal, why not? I could be all backward on this thing and you discover a great alternative.

Anything's possible. I'd tend to agree with you. IrDa and it's cowboy proprietary equivalents are usually high laggards.

🤣 I don't mind the Light part of the journey, speedwise. That, we can live with 🤣 It's just hard to imagine the 90's computer-IR protocols being anything other than highly inefficient. But I will join you in the Love to be Proven Wrong gang* - these funny controllers are an interesting novelty at the least.

*or, the Love gang, for short

Hear, hear! And welcome! The membership in this gang is remarkably low!

Challenge accepted, if its anything like my TV remote it may get to meet a few walls, tho .. I may also put it up on the shelf as a display piece, its a good looking Gamepad too.

It doesnt have any way to attach a cable to it either so if its shit then its future is already decided . .display piece it is.

Two machines

1 - Compaq Deskpro 386s/20N 386SX 20mhz
2 - IBM PS/2 Model 30 286, 1.2gb SCSI HDD

Both are working and have new CMOS batteries, both are reasonably priced for their age and rarity and the fact they work and someone took the time to replace the Dallas RTC in one and the barrel battery in the other.
The fact one is a 386 and the other a 286 doesnt matter at all with machines this old and slow, im interested in owning one of them as a collection piece, both are in a really good state of cleanliness too neither has any case damage I can see or any corrosion at the back.

With all that said which one would you go for and why?
Which one would be easiest to find accessory parts for ?
most importantly which one is easiest to find setup disks for ?

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-01-26, 22:45:

I would never buy this. It's just an auction I saw today, a 386 motherboard populated with a CPU, RAM, and ensmeared with a variety of lovely acid-based compounds, predictably centred around the general batterial regions.

corrosion.png

It seems we have reached the stage of highly corroded 386 boards asking >$100 - this particular example is asking $120. "I have no way to test it", they note. We don't need a crystal ball to tell how that test would turn out, friend.

I just bought a 286 board on Amibay that had a leaky battery (I asked the seller to remove it) and a fair amount of damage in the vicinity. Sold as not working and outside the seller's expertise. For €20 + shipping I'm prepared to use it to learn whether I am capable of doing such repairs. Already got 5 litres white vinegar, just need some IPA to finish off the cleaning, prior to attempting the tracks repair. Will probably do a full recap as well, because why not 😀

They're easy as long as it's surface damage, if it's crept into middle layers of the board, your repair gets "interesting" ... but if it's one or two obvious traces, you can patch wire them. However, if you can't expose the corrosion, you can't kill the rot, which is worrying for longer term. Possibly you could "treat" it by putting tiny holes into it and injecting a drop or two of lower strength vinegar and crossing your fingers. Kinda gotta guess how much caustic hydroxide is down there and how much is enough for everything to hit neutral pH, without leaving it on the side of acid or alkaline.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-27, 13:31:

1 - Compaq Deskpro 386s/20N 386SX 20mhz
2 - IBM PS/2 Model 30 286, 1.2gb SCSI HDD

The Compaq will probably be easier to maintain going forward. I'm currently working on restoring a IBM PS/2 Model 30 286 and it hasn't been easy. Biggest problem is that, despite having expansion slots for which you probably already have cards for (ISA), it still has a proprietary floppy drive connector that requires some work in order to adapt a standard drive to work with it. The SCSI HDD is good though, but personally I'd probably still opt for the Compaq, although in reality I'd opt for both, but you asked to choose.

Update: The IBM has a riveted PSU, so another point in favour of the Compaq.

PS/2s are evil, but thankfully sites like ardent tool and ps2.kev009.com exist which are the equivalent of "Practical demonology for practitioners of exorcism and dispelling."

got this week a Pentium 233 MMX for my current project.
Had some minor corrosion at the edges from long storage, hope it still works fine.

Picked this laptop up from a thrift a while back but havent had time to play with it. The previous owner had some great taste .

It runs doom and doom 2 very well

The screen isnt very sharp and lots of ghosting .

Its a compaq Armada 1510DM

HP Armada 1510DM Pentium 120MHz (255250-003)
Standard Memory: 16MB or 32MB (Non-removable)
Maximum Memory: 80MB, 96MB
Memory Expansion: 1 Socket
CPU: Intel Pentium 120MHz
Chipset: N/A
Bus Architecture: PC Card
Mfr System P/N: 255250-003

Nice, got one in the same line a 1580DMT, but it died on me, haven't got to serious diag yet... it's ergonomics felt great to me, comfortable to use. DOSsy stuff ran great, loved playing Frontier: Elite 2 on it.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-27, 19:08:

They're easy as long as it's surface damage, if it's crept into middle layers of the board, your repair gets "interesting" ... but if it's one or two obvious traces, you can patch wire them. However, if you can't expose the corrosion, you can't kill the rot, which is worrying for longer term. Possibly you could "treat" it by putting tiny holes into it and injecting a drop or two of lower strength vinegar and crossing your fingers. Kinda gotta guess how much caustic hydroxide is down there and how much is enough for everything to hit neutral pH, without leaving it on the side of acid or alkaline.

Being a 286 board, I'm banking on it not having loads of layers or being too complicated. It's gotta be 20 years since I did any electronics work, so it's good to have a board cheap enough to practice on 😀

debs3759 wrote on 2022-01-27, 22:58:

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-27, 19:08:

They're easy as long as it's surface damage, if it's crept into middle layers of the board, your repair gets "interesting" ... but if it's one or two obvious traces, you can patch wire them. However, if you can't expose the corrosion, you can't kill the rot, which is worrying for longer term. Possibly you could "treat" it by putting tiny holes into it and injecting a drop or two of lower strength vinegar and crossing your fingers. Kinda gotta guess how much caustic hydroxide is down there and how much is enough for everything to hit neutral pH, without leaving it on the side of acid or alkaline.

Being a 286 board, I'm banking on it not having loads of layers or being too complicated. It's gotta be 20 years since I did any electronics work, so it's good to have a board cheap enough to practice on 😀

its like riding a horse, you never truly forget, the muscles will remember quickly.

acl wrote on 2022-01-27, 10:05:

Hmm I found this nice Palit SIS 305 ... Diamond Voodoo Banshee. […]
Show full quote

Hmm
I found this nice Palit SIS 305 ... Diamond Voodoo Banshee.

IMG_20220127_004940.jpg

I love finding badly labelled items. This is one of the few way you can still beat the insane prices that now plagues any single interesting piece of retro hardware
Its all about knowing how the card looks like, knowing the history, the brands, PCB layouts. Passion is something scalpers cannot have with auto-bidding bots. And it feels good !

Bought it untested however. "found in a garage", so it was a gamble. I got it for around 20€ inc shipping if i remember well.
But it works perfectly.

Not the best 3dfx card. But it will perfectly fit in the ~1998 slot1 build i planed with an OC Celeron 300A.

IMG_20220127_005259.jpg

I also recently bougth 3 (!!) GTX 295 (double PCB) for a 2009 i7 + Quad SLI setup. (2x 289W TDP... yes, the global warming and polar bears will hate this build).
Tested them one by one because i don't have any suitable power supply (~1000W) . Will probably use 2 GTX and have the 3rd on display/storage/sold.
I will have to clean them before because the original paint seems to age like milk and turned into something sticky. Hmmm yummy !

IMG_20220127_104716.jpg

And finally, an IBM Microdrive (with box and PCMCIA adapter. USB drive for scale). I have a thing for microdrives. I wanted one so badly around 2000 for my PDA. But i could only buy a 16Mb CF instead (for the equiv. of 100$/100€ in inflation corrected prices)

IMG_20220120_151717.jpg

Very nice!

Those GTX295 cards that are sticky is not because of the "paint" breaking down. It is a blasted rubber coating that they like to use on a bunch of different stuff.

I've had to remove it from a SATA dock, flightsticks, my Logitech G9 mouse, some 3dConnextion CAD mice, boom boxes and on and on.

I really wish that it would be banned because it just turns into a sticky gooey mess.

Some stuff I've just thrown out because it was not worth my time to clean that crap off.

The best thing I have found that will clean it off is Lemon essential oil.

Since you can take the covers off those cards, you may be able to clean it off without as much fuss depending on how solvent resistant those covers are.

debs3759 wrote on 2022-01-27, 18:55:

I just bought a 286 board on Amibay that had a leaky battery (I asked the seller to remove it) and a fair amount of damage in the vicinity. Sold as not working and outside the seller's expertise. For €20 + shipping I'm prepared to use it to learn whether I am capable of doing such repairs. Already got 5 litres white vinegar, just need some IPA to finish off the cleaning, prior to attempting the tracks repair. Will probably do a full recap as well, because why not 😀

I find white vinegar smelly and not so effective. I instead use a fairly saturated citric acid solution and use it instead. Depending on the board design it may require some socket desoldering to clean all the residue and find all broken traces. One of the reasons I no longer fix them - too much of a time investment with mixed chances of success (so I sold a huge collection of boards like this to some guy in Canada 2 months ago https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19Y4k2 … es9?usp=sharing - best decision ever).
Also 20Eur for board like this is crazy (unless it's some really rare/collectible model or in pristine condition).