liqmat wrote on 2021-03-13, 15:35:

King_Corduroy wrote on 2021-03-10, 15:46:

So I guess I was overthinking getting back into the hobby also, cause this was definitely exciting to drag home. XD […]
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So I guess I was overthinking getting back into the hobby also, cause this was definitely exciting to drag home. 🤣

Equipment you found aside, I'm digging the retro furniture and orange shag carpet. Only thing about shag is you need a heavy weight vacuum cleaner with good suck action.

Thanks! I still haven't decided if I'm going to redecorate for the 90's to match my re-entry into the computering hobby or hold onto my MCM stuff. Still a bit split on the whole thing. 🤣

Street find today. Very poor shape, full of spiders and rain. Case is missing the outer shell. I've stripped it down and given everything a quick clean; I'll need to give it a more detailed clean and address some minor corrosion before finding out if it will POST. With a known good PSU of course.

- PCPartner 702732E / 35-8212-33 Socket 7, near identical to http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/show/5956
- Pentium Overdrive 150mhz
- S3 Trio64
- Crystal CS4235
- Quantum Fireball 1280MB
- Seagate Decathlon ST5851A 851MB
- 4x unknown RAM sticks, plus a COASt module

Pierre32 wrote on 2021-03-16, 11:07:

Street find today. Very poor shape, full of spiders and rain. Case is missing the outer shell. I've stripped it down and given e […]
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Street find today. Very poor shape, full of spiders and rain. Case is missing the outer shell. I've stripped it down and given everything a quick clean; I'll need to give it a more detailed clean and address some minor corrosion before finding out if it will POST. With a known good PSU of course.

- PCPartner 702732E / 35-8212-33 Socket 7, near identical to http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/show/5956
- Pentium Overdrive 150mhz
- S3 Trio64
- Crystal CS4235
- Quantum Fireball 1280MB
- Seagate Decathlon ST5851A 851MB
- 4x unknown RAM sticks, plus a COASt module

IMG_20210316_175632.jpg
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this would make one of those great restoration journeys - starts with the street find and ends with you launching Duke3d on a gleaming fully restored PC 😀

I dig the patina. Id just strip it down, clean it up, clear coat it, put in a couple upgrades and game away with the nastiest yellow peripherals you can find to match it.

Well it's gone a lot better than I thought it would! Everything has had a nice bath, case cleanup is in progress, and the PSU is actually in good shape. The HDDs are cactus but the system boots! I thought I'd only end up salvaging a part or two, so I'm extremely happy.

The case lacks an outer shell so that's the next tricky job. Then I guess I'll be wrapping up the project with a Duke3D screenshot 😁

Pierre32 wrote on 2021-03-18, 09:56:

Well it's gone a lot better than I thought it would! Everything has had a nice bath, case cleanup is in progress, and the PSU is […]
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Well it's gone a lot better than I thought it would! Everything has had a nice bath, case cleanup is in progress, and the PSU is actually in good shape. The HDDs are cactus but the system boots! I thought I'd only end up salvaging a part or two, so I'm extremely happy.

The case lacks an outer shell so that's the next tricky job. Then I guess I'll be wrapping up the project with a Duke3D screenshot 😁

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great! So from that screen and from the MB link you gave it looks like a pentium 166 and i'm guessing 16mb of 72 pin ram.

the sound and graphics are fine for lots of DOS games and running regular windows 3.1 or 9x applications

so you'll need to find a FDD and HDD or substitutes and hopefully you'll have a cool retro system right there

I guess with that i'd leave it as win3.1 with dos6ish but actually if you can double the ram or more it would be ok with win95 even 98

nice resurrection!

Cheers 😀 And good catch on the CPU. I was originally assuming 150mhz based on search results for the fan label, but on closer inspection it's a 166mhz SU125.

TechieDude wrote on 2021-03-08, 10:27:

yawetaG wrote on 2021-03-07, 21:46:

...because Windows 10 killed itself by wiping the C:/-drive during an upgrade. Perhaps it is becoming self-aware? Back in the day you needed a stupid user or a virus to cause such an event... 😁

You've got to be kidding me... Didn't something similar happen with 1809? This is why I got sick of it. The same bugs over and over... Didn't even Vista have QA than this? Like seriously, wiping the entire HDD?

Well, QA costs money. Windows 10 turned on telemetry and made everyone beta testers. No need for QA!

No wonder Microsoft just doesn't even care if you use Windows 10 without having a product key.

Maybe FCKGW still works.
Your data to Microsoft is more important than 139 bucks.

Found this AST Ascentia 910N in my closet. No idea how it got there or when, but there it was. So, yay I guess? The screen and colors looks suspiciously good considering the age.

http://www.twin-cities.com/ed/asc-910.html

You moved to a new house and inherited a closet? 😁

DX4 and a color display, nice. Only drawback could be the vast amount of ghosting I think?

Yep. DSTN is the ghost of displays past, much like the older green Phosphorus CRTs that have the low refresh rate.

I have an Austin PN/312TFT and an AMS SoundPro P54 DSTN that are 486 laptops that have sound cards installed that are either integrated or an optional card was installed (eBay prices).

The Austin works without issues now after swapping the power board with the working one from the AMS laptop and the trackball, but the display is stretched and cannot be de-stretched since there isn't a TSR or BIOS option to disable that entirely or as a way to enable/disable the stretching.

sf78 wrote on 2021-03-22, 12:39:

Found this AST Ascentia 910N in my closet. No idea how it got there or when, but there it was. So, yay I guess? The screen and colors looks suspiciously good considering the age.

ast.jpg

http://www.twin-cities.com/ed/asc-910.html

looks almost new! great for DOS, small HDD though even though at the time the spec was good

what will it's role be? It's ideal for an on the road accounting job but these days i'm not so sure 😀 I think if i found that then it would become a very occasional use laopt for some old games and programming experiments and the satisfying clicks of floppy disks!

gerry wrote on 2021-03-23, 09:59:

looks almost new! great for DOS, small HDD though even though at the time the spec was good

I think mine has the optional 710 Mb drive. It's pretty good for DOS things.

what will it's role be? It's ideal for an on the road accounting job but these days i'm not so sure 😀 I think if i found that then it would become a very occasional use laopt for some old games and programming experiments and the satisfying clicks of floppy disks!

I have to think about that. I still have no idea how it manifested itself in my house. I don't recall ever seeing this for sale anywhere, flea markets or otherwise and I don't remember bringing it in, but there it was. It would be great to have an older PCMCIA sound card, but I only have Audigy 2 ZS which might work in DOS if I find the strength to figured out the whole driver install hassle. I do have OPL2LPT which would work, but it kinda looks poor on a laptop and the connector bends easily when you move it around.

Pierre32 wrote on 2021-03-18, 09:56:

Well it's gone a lot better than I thought it would! Everything has had a nice bath, case cleanup is in progress, and the PSU is […]
Show full quote

Well it's gone a lot better than I thought it would! Everything has had a nice bath, case cleanup is in progress, and the PSU is actually in good shape. The HDDs are cactus but the system boots! I thought I'd only end up salvaging a part or two, so I'm extremely happy.

The case lacks an outer shell so that's the next tricky job. Then I guess I'll be wrapping up the project with a Duke3D screenshot 😁

IMG_20210317_175805.jpg
IMG_20210317_180847.jpg
IMG_20210318_184604.jpg
IMG_20210318_185531.jpg

Don't know if you have any experience with wet sanding, using extremely fine grit sand paper 2000-5000 and water but thats what Id do with the bezel. People usually use it for sanding clear coat like the clear coat on a car.

Scored a bunch of junk from the trash yesterday. Just got done cleaning it all. Both computers are 486 machines but I might make the tower a Pentium because I like the way it looks and I have no use for a 486. The desktop however is very interesting and much more complete, although it lacks a HDD (both machines do) it has all it's ram and all it's cards including a very interesting ATI Graphics card and Sound card Combo that has Yamaha Chips on board and a break out box which attaches to the Joy port and gives sound out, mic port and Midi ports. I'm very excited to learn more about this odd ball card. 🤣 I also scored a bunch of mice, AT keyboard and a few early 90's mice. Almost all of this stuff needs some retrobrighting.

Craigslist free section find: a Dell 2405FPW 24" monitor, free because it wasn't working. I brought it home and disassembled it, and spotted obviously bad capacitors. I bought six Panasonic caps on Ebay for $8.13 shipped, and soldered them in this evening. The operation was a success!

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-03-27, 05:10:

Craigslist free section find: a Dell 2405FPW 24" monitor, free because it wasn't working. I brought it home and disassembled it, and spotted obviously bad capacitors. I bought six Panasonic caps on Ebay for $8.13 shipped, and soldered them in this evening. The operation was a success!

Nice job! Those are nice monitors and to basically get one for under 10 bucks is a steal.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-03-27, 12:39:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-03-27, 05:10:

Craigslist free section find: a Dell 2405FPW 24" monitor, free because it wasn't working. I brought it home and disassembled it, and spotted obviously bad capacitors. I bought six Panasonic caps on Ebay for $8.13 shipped, and soldered them in this evening. The operation was a success!

Nice job! Those are nice monitors and to basically get one for under 10 bucks is a steal.

I'll probably end up giving it to someone since I don't have a need for it myself, but it is a nice monitor (and looking up how they retailed for over $1,000 when new shows how far we've come). More than anything I decided to get it just to see if I could fix it; such a satisfying feeling when something fires right up and confirms your diagnosis was correct.