BetaC wrote:

FAMICOMASTER wrote:

BetaC wrote:

I also managed to use a Wii to copy the save off of my Pokemon Emerald cartridge. I'll probably inject all those events that are almost 15 years out of date.

I'm most interested in hearing how you pulled this off.

If you have an OEM GBA Link Cable, you can use https://github.com/FIX94/gba-link-cable-dumper/releases to dump and restore saves, dump games slowly, and even grab your BIOS. It works on both the Gamecube and Wiis that have the GC ports available. All you need to do for the Wii version is grab a meta.xml file and rename it to Boot.dol.

Huh, that's pretty interesting, I'd never want to do that, since I have a SuperCard and a DS Lite to dump games in a minute or two to SD card, but it's good to know you can!

FAMICOMASTER wrote:

Huh, that's pretty interesting, I'd never want to do that, since I have a SuperCard and a DS Lite to dump games in a minute or two to SD card, but it's good to know you can!

I don't have a flash cart for my DSes, mostly because I have all the DS games that I want, and I can use a 3DS to mess around with the save files for those.

Recently a seller on eBay was selling brand new Panasonic 1.2mb 5 1/4 floppy disk drives. Even though I have absolutely no use for it, since I don't have a single 5 1/4 disk anymore, I figured however, that my low-profile 286 build (brand new case) should have a 5 1/4 inch drive in it. So bought one and installed it today.

As you can see in the image. I have two of the exact same low-profile cases. The top one is my 386DX40, in which tomorrow I will be installing a brand new Creative 4x speed CDROM drive.

I hope I have some time in the future to do a proper photo tour of both systems.

PS: The bottom system, the Lian Li case, is my main system with i7 32gb bla bla running Linux..

PS2: Apologies for the dust. I keep cleaning it but it seems to come back with a vengeance each time... 😢

PS3: I wish they made beige GoTek's...

PS4: Yes, I also have a GoTek in my main system. Easy for copying...

Cool. What dust?

Caluser2000 wrote:

Cool. What dust?

Ah. I see you've become immune to the sight of dust. 🤣

Just look on the right table corner, above the Lian Li logo, the Nexus 5 that sits on top of the iPod Touch... 😐

pan069 wrote:

Recently a seller on eBay was selling brand new Panasonic 1.2mb 5 1/4 floppy disk drives. Even though I have absolutely no use f […]
Show full quote

Recently a seller on eBay was selling brand new Panasonic 1.2mb 5 1/4 floppy disk drives. Even though I have absolutely no use for it, since I don't have a single 5 1/4 disk anymore, I figured however, that my low-profile 286 build (brand new case) should have a 5 1/4 inch drive in it. So bought one and installed it today.

As you can see in the image. I have two of the exact same low-profile cases. The top one is my 386DX40, in which tomorrow I will be installing a brand new Creative 4x speed CDROM drive.

I hope I have some time in the future to do a proper photo tour of both systems.

PS: The bottom system, the Lian Li case, is my main system with i7 32gb bla bla running Linux..

PS2: Apologies for the dust. I keep cleaning it but it seems to come back with a vengeance each time... 😢

PS3: I wish they made beige GoTek's...

PS4: Yes, I also have a GoTek in my main system. Easy for copying...

Those desktop cases are absolutely lovely, any idea about make/model? 😀

How do you connect the Gotek in a Core i class system? Catweasel? Or even found a working PCIe floppy controller?

kaputnik wrote:

Those desktop cases are absolutely lovely, any idea about make/model? 😀

Unfortunately they are completely anonymous. 😢

kaputnik wrote:

How do you connect the Gotek in a Core i class system? Catweasel? Or even found a working PCIe floppy controller?

Oh, my mobo has a floppy connector. It's not a state of the art config. 😀

pan069 wrote:

kaputnik wrote:

How do you connect the Gotek in a Core i class system? Catweasel? Or even found a working PCIe floppy controller?

Oh, my mobo has a floppy connector. It's not a state of the art config. 😀

my x58 board also still has a floppy controller on board... and then I've also seen PCI floppy controllers though not a lot, some newer boards still have PCI... or you could just attach a usb floppy adapter/or usb gotek to an internal header ^^

I think X58 boards only support one floppy drive though. What do you do if you want two?

Errius wrote:

I think X58 boards only support one floppy drive though. What do you do if you want two?

You can usually connect two drives on a single connector. Just get a cable that supports two drives (make sure the cable has the twist).

pan069 wrote:

Errius wrote:

I think X58 boards only support one floppy drive though. What do you do if you want two?

You can usually connect two drives on a single connector. Just get a cable that supports two drives (make sure the cable has the twist).

The problem is the BIOS. The C2D era bios'es only support ONE drive. I got around this by using a USB 3.5 drive and leaving the 5.25 on the board.

*Someday" I will find more desktop cases. Or find a nearby swap meet to trade old towers for old desktop cases, especially all these very popular minitowers.

I am not doing much in Retro-land because I just had a major surgery and was in the hospital for a month. Takes a lot out of you.

Hope to spend some time plotting my eventual pared-down setup, as I got a lot of stuff over last winter and am kind of overloaded. I guess that's my retro activity.

Non-retro I'm researching SATA port multipliers because I have a ****-ton on 2.5" 500Gb and 750Gb drives and I'd like to add them to my file server's disk pool (or create a NAS with a separate disk pool).

I wouldn't go for a multiplier if I were you - I would get a cheap RAID controller or two and stick all of the disks onto that. Hope your PSU can handle it.

FAMICOMASTER wrote:

I wouldn't go for a multiplier if I were you - I would get a cheap RAID controller or two and stick all of the disks onto that. Hope your PSU can handle it.

Well, I'm not doing RAID, and the point of this is to be super-cheap, and speed is not so much an issue. As far as I can tell, the genuinely cheap SATA controllers *are* port multipliers anyway. It would also be 3-4 cards, and thus 3-4 slots, for most of what I see.

If I find decent very cheap (like <$20) true SATA controllers that would be an option. As I say I don't need RAID - but the market for this kind of thing is small - it seems like most of what's out there are cheap
"multipliers on a card" and very expensive server-grade RAID stuff, and not much between.

Yeah I have some hefty PSUs, too. 20 2.5" HDDs should be less than 60 watts anyway, maybe less than 50. And they would usually be hit one or two at a time.

Finding a place to securely mount them will be interesting.

Merovign wrote:

Well, I'm not doing RAID, and the point of this is to be super-cheap, and speed is not so much an issue. As far as I can tell, t […]
Show full quote

FAMICOMASTER wrote:

I wouldn't go for a multiplier if I were you - I would get a cheap RAID controller or two and stick all of the disks onto that. Hope your PSU can handle it.

Well, I'm not doing RAID, and the point of this is to be super-cheap, and speed is not so much an issue. As far as I can tell, the genuinely cheap SATA controllers *are* port multipliers anyway. It would also be 3-4 cards, and thus 3-4 slots, for most of what I see.

If I find decent very cheap (like <$20) true SATA controllers that would be an option. As I say I don't need RAID - but the market for this kind of thing is small - it seems like most of what's out there are cheap
"multipliers on a card" and very expensive server-grade RAID stuff, and not much between.

Yeah I have some hefty PSUs, too. 20 2.5" HDDs should be less than 60 watts anyway, maybe less than 50. And they would usually be hit one or two at a time.

Finding a place to securely mount them will be interesting.

Mounting would be really fun. You might have luck getting 2.5 to 3.5 brackets and having 2 drives per 3.5 bracket. I know they make 5.25 to 3.5 and 2x 2.5 brackets, you might have luck using a 5.25 bracket like that, mounting 2 of the drives in that, then a 2.5 to 3.5 bracket, and mounting two more in that. Four drives per 5.25 bay.

I don't know how well performing 2.5" HDDs will be for any purpose, especially if they were cheap.

If I were you, I would skip getting 3-4 port splitters and just go for one really nice RAID controller, attaching every drive to the one controller and using them all as one big array.
Wouldn't be for the speed gains, but one $50 controller is cheaper than four $20 adapters.

FAMICOMASTER wrote:

Mounting would be really fun. You might have luck getting 2.5 to 3.5 brackets and having 2 drives per 3.5 bracket. I know they m […]
Show full quote

Mounting would be really fun. You might have luck getting 2.5 to 3.5 brackets and having 2 drives per 3.5 bracket. I know they make 5.25 to 3.5 and 2x 2.5 brackets, you might have luck using a 5.25 bracket like that, mounting 2 of the drives in that, then a 2.5 to 3.5 bracket, and mounting two more in that. Four drives per 5.25 bay.

I don't know how well performing 2.5" HDDs will be for any purpose, especially if they were cheap.

If I were you, I would skip getting 3-4 port splitters and just go for one really nice RAID controller, attaching every drive to the one controller and using them all as one big array.
Wouldn't be for the speed gains, but one $50 controller is cheaper than four $20 adapters.

I think I figured out mounting, though it will require a little fabrication - I think I can mount the drives vertically, with a little airspace, and have a fan at the front, just having the front of the drive in a plastic slot on the bottom with a plastic bracket, in groups of 5 or so.

The drives are legit low mileage WD Blues from decommissioned hardware that was only ever tested, not deployed.

Anyway, you have to remember we're talking about *20* drives here, so that's a minimum of 3 8-port controllers. Plus the breakout cables if they use those (most 8-port controllers I've seen do).

And 3 PCIe slots, and practically 4x or better PCIe slots.

The multipliers would be slow, but I won't need another motherboard.

Unless there's a 20-port PCIe SATA controller I'm not aware of for $50. (I found a 32-port card for $320.)

Edit: Obligatory retro content:

I used to have one of those, sold it to a museum.

And here's a very Knight Rider mini from the early 80s:

Suddenly felt the urge to play F.E.A.R., but couldn't get it working 100% on Win10. So, I installed it on my PIII and played for a couple hours. The performance was actually much better than expected!

Do you really need all 20?

If so, I really can't help you there. I though you were talking about 5 or 6.

FAMICOMASTER wrote:

Do you really need all 20?

If so, I really can't help you there. I though you were talking about 5 or 6.

Just trying to find a use for these *stacks* of low-mileage 500gb and 750gb WD Blues. 6 of them would not be enough to back up my current file server, which is part of my goal.

I had planned on new parts, but there are used 12- and 24-port SATA/SAS cards on the used market. I'd have to save up, so it won't be really soon.

Retro:

A couple of people on eBay are selling a bunch of C64 and C64c case/chassis. I was looking for AT desktop cases, and then realized I can't do anything with one right now anyway. 🙁 I hate reflexive searching.

Today I installed that Creative 4x speed drive into my 386. Works perfectly fine.

More pics of the drive itself: Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today