I've spent a lot of time testing the components I've purchased recently. Since these were all declared as good and tested, I wanted to know what condition the parts were in before storing them.

Surprisingly, most of it worked right away but I had a few problems with the ASUS P5A-B. To test the baby-AT motherboards I used the old IBM Model M keyboard.
While it did work just fine with the Soltek SL-54U5 the plug just didn’t fit into the DIN socket of the ASUS P5A-B. So I tried using the keyboard from my TA1700 80186 which did fit but didn’t work (missing keyboard error) - maybe that’s the same unidirectional pin layout as the IBM Model F.

Then I got in my workout, basement, attic, basement, attic, ..., I knew I had a DIN-PS/2-adapter on the Microsoft Natural Keyboard. It took me half an hour to find the keyboard but of course the adapter wasn’t connected. I'll just order a new adapter, then the old one will present itself after a short time anyway.

CMB75 wrote on 2024-11-19, 06:29:

I'll just order a new adapter, then the old one will present itself after a short time anyway.

Oh how many duplicate items I own because of stuff behaving like that 😅

For a few days now I've been on the lookout for a beige ATX case. Last year I put my Win 98 rig in a modern-ish white ZALMAN Z3 plus case for some reverse-sleeper laughs but the joke has run its course and I want something more period-correct.

Replaced this Pentium 166MHz non MMX processor with an MMX version.

After waiting 5 years to find a second matching GTX 285, i finally got my 285 SLI setup installed and working on my Core 2 rig.

Then I immediately changed back to the GTX 280s I was using before because they look way cooler* with their backplates.

*wahey!

…D’oh!

Just going to post a PSA here for everyone.

I am somewhat accident prone and I have gotten injured in some extremely pathetic ways, but this was a new one for me.

BE CAREFUL WITH CHEAP CIRCLE-CUT HEATSINKS LIKE THESE!

I picked one of these up, spun the fan once to check the bearings, spun it a second time and heard a tiny *clink* sound, felt a sharp pain and saw blood gushing out of the tip of my finger.

I have been injured on heatsinks before, but it usually requires a fair amount of force or doing something unwise (applying force to remove\attach one and then slipping for example). This was like I'd literally flicked my finger tip across a razor blade.

After looking at the heatsink at an angle I realized why. They must just drop a hole-saw like cutter down over these to cut the circle for the fan. For the fins near the left or right side of the circle it makes no difference, but toward the top the cuts are at extreme angles so the metal is super thin and razor sharp.

Anyway... figured I'd just throw this out there. This stuff makes me mad because one second I'm trying to do something productive or interesting with basically no sign of "danger" and then I am running to the bathroom with blood running down my finger. Now I will have to baby the index finger on my dominant hand for a few days at least. All because I spun a computer fan a second time. -_-

Lord of computing calamities, be it noted that our brother has offered the requisite blood sacrifice, and thus his hardware should remain problem free for the prescribed period, so mote it be.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-11-19, 21:55:

Lord of computing calamities, be it noted that our brother has offered the requisite blood sacrifice, and thus his hardware should remain problem free for the prescribed period, so mote it be.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Yeah, there is nothing like making unintentional blood sacrifices to computing gods.

"What!? No! No! I wasn't trying to do that!... also... OUCH!"

... though I guess it's kind of like sudden, unexpected burnt offerings of hardware as well.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-11-19, 22:11:

Yeah, there is nothing like making unintentional blood sacrifices to computing gods.

I discovered this week that those pins on Dallas chips are not only quite sharp, they make an interesting pattern in the skin when you stick an entire row of them into your finger. 🤕

Updated my QDI P6I440BX/B1S/2000 BIOS to the ones that are available for the standard (non-2000) version. Dunno why QDI literally re-released the B1s with a 2000 suffix since the only differences between them are PC99 colouring on the ports and a classic DIP32 BIOS chip instead of the soldered PLCC on the older B1S.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-11-19, 22:17:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-11-19, 22:11:

Yeah, there is nothing like making unintentional blood sacrifices to computing gods.

I discovered this week that those pins on Dallas chips are not only quite sharp, they make an interesting pattern in the skin when you stick an entire row of them into your finger. 🤕

Oof... I can both picture and feel it.

Like grabbing onto a CGA card from the mid 80s. Those solder points were so stinking sharp back then. What was the deal with that? 🤕

I started sorting my memory drawer, since it wasn't all fitting. There are so many types, it was becoming a mess. This is what I made:

These drawers fit it all much better AND I can still label them. Not ready for labels yet as I'm waiting on a few more drawers. I'll have a full SD tray (28 in a tray) and two DDR trays and two DDR2 trays. I should be able to half-fill a DDR3 tray and maybe make a DDR4 tray just to have 4 (or 6?) in it.

Major Jackyl wrote on 2024-11-21, 00:08:

I started sorting my memory drawer, since it wasn't all fitting. There are so many types, it was becoming a mess. This is what I made:

The attachment 20241120_175602.jpg is no longer available

These drawers fit it all much better AND I can still label them. Not ready for labels yet as I'm waiting on a few more drawers. I'll have a full SD tray (28 in a tray) and two DDR trays and two DDR2 trays. I should be able to half-fill a DDR3 tray and maybe make a DDR4 tray just to have 4 (or 6?) in it.

Looks so cool. Will you upload the 3dprint?

Don't talk to me or my son ever again

Because it's a long term project to get it and all of it's sidecards working without the information that's already on the SCSI drive, I've taken a nice little PCJr home with me. Hopefully I can get legible text out of it on my Apple Monitor II to let me do just enough archaeology to make it work.

Recapped this Trident 3DImage 9750 card with ELNA caps.

Updated some of my games with new or updated ports for Win32 (Win9x/XP and newer) for the Win32 Jam Autumn 2024 on Itch.io (shameless plug!):

• Loonies now has a build for Win9x (using SDL 1.2) and WinXP (using SDL 2.0), it uses OpenGL 1.1
• chro.mono 2 now has a Windows build, for WinXP (using SDL 2.0) only, it uses OpenGL 2.0 with FBO extension
• Dzzee has an updated build for Windows (universal, using the Win32 API directly), with all the APIs (GDI, DDraw, Glide, D3D, OpenGL)

The Win9x builds are for i586, so should also work on AMD K6, the other builds require i686, i.e. Pentium 2 or Athlon onwards. I've tested those on Win98SE (with a GeForce 6200) and WinME (with a S3 UniChrome Pro) as well as WinXP (with a GeForce 6200 as well as GeForce 9400M on a different machine). All these also still run fine in Windows 11 on ARM (VMWare Fusion) - the Win32 API really lets one cover quite a big range of operating systems this way.

I've used the mingw-w64-build script by Zeranoe for the toolchain. The way to get a toolchain that builds for Win9x is to pass

1--with-default-win32-winnt=0x400

(NT4, but seems to work for Win98SE as well) when configuring/installing the headers, and

1--with-default-win32-winnt=0x501

can be used to build a toolchain that targets Windows XP. By default, the toolchain seems to target Windows Server 2003 or something along those lines, which means the built binaries are not (necessarily) compatible with Windows XP or even 9x. Still, it's nice to have an up-to-date toolchain with modern C and C++ support and not have to rely on old versions of Visual Studio, Borland or Watcom.

I have been testing my recent acquisition - Asus PVI-486SP3
Working like champ with highest memory timings on 40MHZ FSB.
I have seen posts saying that VLB implementation is slow on this board but my testing results against my SIS471 based pure blood VLB board are about the same. VLB by nature suppose to be direct 486 bus implementation after all. Should be the same.

I also got with board am486dx4-120 CPU. Found chipset sink in my spare bin. With drop of MX-4 and gravity it looks like it is able to keep temps under control in my "open bench" case.

zuldan wrote on 2024-11-21, 02:01:

Major Jackyl wrote on 2024-11-21, 00:08:

I started sorting my memory drawer, since it wasn't all fitting. There are so many types, it was becoming a mess. This is what I made:

The attachment 20241120_175602.jpg is no longer available

These drawers fit it all much better AND I can still label them. Not ready for labels yet as I'm waiting on a few more drawers. I'll have a full SD tray (28 in a tray) and two DDR trays and two DDR2 trays. I should be able to half-fill a DDR3 tray and maybe make a DDR4 tray just to have 4 (or 6?) in it.

Looks so cool. Will you upload the 3dprint?

Yes! I have lots of fun goodies I'm going to share in this 3D print topic:Retro 3D print topic

2 activities: Bought Zire Palm PocketPC and Retroid 4 Pro.

The second bought this huge Lego Inovation System set and its epic. With the CDs, wow how much '98 was awesome in tech and gaming.

TheChexWarrior wrote on 2024-11-23, 20:50:

2 activities: Bought Zire Palm PocketPC and Retroid 4 Pro.

Nice! I have a Retroid Pocket 2 and a Retroid Pocket 3+. My son likes playing them from time to time, although mostly he plays the Nintendo Switch.