Ok that first one triggered me.

I got a cheap and slightly ugly serial mouse off of ebay and installed it on my 286. I will still solder the PS/2 to RS232 converter, but this is a nice backup.

Here are my ramblings on YouTube on this experience:

https://youtu.be/9jlClYQFhbA

oeuvre wrote:

Pictures of how it came out?

The paint color was not exactly what I was hoping for, but definitely an improvement. Would have been ideal if I had perfect matching drives, but I use what I have. At least it looks clean now.

Before:

After:

liqmat wrote:

The paint color was not exactly what I was hoping for, but definitely an improvement. Would have been ideal if I had perfect mat […]
Show full quote

oeuvre wrote:

Pictures of how it came out?

The paint color was not exactly what I was hoping for, but definitely an improvement. Would have been ideal if I had perfect matching drives, but I use what I have. At least it looks clean now.

Before:

IMG_1339.JPG

After:

06F75331-D31A-4C37-A9C7-7809F18B0E47.jpeg

Which part did you actually paint and with what paint, again?

appiah4 wrote:

Which part did you actually paint and with what paint, again?

The metal slide case. About four coats of spray paint so it looks even. The rest I just cleaned thoroughly.

What retro activity did you get up to today?

It looks pretty good, how the the texture?

It's a matte finish with a fine rough texture. I am considering one more coat with more of an eggshell/gloss finish so dirt wont stick to it as easily.

SSTV2 wrote:

Geez, he did not break his cat in half, why everybody is so concerned about some common laptop. […]
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Geez, he did not break his cat in half, why everybody is so concerned about some common laptop.

Here are some refreshing videos for those in concern:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLqTSUI-NdU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3OlkwESmYM

I can't. I just can't. 😢

Anywho, I got my Pentium MMX 233MHz in the mail today - the first part in my first-ever all-DOS PC build (maybe a little Windows down the line; who knows). 😀

Not the most directly retro thing, but I just discovered that Home Depot has 50-packs of 2" corner braces for $10.95 CA and picked up a pack along with some #6 screws for them.

Great news for whenever I want to build more custom furniture for my collection out of scrap wood. (Typically, mounting the descenders for keyboard trays to the underside of the table surface or doing the base framing for free-standing shelving.)

liqmat wrote:

The paint color was not exactly what I was hoping for, but definitely an improvement. Would have been ideal if I had perfect mat […]
Show full quote

oeuvre wrote:

Pictures of how it came out?

The paint color was not exactly what I was hoping for, but definitely an improvement. Would have been ideal if I had perfect matching drives, but I use what I have. At least it looks clean now.

Before:

IMG_1339.JPG

After:

06F75331-D31A-4C37-A9C7-7809F18B0E47.jpeg

Looks like new! Great work. Thanks for keeping us posted

liqmat wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

Which part did you actually paint and with what paint, again?

The metal slide case. About four coats of spray paint so it looks even. The rest I just cleaned thoroughly.

What retro activity did you get up to today?

Did you sand down the old paint first?

appiah4 wrote:

liqmat wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

Which part did you actually paint and with what paint, again?

The metal slide case. About four coats of spray paint so it looks even. The rest I just cleaned thoroughly.

What retro activity did you get up to today?

Did you sand down the old paint first?

I didn't. I cleaned the surface of the metal thoroughly and as you can see from the "before" photo it was heavily stained. It's the first time I have had to paint a case so I have been learning as I go. The texture of the existing paint had a fine rough texture that made a good base once cleaned. The paint I used adhered nicely and I scratched the first coat to make sure it did not flake off before adding the additional coats. I held the paint can about a foot away from the case so no dripping would occur and made sure to let each coat dry for a few hours in a cool, dry room. I also applied each coat of paint one side at a time so it took a few days to complete. Painted in a grid pattern on each side so the paint would look evenly spread once it dried. I am down in Florida right now and the 95F high humidity weather does not allow me to let it dry outside. Like I said, I am probably going to add another coat of semi-gloss paint to give it a slight shine so dirt can be easily wiped off in the future. If I were to do it again I would probably just lay down two coats of primer or matte paint and then two coats of semi-gloss.

I did run into the "oh crap, one of my arm hairs dropped in the paint and now it's dry" and I had to pluck it out with tweezers, smooth it out and repaint that area. I also did not check an area the next day for surface debris, painted over it and once again had to pluck the debris off, smooth and repaint. I certainly didn't want a hairy case. Hmmm... shag carpet glued to the case... could be good for a 70s retro build maybe.

At least mine looks better than this...

https://imgur.com/a/WQnFs#LoDTu

liqmat wrote:

The paint color was not exactly what I was hoping for, but definitely an improvement. Would have been ideal if I had perfect mat […]
Show full quote

oeuvre wrote:

Pictures of how it came out?

The paint color was not exactly what I was hoping for, but definitely an improvement. Would have been ideal if I had perfect matching drives, but I use what I have. At least it looks clean now.

Before:
IMG_1339.JPG

After:
06F75331-D31A-4C37-A9C7-7809F18B0E47.jpeg

It looks pretty good. Nice work.

Charger came today, plugged it in, and the machine works!

Got this guy in the mail for my Socket 7 DOS PC gaming build I'm working on from the Philippines - an Asus TX97-XE.

It has everything I could think of for such a build: 4 ISA slots (for maximum ISA expandability - well, as much as I can think of at the moment), it fits the modern ATX form factor perfectly (a big plus), and it's Asus (I mean, to be honest, all of the desktop PCs I use in my house have Asus motherboards in them - I trust Asus that much 😀 - but stay away from the Asus P5E-VM DO motherboard, because that motherboard never received a BIOS that accurately detected fan speeds).

It also came with a mystery RAM stick and CPU installed. Guess what? It came with an Intel Pentium MMX 233MHz. You know what CPU I bought for this build? An Intel Pentium MMX 233MHz. You could say I'm damn lucky. 😀

Still waiting for a boat-load of parts to come in the mail for this build. However, I also got today the PC case (a Cougar Solution ATX mid-tower - the same PC case that I used for my Pentium 3 build; highly recommended for retro builds), a StarTech 3.5" CF-to-IDE bay, and a SanDisk Ultra 8GB CF card. Installed two OEM 3-pin/Molex fans I had laying around into the front of the case, installed the CF-to-IDE bay into a StarTech 3.5" to 5.25" bay that I took out of my Pentium 4 build and installed that into the case, and installed the EVGA 430W 80+ White PSU that I had originally used for my P3 build.

It's a slow-but-steady progress. 😀

Still operating in Amiga land these days. In the near future, I am going back to play with my PC's. I like to do different platforms and I am thinking of hooking up my C64 as well. There are some things I need to investigate. Like going through old C64 magazines, and look for basic code to try out.

Today I played Civilization for OCS/ECS chipset. Then I tried different kinds of word processors on my Amiga600. I found a couple of versions of Protracker and wrote the ADF files to disk. I really need to look for those 4-channel mod files, that I have stored on a USB harddrive somewere. Finally I have begun to hunt down demo's for Amiga500 machines. I am waiting for my ScanPlusECS internal scandoubler to arive in the mail, in order to connect my Amiga500 to a standard VGA monitor.

Decided I didn't want to get into "collecting" (amassing) physical games for my unexpected new Wii, so I modded the hell out of it. Letterbomb + Priiloader + region free hack + Homebrew Channel + cIOS + USB Loader GX + Nintendont + onboard WAD manager + NAND flash emulation on SD + a ton of homebrew, ports (including Descent, Tyrian, Jazz Jackrabbit, ScummVM and even Schism Tracker of all things) & emulators. It now sports a 160GB HDD I found in a junked laptop at work and a 16GB SD card I had lying around.

Granted, setting it all up took most of a day (learning curve), but that effort was intermittent between working on other things. Totally worth it though - i'm still only $34 into this thing and it's one of the most capable consoles on my shelf.

^^ here it is running Gradius III like a pro. I still suck at this game though.

BTW check out how the UV LEDs in the sensor bar are bright as hell through my phone's camera. They're those two rows of lights on top of the TV. You can even see some lens flares (purple splotches) right above them.

And yes, it runs Doom:

...although that's the shitty SNES version pictured above. 😜 (There are multiple native ports but I figured this was more fun.)

I'm not overly interested in a lot of the "house brand" Nintendo titles (Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, etc.), except for maybe Metroid and F-Zero, so blowing it open to run everything under the sun was pretty awesome. Just need a proper Gamecube controller & I'm set.

Testing out my new ScanPlusECS scandoubler for my Amiga500. And it is really good. Though there are some con's, yet not anything bad.

On the plus side:
It will deliver smooth scrolling at 50hz. And I do mean smooth scrolling. The vertical scrolling of the introtext in Pinball Dreams are smooth as butter, as well as the scrolling on each pinball tables. Small details on the pinball tables does not flicker when the table scrolls up and down. The 50hz sync can be an disadvantage as well. I will address it a bit later as to why. As said. Smooth verical scrolling, and it has no lag whatsoever. Compared to a flatscreen tv that has a millisecond or two of lag. The image quality is less saturated in color, and details stand out better on a vga monitor. I can reattach the top part of the RF shield inside the Amiga, though I have to remove a tiny bit on the top-shield. The little shield that are mounted around the zorro-slot can be reattached as well.

The negative part:
The scandoubler puts out 50hz. Resulting in not all CRT/TFT monitors can be used. As an example, I have the following flatscreen monitors: 17 inch Samsung, a 17 inch IBM and a 21 inch IBM. Only the 21 inch IBM can be used, and I need to put the signal through one of those 4-way vga signal splitter boxes. It is a 150mhz box. Then the image will stand perfect, with smooth scrolling and fill the entire screen right to the border/bezel. If I do not put the signal through the splitterbox, the picture will have awefull vertical lines all over. Yet it is no big deal, as I have it hooked up all the time, because some ISA VGA cards will loose signal, and force the monitor into sleep mode. The box solved that issue. The last negative part, is that white is not 100% white. It has a slight grey'ish tint to it, and red are not bright red. Though I can not remember if the games logo/artwork in the intro of pinball dreams, was supposed to be red (like a firetruck) or slight pinkish purple (light red). As long as the details are more visible, and there are no lag and it has smooth scrolling, then I am fine with the colors being slightly off.

Conclusion...
If you only have an Amiga500 or Amiga2000, and the correct setup. Then this scandoubler is just a wonderfull little upgrade. Cost less than the IndevisionECS, and it is still avaliable as brand new. It has only one single jumper, that you need to set, depending on the Amiga being an OCS or ECS model.

EDIT:
Just googled pinball dreams to investigate how the colours are supposed to be displayed. And yeah... Looks like the ScanPlusECS reproduces them correctly. It is the TV (flatscreen HD-Ready) that are oversaturating the colours. That is a plus in favour of the scandoubler.

oeuvre wrote:

Charger came today, plugged it in, and the machine works!

It seems to be in great shape. Hope you can get it to work with the Toshiba wallpapers and logos.

I did! Thanks again Toshiba Tecra 780CDM