dionb wrote on 2020-02-06, 20:52:

Resurrected my iMac G4 this evening. I got it for free as it supposedly wasn't booting, but it booted the first time I tried. Once. All time&date settings lost of course - yep, dead PRAM battery, which on a Mac doesn't only store settings but also provides Vsb for soft power-on. A new lithium battery solved that, and I upgraded to 1GB RAM while I was at it - quite relieved that my non-Mac 512MB SO-DIMM and 512MB regular DIMM were both accepted without complaint. Now to find a way to get this thing working on a WiFi network with WPA (as the 1st gen Airport in it doesn't support that)...

I used a cheapo D-Link DWA-150 USB adapter on my G4 Mac Mini for a while. It wasn't great and the drivers are pretty crappy (I may even have used alternative drivers from a different manufacturer), but it did work and funnily enough is still supported all the way up to at least 10.14 Mojave.

I think I may have been running 10.4 Tiger on the Mini though.

PTherapist wrote on 2020-02-07, 11:09:

[...]

I used a cheapo D-Link DWA-150 USB adapter on my G4 Mac Mini for a while. It wasn't great and the drivers are pretty crappy (I may even have used alternative drivers from a different manufacturer), but it did work and funnily enough is still supported all the way up to at least 10.14 Mojave.

I think I may have been running 10.4 Tiger on the Mini though.

Any idea which chipset that DWA-150 had? Wikidevi has literally hundreds of D-Link devices but not that exact one. The DWA-151 has an RTL8192U chip, which I've tried and failed to get working under Panther. If yours also has that chip that's another indication that Tiger is what I really need right now.

I've removed my Celeron Prescott CPU and installed a Celeron Cedar Mill CPU in my mini itx IBM Thinkcentre 8104-CTO. Even though the official web site says it supports only Prescott CPU, I browsed the chipset motherboard i915GV, which suggested that should also support a Cedar Mill CPU. I installed Intel Celeron 347 CPU and it works great. On startup, the BIOS doesn't recognize the CPU, which is expected, since the latest BIOS doesn't support it. But after bios info it goes starting XP without any problems and works normally.

The reason I had to change the CPU is because of the overheating. It is a Pentium 4 mini itx computer and the heat from the CPU was a great problem. Small computer cases and Prescott architecture don't go together. Only after a few minutes of idle running, or some minor program tasking, the fans went berserk, especially, when installed Pentium Prescott CPU . After the change I went from 103W TDP (Pentium) / 84W TDP (Celeron) to 65W TDP (Cedar Mill). The computer or should I say fans run normally now.

Re-created the missing floppy disks for my Gravis GamePad Pro. Now it's again complete in box. 😀

dionb wrote on 2020-02-07, 11:28:

Any idea which chipset that DWA-150 had?

Funny, that one is not on the US or CA DLink FTP sites. But neither is the DWA-151. Euro-only perhaps?
ftp://ftp2.dlink.com/PRODUCTS/
ftp://ftp.dlink.ca/PRODUCTS/

My "always works" dongle is the DWA-125 A2 & A3, but I haven't a Mac to test that on. ... Debian lists them as Ralink RT3070, Ralink RT5370
https://wiki.debian.org/rt2800usb

pewpewpew wrote on 2020-02-07, 21:02:

Funny, that one is not on the US or CA DLink FTP sites. But neither is the DWA-151. Euro-only perhaps? ftp://ftp2.dlink.com/PROD […]
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dionb wrote on 2020-02-07, 11:28:

Any idea which chipset that DWA-150 had?

Funny, that one is not on the US or CA DLink FTP sites. But neither is the DWA-151. Euro-only perhaps?
ftp://ftp2.dlink.com/PRODUCTS/
ftp://ftp.dlink.ca/PRODUCTS/

My "always works" dongle is the DWA-125 A2 & A3, but I haven't a Mac to test that on. ... Debian lists them as Ralink RT3070, Ralink RT5370
https://wiki.debian.org/rt2800usb

Found it: DWA-150 is a RaLink RT61:
https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/27993 … d-link-dwa-510/

Don't have one of those knocking around, so will start with upgrading OS and re-trying all the ones I have.

Sounds good. That RaLink RT61 reference is a typo anyway. After some sanity-searches I'm sure that poster meant the DWA-510 card.

pewpewpew wrote on 2020-02-07, 21:28:

Sounds good. That RaLink RT61 reference is a typo anyway. After some sanity-searches I'm sure that poster meant the DWA-510 card.

Hmmph, everybody is getting that beast mixed-up, either like this or confusing the "150Mbps" with whatever number it is.

Here a Russian identifies it as RT3070, which corresponds to your earlier identification.

dionb wrote on 2020-02-07, 11:28:

Any idea which chipset that DWA-150 had? Wikidevi has literally hundreds of D-Link devices but not that exact one. The DWA-151 has an RTL8192U chip, which I've tried and failed to get working under Panther. If yours also has that chip that's another indication that Tiger is what I really need right now.

Oops, my bad I made a typo - it's a D-Link DWA-140 Rev. B1

Not 150 as I posted.

Ralink also do Mac OS X drivers for it if you search the chipset. This particular one I was using also seems to have drivers for 10.3 Panther.

Hah, they were just asking for it with those numbers 😉

I'll be sure to re-post results after I've upgrade to Tiger.

For now have been playing around with older stuff - my DataExpert OPTI-495SX-2VL. This is a board with both So168 and So132 for 386 and 486, including 486DLC. I'd hoped that if any board of mine would support the oddball TI 486SXL2-66 (basically a Cx486DLC with extra L1 cache, a similar approach to IBM's Blue LIghtning) this one would be it. Unfortunately it didn't, I got the dreaded Gate A20 errors. Instead I decided to see what the limits of this board were, both upper and lower. I was impressed.

Lower limit was i386DX-20 (well, 25@20MHz). Upper limit was Am5x86-160 (with voltage regulating interposer). So factor 8 clock speed difference between slowest and fastest CPU. Of course, 75% of that was just the 4x multiplier, but still not bad to take the whole range from 1988 to 1996 on a single motherboard.

Started cleaning up a Dimension 8100 system that I recently found a couple of alleys away from my place. Saw the P4 sticker and was about to leave it there, but then I noticed the weird RAM...RDRAM! And what an overbuilt motherboard! 6 slots, removable VRM, and completely proprietary, I knew I had to have it. This machine was clearly from a younger, more ambitious Dell, and it must've cost a pretty penny back in the day!

Upon firing it up at home, it reported 512MB of PC800 RDRAM, a 1.4GHz P4, and a Geforce 2 Ultra with a cranky fan. The 60GB hard drive managed to cough up a dog slow installation of WinXP SP3 with all of the previous owner's crap intact.

If I get the time this weekend, I'd like to restore it back to its Windows ME roots and get some classic 2000-2001 games on there. Something to really show off that GF2 Ultra in all its fixed function glory.

Bought an Ambra 486, prepping it for a video now. Also picked up a new (to me) Armada 1750, working on screen latches for my 4/25 LTE (both sides broke), replaced a SID chip on my '83 Commodore (chip is from '85), now I have finally a working C64 with a Newtronics (agh) drive, imported from Poland (imported from Germany) and converted to match the faceplate... OK not all of that was tonight but I am legit prepping that Ambra for a shoot.

Also working on recreating a CPUID issue with OS/2 3 install on non-intel chips.

Last week I picked up a 27 year old engine for my 33 year old project car, driving 14 hours round trip. 16v 2,300cc.... 😁

Finally got my Windows 98SE PIII 733 desktop on the network. I bought two PCI network cards for it in hopes I could find drivers and get at least one working:

1. Intel Pro 10/100 PCI Network card
2. Cisco Aironet 350 PCI Network Card. Holy crap, this is literally a PCMCIA Cisco NIC mounted on to a PCI adapter.

I plugged both in hoping W98SE would recognize one out of the box... nope.

I thought I saw Cisco still offered drivers on their web site... nope.

Intel offered these weird 500MB driver packs which are supposed to have drivers for all their network cards. I downloaded the latest version (25.0,) but noticed right on the download page that version removes support for older cards. So I downloaded version 24.5 as well (500MB). I dropped it on to a USB thumb stick, once the download completed, and I extracted it on my W98SE desktop. I found a “Windows Legacy 32 bit” directory, but the EXE in that directory would not run. It gave an error “your Windows version is too old, please download a newer one.” So I went in to device manager, found the intel NIC which was listed as not working / missing drivers, clicked update drivers, have disk, and pointed it to the “Windows Legacy 32 Bit” folder, and BAM! It found the drivers and installed them. Now my Windows 98 desktop is on the network.

I have not been able to find drivers for the Cisco Aironet 350 card, yet.

The VogonsLegacy drivers site does not have drivers for either of these, and I don’t have a login to upload anything anyway.

What’s next? I need to find a new case for this old desktop. Unfortunately, although this is in a really nice case, at some point in the past I had the cover off, and they got stored separately. and sadly, it case cover got thrown out (not by me). It also takes special rails for the 5.25 peripherals, which I no longer have (the CDRW and 5.25 Floppy drive are both loose).

Anyone have any suggestions for a good and cheap modern case?

Apologies for any typos. I typed this on mobile.

Got my new G4 PowerMac working. 😁 I ordered a new PRAM battery on Amazon with same day delivery, popped it in, and it worked. The old battery had a manufacture date of 2000 and was very much dead, preventing boot. There is an issue with the ZIP drive where the light stays illuminated, so that may need replacement. Everything in the sale was described as "like new". From what I can tell it is used because it has some user files on it, the RAM was upgraded to 512MB, but the whole setup is pristine -- not a scratch on anything, no dust in the fans/PSU at all, and it smells like it is factory new. The CRT is pretty epic, Diamontron based, crystal clear case. I'll backup the hard drive next, or swap in a new one with MorphOS. Overall I'm very happy because I didn't know the specs when I bought it, and this happens to be the dual processor 500MHz model. Not bad for $140 shipped.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2020-02-02, 19:13:

Regarding Weller stations: […]
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Robin4 wrote on 2020-01-31, 03:30:

12.jpg […]
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Few minutes ago, i was soldering on a older revision 3 xt-ide 8 bit controller card. The pcbs i purchased a few years ago, but after problems with my weller wsd-81 soldering station i quit for a while.
1 week ago i purchased a cheapass soldering station which performance a lot better then the weller one.. (dont know whats its wrong with the wsd-81 base) maybe going to sell it and look for an other option.

13.jpg

Today i also repaired a 1.2MB floppy drive controller board. I needed 2 new electrolic capacitors.

14.jpg

Also being busy with a socket 5 motherboard that iam going to use in a oldskool pentium non mmx 133mhz build. The RTC still seems to work. But have to replace the simm sockets. Simm socket 1 is damaged, wasnt possible to repair the connecting pin. Also the other sockets are in a state thats better to replace them as well.. Now waiting when the new simm 72 pin sockets will arrive here.

Officially the board will support till pentium 100Mhz because the multiplier seems to be fixed on 1.5.. With an cpu vrm upgrade socket it is possible to run a 133 Mhz processor on this board. Higher the board wont recognize.

Regarding Weller stations:

I have Weller station too, but now junk because of very very cheap design in the handle, The vital connections to connect heater wires made connection by pressed in connector pins in Bakelite piece. If the screw posts fails in the blue handle (strips easily), then heater barrel's mounting metal plate will wobble, which will put stress on these pins and bakelite wears out and now no longer kept in connection. Results in dead soldering station. Handles is expensive as hell (over 100 each and parts) and I paid 100 new for whole kit ready to roll in 1990. I will no longer promote the Weller I also have adjustable Weller station still working but not good for heavy tasks. I have since knew there is much much better designs out there now. The BEST ever is Hakko or JBC, or Clones that uses T12 series cartridges with replaceable tip cartridges, heat up in seconds due to direct heat inside the cartridge very close to tip, response time to demand is quick and there are clones of these out there. Ditto to clones of JBC as well same concept. Check them out. Being tip cartridges, they are made to be swapped all the time in seconds. Do not invest in indirect heated designs, will not keep up with demand instant you touch a heavy metal with those.

If you choose carefully, a station can allow you to have different handles, for very tiny work, and heavy work by changing handles, and if you pay more for 2 station, even more nice if you are working with electronics all the time. Invest in good hot air station, Quick is good choice here.

Cheers,

Can you give some examples for those clones that uses t12 series cardridges?

Robin4 wrote on 2020-02-09, 03:31:

Can you give some examples for those clones that uses t12 series cardridges?

https://www.rchelicopterfun.com/t12-soldering-station.html

wiretap wrote on 2020-02-09, 00:46:

Got my new G4 PowerMac working. 😁

I have no interest in Apple stuff but their machines from that era do look great, and that monitor is epic! Nice find.

Yea I have very little interest in anything Apple, but the deal was too good to pass on. haha.

Yesterday, we held my sons birthday. So not retro related as such. However, I recieved my birthday present, as both our birthdays are 7 days apart. Totally retro day, with the usual old school cakes and good food.

Well - over the weekend, not today, but....

Dug out and cleaned up my Compaq Deskpro EN450, gave it a scrubdown with a magic eraser to clean some marks up and powered it on, booted right up to what I was doing with it previously. Thinking of doing a fresh install, and not entirely sure which way to go with it yet.

It's a P3-450, 384MB of RAM, 10GB HDD (that I think is dying, I do have spares though), ESS 1869F onboard audio and an ATI Rage 128. This one uses the oddball short-segment AGP bracket that only fits certain cards, the one I got with it was dead and the Rage was the only thing AGP I had that fit. Makes a decent DOS machine with the ESSFM sounding pretty good as long as you aren't encountering speed or ATI related issues.

In still-retro, non-pc activity I moved and tidied my stereo equipment - all working nicely except some oddness with the Sony CDP-70. Sounds out of phase/thin, and touching the play or pause button causes crackles/buzzing/static.