ubiq wrote on 2025-10-19, 00:50:Messing around with my "mini-ITX" Socket 7 machine today. I've gone back and forth on the exact specs, but I think I've settled […]
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Messing around with my "mini-ITX" Socket 7 machine today. I've gone back and forth on the exact specs, but I think I've settled on a "1996" vibe for this one. So, Pentium 166 (non-MMX) and a AWE 64. I have a Diamond Stealth 3D (ViRGE) card that would have been nice to get in there, but VGA connector is on the far left of the card and wouldn't fit - so, sticking with the Stealth 64 (which is the card I had back in the day, so it's all good).
Since I was also replacing a dead HD, and 1996 < 1998, I decided to go with Windows 95 and... wow. It is so much less refined than Win98, I had completely forgotten. Just getting basic drivers loaded was a chore. Now that I think about it, I've probably not used Windows 95 since well.. 1998. I did get everything working, including the PicoGUS's CDROM and MPU-401 support, as well as USB (though that's functionally useless in Win95). Not sure there's any point in sticking it out with Windows 95 other than sheer stubbornness.
Also added a PS2 mouse connector - tight fit, but it works!
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(The P166 has a permanent passive heatsink on it)
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Yeah windows 95 was a quantum leap at the time but things like the driver updater are very painful by modern standards. Most builds I use Windows 98, especially on anything that has USB support. That case looks so awesome, what did you use to cut the ATX backplate?
I have been checking out the Toshiba Tecra 8200 laptops lately - they all have bad batteries and I think I understand why now. The battery is rather basic compared to modern lithium batteries, specifically there is no smart charging chip to cut off the cells fully from the laptop and it always outputs? My thinking is that the laptop keeps trying to draw power and eventually ruins the cells. All 3 PA3062U battery packs I've seen had at least one bad pair of cells where there is visible corrosion / leakage from the cells which ruins the cells and any nearby solder.
Interestingly the same thing happened on a Toshiba Tecra 8100 which is a similar pack, there might be something wrong with Sony's cells (US18650GR G3A) or the pack design, I think it's the latter.
This most recent one I got had only 2 bad cells and the previous one I got had 2 still working cells with ~1400mah capacity out of 1800mah design capacity. So I jammed them together by removing the 2x bad cells and spot welding in the 2x working cells from the other battery and this Toshiba battery is so simple it just has no idea of what I did.
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Most other battery packs would require the controller to be reset but these Toshiba packs only really contain an EEPROM and a basic voltage cutoff chip (MM1309)
The Tecra 8200 is pretty interesting, the top spec (900MHz & 1GHz) models get a 1400x1050 screen which has enough resolution to do perfect integer scaling of 640x480 and 320x200 with a fairly small black border. Shame that the Trident VGA is not great at least with the drivers from Toshiba, but it has Yamaha DS-XG audio which is behaving well with DOS games in Windows 98. The proper integer scaling has been wonderful for playing some 640x480 games like Diablo 1 😀