Did some more tinkering with the Tandy TL/2. Tried it again with the CM-11 monitor and this time it worked fine. No idea what the issue was originally, maybe just a loose cable?

I tried installing an XTIDE board to be able to use my CF card with it. Unfortunately this is where I ran into further trouble.

The CF card I had setup on my Tandy HX would only boot half the time in the TL/2. And then running a DIR, it would hang when trying to report back the disk space remaining. It's only a 32 MB card and works perfectly on the HX, so not sure what the issue is here.

I also ran into issues trying to boot from the floppy drive. Multiple DOS 5.0 disks wouldn't work and only a DOS 3.3 disk worked (and even that failed a couple times). Once I got the 3.3 disk working, I tried using another CF card (128MB). I was able to partition and format it, but then it wouldn't subsequently read the card at all.

So I'm not sure what the issue is. Do I have a defective XT-IDE board? Is it something else in the system?

I may try the XT-IDE board in my other Tandy SX system to at least confirm whether it is defective or not. At which point, I can then tear down the TL/2 for further inspection and testing.

liqmat wrote on 2022-09-19, 15:20:

That Tandy and PB CRT look near mint. Very nice!

Thanks, they are indeed in lovely physical shape. The monitor I got lucky and picked up locally. The guy who had it wasn't sure if it had even been used previously. 😮

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-09-19, 00:27:

Started working on another Tandy I own, a model TL/2 I bought awhile ago but hadn't tested. […]
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Started working on another Tandy I own, a model TL/2 I bought awhile ago but hadn't tested.

Oddly didn't work with my CM-11 monitor for some reason (garbled output), but worked fine with this old Packard Bell CGA monitor I had. I assumed it should be compatible with the CM-11 monitor since I've seen photos of TL/2's running on them? Or is there some settings that need to be configured somehow?

At any rate, the machine seemed to work, including the 3.5 inch drive.

I have a CF adapter and memory expansion board I may try in this one. I do lack a proper Tandy Enhanced Keyboard, so I'll have to try to pick one up.

Very nice, love it.

Today, recovering treasure from the dumpster landfill.
It was literally outside in the rain..

For an upcoming "Trash to treasure" project.
I will post some pictures of the progression.

Been cracking my head with a pretty banged up Acer Extensa 5220.

First off, here are the specs:

15.4 inch matte LCD
Pentium T4300
3GB DDR2
integrated video
XP SP3

Apparently, whoever had this before me... reflowed the northbridge FOR NO APPARENT REASON. What this caused (very likely) - any attempt to install XP's own Intel IDE controller driver (which is included from SP2 onwards I think) will result in a hard freeze during boot. No BSOD, no funky stuff, just freezes and won't move further.

By the way, yes, this machine was made with XP in mind. It even goes as far as bearing a "Designed for XP" sticker, and the CoA sticker on the back is for XP Pro.

Troubleshooting the PPM 1660C board from a Commodore Business Machines 386SX-16.
Early Phoenix BIOS, 2 long 3 short beeps.
Crystal seems good, think its for the RTC. It must be 'cause I recognize them from cheap digital watches you could win at the local carnival I use to 'dismantle' not long after.

PD2JK wrote on 2022-09-19, 17:45:

Troubleshooting the PPM 1660C board from a Commodore Business Machines 386SX-16.
Early Phoenix BIOS, 2 long 3 short beeps.
Crystal seems good, think its for the RTC. It must be 'cause I recognize them from cheap digital watches you could win at the local carnival I used the 'dismantle' not long after.

Brand new 😁
Or that maybe also come from the oxidation visible near of the Chip.

Chips P82C206 chipset is notorious for failure rate. I suggest replace that with any 82C206 chipset like SiS, etc.

Cheers,

80386SX wrote on 2022-09-19, 16:55:

Today, recovering treasure from the dumpster landfill. It was literally outside in the rain.. […]
Show full quote

Today, recovering treasure from the dumpster landfill.
It was literally outside in the rain..

For an upcoming "Trash to treasure" project.
I will post some pictures of the progression.

Oh man, great find. I've been looking for a desktop case for a little while now. I'm jealous.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2022-09-19, 18:29:

Chips P82C206 chipset is notorious for failure rate. I suggest replace that with any 82C206 chipset like SiS, etc.

Cheers,

Thnx man, I found an UMC UM82C206L at the bay and made a proposition...

Continued to struggle getting CF to work with the Tandy TL/2. In researching the issue, a suggested solution was reflashing the BIOS on the XT-IDE card with an 'offset' version.

Unfortunately this did not work as every single time it hit byte 16384 it would fail writing. I tried repeatedly using both the TL/2, plus several attempts using a different 386 machine, same result each time.

It would also fail to write the IDE_XT.bin BIOS, only that would fail at byte 0.

At this point I'm wondering if maybe there is something defective with this particular card (maybe the memory chip?). At any rate, I placed an order for another Lo-tech XT-IDE card, plus a couple Blue Lava Systems XT-IDE cards.

We'll see if I have better luck with those.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-09-19, 21:09:

Continued to struggle getting CF to work with the Tandy TL/2. In researching the issue, a suggested solution was reflashing the […]
Show full quote

Continued to struggle getting CF to work with the Tandy TL/2. In researching the issue, a suggested solution was reflashing the BIOS on the XT-IDE card with an 'offset' version.

Unfortunately this did not work as every single time it hit byte 16384 it would fail writing. I tried repeatedly using both the TL/2, plus several attempts using a different 386 machine, same result each time.

It would also fail to write the IDE_XT.bin BIOS, only that would fail at byte 0.

At this point I'm wondering if maybe there is something defective with this particular card (maybe the memory chip?). At any rate, I placed an order for another Lo-tech XT-IDE card, plus a couple Blue Lava Systems XT-IDE cards.

We'll see if I have better luck with those.

What is the reference of the BIOS chip ?
Often OTP chip are used - so we cannot reflash it (except the UV erasable model if you've and UV eraser). Maybe it's your issue to flash it ?
Else you need tu buy a flashable eeprom (non-OTP), with a true eerprom programmer like a TL866-II.

Veeb0rg wrote on 2022-09-19, 20:19:

80386SX wrote on 2022-09-19, 16:55:

Today, recovering treasure from the dumpster landfill. It was literally outside in the rain.. […]
Show full quote

Today, recovering treasure from the dumpster landfill.
It was literally outside in the rain..

For an upcoming "Trash to treasure" project.
I will post some pictures of the progression.

Oh man, great find. I've been looking for a desktop case for a little while now. I'm jealous.

I must admit that I thought I was in a dream when I saw all this pile of towers 😁
There were twice as many, I think I took the best ones.
Anyway, nothing would fit in my car. On the other hand a lot of rust everywhere. I think most of them still run but there is work to do 😀

80386SX wrote on 2022-09-19, 21:18:

What is the reference of the BIOS chip ?
Often OTP chip are used - so we cannot reflash it (except the UV erasable model if you've and UV eraser). Maybe it's your issue to flash it ?
Else you need tu buy a flashable eeprom (non-OTP), with a true eerprom programmer like a TL866-II.

It's supposed to be designed to be flashed directly from DOS via their flash application. The memory chip is covered in a giant "PC Rear ->" sticker, so I don't know what they used specifically.

At any rate, I was able to get it to work. Turns out I was missing a step whereby you remove a jumper to disable the ROM, then re-enable the jumper after the computer turns on. This worked and I was finally able to flash this bloody thing.

Unfortunately, while the flash process worked and the card now reads the BIOS at address CC00, it completely fails to boot anything (either floppies or my CF card). It just hangs on boot, no matter what I try. So it's now even worse than before. 😒

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-09-19, 21:45:

It's supposed to be designed to be flashed directly from DOS via their flash application. The memory chip is covered in a giant […]
Show full quote

80386SX wrote on 2022-09-19, 21:18:

What is the reference of the BIOS chip ?
Often OTP chip are used - so we cannot reflash it (except the UV erasable model if you've and UV eraser). Maybe it's your issue to flash it ?
Else you need tu buy a flashable eeprom (non-OTP), with a true eerprom programmer like a TL866-II.

It's supposed to be designed to be flashed directly from DOS via their flash application. The memory chip is covered in a giant "PC Rear ->" sticker, so I don't know what they used specifically.

At any rate, I was able to get it to work. Turns out I was missing a step whereby you remove a jumper to disable the ROM, then re-enable the jumper after the computer turns on. This worked and I was finally able to flash this bloody thing.

Unfortunately, while the flash process worked and the card now reads the BIOS at address CC00, it completely fails to boot anything (either floppies or my CF card). It just hangs on boot, no matter what I try. So it's now even worse than before. 😒

It's look like a tired eeprom Sir.
Maybe you have to peel the sticker to buy the same reference to flash it with a programmer.

80386SX wrote on 2022-09-19, 22:00:

It's look like a tired eeprom Sir.
Maybe you have to peel the sticker to buy the same reference to flash it with a programmer.

There is a BOM available for these boards: https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/XT-CFv3#Bill_Of_Materials

At any rate, I've ordered a whole replacement board, plus a whole different CF flash adapter. Once I have a few options in hand and can better do process of elimination in terms of anything defective, I'll revisit trying to get this to work.

PD2JK wrote on 2022-09-16, 02:10:

rkurbatov wrote on 2022-09-15, 22:03:

PD2JK wrote on 2022-09-15, 16:53:

Commodore 386SX-16 took a vinegar bath. It had some nasty battery goo. Yes, it got revived! Two long beeps + three short beeps. I think it needs a battery.

Commodore 386 sounds like a Heresy.

Agreed. Like the folks at Commodore didn't know what to do after the 64 / 128 😉

Commodore did not know what to do, after Jack left the company. The C128 were not something management or sales department knew they wanted. And Bil Herd did it more or less on his own, because he thought that it was what Commodore needed. And when that time of the year came close, sales department finally went down to the workshop and asked if they happened to have something that were good to sell. Basically. Commodore were already on their way to the grave at that time. At least that is the story from Bil Herd him self.

Backed up the HDD of a friend's IBM ThinkPad X32 just before the HDD failed; he only wanted the data and donated me this 2005-vintage laptop at my disposal.

Apart from the failed HDD and the notorious sticky rubber coating of ThinkPads, the laptop is quite clean and worked fine. I (painstakingly) removed the rubber coating, opened it up, cleaned dust, reapplied fresh thermal paste, took a spare 20GB PATA HDD, installed fresh WinXP SP2, and it was quite snappy, although it took me several attempts to boot from an USB CD-RW (the boot manager only allows THREE boot devices on the menu; with HDD always occupying one slot, the external CD would never show up if you don't disable either FDD controller or LAN boot from BIOS). Its working infrared port, 1394 port, PCMCIA, and 56K modem are rather uncommon today and can be useful in a retro environment. However, with SP3, IE8, and AVG antivirus, the system gradually loses its responsiveness. 😅 The official driver page is also a big mess.

Later I took the failed HDD to e-waste and exchanged it with a working 2GB SD card. 😸

Installed a NOS riser in the Compaq Prolinea 4/66. Love that Langlaufing guy on the PCB.

Does anyone know why Compaq put a much slower 486SX in there? Funny way to save on assembling/production costs.

been continuing to slowly but surely sort through and organize a large hoard of vintage equipment I bought earlier this year. anyone in my area wanna come lend a hand, hahaha