ssokolow wrote on 2024-06-22, 12:34:

rasz_pl wrote on 2024-06-22, 11:48:

That is a nice website, you should totally put a link in your signature.

*nod* Static site generators backed by Markdown really do seem to encourage that kind of simplicity of design but that one has a particular airy elegance to it.

True, mostly static and a bit of dynamic with PHP.
Few infos here, but not very well documented since the python code behind is really small..

I was troubleshooting my 386 IDE issue and decided to get Lotech XT-IDE CF and Picomem. It turns out booting from CF solves my issue. Now I need to find the use of Picomem once it arrives.

Dan386DX wrote on 2024-06-23, 16:22:

Veeb0rg wrote on 2024-06-21, 23:02:

Picked up this lovely little desktop from the local makerspace.

486dx33, 4meg ram, 165mb hdd. Had to tinker with the video card but it booted right up after that.

Beauty. Would you share a full picture of the chassis? Love those chunky desktop designs from that era.

Sure, I'll snap a few when I get a moment

Have been using Orpheus II in my main Win98/DOS Tualatin/440BX rig. While it is fantastic in DOS CS4237 is not exactly top of the line Win98 audio chip.
Inspired by this Guide: Installing Windows 9x and DOS drivers on Audigy cards (version 3.1), I decided to dig up my original Audigy 2 ZS I bought back in days for WinXP.
Installed it without hitch in Win98. DOS was more challenging because it took some time to figure out that next to usual BALSTER variable CTSYN needs to be set up as well.
And then I realized that card does not have SPIDIF coax output. I wonder if extension header have 2 pins fox coax out?
Even more no standard TOSLINK jack. Only 3.5mm mini-TOSLINK. I almost forgot that this kind of physical connection existed. Fortunately cables/adapters are cheap. So I ordered one...

Having got my Packard Bell Club 40 all completed, I realised I'd neglected to fully check all the internals, and noisy CPU fan. I didn't bother too much initially, as it was looking unlikely I'd ever be able to restore to original, but now I have, I want to make sure everything is working correctly, or as well as it can for it's age from a mechanical point of view.

So, time for a PC MOT! Did a complete teardown (not something I've done in years, so a bit nervous), and discovered the CPU fan moulding was broken (cause of the noise), so wasn't clamped down fully. Luckily the broken plastic attached back in place neatly with super glue, so I could re-insert clamping wire. With Heatsink removed, fully cleaned that, fan and Cyrix CPU, which was just as well as the old thermal paste or pad was doing nothing, so new thermal paste. Whilst I had everything in bits, lubed wormscrew & cleaned head on FDD, same on CD-ROM (laser lens), and dismantled PSU to clean fan, and check capacitors, thankfully all the PSU & motherboard caps appear fine. Re-assembled everything and fans are working & sounding much better, so more confident about it's reliability.

With that done, it puts my mind at rest that I've checked and done about all I can to minimise problems, so I can fully enjoy using it.
You'll be saddened, or pleased 😉 that this probably means no more posts about this one.

ssokolow wrote on 2024-06-22, 08:39:

I don't suppose you know of one for Mac OS 9?

Unfortunately, I do not. Sorry!

Recap this Vibra 16 sound card.

Bought a new vintage pen plotter off fleabay.

Roland DXY-1100

This one can do 11" x 17"!

X-Axis carriage was damaged, and 2 of the 4 glide wheels were 'rattling loose' inside it. This resulted in poor positioning, and misbehavior.

Spent today repairing and testing it. 100% success.

It's now fully functional again.

I will stress test it to be sure, then think of something cool to draw on it.

wierd_w wrote on 2024-06-27, 04:38:

Bought a new vintage pen plotter off fleabay. […]
Show full quote

Bought a new vintage pen plotter off fleabay.

Roland DXY-1100

This one can do 11" x 17"!

X-Axis carriage was damaged, and 2 of the 4 glide wheels were 'rattling loose' inside it. This resulted in poor positioning, and misbehavior.

Spent today repairing and testing it. 100% success.

It's now fully functional again.

2024-06-26-19-42-51-447.jpg

2024-06-26-23-11-00-253.jpg

I will stress test it to be sure, then think of something cool to draw on it.

very nice! could draw vintage components with it 😀
definitely a good rescue now you have repaired it

Tried to get a better die photo using a dusty old microscope and
a rubbishy adapter ring that doesn't fit right. I can now make out the text "Z1216 ALTERA".
The scope has 10x, 20x, and 40x but anything other than 10x does not deliver enough light
to see anything through the camera, and therefore it's not possible to focus. At 10x I get
an image but there is always a bright hazy spot in the middle. Looking through the eyepiece
does not have this problem. I'm not sure how to verify that the camera's focal plane is at
the right distance, but then I don't have much ability to adjust it either...

Well, this is a modern retro hybrid, but now that my "prototype" is done and installed, I'm happy with the look!

I took a nice SD-IDE 5.25 bay adapter I found over on Thingverse, cut a hole in it and made a translucent plate to put anything on you wanted and could be backlit, and made it beige to test the color and give it that "retro" look. The end result it what you see below.

Just ordered some molex connectors and my next version will have a proper power connector, not USB fed through the back.

I'll also use a single RGB LED and design a proper diffuser for that LED to fit into behind the translucent plate so it will be simpler and cleaner.

Either way, you get the idea. 😀

Final version will be uploaded to Thingverse as a "remix" in the off chance anyone want's to make one themselves.

Original: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5472371

I uploaded my new voxels into the ModDB site, enjoy 😀 : https://www.moddb.com/games/duke-nukem-3d/add … pack-3-for-duke

So, i've had this Toshiba T3100e/40 on my desk for a while that was brought to me to set fully up and working with few upgrades.

The hinges were completely shot. I had only few plastic pieces moving around in the case to help me position the metal inserts for the screws.
Tried to add so much epoxy that the hinges will now outlast the whole machine itself. Because i never saw the hinges properly working, i had to dremmel a lot of epoxy away again once i started to put the hinge parts together and move them. 😁

The machine has 1MB of RAM. Inside, there are 4 SIMM slots. But when i added any memory, it was not recognized. Found out that you have to modify the ram sticks to make them compatible.
https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/tos … 02/#post-302678

The hard drive, 40MB of size, was working! So i backed it fully up and then replaced it with 512MB CF card as harddrive. The CF card is probably faster than that machine's RAM itself. 😁
The bios only supports 2 types of hard drives: 20MB and 40MB one. Nothing else. But i found from Toshiba laptop wiki a forth drive overlay to the ones i already know! Currently i'm aware of XT-IDE, OnTrack and EzDrive. The forth one is AnyDrive: http://www.steptail.com/toshiba_t-series_supp … s_and_resources
It's not quite a "full overlay", but more like a "bios settings overrider". You are still limited to whatever the bios can address. With this machine, the 504MB limit is still in place.

It seems to be very tiny and small, yet exactly what is needed. It does not autodetect the drive config, so when you set it up, you have to give CHS values yourself. You can use "Whatide" program to find out the exact numbers.

So, in the end, there's this portable Toshiba machine with red plasma screen, 12MHz 286, 3MB of RAM and ~500MB of storage space. What to do with that?
As agreed with the owner, DOS 5.0, Windows 3.1, Excel 5, Word 6 and bunch of games went on it.
I did some work beforehand in 86box, and... What should you set up for the IDE controller there? 86box does have this machine in its list, but it always complains about the not being able to initialize the HDD controller. I had to resort to some "generic 286" with CGA card to prepare some stuff, but it was somewhat restricting and i couldn't try out everything i would have wanted.

I sure hope he's going to enjoy this machine a lot now, remembering his younger years and, as he told me, will leave this as an inheritance for his son. I sure hope his son is also able to appreciate it. 😀

GigAHerZ wrote on 2024-06-29, 19:43:

...

And the machine in its full glory.

I liken building computers to shipbuilding. You put a ship together piece by piece, add and test systems, and finally one day everything has come together and the ship takes its first cruise under its own power. It may not be completely fitted out, a few things to tune up or fix or change, but its a ship now, not just a collection of parts.

And its the same for computers. I've been working on three - an 8088 Zenith, another based on a 286 board from a CNC machine, and a 386 machine based on a 16 bit ISA SBC and 6 slot backplane. The 386 came to life earlier this week, and I've actually done some gaming and MIDI stuff on it already, though its "case" (just a plexiglass plate) hasn't arrived yet. I had to overcome various issues to get that to happen.

I got a few needed parts yesterday and today, and today for the first time both the Zenith and the 286 machine successfully booted to their flash disks and I could run some basic programs on them. I still need to finish configuring their sound cards; the 286 is going to use a case currently in use by a Pentium II machine; those innards are going to move to a more modern case at least for now. And all three machines are awaiting memory upgrades - I have a 2MB Rambank board on the way for the Zenith, and 30-pin SIMMs on the way to boost the 286 to 4MB and the 386 to 16MB. But now they're actually computers, not just parts and problems (such as finding a BIOS for the 286 that would boot it like a regular PC, and learning how to program and choose EPROMs to do this). I'm looking forward to finishing them. 😀

I made a graph showing all CPU's (in Mhz) I had in the past, tinkered with in the past, or have in my collection (scale is log to go easy on those very old ones 😀 )

GigAHerZ wrote on 2024-06-29, 19:44:

GigAHerZ wrote on 2024-06-29, 19:43:

...

And the machine in its full glory.

Nice. That computer is awesome. Was close to buying one for no reason but I didn't. I never played around with any PC older that 486, so I'm curious, can the built in graphics display VGA on an external screen?

Having completed my Acer 386sx build and thought that I finally done , now the Acer CRT that was supposed to be pair with it are dying now. It’s ok for the first 30 minutes but the longer Im using, its getting blurry and blurry to the points of losing the visual after 1 hour.

Not sure if it can be save but to find the same monitor that goes with the 386sx set would be a daunting task.

Joakim wrote on 2024-06-30, 11:06:

GigAHerZ wrote on 2024-06-29, 19:44:

GigAHerZ wrote on 2024-06-29, 19:43:

...

And the machine in its full glory.

Nice. That computer is awesome. Was close to buying one for no reason but I didn't. I never played around with any PC older that 486, so I'm curious, can the built in graphics display VGA on an external screen?

The graphics card is CGA and the output port is also 9-pin CGA output port. Therefore no VGA or EGA here...
But it has an 8 bit ISA slot in it. You could add your own graphics card there... but it will not drive the plasma screen unfortunately.

I'm in a look for some kind of 8 bit ISA network card that is short enough so it could fit into it. The owner was more interested in network card than in any sound card. But i've not stumbled on any 8 bit short network card yet...

[In-progress] Repair of Intel Batman's Revenge Motherboard for 1st-Gen Pentium 1 60 MHz processor!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdFA1vacXWM

Details -
Re: Pls Guide: [00] POST CODE - Pentium 60 MHz + Batman's Revenge Motherboard