I also like the idea of the pins on the motherboard. I can't wait to see your finished project it's going to be awesome.

creepingnet wrote on 2021-05-07, 17:18:

Unfortunately the ESS688 from the P/75 won't fit in the M/75. I know because I've tried (I have a P/75 and an M/75 - and a 40EC […]
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Unfortunately the ESS688 from the P/75 won't fit in the M/75. I know because I've tried (I have a P/75 and an M/75 - and a 40EC and a V/50). It looks like it will, but it won't.

Where the P/75 has it's soundcard is differently keyed and uses different connectors on the M/75 as it deals with the LCD screen used. The M/75 came in the following models - a few probably speculator y...

PC-470 & PC-480 - HI-TOP Graphics module between CPU Card connectors - only works with 640x480 4096 color screen (NL6448AC30-3/6/10) or the 800x600 256 color screen (NL8060AC24-01) - one or both of these were also availible with a 3M Touch digitizer w/ wired stylus.

PC-570 & 580 - Has a different LCD controlle rcard between CPU Card connectors for the NL6448AC30-09 LCD Panel, which is a slightly thicker industrial panel that facilitated making a newer, custom screen assembly for it. THis model is known as the M/75TC or M/100TC - for "True Color" - basically it's capable of 32-bit True Color at 640x480 resolution. Kind of wild for 1994. This is what the one I currently have was before I put the daughter card from a PC-470 with a Digitizer & pen in it, and hacked the screen circuit to make it 800x600.

With the card removed, the PC will boot, but only output from the VGA connector on the back.

That said, the M/75 DOES have a Crystal CS-4231-KQ audio chip in it, which is Windows Sound System Compatible. It works with games like The 7th Guest, Tyrian, Under a Killing Moon, some Sierra Stuff (Freddy Pharkas Talkie, Hoyle Classic Card games) and even Day of the Tentacle, and Theme Hospital. In Windows 95 NESTICLE gets sound through it through SoundBlaster Emulation. It's pretty much stuck to 44.1KHz 16-bit so the sound quality is really nice through headphones or proper speakers (and pretty nice through the M/75's speaker as well considering the setup). It just won't work with everything. I've been trying to use WSSXLAT from the Windows Sound System 2.0 driver disks to get SB Compatibility in DOS to no avail for the last year or so. Basically this is what's done....

[CONFIG.SYS]
DEVICE=EMM386.EXE 512 RAM

[AUTOEXEC.BAT]
C:\WSS\WSSXLAT.EXE sbio=220 irq=7 dma=1
SET BLASTER = a220 i5 d3

Supposedly what it does is EMM386 is used to trap the values for the SB Compatible mode for WSSXLAT, which then translates it over for the PC to pick it up. That said, seems EMM386 has helped some of my games with WSS support in DOS to run a lot better or run at all so there's an upside. The downside is things like Ultima VII won't run because they use their own proprietary memory manager - not much of a loss though considering most of the music and sound effects for Ultima 7 are adlib based anyhow.

I've been following the "New PCMCIA Card" thread to see what yyzkevin (IIRC) and so on have been doing both because I'm interested in their developments myself, and I've been half tempted to take a crack at a PCMCIA sound card myself in the same quasi-savant way I've been doing Guitar Pedals the last few years. If I can figure out a way to rig my breadboard into a PCMCIA slot on one of the Versas I thought about taking a crack at it myself by combining Sergio's Adlib schematics, and maybe figure out a way to get it working without having to load Card Services or a Driver, or using some kind of very tiny executable like those used for my Cisco Aironet cards.

Bummer. I have an EXP CD-ROM + SoundNote, except I don't have the speaker and I know the speaker has the sound chips in there, which is odd and I cannot find the exact speaker for it.

vad4r wrote on 2021-05-07, 18:34:

appiah4 wrote on 2021-05-07, 18:25:

vad4r wrote on 2021-05-07, 17:59:

I try to bind a 8GB CF card in my 486 - and fail. I can use the card but am too stupid to install MS-Dos on it. Followed Phil's […]
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I try to bind a 8GB CF card in my 486 - and fail.
I can use the card but am too stupid to install MS-Dos on it. Followed Phil's video, but for me it looks like this at the end:
index.jpg

https://youtu.be/sI7U9LYbt28

That seems to have succeeded?

No, unfortunately not. To include the large CF card in the system, I need the modified Win98 command.com file and MSdos doesn´t work with it.
At least that's what I think...

Partition size has to be <=2GB for MS-DOS. You took that into consideration right?

vad4r wrote on 2021-05-07, 20:01:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-05-07, 19:54:

....
What is the system you are trying to install MS Dos on? Full details please.

On this Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread

I have only a original MS-Dos 6.22 diskset here and this can´t read a FAT32 HDD

Of course, MS-DOS won't know what FAT32 is.

You have to boot from an MS-DOS floppy, use DOS's fdisk to repartition the hard drive and make sure the primary partition is FAT16 and <= 2GB

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-05-07, 20:56:

I also like the idea of the pins on the motherboard. I can't wait to see your finished project it's going to be awesome.

Thanks. 😀
I have chosen a solution for the riser card pins. I will have sockets on the mainboard and on the casette/user port card. If I can find a pin strip with long legs, then I will use them to have the audio/video-board's components clear and not having sockets obscure the view of the components. Else I have to use pin-risers or what they are called.

Did a bit of testing of some of my socket 370 hardware.

Amongst other things, i imaged the bioses of 2 of the motherboards i have. So here they are.
No idea about versions or anything. Didn't have a working processor to get them running. But at least the bioses are now here. 😀

Finally I found some time to do the retro things, so I had a busy Friday.

Last week I've bought the Commodore 1084 colour display. It was awful visually:

so I decided to don't hesitate and start the restoration of this one.

In progress. I always use some car APC cleaners for restoring and cleaning plastics.

And how it looks now:

I need to buy or make the front flap.

Also I will replace internal mono shitty speaker to the good stereo ones from iMac G5.

After that I decided to do another retro restoration - recap of the one of best motherboard with PGA370 - ECS P6S5AT. Famous SiS 635T inside.
Cleaned the board deeply. Then I've replaced capacitors with top-notch Nichicon PW and Panasonic FR series. Now this board should be stable as rock (pun intended), its condition is better than in 2003 😉

What would you know, I was also recapping a SiS 630T board today to revive it (Jetway 630-TCF). Was not posting at all yesterday.

Not nearly as nice a board as that one, but again, I replaced the old GSC 6.3V 2200 and 1500uf capacitors with top quality Panasonic FS series 2200uf 16V capacitors. I also changed 3 x 1000uf 6.3V capacitors with Nichicon caps I pilfered off another dead motherboard.

And success, the thing boots and is stable as they come, probably already in better condition than new.

Now, since this will be job for a customer, I'll change the 1000uF capacitors with new ones at some stage, I didn't want to actually spend money on the board until I saw it working. Now it is time for a more complete recap. I think I'll leave the 2000uf capacitors in there, even though they are higher voltage and capacity than needed, as they are doing a great job.

seleryba wrote on 2021-05-08, 12:20:

And how it looks now: […]
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And how it looks now:

IMG_5465.jpeg
IMG_5466.jpeg
IMG_5445.jpeg

I need to buy or make the front flap.

Also I will replace internal mono shitty speaker to the good stereo ones from iMac G5.

Awwww... What happened to all the pretty stickers? Nice work.

liqmat wrote on 2021-05-08, 13:20:

Awwww... What happened to all the pretty stickers?

They are liquid now, living happily somewhere in the sewer line. This one with "Oliver Khan" funny typo as well (greets to the users from DE). 😁

canthearu wrote on 2021-05-08, 12:44:

What would you know, I was also recapping a SiS 630T board today to revive it (Jetway 630-TCF). Was not posting at all yesterday.

Nice work, man. Our same-time recapping of the SiS S370 boards has disturbed the balance in nature, for sure.

seleryba wrote on 2021-05-08, 13:49:

They are liquid now, living happily somewhere in the sewer line. This one with "Oliver Khan" funny typo as well (greets to the u […]
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liqmat wrote on 2021-05-08, 13:20:

Awwww... What happened to all the pretty stickers?

They are liquid now, living happily somewhere in the sewer line. This one with "Oliver Khan" funny typo as well (greets to the users from DE). 😁

khan.jpg

canthearu wrote on 2021-05-08, 12:44:

What would you know, I was also recapping a SiS 630T board today to revive it (Jetway 630-TCF). Was not posting at all yesterday.

Nice work, man. Our same-time recapping of the SiS S370 boards has disturbed the balance in nature, for sure.

🤣 Greetings from germany to poland!! You did a very good job cleaning that monitor!

🤣 Greetings from germany to poland!!

So. Umm. Yea...

Cleaned out the pig sty (not my words), but I admit, equipment and cases were spawning and sprawling all over the house. It's contained for now.

Changed monitors(digiLCDtv) for the Amiga A600 and the SANYO from 2011 is perfect with no flickering at all. Being larger it is far better for this 61 year old poor vision.

Bought bigger boxes to store my oldware.
Sorted stuff.
Learnt new soldering techniques.

seleryba wrote on 2021-05-08, 13:49:

They are liquid now, living happily somewhere in the sewer line. This one with "Oliver Khan" funny typo as well (greets to the u […]
Show full quote

liqmat wrote on 2021-05-08, 13:20:

Awwww... What happened to all the pretty stickers?

They are liquid now, living happily somewhere in the sewer line. This one with "Oliver Khan" funny typo as well (greets to the users from DE). 😁

khan.jpg

canthearu wrote on 2021-05-08, 12:44:

What would you know, I was also recapping a SiS 630T board today to revive it (Jetway 630-TCF). Was not posting at all yesterday.

Nice work, man. Our same-time recapping of the SiS S370 boards has disturbed the balance in nature, for sure.

That must have been some kids set of "duplicates" from his 1980's panini sticker album! 😀

vad4r wrote on 2021-05-05, 05:25:

Talked with a friend who also collects...
001.jpg03.jpg

too bad they're all collecting dust in there and aren't getting used :p
no wonder I can't get my hands on an original IBM.

speaking of IBM

been trying to install Win98 on this NetStation without floppy or CD-rom...
I've been duped into thinking I'd buy a 266MMX with it, seeing as every resource online I found referred to it being specd with a 266MMX, was the reason I got it in the first place, but of course there's only a 233MMX in it 🙁
...rather unsuccessful so far x3... guess I'll have to hook up a CD-rom with external PSU (I don't have the cable that plugs into the MB) after all.