After messing about with my Pentium III machine for a few days, mostly just reinstalling the OS for different versions of the machine, I decided to put my Pentium MMX machine back in the case. After all, it has the most use by far. I decided that properly cable managing it all yet again would aso be fun, so that was what I spent a good hour doing, and I am proud of the results.

And before anyone comments, the fan cable is in that weirdly specific spot because that always guarantees it works. The fan is temperamental with the splitters I am using to allow three fans to work with a single soldered-by-me fan header.

And here, have a picture of the insides that I'm actually kinda proud of.

Bruninho wrote on 2021-03-09, 04:13:

EvieSigma wrote on 2021-03-09, 01:52:

Worked on getting my Aptiva working good. Replaced the failing AGP card, upgraded the RAM to 256MB, and installed all the necess […]
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Worked on getting my Aptiva working good. Replaced the failing AGP card, upgraded the RAM to 256MB, and installed all the necessary drivers. I love this thing so much.

I see an iBook G3 right there! At least isn’t the tangerine one 🤣. Is it still working great for you?

It actually has a busted screen I haven't gotten around to replacing yet...

Well, I got back from Cali and it's still cold outside during the daytime, plus it's my wife's b-day month so LITTLE projects are my focus for now until "guitar season" Starts (basically, woodworking outside and etching circuit boards for pedals).

So I won another 16MB Module for the Versas, which means once I have one more 32MB ALL the Versa are topped out on RAM (40EC = 20MB, V/50 = 20MB, M/75 = 40MB, P/75 = 40MB). After that, 3 more Cisco Aironet cards, another battery (dumb battery) and 2 more Seagate Momentous drives, then it's time to liquidate off all the vintage HDD and smaller Memory cards to recoup some costs - then the REAL purge will begin.

Today tested MB ASUS P5N-E SLI arrived days ago.
2X2GB DDR2-800 ADATA RAM installed, in total I have 4GB on 2 banks.
The power supply is a Corsair VX 550W, the CPU is an Intel Core2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz / 4M / 1333.
I am currently testing the operation, I found a problem with the USB mouse, I solved it using a PS / 2 mouse.
As a provisional VGA I use a 128MB Ati X550.
I did some bench tests including that of CPU-Z, but the scores are low, because the OS only detects 1 core.

fool wrote on 2021-03-06, 17:43:

Gathered every game box I could find. Some discs are lost, but on some day those might show up.
There are some decent games and very bad ones. If I remember correct, most played ones by me are Utilma VII & IX, Lands of Lore and POD. The most time consuming and annoying game has been Windows 95 Update.

That Roberta Williams Anthology.. *dies of envy*

I got the motherboard for my Gateway 2000 sleeper build. I had to set it in the case for a fit test right away. It's a snug fit, but it should work. The IO port height on the MB is low enough to still fit a dual-slot video card in the highest two slots. Cable management might be a bit of a challenge (especially the power supply cables) since I still need to make room for the hard drive and DVD-RW in the 5.25" bays.

Actually got round to playing some DOS games today instead of just repairing and testing hardware.

My Terratec EWS64XL is *NICE* and those different sound fonts for the Dream synth are fun. Not totally convinced the 8MB Hoontech is the best thing since sliced bread, but it gives my SC-55 a run for its money, which is rare enough. The 9MB sounds like someone took mp3 files with compression artefacts. Horrible...

Of course this now confronts me with a problem: I really, really want to have my GUS, AWE64 and EWS64XL in the same system. It makes sense in terms of game support (GUS for GUS, AWE for AWE and SB16, EWS64 for SBPro2, WSS and GM/GS - just not an original OPL3 between them, but I have older systems for that), it makes sense in terms of late DOS fun with all kinds of sound banks/fonts. But I only have 2 ISA slots in my K6-2/3 system. So I need new hardware after all 😉

Oh, and I bought myself a new chair for the retro-den. A former hairdresser's chair. Weighs a ton, but solid as bricks and supports my lower back beautifully. Happy times!

not exactly today but a few days ago I put a ryzen 3 2200g in a old medion pc case originally occupied by a pentium 4 and a radeon card and mounted a spare amd apu cooler on the side of the case to take in air ... identical to the cooler on the actual apu

its now running manjaro linux from a ssd and has a kryoflux with 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives

now I have a pentium 4, an athlon64 and an old duron that needs cases here in my home office

I hope that I will be able to begin the inventory my main vintage hardware collection at my summerhouse sometime during the spring

I am looking especially forward to seeing my old pentium 2 systems again.... I really loved my pentium II back in the day

I recently got an old dell that will get xp and hopefully can cover my retro needs in my home office

I have yet to find win 98 games that wont run in xp with a little dark tech magic

Testing out my new Eizo FlexScan L557. Currently running an Indivision ECS V2, but later this week I'll be building a RGB2HDMI slot card for testing. When the Buffee accelerator is released, I'll likely go with a ZZ9000 RTG card.

Hi there, any plans to test this Eizo FlexScan L557 on DOS for signs of frame skipping?

Cheers,

This is just being used on Amiga OS. No intent of DOS use for it. But here's the resolutions and frequencies supported from the user manual:

That's a very very VERY beautiful Amiga 2000 ! 😁

What kind of LCD monitors in the segments that can do this low resolution at 70Hz. Medical? Professional? Etc. Wanted to widen the search.

Cheers,

Any older LCD should be able to, just look for 4:3 or 5:4 ratio screens. Medical monitors usually don't (they usually support weird higher resolutions), but professional graphics monitors usually do. Just steer clear of anything modern in your searches. The old NEC Accusync LCD's are plentiful and support a good variety of resolutions/frequencies. Some older Dell LCD's do too, especially ones with Composite/Component/Svideo.

Installed a 1.44MB floppy drive in my Compaq Portable 1 that only works as a 720KB drive (XT BIOS limits), but it works. Wish I could use my du floppy drive that's DSHD (1.44MB and 1.2MB), but the controller card only supports DSDD drives and the XT-FDC BIOS doesn't work either with it.

wiretap wrote on 2021-03-10, 16:01:

Testing out my new Eizo FlexScan L557. Currently running an Indivision ECS V2, but later this week I'll be building a RGB2HDMI s […]
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Testing out my new Eizo FlexScan L557. Currently running an Indivision ECS V2, but later this week I'll be building a RGB2HDMI slot card for testing. When the Buffee accelerator is released, I'll likely go with a ZZ9000 RTG card.

You know, Compaq made gray CDROMS that would probably match that Amiga nicely.

Speaking of Compaq, I SCSI'd my 386SX today 😁

I stayed up way too late for this, but it was rewarding.

Out came the Radlib, the Intel 10Mbps NIC, and a game port controller

and in went an CT1740, a 3COM Etherlink III (WITH XTIDE -AT version) on a card I pre-configured for this task earlier, and an AHA-1520 (single ROM) card. Everything played nicely, I love the fact that I can keep my 40 Mb HDD for the boot drive (I like the sounds) and the XTIDE will pick up my CF cards (512 and under, no problems, 2GB some files don't run) automatically. I also threw in an SCSI Compaq branded CDROM (a bit newer than the rest of the system, but looks the part) and fabbed up some rails to get it nice and lined up.

I had to slip in the CDROM over the case cover, there was some finagling. I will have to open the case again at some point to repair the power supply (first time you turn it on, nothing happens, then when you turn it off, it makes an almost hissing sound, which increases in pitch until it stops, then you can turn it back on again - I should probably do something about that).

Oh yeah:

Now I'm contemplating a white 5.25 inch floppy. I just sold one in a 486 that would have fit here rather nicely. Oh well, the case is two tone.

From bottom to top:
-ATI 8 bit mono card
-CF adapter
-Multi I/O
-Adaptec 1520
-3COM Etherlink III (XTIDE enabled)
-SB CT1740
-ATI VGA Wonder w 512k upgrade

This thing would have been worth a fortune in 1989 😉

Yesterday I yanked the "stock" voltage regulators out of my SixtyClone, and replaced them with a 2a 12v and a 1.5a 5volt. I was not able to source a 2a 5v 🙁 Then I mounted an original heatsink on the 5v voltage regulator, and used a tiny blob of arctic silver between the heatsink and voltage regulator. (better do a decent job). Tested voltages and all checks out.

Today I soldered in some pin headers for the power led, and only soldering remaining, are the shield over the cartridge connector. That one will be from an original C64 as well.

I think the build is a success, because there are no solder bridges (shorts) between any of the socket pins at all (done in one go) and all sockets have the correct voltages on 12 volt and 5 volt pins. All sockets have connection to ground on the ground pins. Logically it should work as long as all chips that I will be using are in working state.

When done and running, then the only things that are not factory new are the following:

- Two DB9 ports/connectors.
- Choke coil at the power-connector.
- Cartridge port bracket/shield.
- Variable Capacitor. (CT1 trimmer close to VIC-II)
- Voltage regulator heatsink.
- The keyboard it self. (case and keyboard brackets are completely new)
- Some of the chips that are not modern replacements for. (VIC-II, CIA's and so on)

It will be interresting to see if the machine is working after a little over a year of work.
I have done it in small phases, because it was not my only project.

I am already thinking about the next build of some kind of 8bit computer. Hmmm.... What will it be? Commodore128 or a modulair C64? Perhaps an Apple-II.

Work woke me up at 4:50am this morning, so I soldered up a RGB2HDMI Amiga 2000 adapter. Still need to design and 3D print a bracket. I have a nice HDMI adapter and button I'll put on the bracket.

Gerbers/Project: https://github.com/hoglet67/RGBtoHDMI/tree/ma … er/VideoSlot/V1
Mouser Cart: https://www.mouser.com/ProjectManager/Project … ssID=5747b1b210

wiretap wrote on 2021-03-11, 15:27:

Work woke me up at 4:50am this morning, so I soldered up a RGB2HDMI Amiga 2000 adapter. Still need to design and 3D print a brac […]
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Work woke me up at 4:50am this morning, so I soldered up a RGB2HDMI Amiga 2000 adapter. Still need to design and 3D print a bracket. I have a nice HDMI adapter and button I'll put on the bracket.

Gerbers/Project: https://github.com/hoglet67/RGBtoHDMI/tree/ma … er/VideoSlot/V1
Mouser Cart: https://www.mouser.com/ProjectManager/Project … ssID=5747b1b210

I really need to get around to doing one of these for my A500 some time..

Yea it is dirt cheap to build. Like $15.. people on Ebay are selling them for $50+.. 🤣