Technically you don't want/need to be grounded. You want to be at the same potential as the equipment you are touching. Touching the outside of a computer case or the metal bracket of an expansion card is usually enough. Static electricity is high on voltage but low on current meaning it dissipates fast those sorts of things without travelling to sensitive components.

Wow what a thread 🤣. Yes I agree kolderman, I usually do not use a ground strap but do always touch the PSU metal cabinet or case before working on old boards just to ground myself and prevent any stray static. Also in my area we have the "east wind" effect and I do not work on components at home during that time, humidity drops below 20% and static is everywhere. In the last few months I also wear a mask anytime I go into any store or even a drive through at the local burger joint and carry sanitizer with me at all time since this Covid shit came out. Is always wise to protect your self, your family and your equipment as best as possible. Paranoid ? No ! Careful ? Yes !

newtmonkey wrote on 2020-06-13, 17:12:

Thanks for suggesting this! Duke3d is now VERY playable at 640x480. The frame rate is also a bit better in System Shock. Blood is still slightly below playable at 640x480, but I know that game is more demanding than Duke 3D.

Cheers, glad it helped!

If I remember right, most S3 cards from that era had VESA VBE 1.2 while games like Duke3D want 2.0 for their higher resolution modes. UNIVBE soft-upgrades 1.2 to 2.0 at the cost of some conventional memory.

I believe a shareware version of UNIVBE came on the Duke3D installation CD which is how I learned about it back in the day. As I recall, it was useful for most games that ran at 640x480 including 2D ones like Transport Tycoon and WarCraft 2. Besides Duke3D, I think it also helped with most other 3D games that have high resolution modes, like Quake and Tomb Raider.

OK cool story bro's. Can we get back to retro hardware in this thread?

I will not be a flatearther about ESD but in all my 30 years of handling electronics I have yet to see anything die of ESD damage..

Horun wrote on 2020-06-14, 04:48:

... or even a drive through at the local burger joint and carry sanitizer with me at all time since this Covid shit came out...

wiretap wrote on 2020-06-14, 02:05:

I'm not the one getting bent out of shape about properly handling ESD sensitive components. I'm merely stating facts to help others and point out your false rooted statements. If you want to damage hardware or and handle it in a manner that is not recommended, that's up to you. It isn't very professional to portray to others it is fine, because people trying to learn will be mislead. This forum is all about helping others, not to guide them with incorrect information.

Yes, and letting people to know what ESD is, and what it does is enough to accomplish your goal. The rest is filler cr*p no one asked for, specially the "muuuuh but science says..." lecture.

hyoenmadan wrote on 2020-06-14, 14:10:

wiretap wrote on 2020-06-14, 02:05:

I'm not the one getting bent out of shape about properly handling ESD sensitive components. I'm merely stating facts to help others and point out your false rooted statements. If you want to damage hardware or and handle it in a manner that is not recommended, that's up to you. It isn't very professional to portray to others it is fine, because people trying to learn will be mislead. This forum is all about helping others, not to guide them with incorrect information.

Yes, and letting people to know what ESD is, and what it does is enough to accomplish your goal. The rest is filler cr*p no one asked for, specially the "muuuuh but science says..." lecture.

I'll add that your persistent trolling is not conducive to helping others. Please stop.

wiretap wrote on 2020-06-14, 14:20:

I'll add that your persistent trolling is not conducive to helping others. Please stop.

Tsk, tsk... So that's all? Now you look like people which don't get satifisfied themselves if they don't get the last word.
And isn't trolling. Actually I was agreeing with you, that informing people what stuff is about is a good thing (like, for example, what is ESD about, and what it does... heck, even a link to wikipedia would be good enough). What i don't agree at all with you is about unnecessary "pointer" fillers trying to lecture others about a subject... Just to make you look like a pretentious smarta**. Doing such way will not help your cause at all, you know... 😀.

Well I got these! I’ve always wanted a working Bernoulli drive. This was actually a set of finds and purchases over a few months (drives, SCSI cables, disks and the Adaptec vs Iomega controller topic) that eventually led me to where I am. Both drives work with 150MB disks which is great. I have some 230MB disks but cannot get the higher capacity drive to read or format them. Not sure if the drive is the issue (it’s shown signs of flakiness with the 150MB disks) or the disks are bad. This has been quite an adventure to setup, with all sorts of special drivers and utilities, and I’m still on the lookout for a way to clean the heads.

Now that things are working I’m gonna lay everything on the carpet and see what happens.

beautiful :0

Swiego wrote on 2020-06-14, 16:01:

Now that th8ngs are working I’m gonna lay everything on the carpet and see what happens.

nooooooooooooooooooo!

imi wrote on 2020-06-14, 16:06:

beautiful :0

Swiego wrote on 2020-06-14, 16:01:

Now that th8ngs are working I’m gonna lay everything on the carpet and see what happens.

nooooooooooooooooooo!

calm down, you’re not gonna fall from the edge of the earth 😉

CMB75 wrote on 2020-06-14, 16:45:

calm down, you’re not gonna fall from the edge of the earth 😉

wat? x3
the flatearther analogy was meant for people who don't believe in ESD damage.

personally I've got first hand experience (quite literally, I saw it arcing over from my finger and felt it) killing at least one motherboard (at least the graphics output).
I've also managed to crash my office PC several times trying to plug something into the front USB without discharging myself before (which can at times be quite painful x3)

anyways, got this nice CPS Video Blaster Plus :3

and while we're at capture cards, also got two of these to play around with

imi wrote on 2020-06-14, 16:57:

CMB75 wrote on 2020-06-14, 16:45:

calm down, you’re not gonna fall from the edge of the earth 😉

wat? x3
the flatearther analogy was meant for people who don't believe in ESD damage.

I know, it was an ironic statement from the other side of extremes. I’m working with electronics for more than 25 years now and I had some bad experience with ESD incidents myself. In fact every time I touch anything in my office wearing sketchers I get zapped... though it didn’t damage any system in the last 10 years. Still, when working with electronics inside of cases I don’t do it on the carpet wearing sketchers.

Congrats to your new acquisition...

Swiego wrote on 2020-06-14, 16:01:

Well I got these! I’ve always wanted a working Bernoulli drive. This was actually a set of finds and purchases over a few months (drives, SCSI cables, disks and the Adaptec vs Iomega controller topic) that eventually led me to where I am. Both drives work with 150MB disks which is great. I have some 230MB disks but cannot get the higher capacity drive to read or format them. Not sure if the drive is the issue (it’s shown signs of flakiness with the 150MB disks) or the disks are bad. This has been quite an adventure to setup, with all sorts of special drivers and utilities, and I’m still on the lookout for a way to clean the heads.

Now that things are working I’m gonna lay everything on the carpet and see what happens.

Wow. A little cleanup and those will look almost new. Nice find.

Result of yesterday's meeting with a friend from the other side of the country...

HanJammer wrote on 2020-06-14, 18:46:

Result of yesterday's meeting with a friend from the other side of the country...

Wow, that "ASUS Cache386/33 with memory card" is a beauty.

but there is more...

And the "bag of cr*p" - parts from the stripped down Tandon PAC 286 (like this one: https://www.1000bit.it/lista/t/tandon/tandonpac286.png )... extensive leak damage and the case was severly damaged too... he scrapped it, but brought me these parts... motherboard doesn't seem to be very damaged, there is also intact floppy drive and enclosure, intact mechanized drive bays, one of the drives (aka Personal Data Pac) scsi controller was leaked on heavy and has signs of tantalum cap fire...
Maybe somebody has this PAC machine and needs some parts for it? I'm willing to sell them if it will resurect some intact machine.

Just purchased this for $50 on eBay, a (2004?) Falcon Northwest Fragbox Pro. (No GPU/HDD, but seller says it boots to BIOS) I plan on putting my GeForce FX 5950 Ultra in it, so it will be like OEM specifications.

wiretap wrote on 2020-06-14, 19:57:

Just purchased this for $50 on eBay, a (2004?) Falcon Northwest Fragbox Pro. (No GPU/HDD, but seller says it boots to BIOS) I pl […]
Show full quote

Just purchased this for $50 on eBay, a (2004?) Falcon Northwest Fragbox Pro. (No GPU/HDD, but seller says it boots to BIOS) I plan on putting my GeForce FX 5950 Ultra in it, so it will be like OEM specifications.

Very nice. I actually looked at that listing earlier today.