A while back, I got a Sanyo MBC550 motherboard, and I want to restore it at some point. The problem is that someone removed the keyboard and composite video connectors. Whoever did it desoldered the composite video connector, but was terribly lazy with the keyboard connector and simply cut it off the board.
Since the motherboard is two-layered, it's easy to follow the lines. But I haven't found a suitable photo of the underside.
I sent images (and some references to software, info and the bios) of mine to theretroweb (I edited the cut part in the image from above, cloning the other connector) for a new entry.
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/sanyo-fs-555d
https://theretroweb.com/motherboard/image/san … f8547383519.jpg
https://theretroweb.com/motherboard/image/san … 15061121590.jpg
So, I would appreciate it if anyone has a full picture of the underside with enough detail , or has this PC and could take a detailed photo of that part of the board.
I have the schematics, and I can see the keyboard and controller connections, but an image would help me do the job even faster later.
Also, to make a better, more complete picture for the retroweb

Pondering whether to try some retrobriting. Picked up a "Sharper image sanitiser" which appears to be a UV-C unit with a 4W tube. Has perforated metal around it though, so not sure if it will do a mottled pattern. Has a 10 minute timer, not sure if that would be enough to zap an EEPROM or whether it would take 2 goes.

BitWrangler wrote on Today, 02:40:

Pondering whether to try some retrobriting. Picked up a "Sharper image sanitiser" which appears to be a UV-C unit with a 4W tube. Has perforated metal around it though, so not sure if it will do a mottled pattern. Has a 10 minute timer, not sure if that would be enough to zap an EEPROM or whether it would take 2 goes.

Haha! In a few days, I'll try a toothbrush sanitizer. So far, I've erased all my Eproms with a couple of weeks of sun exposure (shiny tropical sun, fast retrobrite is a bonus 😀 ). Since I have several of each type, I can do a few tests before needing to take a couple of weeks to erase some. Believe it or not, it's a bit difficult to get a dedicated eraser where I live, although it would be a bit easier for me now. I was also going to build one with UV LEDs, but now I can get this for free, if it works.

kinetix wrote on Today, 02:50:

BitWrangler wrote on Today, 02:40:

Pondering whether to try some retrobriting. Picked up a "Sharper image sanitiser" which appears to be a UV-C unit with a 4W tube. Has perforated metal around it though, so not sure if it will do a mottled pattern. Has a 10 minute timer, not sure if that would be enough to zap an EEPROM or whether it would take 2 goes.

Haha! In a few days, I'll try a toothbrush sanitizer. So far, I've erased all my Eproms with a couple of weeks of sun exposure (shiny tropical sun, and retrobrite is also fast 😀 ). Since I have several of each type, I can do a few tests before needing to take a couple of weeks to erase some. Believe it or not, it's a bit difficult to get a dedicated eraser where I live, although it would be a bit easier for me now. I was also going to build one with UV LEDs, but now I can get this for free, if it works.

Yeah I've got another UV device, a cellphone sanitiser that just seems a bit difficult... can't get an EEPROM to sit sideways in it to get close to emitter... just for phones slimmer than 10mm I guess. Has annoying lid interlock and smash to access construction, so didn't feel like re-engineering the whole damn thing yet.

Marathon fixed the 4 working mobos from this month's first lot:

- ABIT ST6-RAID - recap, one socket tab unfortunately broke off so might need constant supervision when using 462 coolers
- Gigabyte GA-6BXC rev2 - cleanup, BIOS IC, 2032 holder
- Soyo 6BA +III - recap
- DFI P2XBL Rev D - cleanup

I "got around" to making a proper/working serial cable for the "Poqet PC"
I acquired a few months back... and after some software work, am finally able
to move "stuff" onto the system!

The "Poqet PC" is an ancient (and TINY -large calculator size) 8088 DOS 3.3
system which runs on 2 AA batteries. It has:
C: is a ROMdrive with DOS, D: a 32k RAMdrive (minmal working space to boot),
The system has two "expansion slots" under the keyboard which happen to have
two "massive" 512k RAM based drives A: and B: which presumably will hold their
content long enough to change batteries.

It has no externally accessible drives, network or any other simple way to put
files on/off.. I had no way to transfer "stuff" to it.

The only usable I/O is a single serial port. But.. this as well as a few
expansion signals are on a "unique" slot connector on the back.

I didn't have the Poqet serial cable (or any other expansion accessories), but
I did find that a PCI card edge connector was the right spacing, and was able
to make a cut-down section to connect to the end which has the serial port
signals and worked out the signals and confirmed that they are standard RS-232.

But.. I didn't have the "other" side of Poqet tools to actually transfer files!
No problem: I can use my own DDLINK which can "bootstrap" itself to a new
system via a serial cable - but for some reason that wouldn't work.

In the interest of "faster" I had made to bootstrap loader operate at 19200
bps - turns out that 4.77mhz 8088/DOS couldn't keep up... (I must not have had
such an old/slow system by the time I developed DDLINK)

So I modified DDLINK to allow the bootstrap transfer speed to be changed (and
defaulted it to 9600bps.

Now-a-days when testing little tools for "real" DOS, I often use my own DBDOS
to boot DOS under DosBox and in this case communicate with another instance of
DosBox running on the host via it's "nullmodem" feature...

In testing the modified DDLINK, I found what appears to be a DosBox BUG!
Turns out if you connect a "nullmodem" serial, then "config -r .." to restart
DosBox, It doesn't release that connection before the "new instance" while
initializing, tries to make it again (and fails because the connection is
already busy) - I had to modify DBDOS to NOT make the connection on first
launch (where you make selections/settings) and make it on the restart so
that the booted DOS would see it.

A fun day!