Byrd wrote:

dionb wrote:

This lot was different. A similar number of cards (30), but they came from someone who turned out to be a fellow retro-computing enthusiast.

That's a good point, I often see bundles of interesting, high-end "untested" graphics cards sold on eBay with fans missing. Have a look at what else they're selling. In this case,a noticed a seller was hocking piles of high-end PCI-E GPUs and heatsinks as well, an enthusiast clearly knowing they were definitely faulty not "untested".

Happens a lot on eBay and Polish Allegro - I absolutely abhor it. 😠

Untested is, afaic, malfunctioning. I only pay scrap value for them in the hopes that I can get it to work. In the case that it turns out to work, it's a bonus. No tears shed.

appiah4 wrote:

Untested is, afaic, malfunctioning. I only pay scrap value for them in the hopes that I can get it to work. In the case that it turns out to work, it's a bonus. No tears shed.

Yep, although milage does vary based on source and type of component. Basic rule is still generally 'if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is' of course 😉 - but particularly motherboards are fertile ground - after recapping and sorting out jumpers and BIOS I generally get 50% of boards explicitly sold as faulty working.

Must say I was too negative about the batch I was testing, the bad ones must have all been at the top. Only one more failed since I wrote that post. I now have a *big* pile of working 4MB S3 Trio3D AGP cards...

Removing old floppy disk labels; who invented that glue is the devil incarnate!

MySpace wrote:

Removing old floppy disk labels; who invented that glue is the devil incarnate!

I'll usually just buy new ones, and put them on.

black permanent marker master race.

MySpace wrote:

Removing old floppy disk labels; who invented that glue is the devil incarnate!

GooGone doesn't work?

Today (uh it's already past midnight...) I've been reading through this information (https://www.roberthancock.com/dell/xpsdproc.htm) for my Dell XPS D233 to see about fitting a 500MHz Celeron with slotket to it.

Currently it doesn't boot with the Celeron fitted, but my other BX board does

edit: aww I lost the option to disable the cache in the bios, when I updated the bios

Finally got my 3Com 3C509B network card working on my XT build.

My problem was that the packet driver would enable the card and it would light up on the switch etc, but mTCP could not access it.

I couldn't run the 3C5X9CFG config utility on this PC as it won't work with only 256KB RAM. So I had to remove the card and place it in my 286 and run the utility there, where upon I realised my error - I'd forgotten to set the IRQ, it was set to IRQ 10. I changed it to 3, which was free on my XT and et voila, it works.

I can now get serious with this system and use mTCP's FTP server to transfer stuff across. Using 720KB floppy disks was getting more than a bit tedious.

Had to test everything was working, so transferred over the game Mini-Putt. Between that, Hard Hat Mack, Dig Dug & Tapper, this XT is certainly going to keep me busy for a while. 🤣

I'm so glad I stockpiled a bunch of those 3C509B cards in the early 2000s, they certainly come in handy and I'd hate to have to pay today's eBay prices!

PTherapist wrote:

Finally got my 3Com 3C509B network card working on my XT build. […]
Show full quote

Finally got my 3Com 3C509B network card working on my XT build.

My problem was that the packet driver would enable the card and it would light up on the switch etc, but mTCP could not access it.

I couldn't run the 3C5X9CFG config utility on this PC as it won't work with only 256KB RAM. So I had to remove the card and place it in my 286 and run the utility there, where upon I realised my error - I'd forgotten to set the IRQ, it was set to IRQ 10. I changed it to 3, which was free on my XT and et voila, it works.

I can now get serious with this system and use mTCP's FTP server to transfer stuff across. Using 720KB floppy disks was getting more than a bit tedious. Had to test everything was working, so transferred over the game Mini-Putt. Between that, Hard Hat Mack, Dig Dug & Tapper, this XT is certainly going to keep me busy for a while. 🤣

I'm so glad I stockpiled a bunch of those 3C509B cards in the early 2000s, they certainly come in handy and I'd hate to have to pay today's eBay prices!

Are there 8 bit 3C509B card? Or does the 16 bit work in an XT?

Cyrix200+ wrote:

Are there 8 bit 3C509B card? Or does the 16 bit work in an XT?

They're 16-bit cards, they work fine in an 8-bit slot.

In my case, I simply used the 3C5X9CFG utility to disable PnP mode and manually set IRQ etc. Works great with the packet driver compiled for 8088, available here: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?305 … 0-drivers/page2

These cards also work great with a Boot ROM, for eg. using XTIDE Universal BIOS.

I have that type of card myself, and I realized the Base I/O address was conflicting with my sound card's MIDI port, so I used that utility to change the Base I/O address from 300h to 240h-280h (cannot remember which) and crisis averted.

Qjimbo wrote:

MySpace wrote:

Removing old floppy disk labels; who invented that glue is the devil incarnate!

GooGone doesn't work?

I don't have anything like that nearby. I'll try out the black permanent marker trick and see how it goes. 😀

Kinda sorta retro. Gonna make a separate post soon. https://imgur.com/a/d0MJq

oeuvre wrote:

Kinda sorta retro. Gonna make a separate post soon. https://imgur.com/a/d0MJq

The original netvista had front-panel usb? Thats pretty progressive for the time. Nice project btw! Those IBM cases certainly have that nice 90s aesthetic.

MySpace wrote:

Qjimbo wrote:

MySpace wrote:

Removing old floppy disk labels; who invented that glue is the devil incarnate!

GooGone doesn't work?

I don't have anything like that nearby. I'll try out the black permanent marker trick and see how it goes. 😀

Good luck! I know that marker does have solvents in it so may work, GooGone is citrus based though so not as fumey. It's a pretty handy thing to have around the house.

ElectricMonk wrote:

Good Lord, that almost looks like a very early Norton Commander.

I was going to say it looks like Volkov Commander... that's what I use on my 5150. Very handy! 😀

Lots and LOTS of video editing re: 486DLC goes Solid State!

Now just to add the sound overlay (narration, some Benny Hill ish...)

Qjimbo wrote:

oeuvre wrote:

Kinda sorta retro. Gonna make a separate post soon. https://imgur.com/a/d0MJq

The original netvista had front-panel usb? Thats pretty progressive for the time. Nice project btw! Those IBM cases certainly have that nice 90s aesthetic.

The P4 ones did but the PIII ones had a slit in the case for it. And the front cover had a removable cover that filled the gap. You can see it in the picture with the 2 NetVistas. I ordered the correct USB header from eBay.

Tweaked my XT build some more. Altered config.sys & autoexec.bat to free up some RAM. Managed to claw back 13KB of wasted RAM (high buffers, lastdrive & keyb.com). Makes all the difference when you only have 256K total.

Also transferred over IBM E Editor to use instead of Edlin (I hate that thing) and created a bunch of batch files to simplify loading games & apps + a simple Menu and instructions for anybody who may use it (they won't but why not haha).

Still have about 12MB free on the HDD, so lots more I can fill this baby up with.

Next on my agenda also is to try out the Turbo XT BIOS.

Skeletor is on holidays so I had to fire up DoomII - the IIyama is running with a BNC cable now and the picture is somewhat "neutral". Overall the magenta hue is always there, besides in windows where one can tune the color components. Why the monitor has no capabilites to modify the green channel on a display of semi-premium class is beyond me.
Nonetheless 22" of goodness.