Vynix wrote on 2020-03-06, 21:58:

I've seen that thing too once, and heck, I know some people used to even drill DS/DD disks to use them as HD disks in 1.44M drives. So no, that concept ain't new.

I used to heat a large nail (holding it with pliers so I didn't burn myself) using my mothers gas stove top and then push the nail through the disk where the second hole had to be, cleaning it with a large drill bit. This way there wouldn't be any potential residue inside the disk that might occur with drilling. I guess a soldering iron might have worked too but I didn't have one.

I don't recall having any problems with those "enhanced" disks but I'm sure some of the disks would have died or had read errors at some point or another.

the floppy hole punch is neat, but useless now because it is WAY easier to find high density 1.44 than double density

The 5.25" punch for C64/Atari 800 use is worth having.

Amiga 1200 arrived! Pretty good given the seller feedback was 0 and the listing mentioned that it was powered but not otherwise tested. Pleasantly surprised to have received a mouse and more manuals than expected. Also some personal files on the floppy disks if the labels are to be believed. Aside from the missing logo sticker and some uncertainty regarding floppy disk operation, it's in pretty good shape. I'll need to test it more. No surprises in the expansion slot, sadly. Still, I shouldn't complain. Even has Commodore Windows installed! Original floppies for Lemmings and Xenophobe too.

MrSmiley381 wrote on 2020-03-07, 01:49:

Amiga 1200 arrived! Pretty good given the seller feedback was 0 and the listing mentioned that it was powered but not otherwise tested. Pleasantly surprised to have received a mouse and more manuals than expected. Also some personal files on the floppy disks if the labels are to be believed. Aside from the missing logo sticker and some uncertainty regarding floppy disk operation, it's in pretty good shape. I'll need to test it more. No surprises in the expansion slot, sadly. Still, I shouldn't complain. Even has Commodore Windows installed! Original floppies for Lemmings and Xenophobe too.

IMG_20200306_202928.jpg

Sweet haul. Can you look and see what model your PSU says it's for on the bottom? I dug my amiga 1200 out after 20+ years only to discover I had an A600 labeled PSU. I never noticed this the entire time I owned the machine, I'm wondering if this was the way they were sold, after all I bought my Amiga new. Though I suppose the shops could have put whatever they wanted to in the boxes...

Shagittarius wrote on 2020-03-07, 01:55:

Sweet haul. Can you look and see what model your PSU says it's for on the bottom? I dug my amiga 1200 out after 20+ years only to discover I had an A600 labeled PSU. I never noticed this the entire time I owned the machine, I'm wondering if this was the way they were sold, after all I bought my Amiga new. Though I suppose the shops could have put whatever they wanted to in the boxes...

Quite an observation you've made there, as mine also says it's an A600 PSU. Maybe it was cheaper than casting new plastic molds for the same product with different labeling.

MrSmiley381 wrote on 2020-03-07, 01:58:

Shagittarius wrote on 2020-03-07, 01:55:

Sweet haul. Can you look and see what model your PSU says it's for on the bottom? I dug my amiga 1200 out after 20+ years only to discover I had an A600 labeled PSU. I never noticed this the entire time I owned the machine, I'm wondering if this was the way they were sold, after all I bought my Amiga new. Though I suppose the shops could have put whatever they wanted to in the boxes...

Quite an observation you've made there, as mine also says it's an A600 PSU. Maybe it was cheaper than casting new plastic molds for the same product with different labeling.

Interesting, thanks!

Vynix wrote on 2020-03-06, 21:58:

I've seen that thing too once, and heck, I know some people used to even drill DS/DD disks to use them as HD disks in 1.44M drives. So no, that concept ain't new.

pan069 wrote on 2020-03-06, 22:16:

I used to heat a large nail (holding it with pliers so I didn't burn myself) using my mothers gas stove top and then push the nail through the disk where the second hole had to be, cleaning it with a large drill bit. This way there wouldn't be any potential residue inside the disk that might occur with drilling. I guess a soldering iron might have worked too but I didn't have one.

I don't recall having any problems with those "enhanced" disks but I'm sure some of the disks would have died or had read errors at some point or another.

I made the hole with a power drill a few times back in the day, but I remember being disappointed that most of the disks didn't survive their first HD format & even the ones that did didn't work for very long. Read errors started appearing pretty much instantly. I found a couple of those disks in a box I was archiving a while ago and they were the only ones in it that were completely defunct.

I'm sure there were some disks out there that would tolerate this "upgrade", but I wouldn't think it was the norm.

In the mail today: COAST modules. 😀

derSammler wrote on 2020-03-07, 15:53:

In the mail today: COAST modules. 😀

Nice ! I recognize three of them, the Winbond is same as in my Asus TP4XEG board. For some reason people want $10-20 each over here IF you can find them.

For some reason, I mostly get these for free or very cheap as part of larger RAM collections.

derSammler wrote on 2020-03-07, 18:02:

For some reason, I mostly get these for free or very cheap as part of larger RAM collections.

The reason is, my like-minded friend, that to 99.9 % of sane individuals out there, it's just a random piece of junk from the "Telekomposthaufen" they're about to get rid of. :D

Got one with my first 430VX mobo back in '97 and alas, the darn thing never worked.

Just missed on of those RAM collection sales that included one. 4 in one strike is quite a catch.

They're actually being sold on the bay for about a tenner, NOS or even newly made, I dunno.

I actually picked these yesterday evening, but here it goes: HP Vectra VL2 4/66 16MB 540MB (40€) and ATi Mach 32 VLB (25€).

Vectra is in excellent shape, weirdly the power switch area only is somewhat yellowed, otherwise the case is in beautiful condition. Only weird thing was that the red molex and floppy power cables were very brittle and practically flaking off from the wires. Other colours were just fine. I certainly did not want the 5V leaking to the chassis and I did quick fix with electrical tape on the worst parts of the cables, but I will rewire the leads at some point.

I also switched the drive in the picture to HP CDRW drive, which fits to the colours and thus to looks much better (and is brand correct too). Computer had no sound card installed, so I threw Yamaha YMF719 E-S I had laying around inside. I perhaps also test my recently acquired Mach64 ISA on it, although it doesn't make much sense to use it in a long term, because I *think* that the integrated CL chipset is a VLB one. Vectra is now happily sitting under my Compaq CRT monitor and my these pizza boxes look good! Last time I had one of these true desktops was before autumn '95, when I got my Pentium computer which was built in AT midi tower.

I am currently setting up the computer and decided to test Win 95 OSR2 on it, because why not. I am actually surprised how little painful it is to use on basic desktop workflow and it runs actually pretty well considering the specs. I am not of course planning to use it seriously as a Win95 machine and mostly spend my time in DOS mode, unless I decide to go with more traditional DOS 6.22 and Win 3.11 WfW at some point.

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2020-03-07, 19:35:

weirdly the power switch area only is somewhat yellowed.

Possibly the power switch part was made of a different ABS with higher bromite content.

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2020-03-07, 19:35:

I am actually surprised how little painful it is to use on basic desktop workflow and it runs actually pretty well considering the specs.

In my experience, the three main criteria for OS compatibility are RAM, RAM and RAM. Decent VGA also helps a lot. But Win95 was supposed to run on a 386, after all.
Nice box. I'm more of a Compaq man myself. :)

These ALS100 gems still go for cheap (€ 4.50), if untested. I wonder what that LS-212 does...
Also, finally an AGP PRO mobo to test my Elsa Gloria II pro with. (for the minimal Euro, it might even work) Those ASUS spdif breakouts are rather fancy, including several capacitors, etc. No, that is not a PC/PCI header on that board!

Shagittarius wrote on 2020-03-07, 02:00:

MrSmiley381 wrote on 2020-03-07, 01:58:

Shagittarius wrote on 2020-03-07, 01:55:

Sweet haul. Can you look and see what model your PSU says it's for on the bottom? I dug my amiga 1200 out after 20+ years only to discover I had an A600 labeled PSU. I never noticed this the entire time I owned the machine, I'm wondering if this was the way they were sold, after all I bought my Amiga new. Though I suppose the shops could have put whatever they wanted to in the boxes...

Quite an observation you've made there, as mine also says it's an A600 PSU. Maybe it was cheaper than casting new plastic molds for the same product with different labeling.

Interesting, thanks!

I never thought to check my Amiga 1200 power supply until I saw this and mine has the A500 heavy PSU. 0.5W less on the 5V, but an extra 0.5W on the 12V. -12V is the same as the A600 supply. Not sure if mine would have originally came with that though.

MrSmiley381 wrote on 2020-03-07, 01:49:

Amiga 1200 arrived! Pretty good given the seller feedback was 0 and the listing mentioned that it was powered but not otherwise tested. Pleasantly surprised to have received a mouse and more manuals than expected. Also some personal files on the floppy disks if the labels are to be believed. Aside from the missing logo sticker and some uncertainty regarding floppy disk operation, it's in pretty good shape. I'll need to test it more. No surprises in the expansion slot, sadly. Still, I shouldn't complain. Even has Commodore Windows installed! Original floppies for Lemmings and Xenophobe too.

IMG_20200306_202928.jpg

Congrats with the 1200. By the way. It is called Workbench and not Windows.

PTherapist wrote on 2020-03-07, 20:12:

I never thought to check my Amiga 1200 power supply until I saw this and mine has the A500 heavy PSU. 0.5W less on the 5V, but an extra 0.5W on the 12V. -12V is the same as the A600 supply. Not sure if mine would have originally came with that though.

The A600/1200 PSU has 3A on 5V. If the A500 PSU you have only has 2.5A on 5V (heavy one with transformer), you should not use it with an A1200, as that is simply not enough. Either use the A600/1200 PSU, or a later A500 one (switching type) with 4.5A on 5V.

Shagittarius wrote on 2020-03-07, 01:55:

MrSmiley381 wrote on 2020-03-07, 01:49:

Amiga 1200 arrived! Pretty good given the seller feedback was 0 and the listing mentioned that it was powered but not otherwise tested. Pleasantly surprised to have received a mouse and more manuals than expected. Also some personal files on the floppy disks if the labels are to be believed. Aside from the missing logo sticker and some uncertainty regarding floppy disk operation, it's in pretty good shape. I'll need to test it more. No surprises in the expansion slot, sadly. Still, I shouldn't complain. Even has Commodore Windows installed! Original floppies for Lemmings and Xenophobe too.

IMG_20200306_202928.jpg

Sweet haul. Can you look and see what model your PSU says it's for on the bottom? I dug my amiga 1200 out after 20+ years only to discover I had an A600 labeled PSU. I never noticed this the entire time I owned the machine, I'm wondering if this was the way they were sold, after all I bought my Amiga new. Though I suppose the shops could have put whatever they wanted to in the boxes...

The Amiga600 PSU's are usually providing too few Amps for a Accelerator. Even back in the days, people usually had an Amiga500 PSU hooked up to an 1200 that was upgraded. It was typically Commodore style, to sell a machine with a PSU that just delivered enough juice for the machine to operate in factory default (no expansions). Basically, it is likely that they used the exact same PSU's for the 1200 machine, as nobody really wanted the 600. Commodore made machines, using this mantra: "Lets see what we have in stock today, and then build a computers from that". They did clean up their act in the 90's, yet in the golden days of the C64. Then you could buy C64-Model-C machines with Breadbin keyboards.... And speaking of the C64 PSU, then they designed PSU's that just only delivered what the C64 demanded in terms of power. That would be regulators that delivered no more than the machine used, and then they packed the PSU's full of epoxy, leaving no chance for the regulator's heat to disapear. Anyway. They only planned the C64 to be in use in homes, for 2 or 3 years. 4 years max, so they could put out a new machine every 2 to 3 years, like normally did.... If anyone plan to upgrade a 1200 with accelerator and more stuff. Then my advice is to do something like I did.

Amiga500 Power Supply with modern internals.

Cuttoon wrote on 2020-03-07, 20:06:

Possibly the power switch part was made of a different ABS with higher bromite content.

My thoughts exactly. I still find it peculiar, that it is for some reason the only (and small) part of the chassis to get that treatment.

In my experience, the three main criteria for OS compatibility are RAM, RAM and RAM. Decent VGA also helps a lot. But Win95 was supposed to run on a 386, after all.
Nice box. I'm more of a Compaq man myself. 😀

RAM definitely is major factor, but with just 16MB I would've expected a 486 struggle more. Then again, I had 16MB in my Pentium also back in the day, and it was fine.

I would like to have similar Compaq too, as I adore my Presario 425 AIO and my Armada in the sig is one fine laptop too. But I got this HP so cheap, that I couldn't resist as I was searching for a pizza box style 486 from 66MHz upwards. Vectra has definitely same design philosophy as similar Compaq machines and MB has pretty much same general design as Presario 425 has. Even construction has somewhat the same feel when it comes to the use of plastic, metal frame and so on. Although Compaqs are one of my favourites, I must admit that I am not that fond of their bios setup partitions, which most of them have at least starting from ca 95-96. It is in my opinion one of the most idiotic design choices ever implemented to PC computers. Otherwise 80s-90s Compaqs are finely crafted machines 😀

Here's another thing I didn't buy, but it was lying on the shelf at a thrift shop. A thoroughly weird "Pegatron IMIMV-CF" motherboard:

What we have here is an mATX desktop board with an mPGA478 socket, three mini-PCIe slots (one is just empty solder pads), desktop-type SATA ports, SODIMM memory slots, and an MXM slot for graphics. WTF?

A bit of internet sleuthing indicates it came out of some kind of HP all-in-one, which makes sense I guess. I originally thought it'd be for Pentium M CPUs but it looks like it only supports Penryn C2Ds. HP's site also claims it has a GeForce 9300m GPU under that heat sink, but then what is the MXM slot for? Power is delivered through a little 6-pin port on the bottom, so god only knows what that takes.

What a bizarre board. There's actually a lot of mobile-type expandability built into this thing that I doubt they ever intended anyone to use. HP parts-bin engineering at its best.