Murugan wrote on 2023-02-05, 20:04:

Converted this sadly non-working XT to a working 286-16. I just kept the case and PSU,all the rest are spare parts.

Very nice monolithic case, love it.

Love it too 😀
It's like a huge brick and it's in REALLY good condition for being this old.

Murugan wrote on 2023-02-06, 18:40:

Love it too 😀
It's like a huge brick and it's in REALLY good condition for being this old.

I happen to be messing around with an identical case, the only difference is the layout of the little black panel with the buttons and LEDs. Also in mint condition, it's really well built for being a clone.

Mine has a generic JUKO ST based motherboard with a 10MHz V20 and 640KB RAM, and came with I/O+floppy+RTC and CGA/Monochrome cards and a 5.25'' 360K drive. Currently I've got it working just fine (using an 8 bit VGA card to connect to my CRTs), but I'm debating upgrading it also with a 286 motherboard I have around that fits like a glove. The V20 is cool, but it's so slow... even games like Maniac Mansion (non-enhanced) struggle to run properly.

Maybe I'll create a thread in System Specs to see what other Vogoners think would be best.

Murugan wrote on 2023-02-06, 18:40:

Love it too 😀
It's like a huge brick and it's in REALLY good condition for being this old.

It looks amazing.

I had some kind of similar 286 in my childhood as our first computer. It was not from an IBM... Can you make a picture from the back of the case? Does it have integrated FDD/HDD controller and VGA card on board?
Maybe it's the same machine that i have almost forgotten?

Continued to work on my Pentium MMX 200 build.

Got everything more or less installed. Tried to do some cable management, but there's only so much you can do with ribbon cables.

I also experimented with installing an RGB LED strip. The grill on the front has gaps for airflow, so I thought it might look interesting lit up. It does make it look a bit like a space heater, although the effect is more subtle in person.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-07, 00:22:

Continued to work on my Pentium MMX 200 build.

Got everything more or less installed. Tried to do some cable management, but there's only so much you can do with ribbon cables.

I also experimented with installing an RGB LED strip. The grill on the front has gaps for airflow, so I thought it might look interesting lit up. It does make it look a bit like a space heater, although the effect is more subtle in person.

I think it looks pretty neat! Only thing is, if you could shield the light from shining out around the drives?

The other day I tripped over one my Sony VAIO laptops and felt bad that I hadn't done anything with them - a PCG-Z600RE, a PCG-Z600TEK and PCG-SR11K. Each one didn't come with a hard drive and has had a half-hearted attempt at getting software working, with limited success.

I've had a couple of days to spend on them and was able to piece together a working dual-boot of Windows 98 SE and DOS.

Now they've each got:

• Mostly working drivers in Win98 (except USB memory stick, oh no)
• JOG dial working
• Hotkeys working
• DS-XG MIDI in Windows with digital audio in DOS-box
• OPL3 music in DOS with digital audio thanks to cyclone3d's DOS drivers
• CD-ROM support in DOS since the VAIOs have some BIOS support so the DOS PCMCIA driver is lightweight

I'm thinking that perhaps I should put together a post on how to do it along with the driver pack I've put together, and the boot floppy for CD-ROM support since the documentation for that is really lacking. I was getting so very frustrated with this yesterday since I couldn't get SETUPDS to work right in DOS, but today I seem to have had better luck.

I don't think this would be possible if I didn't get a bunch of Windows Me drivers on my PCG-SR33K. From what I can tell, this setup should work on all of the PCG-SRxx laptops (not PCG-SRXx), PCG-Z600NE/TE/RE/LE (or Z505 in some places but not all Z505s have Yamaha YMF744 audio), along with the Picturebooks that have Yamaha sound.
The key to this was the 2nd recovery CD for the PCG-C1XD on archive.org, it has application software for the Hotkeys & DLLs and it doesn't do a machine check, so most of it will work with later models 😀

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-02-07, 16:23:

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-07, 00:22:

Continued to work on my Pentium MMX 200 build.

Got everything more or less installed. Tried to do some cable management, but there's only so much you can do with ribbon cables.

I also experimented with installing an RGB LED strip. The grill on the front has gaps for airflow, so I thought it might look interesting lit up. It does make it look a bit like a space heater, although the effect is more subtle in person.

I think it looks pretty neat! Only thing is, if you could shield the light from shining out around the drives?

Thanks!

I agree, shielding the reflected light is something I'm going to look at doing.

It's not too bad when looking from an overhead angle, but it does look a little odd when head on.

Should be pretty easy to address.

Spent the evening adding some audio options to the Pentium MMX 200 build.

Initially started with an AWE64 Gold and Roland MPU-401 AT w/ wavetable. Then decided to be brave and threw in a Gravis Ultrasound Extreme and configured it for Sound Blaster Pro support.

To my complete shock, everything worked.

I don't understand how or why, but having tested a couple dozen games, every single one has worked with no fuss. Even older games with basic Adlib/SB support all worked just fine.

Some of the auto detection is a little odd. For example, Wolfenstein 3D uses the AWE64 for digital sound effects, but the GUS Extreme for music and FM effects. But with everything running through an external mixer, as long as sound is coming out of the speakers it's all good. 😁

Peeking into some cases in the pile of random machines to see what's what. Got into an AT minitower with "Trojan 386" badging to find it had the P5F76 board that's on old inventories but was thus far MIA. On that was a GL-5430 PCI *yawn* and an IBM 6x86MX 2.5x75 PR233, maybe 4x16MB installed. Looked like it had one of the old Quantum Prodrive LPS in there.

Next up was what I knew was the desktop (flat) AT case with the P5 socket 4 P60 in it, but had to refresh on the deets, which turned out to be Asus P5MP3 board, ISA i/o because that board ain't got none, MAD16 soundcard with 4 CD IF on it, connected to Mitsumi 1 or 2x tray load CDROM. 8 bit Western Digital NIC, another 5430, thing was a bit of a bitsa, got it with just the board in the case I think. Spindles were one of the grindy Maxtors and the "classic" AT Seagates.

Then I got a closer look at the mystery XT, it's labelled APCO a one time maker of Apple II clones, and appears to have been their one and only attempt at cracking the PC market. Par/ser/video are on the back edge of the board, floppy controller onboard, with 4X 8 bit slots for anything else, V40, 3 banks of ram one soldered 2 socketed. One slot taken with an "SL 05" MFM controler to a Kalok 30MB drive. Board looks real close to some Leading Edge and Packard Bell models on RetroWeb, but the BEJ9QKGS6221 FCC ID on the back label traces to Goldstar and board appears to split the difference between two of theirs that I can find. Pheonix BIOS 2.52 and one socket for expansion ROM. Bank of 12 switches near the RAM banks up front. Only ID on board itself I can see (lot of hidden by PSU) is MOTHER 611-245D REV 4.4 (Some random dude on French Canadian eBay reckons his with that number is for a Packard Bell PB VX88, I shall investigate...)

Edit: dang I thought all my prayers were answered finding it was also a VX88, matches LGRs machine internally and the one on PreterHuman, but "more" popular seems to translate to "more than one person posted about it once ever" rather than any in depth stuffs, BUT theretroweb has the switch settings, the microhouse sketch didn't look so super close when I pulled it up without additional photo confirmation.

Demetrio wrote on 2023-02-04, 07:11:

Made a 386SX build. […]
Show full quote

Made a 386SX build.

Unfortunately, the HDD does not work so I have to wait the new one I've ordered to install MS-DOS 5.0

I will also buy a CRT monitor for it, like this IBM

IMG_20230204_080817.jpg

Got the working HDD (a 342MB IBM).
Installed MS-DOS 5.0 on it

I suspect the hard drive in my W98 PC started to fail. After a fresh install it runs fine for a couple of weeks then the files gets corrupted on it.
Got a new SSD and a pair of IDE adapters, booted up Linux to format the SSD, set up an 80GB drive for the stuff I'll actively use and a 40GB one for drivers and stuff.

Probably won't get around to set it up properly until Saturday. Hope it'll do well.

First "complete" prototype of my sound card how componts settle. This is just a very basic design with CS4232 + OPL3 and RCA outputs. Nothing extra I think I don't need.
There is maybe room for on-board RAM/ROM wavetable synth like SAM97xx, but perhaps I'll leave it like that for now.

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-02-09, 17:42:

I suspect the hard drive in my W98 PC started to fail. After a fresh install it runs fine for a couple of weeks then the files g […]
Show full quote

I suspect the hard drive in my W98 PC started to fail. After a fresh install it runs fine for a couple of weeks then the files gets corrupted on it.
Got a new SSD and a pair of IDE adapters, booted up Linux to format the SSD, set up an 80GB drive for the stuff I'll actively use and a 40GB one for drivers and stuff.

IMG_20230209_154208.jpg

Probably won't get around to set it up properly until Saturday. Hope it'll do well.

Well, I thought I at least try and install W98SE, but it has been nothing but trouble so far. The BIOS detects the drive, but W98 installer says it has bad sectors. Reformatting using XFDISK, Partition Magic, or more modern versions of Windows were a failure. W2k can delete and create new partitions, but fails when it tries to format them.

Is there a specific BIOS setting that these adapters need, or my motherboard just happens to be allergic to something?

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-02-09, 20:29:

Well, I thought I at least try and install W98SE, but it has been nothing but trouble so far. The BIOS detects the drive, but W98 installer says it has bad sectors. Reformatting using XFDISK, Partition Magic, or more modern versions of Windows were a failure. W2k can delete and create new partitions, but fails when it tries to format them.

Some motherboards apparently don't like SATA to IDE adapters which use the JMicron chip. You might have better luck with an adapter which uses the Marvell chip, but those tend to be more expensive.

Is there a specific BIOS setting that these adapters need, or my motherboard just happens to be allergic to something?

Sometimes, setting the "IDE HDD Block Mode" to "Disabled" in the BIOS can help. But if your motherboard doesn't like JMicron chips, it probably won't do that much.

Mounted one of my old Amiga harddrives on my Linux box, to retrieve data and ADF backups of floppy disks.

I stumbled into the Summit County E-waste facility.

They have racks of restored computers & monitors and a work room for doing computer repairs.

summit county COLORADO, per chance? also, are they hiring?

luckybob wrote on 2023-02-10, 00:59:

summit county COLORADO, per chance? also, are they hiring?

It's in Akron Ohio

douglar wrote on 2023-02-10, 00:39:

I stumbled into the Summit County E-waste facility.

They have racks of restored computers & monitors and a work room for doing computer repairs.

Photo Feb 09 2023, 6 29 46 PM.jpg

restored computers, so not for e-waste or recycling?

I wonder where they are destined for, if for schools or other facilities then the tech requirements are usually higher - to be able to run win 10 or linux mint and have the ability to go online and so on

that would make them all around 2010 or later