Broke out the soldering iron this evening. Three to-dos:

- My STB Velocity 4400 (the first nVidia TNT card) lost an SMD cap due to my clumsiness. It now has its cap back and is in full working order 😀
- The wire piggy-backing a new battery onto a Dallas DS1387 RTC RAMified broke off. It's back on again, with a tie-wrap taking any future strains on the wire, so should stay good now.
- Someone wanted to buy a PCI sound card I had listed on Amibay - but only if I added the MIDI daughterboard header. Sure, easy enough and good practice for some bigger soldering projects I really need to get around to (that Snark Barker...).

Before:

After:

Tested and it works like a dream 😀

It was a nice day, so I cut a hole in my Voodoo 5 Shuttle case to add a mesh window, added a handle, and painted it.

keenmaster486 wrote:

dave343 wrote:

- 16MB 2x8MB EDO -60

This system would benefit greatly from 32 or 64 MB of RAM!

It had 32MB EDO previously, and before that 128MB EDO (2x64mb). It's been downgraded on the CPU end too from 233MMX/128mb -> P166/32mb -> now P100.

Previously I was running Windows 98SE, but I wanted to keep the system to parts that were available before 96(ish), and primarily build a W95B system.

Got the case and mostly finished the build, but there will be at least a couple small changes (hopefully swap to CD-bootable SATA controller next week, need to install the usb 3.0 controller, and I'm still undecided as to whether or not to leave this as my 2000 dream PC with the 1.13ghz PIII and Quadro 2 Pro or max it out with a 1.4ghz chip and toss a Quadro FX 4000 SDI that i already have).

Also not sure why the motherboard 2 built-in rear USB ports are not working but the motherboard header is.

Fortunately cloning the partition over from the other ssd to this larger one seems to have worked flawlessly so I'm ready to try getting dual boot with either Windows ME or 98SE going.

Been up to a lot lately with the Tandy 1000A

Played through some of the Ultima games (I, II, III, IV, and V, I've messed around a bit in VI but I find it's just way too slow at 4.77MHz even with the bangin' soundtrack).

FTP-ing over files/programs using mTCP's FTPSERV, setting up DOSLYNX (not quite working yet), messing around in Arachne.

Been reading technical references and looking into breadboarding a lightpen. I Downloaded the Penmouse driver and my initial iteration almost worked - it found it's spot on the screen.....ONCE. Going to look more and more into this. If I can get a good prototype going, this might be a step out of just making guitars and guitar pedals with my electronics skills.

Also been getting inspired to start looking into assembly a bit from watching 8-bit Guy's videos on Planet X3's production - I started making some stuff in Game Maker on the 286, but kind of want to make some seriously old school 8086/8088 compatible stuff in 4-16 color as well.

Lastly, toying around with Piano from TVDogs site on the Tandy - might use it as a chiptune synth on some Bandlab music productions of mine.

I keep getting GPFs when I try to change the icon for Netscape Navigator in Windows 3. Fun. Not a major issue, as I can barely browse the web with it thanks to Cloudflare blocking it everywhere anyway. Still, it feels like a personal sin to make dozens and dozens of icons, and not use them on my own computers. On that end, I've made two more potential icons, but I have yet to test them to see how they look in practice. Many of the icons I would like to make, cannot be changed in Windows 3 without editing the DLLs and CPLs directly.

My site is already becoming a bit cluttered and creeping well outside of its original purview. Too much more, and it wouldn't be suitable for it to remain plain gray. To that end, I would suppose that it needs greater depth of content, if not greater breadth. Hard not using any content from my previous website and identity, but almost nothing there was suitable for early nineties webternetting. It was very much a product of the following decade.

Adjusted the focus:

Put it in its cage:

and mostly% finished building a 386. Again.

That 90s beige though...

Kinda NOT YELLOW, YEAH!!!

wiretap wrote:

It was a nice day, so I cut a hole in my Voodoo 5 Shuttle case to add a mesh window, added a handle, and painted it. […]
Show full quote

It was a nice day, so I cut a hole in my Voodoo 5 Shuttle case to add a mesh window, added a handle, and painted it.

I tend to think like buttons on forums just lead to annoyance when dumb posts get likes from dumb people, but when I see something like that I immediately try to find a like button so I could push the hell out of it. That thing looks awesome.

Thank you 😀

Brand new Zalman "ultra quiet heatpipe VGA cooler" installed on Elsa Gloria III (Quadro 2 Pro). Hope it is nice and quiet!

wiretap wrote:

It was a nice day, so I cut a hole in my Voodoo 5 Shuttle case to add a mesh window, added a handle, and painted it.

Looks good! The reason I named my XPC build They'll Bury You in a Lunchbox is because I was intending to add a handle like that, but I couldn't bring myself to drill into the shell. 😜 Of course now I need to cut an extra side vent for GPU cooling too.

Over the weekend, I attempted to fix the 3 GameBoy DMG-01 systems that were sold as-is, untested, and not powering on. I have placed the terminals in vinegar and got rid of the acid, and the systems did turn on without issues. However, the displays had horizontal, vertical, or both lines on there. I attempted to fix the missing lines and the one that had the vertical lines on there had a snag on the ribbon cable that's on the vertical portion, the horizontal line system got melted on accident (never place your soldering iron underneath the screen), and the one that had both got the vertical lines fixed without issues, but, the horizontal line issues was still present and the soldering iron got too close to the ribbon cable underneath and some of the contacts broke off.

Well, that's what I get when I attempt something and it breaks. I need to find boards that have the screens on there so I can install them in the systems. There are other as-is systems on eBay, however, I don't want to take any chances with the vertical or horizontal line issues again. At least I have the PLAY IT LOUD version that works without issues.

Does working on cars count as retro activity? If so, I replaced the belt tensioner (little to no wiggle room using my ratchet socket and 15mm socket to remove the bolt, but, it loosened easily and I used my fingers to remove it out and installed the new one with my fingers to tighten it and used my ratchet socket to snug it down), the belt, blower motor, and blower motor resistor (got rusty and worked on high only, and the blower motor got rusty on the inside, but, it still worked for an 18 year old part, surprisingly). I cleaned off the cabin air filter (K&N) and the cover for the cabin air filter with a garden hose and sprayer set to jet mode to get them nice and clean. I then discovered that the weather stripping that resides below the windshield was below where the cabin air filter resides and determined that's how rain got inside my car.

When Friday comes, I'll be going to the salvage yard and remove the carpet out of another Oldsmobile Intrigue (if it's the same color and in good condition), install it in my car, and headlamp assemblies for my dad's 2005 Chevy Malibu Maxx as his right turn signal is broken (bulb worked on my car) and they are yellowed.

Retrobrite complete! Almost... I gotta get those dials. That's how yellowed it was.

I don't think I want to retrobrite a monitor again. It took the better part of a week to get all the parts done.

Now I have to 3D print me a power switch cover.

That looks so much better than before...

And I decided to randomly build a 486DX2/66 out of parts I forgot I had - I'm short a VLB I/O controller though. I just need to get a power supply and a switch bracket for the case-to-switch mount (I'll likely have to make one again) and solder on a 3.6v CMOS battery and for now use an ISA controller to see if this mess works (parts sold to me as working).

Disenable, eh?

This is where I stopped for the night:

bjwil1991 wrote:

es.

Does working on cars count as retro activity?

In that case, I put the interior back together on my 87 Hyundai and did some minor electrical work. Next up is a new brake master, timing belt tensioner, custom front suspension install, and I need to get a headliner from somewhere, probably custom made at this point.

Then I can enjoy it, and legally drive it for the first time in almost a decade, when I blew the motor racing it at Mosport. 🙁

I need to gut my interior to replace the carpet (going to a junkyard on Friday to grab a few things anyway) and get the rain water out from the bottom of the carpet as I had to fix the cowl water deflector (weatherstrip) somehow got below where it was supposed to be at and the water ruined my climate controls: blower resistor broke again and the blower motor got rusty, but, still worked. Replaced both the resistor and blower motor since using the old blower motor wasn't a good idea as it smelt musty and electrical smoke at the same time when I ran the air at high speed.

Upgraded my Gotek floppy emulator - now it has a encoder wheel as well.

So it has now FlashFloppy firmware, OLED screen and encoder. Quite a nice combo. I wonder, what sound it will make if i add the speaker mod to it as well...

GigAHerZ wrote:

Upgraded my Gotek floppy emulator - now it has a encoder wheel as well.

So it has now FlashFloppy firmware, OLED screen and encoder. Quite a nice combo. I wonder, what sound it will make if i add the speaker mod to it as well...

Ah, cool. I modded mine a few weeks ago with FlashFloppy and OLED screens, and the encoders arrived last week so when it gets a little bit cooler again I will be putting those in. Where did you put it exactly? Any pictures?

Cyrix200+ wrote:

GigAHerZ wrote:

Upgraded my Gotek floppy emulator - now it has a encoder wheel as well.

So it has now FlashFloppy firmware, OLED screen and encoder. Quite a nice combo. I wonder, what sound it will make if i add the speaker mod to it as well...

Ah, cool. I modded mine a few weeks ago with FlashFloppy and OLED screens, and the encoders arrived last week so when it gets a little bit cooler again I will be putting those in. Where did you put it exactly? Any pictures?

I've drilled a little hole on the other side from the screen. It even had a little tiny "starting hole" in there, near the "GOTEK" logo. 😜
No pics unfortunately.

Was just about to ask for pics. Haven't seen a single example on the net with the OLED screen mounted along with a rotary encoder.