VOGONS


Reply 13840 of 27182, by Bruninho

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Last night I attempted to do a new VMWare instance with Windows For Workgroups 3.11. This time I was successful (after some lost nights and headaches), the thing is damn unstable, but now works. The trick was to save a snapshot before installing anything, so I could roll back if things went wrong. I've installed a lot of games and software so I expect to have some real fun with it this weekend. Can't wait to paint some cars for Grand Prix 2 on Adobe Photoshop 3.05... hahahaha

Latest version of VMWare Fusion now includes SB16 emulation for the first time, and it's a very good one, far superior than Virtualbox, Oracle should be ashamed of that. Oracle fails to make it work on macOS since version 5.x, but they aren't bothered anyway. Still, both software cannot beat the way superior DOSBox's SB16 emulation IMO. If only DOSBox with NE2000 patch worked with wifi, then it would be my #1 choice for retro emulation.

"Design isn't just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
JOBS, Steve.
READ: Right to Repair sucks and is illegal!

Reply 13841 of 27182, by derSammler

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derSammler wrote on 2020-01-02, 14:42:

I'll share all modifications I do for other CPUs, of course.

Next one designed, this time for Pentium Pro:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4082085

Quite a bit of space wasted to retain stackability, but how many Pentium Pros does one own anyway? 😁

Reply 13844 of 27182, by gdjacobs

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derSammler wrote on 2020-01-03, 16:05:

Me too. 😉

Tray for the 68040/060 fits nicely. 😀

For a split second, I thought that was an IBM Power4 MCM.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 13846 of 27182, by wiretap

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Converted my weird BTC 5100C to a 5-pin DIN instead of the oddball 6-pin DIN. Removed the PIC processor which does some conversion for an unknown keyboard type, moved the connector to the keyboard controller board, then soldered on a metal 5-pin DIN connector.

Solder work:
wl6qlIih.jpg

And here's the keyboard in front of my dusty 10" SVGA CRT, along with a 40% keyboard I just built a few days ago. (wife got me the 40% parts for Christmas):
d3RP7uth.jpg

My Github
Circuit Board Repair Manuals

Reply 13847 of 27182, by jheronimus

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My girlfriend gave me a TS100 for New Year — my very first soldering iron. Today I went to an electronics market with my friend and got everything else needed for the job. By the end of the day here's what I've managed to do:

kxHBegJm.jpg
JY8ltt1m.jpg

So maybe not the most impressive soldering job to be shown on Vogons, but it's the first I've ever done 😀 I've replaced barrel batteries on two 386 boards today.

Then I've proceeded to deal with this:

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This is the original SoundBlaster, and the previous owner decided to mod the card to accept CD audio, I guess? Well, it's useless to me and looked very nasty, so I removed the wires. Also finally tested the card with the Ultima 6 intro — it works great!

So it's probably not my place to review the TS100, but I really liked working with this gadget. I've reflashed it with Ralim firmware, and the device became very user-friendly. I instantly got used to the controls, they feel pretty natural to me, and the device lies nicely in my hand.

Next steps: I still have some boards with barrel batteries and I would like to convert them to CR2032 using a battery holder and a diode. I would also like to mod some of my 386 boards to have sockets for an oscillator chip. Then I have some soundcards and motherboards that need new capacitors. Eventually I want to replace SIMM sockets on most of my AWE32 cards and then the ultimate challenge for me would be to build a card like an AdLib replica.

MR BIOS catalog
Unicore catalog

Reply 13848 of 27182, by liqmat

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Some of you might remember, way back when, I offered a bounty on Vogons for a newer version of ITT Xtra DOS which has tools to get a proprietary ITT memory board working. A copy finally turned up on Ebay and I was able to successfully image the disks. Once I scan everything in I will get those up to minuszerodegrees.com.

Also, I have been testing a new old stock Cardinal CP600 dumb terminal (circa 1988). Only has composite out, but looks like a clean video signal. Unfortunately, on a LCD TV, the video signal from the unit is blinking on and off like a reset alarm clock after the electricity goes off and on. Don't know if it's something bad on the terminal's PCB or the signal is having trouble being interpreted by the LCD. Will test that tomorrow on a CRT.

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Reply 13849 of 27182, by Bruninho

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Wow! The thing is looking like brand new!

"Design isn't just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
JOBS, Steve.
READ: Right to Repair sucks and is illegal!

Reply 13850 of 27182, by Caluser2000

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Relocating some of my less used kit to the garage so a bit longer to walk to get stuff. I put it off for as long as I could. Having three extra members in the house hold takes it's toll eventually.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 13851 of 27182, by gdjacobs

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jheronimus wrote on 2020-01-03, 23:45:
My girlfriend gave me a TS100 for New Year — my very first soldering iron. Today I went to an electronics market with my friend […]
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My girlfriend gave me a TS100 for New Year — my very first soldering iron. Today I went to an electronics market with my friend and got everything else needed for the job. By the end of the day here's what I've managed to do:

kxHBegJm.jpg
JY8ltt1m.jpg

So maybe not the most impressive soldering job to be shown on Vogons, but it's the first I've ever done 😀 I've replaced barrel batteries on two 386 boards today.

It's a nice iron. Tell her she made a great choice.

Looks like you're running with enough heat, but don't be too stingy with the flux. It's essential for your solder to flow properly. In short, nice start!

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 13852 of 27182, by TheAbandonwareGuy

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Can I get an ELI5 on why Amigas are so expensive compared to basically every other vintage PC? It seems the cheapest HDD equipped models go for around $500 USD.

Cyb3rst0rms Retro Hardware Warzone: https://discord.gg/jK8uvR4c
I used to own over 160 graphics card, I've since recovered from graphics card addiction

Reply 13853 of 27182, by diagon_swarm

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"Fixing" the dead battery issue in a Dallas chip using a cheap $1 knife...

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Vintage computers / SGI / PC and UNIX workstation OpenGL performance comparison

Reply 13855 of 27182, by bjwil1991

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Impressive. Very nice.

Decided to open up the Sony Trinitron PVM-9L1 that's facing composite issues. Some of the solder leads didn't look good, so I did a reflow and it still doesn't work. S-video and audio function without issues, though, so it's no big deal. Also plugged my C64 into the PVM and the picture is still sharp with my homemade A/V cable.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 13856 of 27182, by diagon_swarm

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derSammler wrote on 2020-01-04, 09:12:

That surely works, but I prefer to do it right and make it look good.

It looks like the original battery is still inside. If so, I would not consider it done right.

Btw this is not the final stage - I will cover the internals of the chips and add a proper battery holder. This was just a quick test - the battery inside started to "expand" and there were small signs of corrosion on the battery contacts. Thus, I didn't want to wait with the removal of the battery.

Vintage computers / SGI / PC and UNIX workstation OpenGL performance comparison

Reply 13857 of 27182, by derSammler

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The internal battery is disconnected. There's no need to remove it by destroying half of the chip. And there's no need to worry about leakage. This won't happen (to anyone: show me a Dallas chip with a leaked battery that caused even slight damage, or shut up) and even if, it's completely sealed by compound material and it's a lithium dry cell. In the very worst case, it may damage the clock chip a few millimeters away from it inside and then you can just replace the Dallas chip anyway. But again, this simply won't ever happen. It never did.

Reply 13858 of 27182, by diagon_swarm

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(I know, not a good photo...)

Btw I don't expect that a single Lithium cell would destroy the computer. I just didn't want to buy a new dallas chip for SGI Indy. This fixed one will outlive the rest of the machine and that's all I wanted.

Vintage computers / SGI / PC and UNIX workstation OpenGL performance comparison

Reply 13859 of 27182, by liqmat

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Well, good news on that Cardinal CP600 dumb terminal. The composite video signal coming out of it did, in fact, not jive with the LCD panels I had to work with. Tested it on an older CRT and a nice, clean, stable video signal came through. Excuse the crap photo as I only had my phone camera at the time. You can switch between 40 and 80 column text mode with a keyboard shortcut. Cool little dumb terminal for an easy serial connect with pretty much any system you want.

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