Started working on an Epson Equity II+ 286 build / restoration project.

This is particularly nostalgic for me since this was the make and model of our first family computer. I acquired a pair of machines with the intent of making a single, cosmetically decent and reasonably tricked out machine. Finding them with intact keyboard doors was challenging; it's a commonly missing part. Fortunately I was able to find at least one in quite good shape.

Insides were good on both machines. No battery leakage or other corrosion from what I could tell.

Video cards includes a Hercules graphics adapter in one, and a VGA card in the other. Not familiar with this particular VGA card. It's branded as "Amazing", but searching for "Amazing VGA" didn't exactly find useful results.

I'm also hoping to install as many era-specific sound cards as I can. I'd like to install all four of the Roland LAPC-I, Adlib, GameBlaster and IBM Music Feature card in these. But given the limitation of only 6 slots, that may be optimistic.

They both have socketed 12 MHz 286 processors. Since I'll have a spare left over, I may transplant it into a Tandy TL to upgrade its speed.

CrFr wrote on 2022-09-24, 13:13:

Brought this stinky boy back to life :) […]
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Brought this stinky boy back to life 😀

Some of the caps had started leaking badly. Geometry was all messed up, and when it warmed up, it started smelling like rotten fish soaked in piss. Replaced all the caps, almost 50 pcs of them in there. Wasn't really a quick job to do, but I had shopping list ready for it from the previous one. Most of the caps tested good, but I thought I'll just replace everything since I have the boards removed from the case.

Now it doesn't stink anymore, and picture is perfect. It has a Panasonic tube, and colors on it are just beautiful.

This is the second one of these I have recapped. Now I have two of them in working condition. First one was built in 1993, and this one is from 1995.

IBM Model 6327-22

IMGP2229_.jpg

That looks like a lovely monitor! Nice work on the restoration of it. I can only imagine the time involved to have to replace all those caps.

Continued tinkering with the Epsons today.

I was able to power one up and run the stock BIOS and setup program. It does have Type 47 HDD in the setup (which I wanted to try for running a CF card), but unfortunately for some reason it's listed as "reserved" and won't let me use it. In fact, about a dozen or so of the HDD types were listed that way.

I also tried flashing a couple different replacement BIOS chips (PhoenixBIOS A286 Version 1.01 and Quadtel Enhanced 286 BIOS Version 3.05.01). Unfortunately neither one worked and the Epson would just sit at a blank screen.

One of the Epsons did come with a NIC card with an empty socket labeled "Boot". So I'm thinkin of trying to flash an XTIDE BIOS via that socket and try that.

I'm so damn jealous of all these horizontal beige cases.. They are unobtanium where I live 🙁

appiah4 wrote on 2022-09-25, 16:11:

I'm so damn jealous of all these horizontal beige cases.. They are unobtanium where I live 🙁

FWIW, all the ones I've obtained have been through Ebay. I haven't been to find any locally except for old Dell Optiplex desktops.

Ebay has definitely been the pricier way to get these (esp. with shipping). Fortunately I've been lucky and everything I have bought was well packaged and survived the trip without damage.

Today I’ve spent my time being shocked by eBay prices for the Commodore 64. Everything is designed to be a bid war or is $150, which is just insane to me. There’s only millions out there.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-09-25, 16:35:

appiah4 wrote on 2022-09-25, 16:11:

I'm so damn jealous of all these horizontal beige cases.. They are unobtanium where I live 🙁

FWIW, all the ones I've obtained have been through Ebay. I haven't been to find any locally except for old Dell Optiplex desktops.

Ebay has definitely been the pricier way to get these (esp. with shipping). Fortunately I've been lucky and everything I have bought was well packaged and survived the trip without damage.

At a guesstimate I think they petered out from yard sales and thrift store donations from around 2005 here, before that, they were as common as any other computer in those venues. That's probably in the "10 years since they were last useful" timeframe which is the approx sliding window that the bulk of cheap used availability seems to follow.

That Epson though is ringing some bells in the old noggin. IDK if I ever had one, but maybe a buddy did. However, the styling was relatively common, I've got a PB 286 in that shape, plus an old Siemens Nixdorf.

BetaC wrote on 2022-09-25, 23:07:

Today I’ve spent my time being shocked by eBay prices for the Commodore 64. Everything is designed to be a bid war or is $150, which is just insane to me. There’s only millions out there.

I had the same reaction when I see the price of a beatiuful new"Ati Radeon 9800 Pro". 379 euros...
Do you think guys that is a good price?

TrueVegas wrote on 2022-09-26, 18:18:

I had the same reaction when I see the price of a beatiuful new"Ati Radeon 9800 Pro". 379 euros...
Do you think guys that is a good price?

That's pretty much the launch price of that card in 2003 (not accounting for inflation). Personally I think it's complete insanity for a mass-produced 20 year old card which isn't even close to being classified as a "rare item", but what do I know? For what it's worth, I got a mint 9800 Pro for $25 about 4 years ago...

TheMobRules wrote on 2022-09-26, 19:00:

TrueVegas wrote on 2022-09-26, 18:18:

I had the same reaction when I see the price of a beatiuful new"Ati Radeon 9800 Pro". 379 euros...
Do you think guys that is a good price?

That's pretty much the launch price of that card in 2003 (not accounting for inflation). Personally I think it's complete insanity for a mass-produced 20 year old card which isn't even close to being classified as a "rare item", but what do I know? For what it's worth, I got a mint 9800 Pro for $25 about 4 years ago...

Yes you are right. I think that the price storm that we see for the actual video cards has an influence on the entire businness.... About the Ati I bought 1 day ago an used 9700 for 30 euros, I hope it will work.

Scanned the HDD of the Lenovo ThinkPad X200 I bought last month for virus / malware. The serial number and its WinXP desktop showed it being not a retail model but a former property of a public school (probably with an institutional license), and it has no antivirus software whatsoever. I expected the HDD being "dirty" but...... more than 8000 Kavo family of USB virus in just every directory. While it cannot infect a modern computer with antivirus software, the sheer number of virus crashed Avast on my little MSI Wind Box DE220 as I didn't specify automated action. 🙄 Maybe I should have just formatted the entire disk.

Also tried to downgrade a Sony Vaio VPCW126AW from Win7 Starter to WinXP. Sony has long discontinued all driver downloads for Vaio so it's kinda troublesome (some files from Driver Scape just don't seem to be correct) until I realized my MSI U100 has the same chipset and video. 😅

TrueVegas wrote on 2022-09-26, 18:18:

BetaC wrote on 2022-09-25, 23:07:

Today I’ve spent my time being shocked by eBay prices for the Commodore 64. Everything is designed to be a bid war or is $150, which is just insane to me. There’s only millions out there.

I had the same reaction when I see the price of a beatiuful new"Ati Radeon 9800 Pro". 379 euros...
Do you think guys that is a good price?

I wouldn't buy any R3x0 based card for 10 euros or more. They tend to die quite fast in my experience.

PD2JK wrote on 2022-09-27, 06:05:

TrueVegas wrote on 2022-09-26, 18:18:

BetaC wrote on 2022-09-25, 23:07:

Today I’ve spent my time being shocked by eBay prices for the Commodore 64. Everything is designed to be a bid war or is $150, which is just insane to me. There’s only millions out there.

I had the same reaction when I see the price of a beatiuful new"Ati Radeon 9800 Pro". 379 euros...
Do you think guys that is a good price?

I wouldn't buy any R3x0 based card for 10 euros or more. They tend to die quite fast in my experience.

The 9800 Pro is the best of that series to get if you want one, its the model they fixed the shim on so they dont overheat and die.

9700 Pro is a gamble but if you can find one working and know how to mod the shim on it then its a great card to buy.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-09-27, 07:11:

The 9800 Pro is the best of that series to get if you want one, its the model they fixed the shim on so they dont overheat and die.

9700 Pro is a gamble but if you can find one working and know how to mod the shim on it then its a great card to buy.

Shim problem stayed a bit longer and was still present with X800 series at least. They just circumvented it by cooler desing after 9700/9500 series.
General rule with those cards is: no big flat-surface coolers. To my knowledge only Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer(s) and Zalman VF700/900 fit within the shim area (direct core contact). I'd say VF900 is the best out of those because of thumb screws. I would avoid chinese Zalman knockoffs, they usually don't fit within the shim and quality is so so. Use that on GeForce.

Regarding availability, there are good alternatives (even NOS) that are worth considering:
* Radeon 9700TX (Dell OEM)
* FireGL X1-128
* FireGL X2-256

If you intend to use cards, replace stock cooler as soon as possible. Don't repaste stock. It won't solve the problem, but may accelerate it.
I would not advice removing shim, it's not easy and is not worth the risk.

PS: 379 euros ... not a good price.

Getting a moody ABIT AI7 functional. Kettl kept getting 9.0 boot error code. Tinkered it to working state. Onboard audio didn't work. Stuck in a Yamaha 744 xg card that was laying around and windows 2000 recognised and installed drivers. Listened to some awful iTunes previous owner had left on the HDD os 2007 music. Nice to see Yahoo messenger load up. Retiring this ide hdd and don't really want to build using this motherboard of it will give me a headache down the line

Finally got my lo-tech XTIDE CF adapter working!

I'd been previously trying it with my Tandys with no success. This evening I happen to be watching a Necroware video on XTIDE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivB2oEVkfoU) and he demonstrated flashing the ROM with a the v2 beta 3 version using the ATL build.

On a whim I decided I might try that with my Epson 286 machine I'd been working on this week, which I'd also been having no success with getting CF cards to work. So I reflashed the EEPROM on the lo-tech card and popped it into the Epson. It detected the XTIDE BIOS, showing up after the main BIOS (similar to booting from a NIC I imagine). I was then able to connect a CF card using the existing 16-bit IDE controller card and it detected the card!

After partitioning and formatting, I got DOS 6.22 fully installed and booting off a 128MB CF card.

I then copied over a bunch of classic Sierra, installed both a Roland LAPC-I and Adlib sound cards and tested things out. Everything worked perfectly.

After a week or so of frustration with trying to get CF cards working with different systems, it was nice to have something go right. 😁

Go the Epson set up for some proper testing and gaming. Hooked it up to 15" Samsung Syncmaster 550b (got the monitor NOS, so it's the first time that is being used).

Currently have both the Adlib and Roland LAPC-I installed. Though I may switch out the Adlib for a Soundblaster 1.5 w/ CMS chips. That configuration should then cover SoundBlaster, Adlib, CMS (GameBlaster) and Roland MT-32 support.

Still need to add a mouse, too.

At any rate, I'm quite pleased with this Epson setup. It even has the mismatched 3.5" drive that we had in our original family computer. Very nostalgic. 😀

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-09-29, 00:16:

Go the Epson set up for some proper testing and gaming. Hooked it up to 15" Samsung Syncmaster 550b (got the monitor NOS, so it' […]
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Go the Epson set up for some proper testing and gaming. Hooked it up to 15" Samsung Syncmaster 550b (got the monitor NOS, so it's the first time that is being used).

Currently have both the Adlib and Roland LAPC-I installed. Though I may switch out the Adlib for a Soundblaster 1.5 w/ CMS chips. That configuration should then cover SoundBlaster, Adlib, CMS (GameBlaster) and Roland MT-32 support.

Still need to add a mouse, too.

At any rate, I'm quite pleased with this Epson setup. It even has the mismatched 3.5" drive that we had our original family computer. Very nostalgic. 😀

That's a great looking setup! It should give you many hours of fun and enjoyment.

Hah, note to self... don't turn on machines you haven't built yourself... Story starts years back... emachine with socket 754 board in, XP2600 or something the sempron of semprons socket 754 chip, 32bit only. Dirt cheap impulse pickup, thought actually from the badging it had a decent barton inside it, nope. Anyhoo, think I tried booting it a couple of times and it was flaky. Goes into a storage pile, pulled it out about 5 years back and get nothing out of it... can't be bothered with it. So today, I decide I want it's mATX case.. move it around and 2 screws appear in the bottom of the case... take the motherboard out and there's 3 more loose screws under there, wow! It's a wonder I didn't smoke the place out. IDK if I'll check that board out sometime sans shorts, it's 3rd choice 754 board at the moment and I only want one 754 system going.

I need to build myself a decent vacuum cleaner, household ones are too big and clunky, "computer" vacuums are so pathetic they don't do anything. I hate using air duster much because it just fills up the air I'm tryna breathe with crap, plus you can go through $20 of air dusters in an afternoon if you're going through much. Anyway gotta look into something with like a 1/2" nozzle, handheld and enough suction to lift stuff up and bag it. I have the parts of one of those rechargeable vacuums with dead batts, so might use some of that. Just make it less klutzy for getting in the corners of cases.

I'm kinda doing a sleeper build M4A785-M into the eMach mATX, it's probably gonna be more modern. Though I just got bummed out because at first glance I took the IDC pin header sitting next to the PATA pin header to be a floppy header... but nah.. it's the parallel port header, derp, that's why it looks too short, why da crap is it over there. So since this case got a custom faceplate floppy, I'm wondering if I wanna have it sitting there useless mocking me, or whether I wanna try another mATX for the AM2/3 board and stick a duron mATX in this one. It's not a real nice case though, front panel got "Kyled" there's crack in it. Will see what else is around.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-09-29, 03:24:

Hah, note to self... don't turn on machines you haven't built yourself... Story starts years back... emachine with socket 754 board in, XP2600 or something the sempron of semprons socket 754 chip, 32bit only. Dirt cheap impulse pickup, thought actually from the badging it had a decent barton inside it, nope. Anyhoo, think I tried booting it a couple of times and it was flaky. Goes into a storage pile, pulled it out about 5 years back and get nothing out of it... can't be bothered with it. So today, I decide I want it's mATX case.. move it around and 2 screws appear in the bottom of the case... take the motherboard out and there's 3 more loose screws under there, wow! It's a wonder I didn't smoke the place out. IDK if I'll check that board out sometime sans shorts, it's 3rd choice 754 board at the moment and I only want one 754 system going.

I need to build myself a decent vacuum cleaner, household ones are too big and clunky, "computer" vacuums are so pathetic they don't do anything. I hate using air duster much because it just fills up the air I'm tryna breathe with crap, plus you can go through $20 of air dusters in an afternoon if you're going through much. Anyway gotta look into something with like a 1/2" nozzle, handheld and enough suction to lift stuff up and bag it. I have the parts of one of those rechargeable vacuums with dead batts, so might use some of that. Just make it less klutzy for getting in the corners of cases.

I'm kinda doing a sleeper build M4A785-M into the eMach mATX, it's probably gonna be more modern. Though I just got bummed out because at first glance I took the IDC pin header sitting next to the PATA pin header to be a floppy header... but nah.. it's the parallel port header, derp, that's why it looks too short, why da crap is it over there. So since this case got a custom faceplate floppy, I'm wondering if I wanna have it sitting there useless mocking me, or whether I wanna try another mATX for the AM2/3 board and stick a duron mATX in this one. It's not a real nice case though, front panel got "Kyled" there's crack in it. Will see what else is around.

Get yourself a cheap electric leaf blower. Once a quarter I take all of our systems outside and give them a good blow out with the leaf blower and in about 10 minute all of our systems are cleaned. And doing it outside keeps all that dust and dirt from ending up all of your house and ultimately back inside your computers.