Oh man... every time I see an Atari XE I get sharp pain in the nostalgia-center of my brain. When I was a child (late 80s, early 90s) my Aunt and Uncle had either a 130XE or 65XE with an Indus GT disk drive (I remember them opening the front cover and inserting disks for me, and it had the little LCD display) and I played all sorts of games on it. Tree Surgeon and Ninja are the ones I remember the most but I'm sure there were dozens of others. Almost 20 years ago my aunt gave us that computer (or what looked to me to just be the keyboard), the Indus GT drive and all the disks for the games I'd played as a kid. It sat in a box on my floor for a while until I did some teenage "spring cleaning" and determined that without the rest of it (the monitor... probably just an old TV!!) it was useless to me. So I think I told my mother donate it somewhere.

.... 😢

I think if I had at least kept the disks I wouldn't be so bummed about it, but as it is, I don't even remember what games I played aside from the two above. Now, the computer and drive are worth way more than I would realistically spend on them. I just hope they went to someone who used them, rather than being chucked into the trash.

jheronimus wrote on 2020-04-19, 00:14:

PC Partners PCI board with a UMC chip. Works. […]
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PC Partners PCI board with a UMC chip. Works.

I have the exact same board, mine had a barrel battery. Can you give me a good clean shot of the battery area so that I can cross check? From what I can tell only the diode on D14 and resistor on R12 are missing, I'd be delighted to learn I can just remove those and slap on a battery holder onto this!

Finally able to add a Prometheus Aria to my collection.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-04-19, 20:53:

I have the exact same board, mine had a barrel battery. Can you give me a good clean shot of the battery area so that I can cro […]
Show full quote

jheronimus wrote on 2020-04-19, 00:14:

PC Partners PCI board with a UMC chip. Works. […]
Show full quote

PC Partners PCI board with a UMC chip. Works.

I have the exact same board, mine had a barrel battery. Can you give me a good clean shot of the battery area so that I can cross check? From what I can tell only the diode on D14 and resistor on R12 are missing, I'd be delighted to learn I can just remove those and slap on a battery holder onto this!

Why not just connect a battery pack to the 4-pin external battery connector?

Bought a Super Nintendo + 1 game & 1 controller. Also ordered a cheap Chinese Everdrive cartridge to go along with it, which should arrive in a couple of months from China. I'm probably going to buy a 2nd controller and perhaps a couple of cheap games this week.

Also bought a UnoCart for my Atari 2600, which should be with me this week at some point. The UnoCart was about £4 cheaper than a Harmony, with the added bonus being I didn't have to ship it from abroad.

MMaximus wrote on 2020-04-20, 00:09:

appiah4 wrote on 2020-04-19, 20:53:

I have the exact same board, mine had a barrel battery. Can you give me a good clean shot of the battery area so that I can cro […]
Show full quote

jheronimus wrote on 2020-04-19, 00:14:

PC Partners PCI board with a UMC chip. Works. […]
Show full quote

PC Partners PCI board with a UMC chip. Works.

I have the exact same board, mine had a barrel battery. Can you give me a good clean shot of the battery area so that I can cross check? From what I can tell only the diode on D14 and resistor on R12 are missing, I'd be delighted to learn I can just remove those and slap on a battery holder onto this!

Why not just connect a battery pack to the 4-pin external battery connector?

This is less messy and feels more authentic.

don't think this needs any words :3

imi wrote on 2020-04-20, 17:06:

don't think this needs any words :3

hardware38_13.jpg

Ah, good. You have the cable as well. Makes things a lot easier. I had to hunt for one in a warehouse awhile back for a Canopus Pure3D II.

yeah, I bid on one without the cable, but lost, then another came along with the cable and manual and won for the same bid ^^

I also have a cable from a Creative Dxr3 but idk if the pinout is the same.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-04-19, 20:53:

I have the exact same board, mine had a barrel battery. Can you give me a good clean shot of the battery area so that I can cross check? From what I can tell only the diode on D14 and resistor on R12 are missing, I'd be delighted to learn I can just remove those and slap on a battery holder onto this!

Here it is. Is it good enough? PM me if you need more — I'll take more photos in the daylight, if needed.

The LCD panel on my Samsung 204B has starting degrading in its corners (brighter see-through area), so I ordered a Dell 2007FPB . Hopefully, it will last a while .

jheronimus wrote on 2020-04-20, 18:01:

Here it is. Is it good enough? PM me if you need more — I'll take more photos in the daylight, if needed. […]
Show full quote

appiah4 wrote on 2020-04-19, 20:53:

I have the exact same board, mine had a barrel battery. Can you give me a good clean shot of the battery area so that I can cross check? From what I can tell only the diode on D14 and resistor on R12 are missing, I'd be delighted to learn I can just remove those and slap on a battery holder onto this!

Here it is. Is it good enough? PM me if you need more — I'll take more photos in the daylight, if needed.

D14 is missing and D13 is a 0 ohm bridge resistor instead of a diode? it seems, should be easy enough ^^

I should check some of my boards that have markings for battery holders but were equipped with barrel batteries, I'd guess all of those could be modded.

My Fujitsu FM-Towns finally arrived after two weeks (thanks COVID-19) but it sadly didn't arrive...intact.

I've attempted to at least partially glue the CD drive door back together for aesthetics but I don't think it will ever actually work again.

^ bad luck 🙁

what a pity 🙁
that's a beautiful machine.

The weird part is that there was a CD in the drive (Towns OS 1.1) and the CD itself is fine! I dunno how you break the door off the CD drive and not damage the CD within, but it happened.

alexanrs wrote on 2015-05-20, 14:02:

Yesterday I got a new Dallas DS12887a RTC for my P-133. It originally had a VIA82887-based HT12888a. Even though I've read in se […]
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Yesterday I got a new Dallas DS12887a RTC for my P-133. It originally had a VIA82887-based HT12888a. Even though I've read in several places that they are not 100% compatible, the PC works fine with it. And yes, I knew I could try modding the original RTC adding an external battery... and I actually tried that a while ago, but I was a bit careless then and broke one of the battery pins, so I had no choice but to replace it.

(original link deleted)

I also got this Media Magic Audio16c ISA sound card. Apparently, this is a very close clone of the OPTi 82c929a-based Turtle Beach Monte Carlo... I even used the Monte Carlo's drivers successfully. My only gripe with this card are the crystals: this one has taller crystals than the ones in Monte Carlo, so it interferes somewhat when mounting a WT daughterboard. Might replace them in the future. Also getting this thing going was a bit finicky... I had to assign IRQs, DMAs and port adresses manually in my Compaq's BIOS. This thing needs 3 IRQs (one for SBPro, one for WSS and one for MPU401, and the driver craps out if you try using the same one between two of them)!

(original link deleted)

This board impressed me: Media Magic apparently copied Turtle Beach very well. The Line Out is cleaner than my YMF719-s cheap card (which wasn't bad in the first place), WSS doesn't give me weird crashes in Warcraft II and SBPro mode doesn't sound as... harsh? Anyway, does anyone know how to switch from SBPro mode to WSS mode from the command line? Unlike the YMF719, this doesn't switch automatically. Also, I had issues using he SBPro part in IRQ5, as this worked in pure DOS but the Windows drivers did not work correctly with it, IRQ7 is trouble-free. Also, does anyone know why this board needs a separate IRQ for the MPU401?

I know that this message is old but so are our beloved retro rigs.
I have been trying to find the pinout for this HT12888A chip to no avail. Can you confirm that you haven't had any issues over time using the DS12887A?
That would be awesome.

Tomorrow I'll try to do the battery trick by dremeling to the battery pins, hoping it'll work.

1.2MB FDD, 4x 32MB SIMM-72 60ns FPM RAM for both of my 486 machines, Cirrus Logic CL-GD5429-86QC QFP video chip for my Packard Bell (upgrading from the 5428 for better DOS performance), 512Kb SRAM 32-pin PDIP (2 packs of 5 chips), and C64 PLA replacement.

1 stick of 32MB FPM for $40? 😮 oh good 4... I was a bit shocked there x3

Nexxen wrote on 2020-04-20, 23:42:

I know that this message is old but so are our beloved retro rigs. I have been trying to find the pinout for this HT12888A chip […]
Show full quote

alexanrs wrote on 2015-05-20, 14:02:

Yesterday I got a new Dallas DS12887a RTC for my P-133. It originally had a VIA82887-based HT12888a. Even though I've read in se […]
Show full quote

Yesterday I got a new Dallas DS12887a RTC for my P-133. It originally had a VIA82887-based HT12888a. Even though I've read in several places that they are not 100% compatible, the PC works fine with it. And yes, I knew I could try modding the original RTC adding an external battery... and I actually tried that a while ago, but I was a bit careless then and broke one of the battery pins, so I had no choice but to replace it.

(original link deleted)

I also got this Media Magic Audio16c ISA sound card. Apparently, this is a very close clone of the OPTi 82c929a-based Turtle Beach Monte Carlo... I even used the Monte Carlo's drivers successfully. My only gripe with this card are the crystals: this one has taller crystals than the ones in Monte Carlo, so it interferes somewhat when mounting a WT daughterboard. Might replace them in the future. Also getting this thing going was a bit finicky... I had to assign IRQs, DMAs and port adresses manually in my Compaq's BIOS. This thing needs 3 IRQs (one for SBPro, one for WSS and one for MPU401, and the driver craps out if you try using the same one between two of them)!

(original link deleted)

This board impressed me: Media Magic apparently copied Turtle Beach very well. The Line Out is cleaner than my YMF719-s cheap card (which wasn't bad in the first place), WSS doesn't give me weird crashes in Warcraft II and SBPro mode doesn't sound as... harsh? Anyway, does anyone know how to switch from SBPro mode to WSS mode from the command line? Unlike the YMF719, this doesn't switch automatically. Also, I had issues using he SBPro part in IRQ5, as this worked in pure DOS but the Windows drivers did not work correctly with it, IRQ7 is trouble-free. Also, does anyone know why this board needs a separate IRQ for the MPU401?

I know that this message is old but so are our beloved retro rigs.
I have been trying to find the pinout for this HT12888A chip to no avail. Can you confirm that you haven't had any issues over time using the DS12887A?
That would be awesome.

Tomorrow I'll try to do the battery trick by dremeling to the battery pins, hoping it'll work.

that poster has been last active over three years ago ^^ better make a new thread.

imi wrote on 2020-04-21, 00:08:

that poster has been last active over three years ago ^^ better make a new thread.

I have the same motherboard and need to know if it did work for him. Alas I don't know if the mobo model o rtc model are good as thread title.

What title do you suggest, PcChips M530 or Houston Time HT12888A?