I deep cleaned 2 of the Walkman WM-F2081 units and one of them is paying both sides of the tape (1 normal, the other backwards) and both units keep stalling when I try to play a tape, however, the one snapped the head ribbon off and I can fix that with some wire, solder, and flux.

The other unit I have works alright, except the speed is a bit jumpy, yet it clears itself and the other units need replacement potentiomers for the speed adjustment.

I don't mind repairing these things, however, it's complicated to get them to run right and I need the correct grease for the cogs and the spindles. That and better belts since the thin ones they originally came with would stretch themselves after a few usages.

Did some maintenance on my Laptop collection
Upgraded the Evo N600c to 1gb of PC133 ram + Shiny new battery (Main/Cmos) + 80gb HDD <---This will soon be CF once I get an adaptor for the silly IDE connector.
Upgraded the Evo N1000V to 1gb DDR400 + New battery (Main/Cmos) + 100gb SSD
Upgraded the ThinkPad A20m to 192mb PC100, Which now leaves the ThinkPad A20m requiring a new battery, I did have one sourced but supplies are spotty and when I put the order in they messaged to let me know that they will have to refund me till they get more stock.

I am now faced with a slight issue, The ThinkPad for some reason has XP Pro on it which is a pretty weird choice since it only had 64mb of memory when it arrived, its also only a 500mhz P3 so I want to restore it to its windows98 install but I dont have the original system disks. Does anyone know where I can source the Disk/ISO from along with any other software it may have come with from factory ?

I would just nuke and pave but 98 honestly has pretty trash tier driver support out of the box so I think it would be best to try and get the original system restore disks.

Went on the June vintage market, spent around 50€, though around half of it was for a month worth of home-made grass-fed cheese.
Also, the market was bigger than usual with street performers. Though dog merchant was missing.

As for the inedible stuff I spent money on:

I've been looking for one of these, but they are rare around here and when someone sells them, they know what it is and ask upwards from 40€ for them, which I wasn't willing to pay..

Also a small flask and a chess table for my grandfather's chess set.

Some games, discs are in perfect condition with all the paperwork. Normally I'd have to pay twice as much for only one of them, plus shipping.
Also an A4 leather file folder. It has some patina and a little bent, but the first only gives it more character, the other can be easily fixed. Very elegant.

Lastly, a 3.5" floppy carrier pouch which probably won't see much action, an a heatsink from an ASUS graphics card. Probably something around 100W?
I don't know if I should attempt to use it on my 9800GT or some other card.

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-06-05, 10:01:

Went on the June vintage market, spent around 50€, though around half of it was for a month worth of home-made grass-fed cheese. […]
Show full quote

Went on the June vintage market, spent around 50€, though around half of it was for a month worth of home-made grass-fed cheese.
Also, the market was bigger than usual with street performers. Though dog merchant was missing.

As for the inedible stuff I spent money on:
IMG_20220605_113239.jpg
I've been looking for one of these, but they are rare around here and when someone sells them, they know what it is and ask upwards from 40€ for them, which I wasn't willing to pay..

You found a Diamond Monster Sound MX300 for a few €? Every time I've tried to look for one I've either found nothing or the prices have started at least from 80€, so nice pickup for sure.

And I bet the dog is smoking a cigar in a silk robe by a fireplace somewhere while its henchmen are doing the selling.

Yesterday I went and picked up a CRT from a place in Romford. Something called an Aries 6000 by Watford Electronics. No, me neither, but it seems to work. It also has a lil' LCD display at the bottom which shows the sync rate, resolution, mode, and digital controls for screen size and orientation and even the ability to save user settings. Manufacture date August 1995.

My retro corner is finally complete.

L: Beautiful Beige Bastard - Pentium II 300MHz but unfortunately the wrong 300, so possibly going to do the taping overclock at some point with an SL2W8, ATI Rage 128, Win95, 128 megs RAM, Soundblaster AWE64.
R: Atari STE upgraded to 4 megs RAM with UltraSatan SD-card based HD substitute, and external Gotek B: drive (I kept the A: drive in place because the Gotek got all weird in the A: drive with writing and reading corrupted data but works fine in the B: drive and also I want to be able to still play all my boxed games from the disks where I have them.)

The boxed games on the windowsill are mine from either back in the day or lucky finds at boot fairs.

PC case needs a bit of cleaning and retrobrighting but then it was originally a system that I saved from a skip at work.

I also have an Atari Mega STE but I haven't room for that right now. I also want to get a proper Atari branded monitor for that at some point.

All I need now is some capture boxes (one for VGA, one for SCART), a tripod, a crash course in video editing, and I'll be ready to start my YouTube channel.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-06-05, 09:37:

Did some maintenance on my Laptop collection Upgraded the Evo N600c to 1gb of PC133 ram + Shiny new battery (Main/Cmos) + 80gb […]
Show full quote

Did some maintenance on my Laptop collection
Upgraded the Evo N600c to 1gb of PC133 ram + Shiny new battery (Main/Cmos) + 80gb HDD <---This will soon be CF once I get an adaptor for the silly IDE connector.
Upgraded the Evo N1000V to 1gb DDR400 + New battery (Main/Cmos) + 100gb SSD
Upgraded the ThinkPad A20m to 192mb PC100, Which now leaves the ThinkPad A20m requiring a new battery, I did have one sourced but supplies are spotty and when I put the order in they messaged to let me know that they will have to refund me till they get more stock.

I am now faced with a slight issue, The ThinkPad for some reason has XP Pro on it which is a pretty weird choice since it only had 64mb of memory when it arrived, its also only a 500mhz P3 so I want to restore it to its windows98 install but I dont have the original system disks. Does anyone know where I can source the Disk/ISO from along with any other software it may have come with from factory ?

I would just nuke and pave but 98 honestly has pretty trash tier driver support out of the box so I think it would be best to try and get the original system restore disks.

I would check archive.org I've gotten a few system restore images for various computers from there.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2022-06-05, 10:31:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-06-05, 09:37:

Did some maintenance on my Laptop collection Upgraded the Evo N600c to 1gb of PC133 ram + Shiny new battery (Main/Cmos) + 80gb […]
Show full quote

Did some maintenance on my Laptop collection
Upgraded the Evo N600c to 1gb of PC133 ram + Shiny new battery (Main/Cmos) + 80gb HDD <---This will soon be CF once I get an adaptor for the silly IDE connector.
Upgraded the Evo N1000V to 1gb DDR400 + New battery (Main/Cmos) + 100gb SSD
Upgraded the ThinkPad A20m to 192mb PC100, Which now leaves the ThinkPad A20m requiring a new battery, I did have one sourced but supplies are spotty and when I put the order in they messaged to let me know that they will have to refund me till they get more stock.

I am now faced with a slight issue, The ThinkPad for some reason has XP Pro on it which is a pretty weird choice since it only had 64mb of memory when it arrived, its also only a 500mhz P3 so I want to restore it to its windows98 install but I dont have the original system disks. Does anyone know where I can source the Disk/ISO from along with any other software it may have come with from factory ?

I would just nuke and pave but 98 honestly has pretty trash tier driver support out of the box so I think it would be best to try and get the original system restore disks.

I would check archive.org I've gotten a few system restore images for various computers from there.

Can only find W2K & NT - https://archive.org/search.php?query=IBM%20Th … A20M%20Recovery

Closest I got to a 98 download was the Windows 98 Supplement File for when you don't have the Product Recovery CD-ROM

https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad-Driver … es/w98sfdiw.txt
https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad-Driver … es/w98sfdiw.exe

and here for drivers etc - https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad-Driver … /ddfm/A20m.html

Cheers for that, I found a post that sent me to the 98SE recovery CD for the A21M which apparently works fine with the A20M, along with the 2k/NT recovery disks you have found it'll give me a nice little CD package to throw in the Laptop case.

Now to scrounge up a new battery .. the most difficult hunt !

Sombrero wrote on 2022-06-05, 10:19:

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-06-05, 10:01:

Went on the June vintage market, spent around 50€, though around half of it was for a month worth of home-made grass-fed cheese. […]
Show full quote

Went on the June vintage market, spent around 50€, though around half of it was for a month worth of home-made grass-fed cheese.
Also, the market was bigger than usual with street performers. Though dog merchant was missing.

As for the inedible stuff I spent money on:
IMG_20220605_113239.jpg
I've been looking for one of these, but they are rare around here and when someone sells them, they know what it is and ask upwards from 40€ for them, which I wasn't willing to pay..

You found a Diamond Monster Sound MX300 for a few €? Every time I've tried to look for one I've either found nothing or the prices have started at least from 80€, so nice pickup for sure.

And I bet the dog is smoking a cigar in a silk robe by a fireplace somewhere while its henchmen are doing the selling.

Yeah. I started to give up on ever getting one. At first I almost missed it. I just noticed it's a sound card. Random expansion cards, mostly modems, NICs or budget sound/graphics cards are not uncommon sights. When I picked it up, noticed that there is Vortex2 written on the sound chip. Quickly checked if there is any visible damage than bought it. It was at home that I realized what exact model it is. Don't ask how I missed the big ass Diamond Multimedia logo. I also found a Diamond Viper 330 PCI a couple of months ago the same way. Patience eventually pays off.

Sorry for the off topic post.
Replacing 2SC930 transistors and caps on a radio this time, Sony ICF-6800W.

Main board picture with desolderded caps shown. Thank God for service manuals, one would be nowhere without them.

Found that i have a bit of a different "kind" of windows 95 and office 95 cd. So i archived it: https://archive.org/details/windows-95-evaluation

Nexxen wrote on 2022-06-04, 10:55:

You got it wrong because I wrote it badly, I meant repairing the ISA slot. Too damaged to make the effort. Salvaging components […]
Show full quote

Thermalwrong wrote on 2022-06-04, 03:27:

Nexxen wrote on 2022-06-03, 12:10:

My eyes hurt. 🙁
Not even worth trying, too much time and effort.

Nah, it's worth it to me 😀 It also gave a good reason to use the Quick 861DA hot air station and in the end, it should result in a PCB design that others can use to repair the CT1350B PCBs

You got it wrong because I wrote it badly, I meant repairing the ISA slot. Too damaged to make the effort.
Salvaging components is the only thing to do.

I've seen other posts with cards damaged for gold recovery. As a collector it always hurts...

Well yes these scrappers are fu**ing idiots and savages and neanderthals... All they know is how to get an hammer and just smash these parts, and then to melt them with acids and repeat... But as they are dumb and ignorant, they dont even know for some nice piece of retro HW like 3Dfx cards, special ISA audio cards, special high end mb ect.. collectors may pay 20-30 times, what the dumb gold diggers will get from destroying some exotic and rare part instead.. Sure some scrappers by being ignorant open options for some of us to buy something good, as not all of them are as dumb, (like that scrapper that sold UNtested Voodoo V 5500 for 125 euros), some find parts that they think they have some value and they sell them.. But the nasty part when dealing with gold scrappers is they want ALOT more money for some part that they dont even take the time to test and see the part is working... Paying like 30-40-50 euros for UNtested voodoo card or some other exotic is, not something i am willing to do, after all i dont get money from the trees (no matter that is what they are made of), i can pay extra to some scrapper (lets say x2 the price in scrap) for UNtested exotic part and reward him double of what he will get otherwise and save him the time and effort, as x2 the price in scrap is ok (i am not only ok with the ceramic CPUs the price there is VERY dumb specially from scrappers, but the PCB parts are fine) if the part is 3Dfx or something else with similar value, and that is justified risk to me and is more then fine.. Shit i can even pay x3 and x4 times the scrap price of the thing is very rare such as Voodoo 5, or even more for Voodoo 6000, GUS, ASUS 386/ 486 boards, socket 8 boards and other..

Once when i did talk with one scrapper, he showed me piecture of Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music, and when i asked for price he repply:
" that card will cost you 40 euro, as it have so much gold on it, as the connectors are golden".... Similar shit when an scrappers get their hands on AWE64 Gold, the card color is like gold, the connectors are gold, and there is the name of the card GOLD, and these idiots think the card have tons of gold in it jesus fu**king christ.........

But some of these idiots to ask for like 60-100 euros for single part that he did not make even the effort to clean the dust from the part, not to talk about any testing, well they can go FK themselves.....
Back in 2017 i got x2 3Dfx Voodoo II PROvideo cards 12MB from scrapper for pocket change, it appear the cards was both pulled from working system in SLI, and the retards from the scrap did toss and trow them all around, and there was broken pins on the x3 main 3Dfx chips.... It was really sad, but did replace them at some point with better ones, and sold the these bad cards to someone that is willing to take the time to fix them..

One time a guy that was going to a gypsy market, did send me a picture of Voodoo 3 2K, the card was with cut off/ snapped AGP port, we both was so pissed, that some retarded gold scrapper did rip off the fu**king AGP slot of the card and made it totally useless.... These gold scrappers with their hammers and shit they be damned....

Got a DFI CS61-EC and a Pentium iii 1000EB as part of my first ever Retro Build! Would've like to have found a Tualatin in my price range but I'm not too bothered.

Essentially building a dream computer from the age that I first started being interested in computers so I'm pretty hyped.
Now to wait till end of the month and I can grab the majority of the rest of what I need.

Radical Vision wrote on 2022-06-06, 19:21:

Well yes these scrappers are fu**ing idiots and savages and neanderthals... All they know is how to get an hammer and just smash […]
Show full quote

Nexxen wrote on 2022-06-04, 10:55:

You got it wrong because I wrote it badly, I meant repairing the ISA slot. Too damaged to make the effort. Salvaging components […]
Show full quote

Thermalwrong wrote on 2022-06-04, 03:27:

Nah, it's worth it to me 😀 It also gave a good reason to use the Quick 861DA hot air station and in the end, it should result in a PCB design that others can use to repair the CT1350B PCBs

You got it wrong because I wrote it badly, I meant repairing the ISA slot. Too damaged to make the effort.
Salvaging components is the only thing to do.

I've seen other posts with cards damaged for gold recovery. As a collector it always hurts...

Well yes these scrappers are fu**ing idiots and savages and neanderthals... All they know is how to get an hammer and just smash these parts, and then to melt them with acids and repeat... But as they are dumb and ignorant, they dont even know for some nice piece of retro HW like 3Dfx cards, special ISA audio cards, special high end mb ect.. collectors may pay 20-30 times, what the dumb gold diggers will get from destroying some exotic and rare part instead.. Sure some scrappers by being ignorant open options for some of us to buy something good, as not all of them are as dumb, (like that scrapper that sold UNtested Voodoo V 5500 for 125 euros), some find parts that they think they have some value and they sell them.. But the nasty part when dealing with gold scrappers is they want ALOT more money for some part that they dont even take the time to test and see the part is working... Paying like 30-40-50 euros for UNtested voodoo card or some other exotic is, not something i am willing to do, after all i dont get money from the trees (no matter that is what they are made of), i can pay extra to some scrapper (lets say x2 the price in scrap) for UNtested exotic part and reward him double of what he will get otherwise and save him the time and effort, as x2 the price in scrap is ok (i am not only ok with the ceramic CPUs the price there is VERY dumb specially from scrappers, but the PCB parts are fine) if the part is 3Dfx or something else with similar value, and that is justified risk to me and is more then fine.. Shit i can even pay x3 and x4 times the scrap price of the thing is very rare such as Voodoo 5, or even more for Voodoo 6000, GUS, ASUS 386/ 486 boards, socket 8 boards and other..

Once when i did talk with one scrapper, he showed me piecture of Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music, and when i asked for price he repply:
" that card will cost you 40 euro, as it have so much gold on it, as the connectors are golden".... Similar shit when an scrappers get their hands on AWE64 Gold, the card color is like gold, the connectors are gold, and there is the name of the card GOLD, and these idiots think the card have tons of gold in it jesus fu**king christ.........

But some of these idiots to ask for like 60-100 euros for single part that he did not make even the effort to clean the dust from the part, not to talk about any testing, well they can go FK themselves.....
Back in 2017 i got x2 3Dfx Voodoo II PROvideo cards 12MB from scrapper for pocket change, it appear the cards was both pulled from working system in SLI, and the retards from the scrap did toss and trow them all around, and there was broken pins on the x3 main 3Dfx chips.... It was really sad, but did replace them at some point with better ones, and sold the these bad cards to someone that is willing to take the time to fix them..

IMG_20170609_125602.jpg

IMG_20170609_125641.jpg

IMG_20170609_125725.jpg

One time a guy that was going to a gypsy market, did send me a picture of Voodoo 3 2K, the card was with cut off/ snapped AGP port, we both was so pissed, that some retarded gold scrapper did rip off the fu**king AGP slot of the card and made it totally useless.... These gold scrappers with their hammers and shit they be damned....

I think that what you just wrote could become a common statement of us collectors.
Couldn't be any clearer. 😀

I can feel the dark side being strong in you! 🤣

Saidian wrote on 2022-06-06, 20:07:

Got a DFI CS61-EC and a Pentium iii 1000EB as part of my first ever Retro Build! Would've like to have found a Tualatin in my price range but I'm not too bothered.

Essentially building a dream computer from the age that I first started being interested in computers so I'm pretty hyped.
Now to wait till end of the month and I can grab the majority of the rest of what I need.

Have fun! Post some pics if you can.

Radical Vision wrote on 2022-06-06, 19:21:

Well yes these scrappers are fu**ing idiots and savages and neanderthals... All they know is how to get an hammer and just smash these parts, and then to melt them with acids and repeat...

How I imagine the average scrapper:

Cleaned and partially recapped an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe.
The dirtiest and smelliest mobo I've seen in a long time now.
By the looks and smell I guess its been used by a chain-smoker and then stored in a septic tank.
Almost gagged when I opened the package.

A blurry pic that masks a lot of yuck:

A few trips in the sink and a recap later:

Normally I can save the paper stickers, but this time I had to soak it properly for a long time.
And I haven't even tested it yet, just couldn't do it with the smell 🤣.

bofh.fromhell wrote on 2022-06-06, 23:30:

Cleaned and partially recapped an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe. The dirtiest and smelliest mobo I've seen in a long time now. By the look […]
Show full quote

Cleaned and partially recapped an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe.
The dirtiest and smelliest mobo I've seen in a long time now.
By the looks and smell I guess its been used by a chain-smoker and then stored in a septic tank.
Almost gagged when I opened the package.

A blurry pic that masks a lot of yuck:

A few trips in the sink and a recap later:

Normally I can save the paper stickers, but this time I had to soak it properly for a long time.
And I haven't even tested it yet, just couldn't do it with the smell 🤣.

This is a great board. Nice work, I hope it works.

Watch out for "Windows Protection Errors" if you use it with Windows 9X. The Silcon Image SATA controller is the root of the problem (could be the driver version, but I didn't test further). I couldn't operate RAM in Dual Channel without Windows crashing immediately after installation. I read so many posts about problematic memory compatibility, that I chalked it up to this. However, the problems got worse when I switched from a 6Gbps capable Gen3 SSD to an NVMe fitted into a SSD adapter. (Yes, board is SATA Gen1, but I don't have any of those type of drives available to test), Once I switched to IDE, all problems went away, and I could finally utilize Dual Channel.

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-06-06, 23:13:

How I imagine the average scrapper: https://i.imgur.com/7DHso4L.png […]
Show full quote

Radical Vision wrote on 2022-06-06, 19:21:

Well yes these scrappers are fu**ing idiots and savages and neanderthals... All they know is how to get an hammer and just smash these parts, and then to melt them with acids and repeat...

How I imagine the average scrapper:

🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

Radical Vision wrote on 2022-06-06, 19:21:

Well yes these scrappers are fu**ing idiots and savages and neanderthals... All they know is how to get an hammer and just smash these parts, and then to melt them with acids and repeat...

well, they couldn't afford to buy that acid if they didn't get 40-50% of its price back from selling the 'vast'* amounts of gold...

*by vast i mean of course, vanishingly small