/retro/ - retro, vintage, old computer thread

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>>56031340
Yes I do.

>>56031387
Does she ever help you?

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>>56031340

Sure.

>>56031387
Hope you don't mind I used your picture BiFibro!

>>56031340
i used to do it and have some old computer parts left in my closet

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>>56031465
Hows life dude? Hows the server going alone?

>>56031497
along* not alone

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>>56031435
With restoring old computers? Yes. She helps cleaning cases and keyboards. Her (twin)brother also handles the screwdriver pretty good.
>>56031480
No Problem, it's like a double (you) and improves my ePenis.

>>56031534
I'm glad you have kids who are also interested in such things and are helpful, I wish I will get along with my kids like that when I once have some!

>>56031534
They are lucky to have a dad like you!

>>56031534
What's pic related?

>>56031756
Seems to be a dongle or something.

>>56031776
I would have never figured that out on my own anon, thanks...

>>56031575
>>56031592
It's funny. they are 4yo and love nothing more than fixing or building things with me. Today we assembled some furniture. I didn't need to screw a single screw.

>>56031787
No problem.

>>56031776

parallel ethernet adapter

Do you have problems with old leaking capacitors and have to replace them?

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>>56031756
>>56031776
Xircom PE3, parallel port ethernet adapter. I want to use it for pic related.

>>56031822
That's always a problem with those old machines. It's even recommended to replace the capacitors on 20+ year old machines if they ain't leaking.

>>56031812
>>56031823
Oh.
It really looked like a dongle for me for some reason.

>>56031823
Very cool, I could use something like that, the adapter that is.

Kind of guessed it because of the company.

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>there are people on this board RIGHT NOW who don't have a dedicated Win9x gaming shitbox

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>>56031923

>implying I don't

>>56031776
[triggered]

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I actually don't know what to do with this guy. I can't sell it locally because of my assburgers and I can't ship it anywhere for obvious reasons. I just don't have use for such a computer, though I had fun restoring it. Also, I tried getting the 3½" floppy to work with 720KB disks, but it'll only format them to 360KB. I'm using DRIVER.SYS on PC-DOS 3.2. The floppy controller is the original that came with the XT.

>>56031923
I have one, but it's more oriented for DOS games.
I want to get a Pentium and stick my Voodoo 2 in it.

>>56032040
You might have to change dip switches or jumpers to get it to recognize it as a 720KB drive.
Even so, it should read 720KB disks fine, it will just format them to 360KB.

>>56032040
>I can't sell it locally because of my assburgers and I can't ship it anywhere for obvious reasons.
Explain? Might be able to help you better then.

>>56032040
Also, I have a shitton of parts ranging from a couple of baby-AT Socket 7 boards to Socket 370/slot 1 boards, CPUs and stuff like that. I used to collect it as a kid, but now I don't have an use for it anymore. If anybody from the EU is interested just ask away (if this is spam, delete my post)
>>56032157
I can't talk to people if they are in front of me. And the thing is just too damn heavy to ship it anywhere outside of Madrid.

>>56032191
Oh! EU! Nice, you have any 8-bit ISA cards? Sound cards?

>>56032216
Well, I have the cards that are inside the XT, which is all pretty common stuff. As for sound cards, I'm afraid I only have a couple of SB ViBRA 16s and an SB16 WavEffects.

>>56032252
That's a bummer! Also keep the cards inside the XT, makes it worth more then the cards separately.

If you really don't have any use for the machine, just put it in a dirty, dark corner to wait it's destroy.
You might be able to sell it in the future or just use it from time to time for fun, you're not very interested in it, are you?

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Opinions on this machine, anyone?

>>56032288
Well, I was interested in it at first, but considering it has a Chips EGA card as its graphics output, and I can only use it in CGA mode because of the 5153... Yeah. Also, I'd have to get one of those USB floppy emulators or build another machine with a real floppy drive (instead of the USB POS I'm using) to transfer files to it.

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>>56031823
C... Can you be my dad? Please...

>>56032320
I'd fuck it for that price!

>>56032349
I really don't know what you mean by that. Is that a good price? I wasn't thinking of paying that much for it.

>>56032341
Well, CGA is better than nothing and that EGA card probably runs CGA faster than any real CGA card would.

Why a real machine? A USB floppy works fine to transfer files to it, format them as 720KB disks in Windows and it's just simple drag and drop.

Also try finding a Etherlink III 16-bit ethernet adapter, they are very common and work fine in a 8-bit ISA slot in a XT, then you can use the mTCP FTP server to transfer files!

>>56032385
Well, I mean that I'd get it if I had one for $100 sold locally (+-120KM).
I never see them here.

You have to fix the NVRAM tought.

>>56032343
Kek
Depends... How old are you, where are you from and whats your mothers name?

>>56031045
Looks like a Model F. Does the cable have an RJ45 plug? I have one like that, the protocol is actually just PS/2. You can easily wire up a PS/2 plug and use it with a modern PC, but your OS might have trouble with code page 3 (or whatever it's called).

>>56032415
lmao

>>56032405
I think they're common on the east coast because of how popular they were in science/engineering/business. On the west coast you can find tons of SGIs stuff because of government installations (NASA) as well as animation studios.

NVRAM is just a battery, isn't it?

>>56032388
DOS 3.2 always gives me read errors when reading from 720K floppies. At least the ones formatted on the USB drive.

>>56032557
Did you use
>Format A: /T:80 /N:9

Also you're using that newer 3½ drive, white one, sitting loose in the slot?
Does it read other disks fine?

Is the floppy controller on a ISA card, right?

>>56032421
Fs don't have the round logo

>>56032614
Yup, I tried formatting it like that. I'm using the 3½ drive, which is a modern 1.44MB drive with an adaptor for the older cable. It works fine, I've tried it on other systems. The controller is the original PC XT controller from IBM, so yes, 8-bit ISA card. I also have a line in config.sys to load the driver so it can read 720K floppies, but it doesn't seem to work.

>>56032698
You're probably right. I can never keep them straight.

>>56032790
This is indeed weird.
I'm probably missing something also here.

>>56032790
>>56032829

Those might help,

http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?41717-1-44-Mb-floppy-drive-on-8088-PC-XT

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage/ivXcMjsz3JQ

But I guess you already tried those?

>>56032829
I should also mention I'm using HD floppies converted to DD by covering the HD hole with tape. I remember doing this back in the day and it never gave me any problems, but could it be an issue?

>>56032874
This is no problem, I do that with my XT clone too. Mine has a integrated FDD controller, so I don't know much about the XT ISA card one.

I just picked up an HP Pavilion circa 2001 from my friends basement.

How expensive are internals for something like this? I would love to up it to a gig of RAM from 128Mb and maybe get a faster ethernet card to use it as a DNS server for my LAN

>>56032902
Give it back Tyrone!


Not expensive at all, mere cents usually.

>>56032902
Model number? PC100/133 memory is cheap. Also, keep in mind it probably won't be able to handle a ton of DNS requests if it's something like a Pentium 3 or an Athlon.

>>56032951
DNS requests ain't shit.

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>>56032926
How did you know my name?
>>56032951
6835 apparently. Nothing special, but I have been meaning to get back into this hobby and this seemed like a good refresher. Thanks for the advice - my LAN is not consistently in use but only for backups and gitlab etc, nothing high volume

Seriously jealous of some of the computers ITT. I used to have a few but life happened

>>56033053
>800MHz Coppermine Celeron
I'm sorry to say this, but that machine is almost useless. You could upgrade the CPU to a 1-1,33GHz P3 if you really wanted to use it, though. Also, it probably has a 440BX or i810 chipset, so forget about the gig of ram. It'll take 512MB at most, if the BIOS allows it.

>>56031465
>posts picture
>disappears into the abyss
stop doing that!

>>56033125
Hell no, it's not useless. Give it some memory and put win2000 on it. For server use, I suggest smeserver.

>>56033220
If you put enough RAM in it you could definitely browse the web on it.

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>>56033053
>>56033220
The very first thing you have to do is take out that Celeron and put it in the trash, I'm not kidding, trust me.

Celeron is the worst garbage ever crafted by Intel.
Worse than Atom.

Please, just replace it with a 800MHz P3

Anybody know about Amiga bridgeboards?

I've got an 80286 card installed and hooked up to a 5.25" drive but I don't have DOS on floppy. Can I use a hard drive on the Amiga side as a PC HDD or does it have to be on the PC-card side?

>>56031944
And i came

>>56033475
Oh, that's a really interesting topic but I don't have any experience with bridgeboard.

Don't you have options for that in the bridgeboard software?
Also, what bridgeboard are we talking about, also what Amiga?

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>>56031923
NT for life

>>56033703
But but, Windows 9x!

>>56033454
It really depends on the generation. Coppermine Celerons were okay, especially overclocked.

>>56031340
Do they even make simple joystics like that for modern PCs?

>>56033703
There's so much...texture on the front of that machine.

>>56033125
>>56033454
>>56033750
Those late-era Coppermine Celerons were horrid thanks to that ancient 66 MHz bus but there's plenty he can still do with it and it's not totally SOL, shit's going to be glacial no matter what anyway thanks to slow-ass PC133 RAM and whatever shit chipset he's got on it. He should just keep it stock until he finds a nice piece of high-end hardware from the same time period so he can bench them head-to-head for a good laugh.

>>56033750
They are not, you have to OC a 800MHz Celeron and you still don't get the performance of a 800MHz Pentium 3.

They are far more limited than their Pentium 3 counterparts.
Actually the Coppermine Celerons were what I had in mind when I posted >>56033454 and not the older ones.

>>56033791
Oh, I thought you were generalizing based on the totally nonfunctional first-gen Cellies that had no L2 cache.

>>56033789
Not only that, but they had half the L2 cache.

>>56031823
>parallel port ethernet adapter
That exists? How well do they work and how available are drivers? I could get a couple old machines of mine online with something like that.

Fact remains, just get a Premium 3 in it, it's still much faster and costs nothing.

>>56033835
I'd guess they are limited to max 2MB/s parallel port speeds and drivers are just a simple Google search for anything nowadays.

>>56033826
Not really as much of a big deal as the bus hobbling, golden-age Mendocinos with 128K full-speed L2 could blow Pentium IIs, Katmai IIIs and their shit half-speed 512K out of the water all day long.

Hell, Durons only had 64K and they were still pretty damn good for what they were.

>>56033644
>Don't you have options for that in the bridgeboard software?
I'm not sure. Like most hardware this is at least secondhand so documentation is sparse at best. The software on the Amiga side recognizes the board and reports it working, for what it's worth. I think I just need to get DOS3-5 into it somehow. I can partition an Amiga-side HDD more easily and cheaply than I can forage for a ~30 year old ISA-bus controller/drive.
>Also, what bridgeboard are we talking about, also what Amiga?
The 286 card, but I also have an 8088 card in storage. And A2000.

>>56033835
>That exists?
There's nothing you can't plug into a parallel port, from DACs to even screens.

>>56033909
Not to mention floppy, cd, hard drives

>>56033865
Damn, there doesn't appear to be Linux support.

>>56033896

It should read floppies from the Amiga side, if they are formatted IBM 720KB, but it would help if I'd know exactly what bridgeboard.

>The 286 card, but I also have an 8088 card in storage. And A2000.
Select it from here and link me!

http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/CategoryList.aspx?id=12

>>56033955
http://www.buzzard.me.uk/jonathan/pe3.html

Theres some kind of support?

>>56033956
>Select it from here and link me!
http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id=329
A2286AT. I have the sandwich board and the 5.25" I mentioned. It's been a while since I cracked open the case but I think there's a serial port card in there too; I think the (a) previous owner used the 286 for BBSing back in the day.

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>>56033835
Works fine. More infos:
http://www.brutman.com/Dos_Networking/xircom_pe3.html
Also drivers: pic related

>>56034006
Here are drivers and the user guide if you need them.

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/a2286at

>>56033987
>Anyone is open to take this code and finish the task of writing a driver.
Hopefully it's well commented.

>>56034107
Good luck!

>>56032320
find out the price for the replacement part and take it from the advertised price

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>tfw I will never be able to afford a working VT-100

>tfw unusable ones still sell for $1000+

Why live

>>56034199
It is 40 bucks, but I'm not replacing it. I was just curious if they were actually completely worthless or maybe if I should avoid it for some reason. I'm not paying anywhere near what he's asking for it.

Any love for PDP in this thread?

>>56034228
Could always do this:
https://gigawa.lt/gigawa.lt/Sun_NVRAM.html

>>56034228
>$40
Nigga my Ultra 5 cost me a whole $5 for an NVRAM replacement

Asking price isn't all that bad for a dual-CPU C3D '60 overall

>>56034212
Yes, sad...

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>>56034228
>it is 40 bucks, but I'm not replacing it.
it's basically this, how is it 40 bucks?!

>>56034006
Did >>56034063 help you?

>>56034289
That is precisely what I planned on doing.
>>56034310
I don't know, nigga, I just took the first number I read as gospel. Sue me. If it's really 5 bucks I'll just replace it, then.

>>56034461
It's literally just the price of the batteries (also tools if you don't have ANY), you don't need a new NVRAM, you only need a new battery for it.

>>56034380
I already had the Janus drivers but I'm reading through the manual now.

>>56034502
Good luck! As much as I read it, you can use virtual disk images, so you should manage it.

>>56034496
No shit then, nigga. I was talking about the price to replace the whole NVRAM.

>>56034524
Then GO GO GO, get that sexy SPARC!

>>56034524
The guy you replied to isn't me, by the way. The $5 was what I paid for the whole chip, so if you give up on the battery extraction for whatever reason, you're not fucked, just check around ebay for the model number or compatible alternatives that I think are listed in the NVRAM FAQ.

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>>56033835
With a little effort and some crap from China you can roll your own.

>>56034576
Oh yeah, this is awesome, you can do that even with a C64.

>>56034542
Should I? What does the Creator 3D shit even really do?
>>56034573
Oh cool. The 42 number must have been brand new from Sun, then. A lot of these pages were written a long time ago.

>>56034524
>>56034573
But why the fuck would you not just glue a button cell battery holder onto the NVRAM so you never have to worry about ordering a new one again.

Then you even don't need to order anything, just hack the NVRAM that's already with the machine, I mean c'mon, it's a good investment for the future, also, if you're into retro computers you might have some skill with hardware.

>>56033955
As far as I remember, I had one working on a laptop with suse 6.4

>>56034754
>But why the fuck would you not just glue a button cell battery holder onto the NVRAM so you never have to worry about ordering a new one again.
That's what I was going to do in the first place. It was the first idea I had when I found out it wasn't a simple button cell. I'm not afraid of it or anything.

Two PDP-11s and a VAX-11/750 reporting in.

>>56034798
Please, can I come live in the 70's with you?

>>56034798
Pics or didn't happen.

>>56034798
Please give us some sexy pics if you ain't jealous to share those beauties!

>>56034798
Where does one even put those?

>>56034771
>suse 6.4
Does anyone have that Suse logo picture with the underline of the cameleon being a transvestite woman with big boobs and chin?

>>56032138
>>56032040
That's normal. The BIOS will think it's a 360k drive and won't let you format them to 720k. There's also an important difference between DRIVER.SYS and DRVPARM in that the former is an external utility that occupies some extra memory while the latter is an internal DOS command. DRIVER.SYS is supposed to report a drive not reported by the BIOS while DRVPARM sets the parameters for one already reported.

Note that this will only be an issue with formatting disks and will not prevent you from otherwise reading and writing them, as long as you have at least DOS 3.2. You could also just format them on a 3.5" drive in a different PC.

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>>56034006
>Although the bridgeboard does not allow you to use ISA cards from the Amiga side, there is a special driver available from Aminet that does let you use NE2000 network cards from the Amiga.

>>56034798
While on that topic, here's a site where you can operate a live PDP-8 complete with webcam:
http://www.pdp8.net/
The web interface requires Java unfortunately but it's still cool as hell. This thing's been around for at least 8 years and I feel like the only one who's ever found it. One at a time please, I don't want PDP-kun getting hurt.

>>56032040
>BIOS dated 5/6/87

This thing obviously had the BIOS replaced at some point with a third party one because an IBM XT would not have an original BIOS with that date.

>>56032138
>You might have to change dip switches or jumpers to get it to recognize it as a 720KB drive
On an XT, no. There's only DIP switches to set the number of floppy drives installed.

>>56034875
If you think that's groovy, there are even adapter cards that let you use normal PC PCI cards with Amigas, like Voodoo 3 or Radeon 9800!

>>56034930
Yeah, I remembered that now, XT used a 8-bit ISA card FDD controller. Clones that had integrated FDD controllers usually had that.

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Retro computing...

>>56035018
Trying too hard bro

>>56032874
That's why it's not working. The drive behaves slightly differently if detects 1.44MB media so while you could do that, it isn't very reliable and you should just go on Evilbay and get real 720k disks.

>>56035064
This is bullshit, just cover the HD hole with tape and you won't have any problems.

Cheap HD floppies are actually using the same medium then DD floppies, not that it would actually even matter.

The drive has NO idea that it's a 1.44MB floppy if you cover the HD hole.

>>56032388
>Well, CGA is better than nothing and that EGA card probably runs CGA faster than any real CGA card would.
It's probably not register compatible with the real thing which will throw stuff off.

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>>56035052
Damn... Browsed some boxes full of memories. Why do I even keep shit like this?

>>56035112
It isn't though. The media on DD disks uses an iron oxide coating while HD media uses a cobalt coating that has higher magnetic coercivity. While he is is using a 1.44MB drive, as I said, the drive does behave slightly different when reading HD media which means you may get problems attempting to read those disks if you cover the hole and use them as 720k media.

Also the fact that he is having trouble reading them reliably does prove me correct. :^)

>>56035115
EGA cards have very good CGA emulation and compatibility, only Hercules emulation on EGA can throw stuff off sync if the program uses hardcoded resolution.
It of course depends on the EGA card how well it does that, but what goes about CGA, there shouldn't be a problem, they were made to work backwards compatible.

For example, I have a EGA card with a MDA monochrome greenscale monitor, there's not a single CGA program I can't run.

>>56035168
The ultimate torture test is the IBM port of Jungle Hunt which requires 100% compatibility with the original IBM CGA card to work.

>>56035167
>Also the fact that he is having trouble reading them reliably does prove me correct. :^)
It could be anything, this is a new drive and not an old one, writing/writing HD disks with a HD drive on HD floppies formatting them as 720KB will work fine.+

>The media on DD disks uses an iron oxide coating while HD media uses a cobalt coating that has higher magnetic coercivity
Meaning that the HD disks are higher quality, making them even better as low quality DD disks.

>>56035167
>Also the fact that he is having trouble reading them reliably does prove me correct. :^)
Funny you mention that, several of my all the XTs and ATs and clones never had problems because of the floppies I used.

>>56035064
He's using a new 1.44MB drive, not an old 720KB one.

>>56035216
>Meaning that the HD disks are higher quality

Clearly this man has not used many 1.44MB disks. Those things were forged by Lucifer himself. Trust me, 720k media is always more dependable than those hunks of shit.

>>56035167
>>56035216

Not to mention the fact that there are HD disks with iron oxide coating and DD disks with cobalt coating, depends on the disk quality, there were different price/quality disks at different times.

But I know this is bait anyways, smiley with arch linux logo nose.

>>56035295
No, if you tape the hole over on a 1.44MB disk, the drive gets confused because it think it's a 720k disk but the magnetic media is not. Normally when DD media is detected, the drive switches into "low density" mode which involves reducing the R/W current. However, since you're trying to use HD media when the drive is in DD operating mode, weird stuff happens.

>>56035336
See
>>56035347


The HD disks made in the late 90's and early 2000's are pure shit, they won't even survive for a few years, most of the ones I have from the late 90's are corrupted, while the earlier HD disks and all the DD disks work fine.

>>56035347
>Not to mention the fact that there are HD disks with iron oxide coating and DD disks with cobalt coating
LOLwut. If it had an iron oxide coating, it wouldn't be an HD disk or physically able to handle HD bitrates, and same thing a DD disk with an HD coating would physically not work in a DD drive.

>>56035366
Where did you even hear that? There's no difference after you format the disk, none.
The only difference is what format they were formatted in the factory, there exist disks with the same coatings for both HD and DD.

Why am I even explaining that to you, you are clearly just baiting here.

>>56035386
>LOLwut. If it had an iron oxide coating, it wouldn't be an HD disk or physically able to handle HD bitrates, and same thing a DD disk with an HD coating would physically not work in a DD drive.

This proves my point that you have no actual idea how floppies worked.

>>56035372
From the anecdotal evidence I've seen, 1.44MB disks were never that reliable even in the late 80s-early 90s. I do have a bunch of early 90s vintage ones and most of them produced a Track 0 Bad, Disk Unusable error when I tried to format them.

>>56035443

>>56035426
Obviously this guy doesn't.

>>56035386
kek youre like my sisters husband, worked 10 years in IBM but does not know simple shit like that, only stuff he read in books

I think one reason for the poorer quality of 1.44MB disks is that by the time they became commonplace in the early 90s, floppy disks were no longer a primary operating medium so reliability of them was less important when they were only going to be used for software distribution.

One can't imagine people putting up with something that flaky back in 1983.

>>56035455
Yeah, it really depends on the quality, good ones costed much more and somehow they got worse in the latter years.

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>>56035193
nice

>>56035527
From what I recall, it's more like the market expanded so much that it became profitable for some companies to make crappy media for a quick buck.

>>56035443
If he thinks floppy media is interchangeable, try formatting a 720k disk at 1.44MB and see how long it lasts you. :^)

>>56035581
>try formatting a 720k disk at 1.44MB and see how long it lasts you.

See
>>56035569

You really don't get how things worked do you? It will last, but not long, that's the whole point of price and quality.

That's some shit bait mate.

>>56035542
The hell did you get that in green? You had a color monitor >>56032040

>>56035603
I'm not the IBM XT guy, I have the MDA monochrome greenscale screen.

Yeah I remember hearing too about people taping the hole on 1.44MB disks but I then read a site where they were showing how to use 3.5" drives in a TRS-80 and the guy mentioned this and said that it doesn't work reliably and you're better just using real 720k disks.

>>56035636
Been using HD/DD floppies for over 25 years and never had a problem because of that.
Retro hipsters btfo. :^)

Jungle Hunt performs some fucked up raster tricks (thanks, Sierra) which is why it's not able to run on most video cards. I'm not sure if it can even run on DOSBox.

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>>56035653
>>56035636
Who's right then?

>>56035655
Ran nicely on my EGA card in CGA mode, it's probably how a card implants CGA compatibility

>>56035670
I'd say it depends on what quality disks you use. The cheap shit won't even work reliably for drives they are made for.

Not to forget, that are excotic formats for Amigas and Macintosh, that used same HD/DD disks but formated DD disks to 880k for example and HD disks to 1760KB, the amount of data it can hold reliably depends on the quality of the magnetic medium.

>>56035670
Probably neither. How can someone born in 1997 have been using HD disks for 25 years?

>>56035708
That's not exotic at all. DD media is supposed to physically take up to 1MB but the bigger the format, the lower the reliability.

>>56035709
Kek, you're referring to my post and even I agree with you on that, the shit you hear on these threads really makes you think.

>>56035655
I know that it just locks up on VGA cards and you can't even get past the title screen.

>>56035727
Exactly.

>>56035708
>but formated DD disks to 880k
Amiga used the same 2S2D floppies that PCs did, they just didn't waste space on FAT tables.

>>56035745
Yeah, did the same on my 486, just tried.

>>56035780
>Amigas and Macintosh, that used same HD/DD disks

You kind of missed that.

>>56035672
However, you're using it on a monochrome display which won't let you know if the game is working correctly. It switches CGA palettes in mid-frame which is an extremely timing-sensitive trick used in a few games like Frogger, Jungle Hunt, and California Games. You'd have to use a color monitor to confirm that this is actually working.

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>>56035709
I vote for
>>56035653
because I never had problems with using HD as DD.

>>56035803
In my defense that sentence was written by a committee.

Sierra also did the PC port of Ms. Pac-Man and I believe also Moon Patrol and Galaxian. The latter two also are apparently not compatible with VGA cards.

>>56035807
Probably, I don't have an CGA monitor by hand right now but I might get one soon. I'll try it then.
There wasn't any corruption tought, it's playable on the MDA monitor like that.

>>56035823
BiFibro is back!
What are you doing up so late?

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>>56035879
Can't sleep...

>>56035892
Well yeah, who am I to judge, it's like 3:30AM here.

>>56035896
Where are you?

>>56035905
Estonia.

and I also know you are near the BiFi factory in south Germany, I have good memory.

>>56035919
Nice. I should go to bed... Have to fuck around with some fucked up mssql db tomorrow...

>>56035933
>Have to fuck around with some fucked up mssql db tomorrow...

Ouch, good luck with that, well good night!

>>56035937
Thanks. Good night bro.

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>>56033703
>Nakamichi CD drive
Shame they went under.

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would any of you guys know where I might find the power supply pinout for this board? I've got a bunch of old gear, but no power supply for this circa 1990 Digital main board. I'd love to see if it POSTs after all this time.

>>56036062
Ouch, those old PSUs are as hard to find as the mainboards themselves.

I fucking regret throwing them all out a decade ago.

>>56036062
I'm on it, that's a 386-SX right?

>>56036159
not sure... found it in a box with a dozen other boards. it's the oldest of the bunch. I can take closer pics if it helps, thanks.

>>56036328
No need, I know what board it is already.

http://pc-history.com/digital-motherboard-386sx-16.html

I just need to find a machine using this board to see the the color combination of the power connector.

>>56036062
Eh, weird, that board has a music chip but no connectors for 3.5mm jacks, but it does have places for them, also missing the opamp.

>>56036483
Oh, nvm, that chip looks to be part of the VGA circuitry, RAMDAC written under it.

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>>56036346
you're right, 386sx. what I'm hoping to do is get this MFM controller to talk to that ST-251, see if the data is still accessible. my first PC used this exact same drive model.

>>56036516
That's nice, I have a ST-225 with a different MFM controller.

>>56036516
Well fuck, I can't find any more information about that board, it's not even in TH99.

http://th99.classic-computing.de/

>>56036062
It looks like you're also lacking the ISA riser card, you probably can only use one ISA card then.

>>56036062
You might be able to figure out the power pinout by tracing the traces from the PSU connector to different components and looking up what power that component uses at that pin.

>>56036570
that's cool, thanks for checking...
if you want any boards, let me know. I've got 4 boxes of these things. I've been trying them one at a time. it's really takes me back.

>>56036605
that's a good idea, I've got some test equipment. thanks again

>>56036625
Well, good luck!

>>56036062
One of the BIOS ROMs is not seated in the socket properly.

>>56036695
>>56036062
Also I noticed the CPU socket is empty.

>>56036722
the CPU is soldered on. the empty socket is for a math co-processor. I'll see about that power pinout.

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>>56036722
That's the CPU

>>56036062
It is strange to see a PS/2 style motherboard with a coin cell battery of this vintage. Most boards in the 386 era had an AT configuration and the evil blue barrel battery.

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>>56031340
Hell yeah I do.

Attached pic is me using a terminal emulator on my Apple //e, accessing my Raspberry Pi's terminal and using lynx to view this thread. Can't submit using it due to CAPTCHA.

Another way I get my //e online is using Contiki and my Uthernet II card.

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>>56036851
Or worse, they had this!

>>56036861
That's really awesome anon!

>>56036875
Actually I guess the evil blue one is worse in the way that it can destroy the board

>>56036861
That's nice. Now post a pic with Lode Runner running.

>>56036875
i had a pc with that thing. is there a battery inside it or how does it work?

The blue barrel batteries were a poor idea, but I'm guessing they thought the battery only had to last about 5 years when you'd replace it with a new computer.

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Also found this Pentium based board. this board features an integrated SCSI controller, in addition to the IDE header. the SCSI bios is accessed by pressing Ctrl+A during POST. While looking for data on it I found an eBay listing for this same board priced at $135 bucks! who in their right mind would pay that kind of money for this dinosaur?

>>56036919
It's actually just a volatile memory DIP chip (few pins bent up to connect to the battery and crystal) that has a small coin battery and a quartz oscillator on it enclosed in plastic.

See
>>56034355

>>56031465
The fuck is this thing?

>>56036961
The almighty XT

>>56036932
That's a nice board!

>who in their right mind would pay that kind of money for this dinosaur?
People way too obsessed with retro shit

The best Apple II to have is a //e and the Platinum Edition is especially nice as it has a built-in numeric keypad. IIcs are not expandable and sometimes incompatible with older stuff like 13 sector disks. The IIgs is expensive af if you want to configure it to do anything useful in native mode and it doesn't have much of any good software.

The II/II+ aren't recommended; they typically can't use later Apple II software/hardware without extensive mods and they're less reliable due to the huge amount of chips on the system board and 4116 RAM. You'll also pay more for a II/II+ because there's fewer of them around.

Ignore absurd Ebay prices for original Apple IIs, those are collector's items and you wouldn't want to beat them up by playing games.

>>56036986
>those are collector's items and you wouldn't want to beat them up by playing games.

I'm happy if I can make a few collectors cry by actually using old hardware!

>>56036932
Oh hey speak of the devil
>>56036875

>>56037049
Yup, have the same on right next to me on a 486 board that's on my wall.

>>56033125
>useless
I had a similar unit with a 800mz duron and 384mb of ram, ran Debian no problem.

>>56037013
I agree. All old computers should be honored by letting them enjoy retirement by playing period games on them. That, and 'scene' demos, where applicable.

Most Apple IIes you find on Ebay have common, boring stuff in them like a serial port card and DHGR board, occasionally you'll come across one with interesting add-ons like a RGB card, Mockingboard, Liron board (adapter to attach 3.5" floppies), etc.

The //e and IIc have a 65C02 CPU in them which is CMOS instead of NMOS like the straight 6502. It adds a couple new instructions but only application software uses them, no games to my knowledge. CMOS versions of the 6502 also do not have undocumented instructions. This does break a few copy protection schemes, other than that, only a few obscure games use them.

>>56037119
I passionately hate collectors (and resellers), having 10 Apples or Amigas, etc, boxed away just to brad about them with their smug face and jerk off to the idea of owning them, most don't even know much about the systems they "collect".

>>56031340
Boring.

>>56037190
Thanks for your opinion, that's obviously the wrong thread for you then.

Bye.

>>56037130
>Liron board (adapter to attach 3.5" floppies), etc.
Cute but essentially a novelty since not much other than a few ProDOS applications can use 3.5" drives.

I notice there is very little effort to develop new games/demos for Apple IIs than there is for the C64.

>>56037315
Yeah, we had a discussion about that a few weeks ago.

>>56037234
Yawn.

>>56037165
also, what better way to help young ones appreciate those hi-rez portable devices than to show them what real 8-bit games are really like- on the original hardware. we had to configure jumpers, and sometimes modify or create autoexec / config. sys files to get that SoundBlaster card to work! that or the PC speaker! Oh, how many nights I waisted playing Commander Keen on my first 286.

>>56037315
I see a lot more people on applefritter discussing BBS stuff than games. Only been on the site for a few months, so maybe it's always been like that.

>>56037315
It's possibly because the Apple IIs are a lot harder to program (and when I say a lot I mean a lot) and for worse overall results. A C64 is just easier to code for and you can get much more impressive stuff out of it.

Coding anything beyond text mode on an Apple II is brutal; you need to be really freaking good at 6502 assembly language.

I fucking hate 80s computer besides the Amigas, because Amiga computers were the best computers ever made.

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>>56037359
We had to do a lot of shit that sounds fucked up to kids nowadays.

Having owned and used so many systems over the years it's staggering what kinds of things you had to do.

Machines back then really did have souls, we put our souls into them when using them, you don't really get that anymore.
I love hardware, hardware is the only thing that's true to you.

>>56037361
The Apple II was more of a general purpose computer so there's more division between gamers and hackers interested in BBS software and things of that nature.

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>>56037401
Yes, Amigas are awesome, but that kind of attitude will get you hate in these threads usually.

>>56036861
that is amazing

i mean, you're totally fucking nuts, but it's still awesome.

>>56037424
>>56037361
>>56037385
Well, yeah but I also assume it's because demo culture is a Yuropoor thing and the Apple II was irrelevant there except as a business computer.

>>56037464
That's mostly the main reason. It's fucking hard to find a Apple II here.

Apple II fags tend to be the worst collector autists. These guys fap to original model IIs with low serial numbers and Integer BASIC ROMs and things like that. They also value the machine's provenance a lot; if it was owned by somebody like a NASA engineer then it will sell for $$$. If you repair some component in your II, they get butthurt if it's not chronologically accurate. "You can't put a 74LSxx with a 1985 manufacture date in a II+, faggot. Go get one with a 1980 manufacture date." Or same with peripherals; they'd complain that using a DuoDisk on a II+ is period inaccurate.

>>56037430
I just prefer computers from the 90s, especially late 90s. I will always remember those big late night lan parties listening to trance

>>56037516
Kek, I know right? That kind of Apple II fags are the funniest!

>>56037535
Oh fuck yeah, those were the times.

Time when you actually carried you desktop computer to a LAN party, fuck I miss that.

>>56037516
I find slightly disturbing the high number of Apple IIs on Ebay that come from estate sales, but it did seem to me that Apple II owners back in the day were on average older than C64 or Amiga owners and could include a lot of retired engineers and scientists.

>>56037410
I was happy to find these threads. I'm currently dusting off lots of old boxes and discovering hardware I forgot I had. I'm gonna build me an old PC. as old as I have parts for- and I'll pull what little hair I have left out while fighting to get it to work. And I'll laugh while I do it. and I'll remember better days, and better woman. I might even try to get an image viewer to work on that EGA card I've got lying around and look at 8bit monochrome porn.

A toast!
To Hardware!

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>>56037551
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgs9QUtWc3M

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>>56037582
A toast!
To Hardware!

>EGA, try Hercules! Pic related.

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>>56037608

>>56037586
Aw fuck dude, that hit the spot.

>>56037624
oh, shit! waddup!!

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>>56036861
That's awesome!

4chan on green monochrome screen is the best 4chan!

>pic from when I was cleaning my 8088

>>56037653
What browser? Arachne?

>>56037683
Lynx

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I'll keep posting these until I figure out what to do with them.

>>56036886
Thanks, Anon!

>>56036910
Eh, more interested in networking and stuff with my //e now. Downloading images from ADTPro with a serial connection is pretty easy.

>>56037449
Haha, thank you Anon.

>>56037653
Nice pic. How'd you get lynx on your machine?

>>56037718
Man, I love that picture

>>56037718
>take this to school
>become famous

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>>56037724
>Nice pic. How'd you get lynx on your machine?
That's not DOSLynx, it would die running Lynx natively and trying to load 4chan. Does work for small HTML files tought, only 512KB of RAM.

It's telnet, Lynx on my Debian laptop. Using a Etherlink III RJ45 ethernet card, 16-bit ISA card but works fine in an 8-bit slot.

>>56037718
don't take that briefcase to the airport, or show it to a public school teacher!

>>56037774
Ah, nice.

>>56037718
Well, you have an Intel SDK right there, start developing.

>this whole thread
I WANT ALL THESE COMPUTERS HOLY FUCK
I'M CUMMING FROM JEALOUSY

>>56037877
>I'M CUMMING FROM JEALOUSY
wat? is that like cuckold or something?

>>56037886
basically

>>56035146
>a NeXT pencil

Well, at least you have something NeXT...

>>56037877
Then get on the retro vibe and get your own oldschool shitboxes!

>>56037923
i have a c64 and an old dell that i use for childish ass video games does that count

>>56037718
>>56037743
>>56037776

I'd actually be scared to take it anywhere public in America, think about setting it up somewhere like an airport for keks but just get shot in the end.

>>56037976
That's slowly getting there, I actually don't even own an 8-bit machine right now, I'd love a C64.

>>56037999
mine has a VIC chip with a broken pin and i cant find a replacement anywhere ;-;

>>56038018
Can't you fix a pin? It can't be that hard?

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>39 posters
I'd suck a dozen dicks if one of those 39 would be an actual girl.

>>56038028
i could try to unsocket the chip and directly solder it to the motherboard but i dont think that would work

>>56038041
Here you go:
>>56031387

>>56038047
Can't you like push a piece of copper wire between there somewhere so that the pin makes at least contact? Temporary fix but better then nothing.

I'd actually break needles and push the tip into the socket with the broken pin, so the needle would make contract with the broken part of the pin on the chip. That was ages ago, when I was just a kid.

I love old hardware, I just don't know how to find it? What are some good places?

>>56038074
What, that's a kid and the poster is that bifi dude and not a woman.

Posters! Not humans that appear to be female in pictures.

>>56038111
But he did say that she and her brother help restore the computers.

>>56038098
Local ad's, thrift stores, garage sales, recycling centers, asset disposals centers,
computer shops that sell refurbished computers might have some in the back,
ask in schools, also ask around friends or if they know who might have some.

Forums and eBay are usually mindlessly expensive because of collector and reseller faggots.

>>56038121
But that kid didn't post that picture, the one who did was male.

What I'm talking about is actual female retro enthusiast who actually took part in the conversation of this thread.

>>56038139
He should get his daughter to post something so that you have to keep your promise.

>>56038158
That's not gonna happen, the thread will bump limit soon and he went to sleep.

Also I'm pretty sure there ain't gonna be a anon posting tits with timestamp in this thread, so my promise is safe.

>>56038098
Recycling centers. MotherFUCKING recycling centers. They are absolute treasure troves especially for 90s 486-Pentium stuff.

>>56038191
Protip, depending on how many employees they have, my local one has usually just one, so always take a bottle of some nice booze and/or a box of chocolates, because some people might start to bitch out you taking shit from there, so just give them that and ask nicely and nobody is gonna say no.

>>56038098
Outside of schools, hospitals, and libraries. I now have a collection of late 90s/early 2000s apple hardware that would put the 2003 equivalent of that one guy in the desktop thread to shame, and a gigantic collection of x86 hardware. I paid nothing for any of it. If you get to know people and they find out you're into electronics, people start to give you things too.

>>56038371
>they find out you're into electronics, people start to give you things too.
Truth. I worked with a guy for about three weeks before he just gave me an Amiga 1000, monitor and all. "I just want it out of my basement."

>>56038041
There's 53 posters.

>>56038425
>287 / 41 / 41 / 1

>>56035426
>>56035347
This guy should go on VCFED and "enlighten" ChuckG and some of the other resident floppy experts with his knowledge.

>>56037385
Even simple stuff like moving a ball across the screen is a lot more annoying and tedious on the Apple II.

>>56038440
I'm getting 290/39/54/1. Maybe your browser is different.

>>56038475
Nah, same with any browser and my tablet.

>>56036079
>>56036062
It's probably some proprietary DEC bullshit.

>>56038489
Yup, I have a few DEC boards with property PSU connectors too.

>>56034212
What on earth would you do with one anyway?

>>56038507
Use them as a terminal? That's what they are made for.

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>>56038502
>using the word "yup" in a post

>>56038507
The same thing everybody does with them now; hot-glue brass shit to it, put typewriter caps on the keys and pretend to be steampunk.

>>56032557
>>56032790
If he's using a 1.44MB drive he should use DOS 3.3 since that's the first version to support them.

>>56038538
Yeah but I'd have to totally reformat the fucking hard disk to install DOS 3.3 and I'm too lazy for that shit.

>>56038444
From what I understand his basic idea is correct, there indeed are different type of coatings and how much of a particular coating was used, directly influences how well that floppy stores data.
That's how different quality floppies are made. Using a higher quality medium to store lower bitrate of data should cause no problems and it is true that they sometimes crap quality HD floppies were made out of high quality DD ones.
There isn't that much about the floppy that's hard to understand.

>>56038538
I'm not sure that that's the problem, I have booted DOS 2.0 with a 1.44MB drive on a 720KB floppy too, it probably has more to do with the BIOS.
Hes also not using the drive as a 1.44MB one, the controller thinks it's a 720KB drive.

>>56038576
The guy is full of shit. There's basically two kinds of coatings - one used for DD media and the other for HD media and you can't mix them up or the disk physically won't work.

One of the big rules of online discussion is "Even if you're obviously wrong, never actually admit to it and instead keep arguing with the other guy." Which is exactly what he's doing.

how hard is it to find dos games? used to have some old dos pc i found from a recycling center that had its hdd full of games.

>>56038629
>There's basically two kinds of coatings - one used for DD media and the other for HD media and you can't mix them up or the disk physically won't work.
>or the disk physically won't work.
That's just not true, the lower quality coating used on DD disks can work for HD disks, it's just not very good.
While HD disks being used as DD ones has no penalty whatsoever.

I'm not sure what you are on about but don't you remember drilling floppies in the 90's? That's how we made HD floppies out of DD ones.

>>56038647
Easy as pie thanks to Google, just google the game name and add DOS to the end of it.

>>56031387
Why is Norman Reedus in your house?

>>56038693
I remember drilling floppies!

>>56038629
>"Even if you're obviously wrong, never actually admit to it and instead keep arguing with the other guy."

Looks to me that's exactly what you're doing, >>56038693 is right, drilling floppies was a thing...

>>56038718
ok.
>tfw i dont remember even half of the games that was on that computer
used to have lots of old computers 10 years ago and some could even be worth something but i didnt know that then :|

>>56038758
That sucks

>>56038747
Exactly, so who's full of shit?

He has actually no idea about how floppies work and keeps spilling his shit.
This is what ruins these retro thread.

>>56038629
>>56038821

Yeah, you can double the density of DD disks but get lower quality HD ones

NEW RETRO THREAD

>>56038901
>>56038901
>>56038901

>[Data written in DD formats to HD] discs will probably not be readable for very long. High density disks use a different formulation of oxide with a higher coercivity which means that it takes more magnetic force to properly magnetize the oxide. When a disk is used in high density mode the drive makes the adjustment to the driver circuits. If you fake the drive out by taping over the [HD disk identifying] hole [to use HD disks at DD] it uses the lower magnetic force required for the double density discs. This can lead to higher error rates and the data just disappearing.

>>56037718
inb4 you get v& + no fly list

>>56038971
Yeah, it happens. My dad used to work for HP and used to bring home boxes full of floppies that were being thrown out. Most of them were HD ones which our Amiga would use happily as DD, but a lot of them became partially corrupt. A few survived intact for many years though. When I was getting rid of my Amiga a few years back I painstakingly went through all my floppies and transferred disk images to my PC, and most of them were still fine. A lot of them took a few retries to get past some CRC errors though.

>>56037718
nice clock.