VOGONS


Reply 14000 of 27172, by badmojo

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brostenen wrote on 2020-01-14, 21:59:

Strange...
Then people have reported it wrongfully, as the standard and stock case, that the Model-C was sold with in Australia. The places that I have picked up on that case on, is dedicated Commodore64 websites. Can this perhaps be an urban legend then?

All of the C64s I’ve seen here were made in the UK with the official cases - that case pictured above is definitely after market. I’m a bread bin man though - ugly, ergonomically unsound, classic 😎

Life? Don't talk to me about life.

Reply 14001 of 27172, by Cyrix200+

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Started on finishing my Philips NMS9100 XT:

Intel 8088 4.77MHz (8MHz Turbo)
768K RAM (need to figure out how to use all of this)
2x 3.5" DD 720K FDD
Lo-tech ISA XT CF Adapter (32Mb CF card installed)
MS-DOS 5.0

I'm going to put back in the ATI Small Wonder the machine came with.

The p3105/nms9100 has a special video card, the ati small wonder. It can drive a cga monitor and a hercules monitor. It also can […]
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The p3105/nms9100 has a special video card, the ati small wonder.
It can drive a cga monitor and a hercules monitor. It also can
emulate cga on the hercules monitor using grayscales, and it can
emulate hercules on a cga monitor.

I set up the clock utility and the speed utility, luckily the tools are easily found online. This thread was also helpful: MS DOS for XT computer / other stuff

My notes, for Google 😀

SPEED.COM has the following options:
"SPEED" = Display current setting
"SPEED NORMAL" = 4.77MHz
"SPEED TURBO" = 8MHz

Also, you should be able too use Ctrl-Alt-DEL to reboot at TURBO speed and Ctrl-Alt-INS to reboot at NORMAL speed. Alt+LSHIFT+RSHIFT switches speed (one beep = NORMAL, two beeps = TURBO)

CLOCK.COM has the following options:
CLOCK /R display date and time in RTC and pass to DOS.
CLOCK /S set DOS date and time to RTC
CLOCK /D display date and time in RTC

2wX4AJRl.jpg

1982 to 2001

Reply 14002 of 27172, by appiah4

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Are you the guy who wrote this for Adrian Black? 😀 Or are you Adrian Black himself? 😁 The timing is strange. I just watched his Compaq PC restoration videos the other day.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 14003 of 27172, by Cyrix200+

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appiah4 wrote on 2020-01-16, 09:34:

Are you the guy who wrote this for Adrian Black? 😀 Or are you Adrian Black himself? 😁 The timing is strange. I just watched his Compaq PC restoration videos the other day.

Ha, no I'm not and I did not 😜

His Compaq Deskpro restoration was similar. Different software and RTC though 😀

1982 to 2001

Reply 14005 of 27172, by brostenen

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badmojo wrote on 2020-01-16, 00:10:
brostenen wrote on 2020-01-14, 21:59:

Strange...
Then people have reported it wrongfully, as the standard and stock case, that the Model-C was sold with in Australia. The places that I have picked up on that case on, is dedicated Commodore64 websites. Can this perhaps be an urban legend then?

All of the C64s I’ve seen here were made in the UK with the official cases - that case pictured above is definitely after market. I’m a bread bin man though - ugly, ergonomically unsound, classic 😎

I am more of a first edition Model-C. The one with 250466 board and sign's printed on the side and not on the top of the keycaps.
I know it is a very specific version of the C64. Yet that is to me, the best Commodore 64 of all.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 14006 of 27172, by Horun

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Checked a dozen or so older small (40Mb to 18Gb) hard drives. All but one still works well, the WD 32500 didn't want to spin up 🙁
Will check it again later. Amazed to see the old Seagate ST-351A/x still working w/o errors...

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 14007 of 27172, by Bruninho

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Horun wrote on 2020-01-17, 04:20:

Checked a dozen or so older small (40Mb to 18Gb) hard drives. All but one still works well, the WD 32500 didn't want to spin up 🙁
Will check it again later. Amazed to see the old Seagate ST-351A/x still working w/o errors...

You know the saying...
“The older you get, the better you get.”

"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 14008 of 27172, by MrSmiley381

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Managed to do some more with the Tandy 1000 TL last night. Attempted to install Sim City, but it refused to run after install. Gave up on that and installed VSWITCH to test VGA and Tandy video mode flipping, which worked fine. Installed Wings of Fury and determined that the Tandy DAC enhanced sound effects only play with the Tandy executable. Depending on how the other Tandy DAC-specific games work, we'll see if I keep the VGA card.

I then ran TopBench and 3DBench to test the Make-It 486 I installed. Sadly, the TopBench gain was something like 3 points over the base result with the cache enabled, and 2 points with it disabled. The 3DBench score with cache enabled was something like 3.5. Still, a 13-20% gain and VGA added to a Tandy machine with the ability to swap at will and technically have two color displays is pretty neat. While writing I remembered one game that requires at least a 386 instruction set is Akalabeth, so I'll have to see if that works now.

So after that I tried installing Windows 3.0 off the floppy drive. I had some disk read errors while testing Sim City, but the Windows 3.0 setup would fail 100% of the time. I disabled the cache and then setup ran fine. While doing this I was able to test my nested KVM solution that includes a USB Microsoft Intellimouse USB with passive PS/2 converter and a Belkin KVM that natively converts PS/2 mice to serial mice, and I am happy to say that I used a USB laser mouse with a Tandy machine! Works pretty well, though it felt like Windows 3.0 has some slight mouse acceleration that makes precise movements more difficult.

I spend my days fighting with clunky software so I can afford to spend my evenings fighting with clunky hardware.

Reply 14009 of 27172, by brostenen

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I swapped the VIC-II 6569-R1 with an VIC-II 6569-R5 in my Breadbin 250407 Revision B, to get way better picture. The menu-text in Epyx WinterGames are now readable and everything is ultra sharp, for an C64 that is. Then I heatsinked the various chips. I just need to figure out a way to add some active cooling now.

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Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 14011 of 27172, by PTherapist

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Spent a lot of time testing out my Sinclair ZX81 on multiple TV sets, now that I have a new ULA with the proper "back porch" included. Oldest TVs being a 12-year-old 1080p Plasma TV & a 13-year-old 1366x768 LCD TV.

1 TV worked great (the 13-year-old LCD), 1 sucked (but it sucks with everything via RF, so no surprise) and the other 3 TVs all had the same issue - wobbly picture. So I dug out a VCR from the early 2000s which had a manual tuning option and connected the ZX81 to it and passed the signal through that and out over Scart/Composite instead.

Success, I can now use my ZX81 on all of my modern TVs with the only caveat being a very slight ghosting via the VCR. Also tweaked the adjustment pot in the RF output box to get a more optimal output signal and let the manual tuning on the VCR take care of the rest. Had to go through all this hassle as I didn't want to attempt the Composite output mod. My soldering equipment is rubbish and I'd probably destroy the thing trying.

So I spent the rest of today coding a little BASIC program on the ZX81. I'm having friends over in a couple of months for a microcomputer "retro gaming" evening and have concocted a simple text-based animated intro & welcome. Then I saved the program out into Audacity on my PC and saved it as a .wav. All working great! Was fairly nerve racking, as I realised half way through typing it all in, I hadn't fully secured the 16K RAM pack yet. One nudge or wrong move and it would have been curtains for my code!

Reply 14012 of 27172, by brostenen

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PTherapist wrote on 2020-01-17, 18:41:
Spent a lot of time testing out my Sinclair ZX81 on multiple TV sets, now that I have a new ULA with the proper "back porch" inc […]
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Spent a lot of time testing out my Sinclair ZX81 on multiple TV sets, now that I have a new ULA with the proper "back porch" included. Oldest TVs being a 12-year-old 1080p Plasma TV & a 13-year-old 1366x768 LCD TV.

1 TV worked great (the 13-year-old LCD), 1 sucked (but it sucks with everything via RF, so no surprise) and the other 3 TVs all had the same issue - wobbly picture. So I dug out a VCR from the early 2000s which had a manual tuning option and connected the ZX81 to it and passed the signal through that and out over Scart/Composite instead.

Success, I can now use my ZX81 on all of my modern TVs with the only caveat being a very slight ghosting via the VCR. Also tweaked the adjustment pot in the RF output box to get a more optimal output signal and let the manual tuning on the VCR take care of the rest. Had to go through all this hassle as I didn't want to attempt the Composite output mod. My soldering equipment is rubbish and I'd probably destroy the thing trying.

So I spent the rest of today coding a little BASIC program on the ZX81. I'm having friends over in a couple of months for a microcomputer "retro gaming" evening and have concocted a simple text-based animated intro & welcome. Then I saved the program out into Audacity on my PC and saved it as a .wav. All working great! Was fairly nerve racking, as I realised half way through typing it all in, I hadn't fully secured the 16K RAM pack yet. One nudge or wrong move and it would have been curtains for my code!

Cool.... Not every day, that we hear about someone coding on an old Sinclair.
Sounds awesomme... If you can, will you take a picture of the program running on the TV and post it?

As for me:
I have just copied some 50.000 SID files, from my PC to the SD card that I am using for my C64's.
It shall be fun to test out some music on real hardware.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 14013 of 27172, by Bruninho

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I think I may have a good retro activity story. I was with my dad showing him an Apple II emulator. We then talked about the machines he worked on his good days. An Apple II clone, a Spectrum... the nostalgia struck on him like a hurricane, I might’ve created a retro monster, because we were then checking the “brazilian ebay” version (mercadolivre.com.br), the original ebay itself, for these same machines. Actually, he worked with a brazilian manufactured Apple II clone (Microdigital TK-3000).

While I was showing him the emulator, he then began reminiscing on it what he used there: CPM, ProDOS, FORTRAN, BASIC, VisiCalc... we were from 9Pm to 2AM on it. Amazing to see his experience on it. Now he wants me to install the emulator on his mac and wants to port the JavaScript ES6 version (if possible) to his iPad Pro for offline use 😄. He didn’t even wanted to check the DOS emulators I have running DOS622/Windows - its about the Apple II his greatest nostalgia interest.

I definitely created another retro computing addict. 🤦🏻‍♂️😂

I always like to do these things with him. He’s my hero, and the reason why I do what I do at work (UI/UX Design for web & mobile apps). He teached me many things - including my very first BASIC program when I was 8 yrs old. Now it’s my turn to teach him web design & PHP coding 😂 and although he’s now a retired Systems Analyst, he still likes to work at home and decided to go for web commerce content management systems.

I hope that one day I can have the same experience if I have kids.

"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 14015 of 27172, by PTherapist

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brostenen wrote on 2020-01-17, 20:02:
Cool.... Not every day, that we hear about someone coding on an old Sinclair. Sounds awesomme... If you can, will you take a pic […]
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Cool.... Not every day, that we hear about someone coding on an old Sinclair.
Sounds awesomme... If you can, will you take a picture of the program running on the TV and post it?

As for me:
I have just copied some 50.000 SID files, from my PC to the SD card that I am using for my C64's.
It shall be fun to test out some music on real hardware.

Sure a pic, but it's nothing spectacular I'm afraid: PRINT, PAUSE & CLS with some rudimentary graphics is as advanced as this thing gets for now, a work in progress still -

O9i1WWOl.jpg

That's Screen 2 of 4. The welcome box appears first, with the Featuring & list of items following one after the other with a couple of seconds gap, followed by the crude graphic at the end.

Screen 1 just has the title of the event appearing in a line 1 word at a time, then flashing negative/positive. Screen 3 is just more delayed text, with screen 4 being a "Coded by..." note.

I might get a bit more adventurous and plant an interactive easter egg in the code, something along the lines of a question like - "Do you think the ZX81 is amazing, Yes or No"? 😁

Reply 14016 of 27172, by brostenen

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PTherapist wrote on 2020-01-18, 14:51:
Sure a pic, but it's nothing spectacular I'm afraid: PRINT, PAUSE & CLS with some rudimentary graphics is as advanced as this th […]
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brostenen wrote on 2020-01-17, 20:02:
Cool.... Not every day, that we hear about someone coding on an old Sinclair. Sounds awesomme... If you can, will you take a pic […]
Show full quote

Cool.... Not every day, that we hear about someone coding on an old Sinclair.
Sounds awesomme... If you can, will you take a picture of the program running on the TV and post it?

As for me:
I have just copied some 50.000 SID files, from my PC to the SD card that I am using for my C64's.
It shall be fun to test out some music on real hardware.

Sure a pic, but it's nothing spectacular I'm afraid: PRINT, PAUSE & CLS with some rudimentary graphics is as advanced as this thing gets for now, a work in progress still -

O9i1WWOl.jpg

That's Screen 2 of 4. The welcome box appears first, with the Featuring & list of items following one after the other with a couple of seconds gap, followed by the crude graphic at the end.

Screen 1 just has the title of the event appearing in a line 1 word at a time, then flashing negative/positive. Screen 3 is just more delayed text, with screen 4 being a "Coded by..." note.

I might get a bit more adventurous and plant an interactive easter egg in the code, something along the lines of a question like - "Do you think the ZX81 is amazing, Yes or No"? 😁

Cool.... Looks nice. Good work. 👍

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 14017 of 27172, by derSammler

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derSammler wrote on 2020-01-18, 11:38:

Going to enhance my 3d printer today to add plotting functionality. Shouldn't be that hard, but I need to design a custom pen holder.

Well, that was indeed easier than expected. First try already was a perfect fit. Now I have to do some calibration and testing. If all works well, this will hopefully allow me to fix the missing imprint on the goldcap of my third Pentium Pro CPU.

Reply 14018 of 27172, by PTherapist

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Received today the "Just NANO SD by Zaxon" divMMC device for my Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2A. Using an old 1GB Micro SD card to load up all the games in .tap .sna & .z80 formats.

Definitely a good purchase, easier to load games than having to load via the cassette deck and instant loading is nice! Had to run all the games through a bulk file rename utility though, to accommodate the esxDOS 8 character filename limit and make them all a bit more readable.

Last edited by PTherapist on 2020-01-18, 21:22. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 14019 of 27172, by brostenen

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PTherapist wrote on 2020-01-18, 19:45:

Received today the "Just NANO SD by Zaxon" divMMC device for my Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2A. Using an old 1GB Micro SD card to load up all the games in .tap .sna & .z80 formats.

Definitely a good purchase, easier to load games than having to load via the cassette deck and instant loading is nice! Had to run all the games through a bulk file rename utility though, to accommodate REMOVED 8 character filename limit and make them all a bit more readable.

SD and other kind of storage, are a god sent solution for these old 8-bit machines. Like anything from Spectrum and C64 to BBC Micro.
The only 8-bit stuff I have, is C64. However I find it wonderfull to have this option.
However. I use a real Tape drive instead of TAP files and SD. I have not gone the way of digital storage yet, when dealing with tape.
I found a way to make Turbo tape, so it is mostly just as fast as floppy and D64 files from SD2IEC.

Is there a turbo tape solution for Sinclair machines?

Last edited by DosFreak on 2023-10-14, 19:38. Edited 1 time in total.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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