I said goodbye to my 486 DX2/66 and started... building another 😁 This time SCSI and EISA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hd1xOlhPIM

Trolled a couple of Millennials 😉 Felt like old times ......

Not really retro, but today I tried to resurrect my dad's old Dell Inspiron that had died after Windows 10 wiped the C: drive.

I first backed up the old data, which made me curse at Microsoft for not including an easy way to copy a drive's contents to an external drive from the recovery console. Ended up having to misuse notepad.exe as a crude file manager to copy over the data. Got a lot of corrupted file warnings.

Then I tried to reinstall Windows 10, which failed. So I tried to reinstall Windows 7 from DVD, which appeared to work, but then failed big time when downloading updates with an error message indicating data corruption issues. Then the system lost the hard disk, and couldn't read the DVD-ROM drive anymore. Rebooted, looked in the BIOS, and the drives didn't show up. Shut it down, reseated all cables, and tried again. The drives were visible in the BIOS, but after exiting the BIOS the hard disk started making strange grinding noises and the DVD-ROM drive started going "CHUNK", and then the PC couldn't find the hard disk again.

So I guess Windows 10 wiping the C drive was actually caused by a failing motherboard (SATA bus issue, maybe power-related?). By the looks of it the only salvageable bits are the rear fan, some screws, a DDR3 4Gb module, and the CPU cooler, maybe the Wifi module and CPU too. Likely the hard disk is toast, and probably the DVD-drive too.

Edit: Power issue confirmed, one of the largest capacitors in the power supply looks like it has white electrolyte mushrooms growing out of it... 🤣

Erasing some 27C256 EPROMs. (10 of them) -- one pass of 60 seconds got 6 out of 10 fully erased. One more pass of 60 seconds of the remaining four erased those. The ST M27C256B's are the ones that required a little extra time for some reason.

*lid cracked for pic only for a few seconds

wiretap wrote on 2021-06-10, 00:07:

Erasing some 27C256 EPROMs. (10 of them) -- one pass of 60 seconds got 6 out of 10 fully erased. One more pass of 60 seconds of […]
Show full quote

Erasing some 27C256 EPROMs. (10 of them) -- one pass of 60 seconds got 6 out of 10 fully erased. One more pass of 60 seconds of the remaining for erased those. The ST M27C256B's are the ones that required a little extra time for some reason.

*lid cracked for pic only for a few seconds

Never cross the streams!

I noodled around with my EISA SCSI build - It boots (again!) so now I have to retrobrite it and get the hardware secured fully, then I suppose I'll install an OS and configure all the peripherals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4m12v__cJE&l … 73IaHW1B4AaABAg

Few days ago I found an old power supply I had bought new like 10 years ago but never used it and had completely forgot about it. Nothing special, a cheap chinese one, but for some testing it may be ok.

I was doing some tidying up today, clearing out a bunch of junk to create some extra storage space for my retro hardware.

Whilst tidying, I came across a graphics card that I'd completely forgotten I had - an AGP SiS 6326. Yay, officially the crappiest AGP card in my collection. If I ever want to create a gimped DOS-only build using a newer motherboard, I have a candidate for graphics. 🤣

creepingnet wrote on 2021-06-07, 15:41:

Fixed the truck yesterday - recap of the Engine Management Computer - all three Electrolytics leaked, ate up a trace or two, and went out. Put it all back together, about the only codes I get now are 111 and 10 plus a couple from the ECU relearning it's air/fuel settings - so were back to healthy. So yeah, truly a "vintage computer" activity recapping a very late 1992 Ford EEC-IV. Basically a "free" repair since I had the caps on hand in a nice quantity anyway. Next up is oil change from running in "Zombie Mode" for a few days (gas in oil from running to rich without the ECU).

I had two cars that used the EEC-IV system - an 87 Escort (pretty decent car) and an 89 Topaz (pretty decent for a free car - only two alternator fires!) - I remember the jokers at the local FLM dealership telling me that I need to replace the harness for $110 (or so - this was in the late 90s) because their code reader couldn't connect to the port. One connector corroded and broke off the back. I got some wire cutters, stripped the cable, put on another connector (I was always at the junkyard, the trunk was never in short supply of random shit) and slid out the corroded connector and put the new one in the harness. They refused to connect their equipment to it because it was "unsafe" - like, you watched me do it, there's nothing unsafe at all about this. They were being dicks.

I bought instead the repair Chilton's manual and in it it said you can hook up a multimeter and count the swipes and decode what the error is - so that's exactly what I did. I found and fixed the problem for a fraction of what a goddamn harness repair would cost, AND I now had a repair manual.

F**K the dealer.

Jed118 wrote on 2021-06-10, 20:17:

I had two cars that used the EEC-IV system - an 87 Escort (pretty decent car) and an 89 Topaz (pretty decent for a free car - on […]
Show full quote

creepingnet wrote on 2021-06-07, 15:41:

Fixed the truck yesterday - recap of the Engine Management Computer - all three Electrolytics leaked, ate up a trace or two, and went out. Put it all back together, about the only codes I get now are 111 and 10 plus a couple from the ECU relearning it's air/fuel settings - so were back to healthy. So yeah, truly a "vintage computer" activity recapping a very late 1992 Ford EEC-IV. Basically a "free" repair since I had the caps on hand in a nice quantity anyway. Next up is oil change from running in "Zombie Mode" for a few days (gas in oil from running to rich without the ECU).

I had two cars that used the EEC-IV system - an 87 Escort (pretty decent car) and an 89 Topaz (pretty decent for a free car - only two alternator fires!) - I remember the jokers at the local FLM dealership telling me that I need to replace the harness for $110 (or so - this was in the late 90s) because their code reader couldn't connect to the port. One connector corroded and broke off the back. I got some wire cutters, stripped the cable, put on another connector (I was always at the junkyard, the trunk was never in short supply of random shit) and slid out the corroded connector and put the new one in the harness. They refused to connect their equipment to it because it was "unsafe" - like, you watched me do it, there's nothing unsafe at all about this. They were being dicks.

I bought instead the repair Chilton's manual and in it it said you can hook up a multimeter and count the swipes and decode what the error is - so that's exactly what I did. I found and fixed the problem for a fraction of what a goddamn harness repair would cost, AND I now had a repair manual.

F**K the dealer.

That's kind of how my story started with how I started doing my own repairs. The Ford has been in my family since 93' when it was new and had 15 miles on it. We had a good shop nearby - Grady's - who did all the work on it, and they were trustable. But since living in Seattle and now the South-Central West I have had next to no luck finding an honest mechanic anywhere who can do what Grady Anderson and his team of pros could. Precision Tune REALLY f***ed this thing up - tore my intake gasket, lost the airbox screws, throttle cover, and put in the wrong parts including a chinese rip-off clutch kit that was more a fiasco than it would have been had I done it myself - had to get a friend of a friend to replace the brand new leaking slave with the proper Motorcraft part that lasts about 100-150k mi. Even F***ed up this thing is still a reliable daily driver somehow. But that was it, everything ever since - clutch included - has been my own work, and it seems when I do the work, it runs good as new, costs WAY less, and 1/10th the downtime.

This time I was forced to tow it to a shop because my apartment would have it towed as "disabled" or so they say. The shop gave me this crock-a-bull story about how it was throwing "lean codes" yet they "don't know OBD-1" and to have some local shop look at it. So I limped it home under it's own power, recapped the PCM - if they knew about lean codes - of which there were none, they would have known about the 513 code that meant the ECM had a voltage fault that lead to the recap. So $0.00 and 2 hours of a Sunday later, truck's back to life and happier than ever now that it breathes properly. I'm kind of giddy to check my mpg next, might be better now that I'm no longer sucking dirty air into my intake and I cleaned everything meticulously.

Finished up my Sergey Super VGA card.

wiretap wrote on 2021-06-10, 22:26:

Finished up my Sergey Super VGA card. […]
Show full quote

Finished up my Sergey Super VGA card.

Well done! 😀

wiretap wrote on 2021-06-10, 22:26:

Finished up my Sergey Super VGA card. […]
Show full quote

Finished up my Sergey Super VGA card.

Well done! 😀

creepingnet wrote on 2021-06-10, 22:22:

Jed118 wrote on 2021-06-10, 20:17:

I had two cars that used the EEC-IV system - an 87 Escort (pretty decent car) and an 89 Topaz (pretty decent for a free car - on […]
Show full quote

creepingnet wrote on 2021-06-07, 15:41:

Fixed the truck yesterday - recap of the Engine Management Computer - all three Electrolytics leaked, ate up a trace or two, and went out. Put it all back together, about the only codes I get now are 111 and 10 plus a couple from the ECU relearning it's air/fuel settings - so were back to healthy. So yeah, truly a "vintage computer" activity recapping a very late 1992 Ford EEC-IV. Basically a "free" repair since I had the caps on hand in a nice quantity anyway. Next up is oil change from running in "Zombie Mode" for a few days (gas in oil from running to rich without the ECU).

I had two cars that used the EEC-IV system - an 87 Escort (pretty decent car) and an 89 Topaz (pretty decent for a free car - only two alternator fires!) - I remember the jokers at the local FLM dealership telling me that I need to replace the harness for $110 (or so - this was in the late 90s) because their code reader couldn't connect to the port. One connector corroded and broke off the back. I got some wire cutters, stripped the cable, put on another connector (I was always at the junkyard, the trunk was never in short supply of random shit) and slid out the corroded connector and put the new one in the harness. They refused to connect their equipment to it because it was "unsafe" - like, you watched me do it, there's nothing unsafe at all about this. They were being dicks.

I bought instead the repair Chilton's manual and in it it said you can hook up a multimeter and count the swipes and decode what the error is - so that's exactly what I did. I found and fixed the problem for a fraction of what a goddamn harness repair would cost, AND I now had a repair manual.

F**K the dealer.

That's kind of how my story started with how I started doing my own repairs. The Ford has been in my family since 93' when it was new and had 15 miles on it. We had a good shop nearby - Grady's - who did all the work on it, and they were trustable. But since living in Seattle and now the South-Central West I have had next to no luck finding an honest mechanic anywhere who can do what Grady Anderson and his team of pros could. Precision Tune REALLY f***ed this thing up - tore my intake gasket, lost the airbox screws, throttle cover, and put in the wrong parts including a chinese rip-off clutch kit that was more a fiasco than it would have been had I done it myself - had to get a friend of a friend to replace the brand new leaking slave with the proper Motorcraft part that lasts about 100-150k mi. Even F***ed up this thing is still a reliable daily driver somehow. But that was it, everything ever since - clutch included - has been my own work, and it seems when I do the work, it runs good as new, costs WAY less, and 1/10th the downtime.

This time I was forced to tow it to a shop because my apartment would have it towed as "disabled" or so they say. The shop gave me this crock-a-bull story about how it was throwing "lean codes" yet they "don't know OBD-1" and to have some local shop look at it. So I limped it home under it's own power, recapped the PCM - if they knew about lean codes - of which there were none, they would have known about the 513 code that meant the ECM had a voltage fault that lead to the recap. So $0.00 and 2 hours of a Sunday later, truck's back to life and happier than ever now that it breathes properly. I'm kind of giddy to check my mpg next, might be better now that I'm no longer sucking dirty air into my intake and I cleaned everything meticulously.

Nice job on the ECU recap. I enjoy fixing my own cars and saving a ton of money in the process. I really do miss being in my auto tech class having access to lifts, alignment rack, and every tool you could ever want was super nice.

Today I continued putting together a 440BX Tualatin build:
Asus CUBX with modded BIOS
P3-S 1400 with "Korean guy" adapter soldered
512MB RAM
GeForce4 Ti4200 128MB
2x Diamond Monster 3D II 12MB in SLI
Turtle Beach Aureal Vortex 2
AWE64 Gold
Intel NIC
40GB 7200rpm Maxtor HDD
Lian Li PC-9F full aluminum tower (black)
Seasonic 350W power supply

Put it all together and installed Windows 98 SE.
I will share photos once the cable management is complete...
I also tried some overclocking, it runs stable at 140 FSB and stock voltage and semi-stable at 150 MHz FSB and 1.65V, which means that it completes a 3DMark2001SE run fine, but will throw memory errors in Prime95 after about 15 minutes.
However, this is one of the systems that I wanted to build for a long time and I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

playing Quake with three keyboards through OBS 😁

I am going to rebuild my 486 computer today.
It is acting up.
Just needs some TLC and minor modifications.

Found a 100MHz DX4 chip that I forgot I even had, so popped it in my DOS machine. I guess it's an upgrade from the AMD DX2-80 I had before, but honestly I'm not noticing much of a difference. I mean, Alien Rampage still slows to a crawl when the blood and guts start splattering. But you know what? 100 is a nice & clean number, and despite the slower bus it doesn't appear to be a downgrade in any way, so I'm keeping it. 😀

edit: Tested some older CF cards, all but one works...
edit2: actually the 2Gb Ultra II does work, was not formatted properly for a PC

Started out with some good old Mega Man 4 on my NES from '87, and going to play some more Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow after this. The boss on the ship stage is insanely difficult though.