Cracked open the EGA monitor I got on Saturday to fix the power cord... I mighta been scammed guys, looks like it was made last month not 1988... just kidding, very clean.... had to quit for now, took wayyyy too long to get the cover off, was hung up on something, but I just wanted to jiggle it gently, old plastic etc etc, so it finally came loose and I still can't tell what it got stuck on, maybe just a cable tie on one of the reinforcement ribs or something. Anyway, that made my shoulders too shaky to risk the wrath of the angry pixies, so just picked at it a bit and will have to finish up tomorrow.

Why do you need an ega monitor? The VGA card+monitor also knows EGA.

DarthSun wrote on 2024-10-01, 22:09:

Why do you need an ega monitor? The VGA card+monitor also knows EGA.

It's been a long time but if I remember correctly, you want an EGA CRT when you love ScANliNzzZ... I.e. an EGA CRT has more pronounced scanlines than a VGA CRT.

Ah but EGA has beautiful fat scanlines not doubled up fakeass clownshoes scanlines. 😜

I want it for my 286, my Turbo XT, my pile of 8 bit cards to test... the other couple of PC/XT I could throw together... does CGA too... and my big multisync is BIG and will likely not be hanging with the XTs. It is actually a match to the 286 for manufacturer and time period.

Endlessly topic switching 😀 Still haven't done any more on the slot1 brackets since today I'm doing some ordering and that includes LCD polarisers.

I've been trying to source a replacement polariser for this Toshiba LCD on my T2400CS that's the Toshiba version of the Sharp LM64C089/LM64C149. To clarify, this is a DSTN 640*480 display where the front polariser broke down and has been stripped off. I recapped it but the display is just white unless I use 3d glasses as a replacement polariser because that's the best thing I could find until now: Re: Vinegar syndrome and choosing new polarising film

I found some dud leads but eventually realised that I should be looking at other passive displays on common devices, first tried casio LCD tvs but that turned up nothing. However lots of people with Gameboy Pocket LCDs were talking about replacing the polariser and that it needs a special film, called a phase retarder or compensation film to shift the colours (which is what the F in FSTN means). Because without it the LCD has a green tint when aligned properly.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Gameboy/comments/nr6 … group_recently/
And on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2896410747420 … 57957954577054/
So they talk about using some regular clear tape - took me a while to get the computer back up and running but I had to try it. The T2400CS has been in pieces for ages while I try to figure out how to convert it to a TFT display to solve the problem 100%, but I really want to see if this works!
Put some sticky tape onto a salvaged TFT polariser that looks rubbish against this DSTN screen normally. It requires rotating around to get the right display - Held the smooth side of the tape against the LCD, rotated the tape while also moving the polariser this way & that. Eventually got it to the right spot and my DSTN screen has colour again 😁

Now I'm looking at the one place that has a polariser with the compensation sheet and it's pricey but these LCDs aren't easy to find either: https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/10050063575359 … ayAdapt=glo2vnm
I bet the polarisation angle is wrong and it won't even fit.

Well I ended up wasting the first half of my playtime futzing around with a 2.5" external enclosure. But then I got back to putting the IEC 60320 c6 socket/plug into the EGA monitor... Y tho? you ask.. welll it had a ~3" stub of cord, dude says he stole the cord for something else on a holiday weekend or something. Though since it's the kind of thing techs do when equipment deemed dangerous, I did give it a lot of eyeballing in there. I could have maybe made a huge carbuncle of a splice right before the cord goes in, but I figured that would create leverage to yank out internal connections or damage plastics or something... besides I like the idea of cord snags pulling the plug out rather than pulling the monitor to the floor or something. I had a dead powerbrick with a convenient C6 so I recovered that because it was close to the size the grommet went through, and there would not have been room for the C14 kettleplug or others. However, some "adjustment" to the hole was required so I was sawing, shaving and filing real careful.

Got to the test fit stage, seems good, got to be suppertime before I soldered it up. I think I might need a careful fillet of "hot snot" round the base of it internally, as although it flanges well and won't be pushed in, the whole socket might pull out if the cord is a tight fit or it gets yanked hard.

Getting ready to pick up a Ultra branded CRT later today. Gonna be fun, the place of the chap I saw it at is nothing short of a Ed Edd n Eddy junkyard. I got a free Voodoo3 2000 in a retro machine I got from him so can't complain.

I built an nwX287 Dallas RTC replacement for a 486 board, but it did not work.

I mean it did.. but not quite. The board now POSTs and detects the CPU fine, retains CMOS settings but throws out a "Real Time Clock Error" at POST and the time never advances. I think it may be an issue with the oscillator? I will build another tonight..

After reading in multiple places that the Intel Saturn II chipset only supports a maximum FSB of 33 MHz I always suspected this was a artificial limitation imposed by Intel. Well...It appears that, at least on my board 40MHz is perfectly fine. There are no ISA or PCI clock dividers, so ISA runs at 10Mhz and PCI at 40. I even tried 44Mhz FSB but that was unstable. To unlock 40MHz FSB you have to physically alter your motherboard, by either cutting a hard wired jumper (ECS) or cutting a PCB trace (ASUS).

I'm troubleshooting a GMB-486SG mainboard, it looks like the clock generator is not working as it should.
The scope measures 4MHz on the CLK pin at the socket. The same frequency is measured at pin 11 of the AV9107C clock generator. The 14.318 crystal is working fine, so I think the clock generator is the problem.

If someone have different thoughts about this, please let me hear them. 🙂

I'd be looking carefully at datasheet, see if any solder bridges or capacitors that have shorted could be telling the clockgen to deliver 4Mhz instead of what you think you've got it set to. Also double check any support components on application note circuit example are present and at expected values. i.e. nothing knocked off, cracked, blown or degenerated.

That's a good one, I will check the components in between, (if any) Picture just for clarity and what we're looking at.

PD2JK wrote on 2024-10-03, 16:49:

That's a good one, I will check the components in between, (if any) Picture just for clarity and what we're looking at.

The attachment DSC_1838.JPG is no longer available

Swap that jumper for JP5/6/7 with another one, or use a fresh jumper to see if that makes a difference. I have a memory of someone on here trying to figure out why the clock generator on their pentium (maybe pro?) motherboard wasn't outputting a meaningful frequency and it turned out to be just the jumper was damaged so no clock rate was selected

Looking at the datasheet there is an entry for 4MHz output when FS3/2/1 are high from the internal pull up i.e. not connected and the FS0 is pulled low. I bet FS0 is hardwired low and FS3/2/1 are JP5/6/7 and no jumper pulling them low results in 4MHz output 😀
https://4donline.ihs.com/images/VipMasterIC/I … 6BF9D772C3B8264

edit: actually I think FS3 is the one that should be hardwired low normally and JP5/6/7 are FS2/1/0. Something has messed up the connection that pulls FS3 low so your clock generator is operating on the wrong side of the frequency table, or it's faulty.

Todays EGA monitor adventures went like...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbSehcT19u0

Yeah so the light above my work area had been a bit flickery, and I opened up the fitting, which was bolted into a splice box where the run for the kitchen fridge/freezer met the basement lights (yeah don't ask me, it's whack) and I disturbed that and the burned up end of the wire from where this switch had been arcing crumbled up, so did the connectors holding it all together, aaaaaargh, strip all the wires back and re-splice and fuggin install the light, to see the work again... (Also in panic mode because all our food is trash if I don't get this done real quick)

The original owner of house was master craftsman in concrete construction, and the husband of his daughter who we bought from was a master craftsman locksmith, so all the plumbing, electrical, woodwork, trim, windows etc are very.... "interesting"

Was scratching my head as to why my MSI MS-6168 and its 16MB overclocked V3 2000 would turn up a flickering HUD in Carmageddon 1.

Turned out I had to add -vrush to the Voodoo executable.

As the result of a bunch of retro projects, my desoldering gun was becoming clogged so gave it a good clean out.

I'll need to remember to do this more often.

Same here... I spent a good 10 minutes cleaning out my desoldering gun this morning, but it's just a cheapy Chinese brand, not a nice Hakko like yours.

Been crafting a replacement splash screen for my ABIT AB9 Pro, which among other new "upgrades", desires a new BIOS logo.

Post-2005 ABIT really slacked on some of their boards and slapped the most bland splash screen you could be thinking of - the below image is the actual AB9 QuadGT BIOS splash screen, the exact same file used for AB9 Pro as well.

Can't have that, after ABIT going the trouble of changing the whole setup screen to purple! So, here's the new one I came up with.

I indeed took the liberty to reuse ABIT's traditional logo from the 90s, and went to town with GIMP, as well as Irfanview for resizing (the original was 4054 x 3039, zoinks!).

All that's left to do is have Irfanview convert the new PNG into a compatible BMP that can then be inserted into the BIOS file, and off to flash the BIOS I go.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-10-03, 21:39:

Todays EGA monitor adventures went like... […]
Show full quote

Todays EGA monitor adventures went like...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbSehcT19u0

Yeah so the light above my work area had been a bit flickery, and I opened up the fitting, which was bolted into a splice box where the run for the kitchen fridge/freezer met the basement lights (yeah don't ask me, it's whack) and I disturbed that and the burned up end of the wire from where this switch had been arcing crumbled up, so did the connectors holding it all together, aaaaaargh, strip all the wires back and re-splice and fuggin install the light, to see the work again... (Also in panic mode because all our food is trash if I don't get this done real quick)

The original owner of house was master craftsman in concrete construction, and the husband of his daughter who we bought from was a master craftsman locksmith, so all the plumbing, electrical, woodwork, trim, windows etc are very.... "interesting"

I'm reminded of visiting my mother when one of the light switches in her mobile home had stopped working. I went to her breaker panel and flipped the main one to the off position and the bakelight crumbled! It was a hot day, and now there was no power to anything! I had to pull the breaker switch from the panel and make an immediate run to the nearest home supply store to purchase a replacement. Only once I had done that was I able to get back to the job of fixing the non functioning light switch.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-10-04, 00:39:

Been crafting a replacement splash screen for my ABIT AB9 Pro, which among other new "upgrades", desires a new BIOS logo.

Now you have an exclusive octopussy Ninomae Ina'nis BIOS! 🤣