auntjemima
[H]ard DCOTM x2
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What is this?
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The [H] Retrocomputing Thread!
- Thread starter Red Falcon
- Start date
What is this?
Red Falcon
[H]ard DCOTM December 2023
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Looks like something that was maybe a part of an Atari Portfolio?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-Port...wEeBTr6Wk4%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc
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auntjemima
[H]ard DCOTM x2
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Doesn't seem like it. I was going to open it up earlier but I cannot find my screw drive set. The casing has no information, no stamp, no name, nothing. Just smooth plastic.
I got it open. No details on the inside either.
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Starfalcon
[H]ard|Gawd
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Looks like an addon keyboard for a graphing calculator, maybe an old HP style one.
Red Falcon
[H]ard DCOTM December 2023
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Here are a few fun websites for integer and/or floating point performance of CPUs from the late 1970s to the 1980s:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150123191735/http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/dhrystone.c
https://web.archive.org/web/20150123191735/http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/dhrystone.c
Red Falcon
[H]ard DCOTM December 2023
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Nice work!! Did you have to completely desolder and resolder the memory chips or was anything socketed? (doesn't look like anything was)
Killahurtz
Gawd
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a couple more...a little newer...and newer cases
here is the 775 box...on the right , Abit IP35pro , BFG 8800gtx OC , Corsair mem , Creative sound....runs great , runs period stuff crispy
the left is 939 Athlon 64 X2 4400+ , Asus A8AR32-MVP Deluxe (first full 2x pcie x16) , AMD X1900 crossfire , Patriot mem , Creative sound
here is the 775 box...on the right , Abit IP35pro , BFG 8800gtx OC , Corsair mem , Creative sound....runs great , runs period stuff crispy
the left is 939 Athlon 64 X2 4400+ , Asus A8AR32-MVP Deluxe (first full 2x pcie x16) , AMD X1900 crossfire , Patriot mem , Creative sound
harmattan
Supreme [H]ardness
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Thanks for the nostalgia fix. My high school calc and trig teacher had one of these, he'd carry it around in a little grey briefcase (aka "Dr. L's purse"). We'd poke fun at him to no end because of it.
He had a PhD from Cal Tech in advanced mathematics... We could never figure out why he was punching so far below his weight by teaching a bunch of working class/farmer kids in high school in rural OH.
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Killahurtz
Gawd
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forgot about the ol' Commodore...one owner...serial # 6018...rarely seen any others with this styro packaging...high tech serial number masking tape tag!
*** used to play a lot of Avalon Hill text games on it...had to rewrite "basic" from 40 column of the game to 22 column of the Vic output to read the stuff proper
*** used to play a lot of Avalon Hill text games on it...had to rewrite "basic" from 40 column of the game to 22 column of the Vic output to read the stuff proper
They may have been nice back then, but be prepared for a bad time if you have a nostalgia trip and want to buy one to use again.
I had a customer send me two (a PB 100 and a 145B shown in the above image) and they were both complete basket cases. Both had leaked caps on the logic board and the screen (Yes, the screens have Electrolytic caps in them and no, they're not easy to change.) Additionally, the PB 145B had a NiCD battery pack that had gone off at some point in time and leaked all inside the logic board and all over the trackball assembly. It took several weeks of troubleshooting the machines, cleaning and patching things and gluing brittle plastics back together to get to that point. Additionally, the weird 40 pin SCSI drives were both dead, thankfully someone makes a BlueSCSI specifically for old PowerBooks like this, so I can use an SD card instead.
The battery pack was another several weeks of designing and prototyping to make sure it worked before I bought new cells to make the pack up. I'll probably never make another one of these packs unless someone convinces me with a fat wad of cash. It took 5 hours, and was like playing operation, one slip of the soldering iron or wire jumper and the whole thing could have gone on fire.
I had a customer send me two (a PB 100 and a 145B shown in the above image) and they were both complete basket cases. Both had leaked caps on the logic board and the screen (Yes, the screens have Electrolytic caps in them and no, they're not easy to change.) Additionally, the PB 145B had a NiCD battery pack that had gone off at some point in time and leaked all inside the logic board and all over the trackball assembly. It took several weeks of troubleshooting the machines, cleaning and patching things and gluing brittle plastics back together to get to that point. Additionally, the weird 40 pin SCSI drives were both dead, thankfully someone makes a BlueSCSI specifically for old PowerBooks like this, so I can use an SD card instead.
The battery pack was another several weeks of designing and prototyping to make sure it worked before I bought new cells to make the pack up. I'll probably never make another one of these packs unless someone convinces me with a fat wad of cash. It took 5 hours, and was like playing operation, one slip of the soldering iron or wire jumper and the whole thing could have gone on fire.
What a nightmare! But I guess all of them out there are in this condition then.
Pretty much. I did some ebay searching for the PB 145B and most of the units I saw were clapped out trash and the sellers wanted ridiculous amounts of money for them.
I saw one for around $300 in "working" condition, but I could immediately tell it had bad capacitors in the screen and bad things going on in the logic board stack. You'd have to pay at least that much again in parts and labor to get one back up into stable safe condition where it wouldn't completely die in short order and be usable.
This almost scares me on what condition some of my older laptops might be in.
Worst thing to do is put them away with the batteries installed. Leaked CMOS and main batteries cause the worst damage, and it's not always fixable.
That's what I've done unfortunately. But it's not like they are in storage or anything, they are with other computer gear and I haven't seen anything leaking, etc when I've handled them while look for something else.
Red Falcon
[H]ard DCOTM December 2023
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Man, I am really impressed with that system, excellent work getting everything up and running.
Oh, we used to have one of those Olympus digital cameras (believe ours was from the early 2000s with SmartMedia storage - 8MB to 32MB) - you're right, those things are tanks and, apparently, NBC-hardened!
So not only is the system itself retro, the images we are viewing them on are also retro.
Heck yeah, that's very resourceful!
You're making me feel so old, I remember when those cases were a luxury and much nicer to work on than most the older 90s beige desktops.
All around, great job, and thank you for sharing!
This might be something you may appreciate:
Somehow, I think if we all had our way, this would pretty much be all of us.
View attachment 174156
...and this...
View attachment 174158
...and this...
View attachment 178948
LGR just posted a video about the return to the computer warehouse, which was originally visited back in 2019.
This is definitely worth a watch, and it will be closing later this year, so get in on the action while you still can!
equinox654
Gawd
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Out of curiosity. What do you guys do with your retro computers?
For a long time now I’ve had the urge to get a 68k Mac and put a ppc accelerator in it.
My first computer that I was old enough to understand was a performa 550 with a 030 and 5mb ram
It was painful to browse the web on back in the mid to late 90s. I think the only games worth a crap that I played on it were Escape Velocity and some simple rpgs and bbs door games.
For some reason I’m nostalgic for the thing. Despite hating it at the time.
Before that I had a 286 that I played Star Trek 25th anniversary on, not really nostalgic for it, but wouldn’t mind tinkering with a 486 or pentium 100 or so.
I guess what I’m really wondering is if you guys ever spend a Sunday playing with your old computers? or if they just take up space as collector pieces never to be touched after restoring?
For a long time now I’ve had the urge to get a 68k Mac and put a ppc accelerator in it.
My first computer that I was old enough to understand was a performa 550 with a 030 and 5mb ram
It was painful to browse the web on back in the mid to late 90s. I think the only games worth a crap that I played on it were Escape Velocity and some simple rpgs and bbs door games.
For some reason I’m nostalgic for the thing. Despite hating it at the time.
Before that I had a 286 that I played Star Trek 25th anniversary on, not really nostalgic for it, but wouldn’t mind tinkering with a 486 or pentium 100 or so.
I guess what I’m really wondering is if you guys ever spend a Sunday playing with your old computers? or if they just take up space as collector pieces never to be touched after restoring?
longblock454
2[H]4U
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I've currently got a C64, Mac Quadra 605 (040) and a TRS-80 Model 200 and 101 on my desk, been there ready to go for several years. Wish I didn't have to admit this but they mostly sit there without use, probably less than 5 hours over the past 6 months.
Though my Fav 68k game was SpaceWard Ho, might break the cycle and fire it up today as the weather blows.
equinox654
Gawd
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That’s kind of what I figured I would do. Though maybe next year when I get a bigger house I’ll squeeze some stuff in there.
That's a good question and it's a good thing to ask this before you let the nostalgia run away with your wallet.
For me, it's using the machine as it was back in that time, mainly to re-live a bit of happiness that can't be obtained any other way. I still recall the sessions of rocketball my brother and I would play on the c64 versus fight each other in real life because it allowed 'clotheslining' each other. The battle was always fierce but actually was fun in my recollection (my brother might think otherwise), so I long for that. I just remembered there was a game called 'cliff hanger' where there was a certain intro song that we would dance around because it reminded us of some sort of fiesta song. Many times we would boot it up and then reset the game until we got that song and then turn it up and dance around like idiots.
But other machines are still fully fledged for doing real productivity. I think almost all of my older servers or systems are set up for working because nothing about notepad or writing a letter has changed since the late 1980s imo.
Sometimes it is to access older media to bring it up to speed on backups. Or the inverse of taking backups and running on period correct 'bare metal'.
I think it is important to have goals with what you want to do and what the exit should look like. I'm thinking about my plans and exits in the next few years as that's all the time I'll have with the space where I currently have the machines. Then my exit will be to find good new homes for them--like children. The money won't be the only thing.
Toriessian
Limp Gawd
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I just got this in from UPS. SS7 motherboard DFI P5BV3+ Rev C. Looks pretty solid on paper. Right now it has a Cyrix MII-300 in it. Trying to decide what I want to build. It'd be a nice little DOS gaming box if I threw a S3 Virge GX2 in it along with a Voodoo 1 or I could upgrade it to something like a K6-3 400 and a little bit beefier graphics card in it... not sure...
Update: On closer examination, this MB has that odd electronics smell. The caps appear to be of different brands. I think the electronics shop I got it from saved me the trouble of recapping it. No damage around the battery either.
Update: On closer examination, this MB has that odd electronics smell. The caps appear to be of different brands. I think the electronics shop I got it from saved me the trouble of recapping it. No damage around the battery either.
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If anyone is interested in older PIII era machines, I got a few I'm giving away in the freebies thread for shipping. Also have a few more I haven't listed yet because they need some repairs still, but they'll be in the freebies too before they go off to the recyclers if there's no takers. It'd be a shame to recycle them, but I need the room.
Recently bought a couple of Quadra 605s on another forum that needed some TLC, but the USPS baboons had other plans, smashing them to pieces.
Fortunately, *most* of the hardware itself survived. Both logic boards work after recapping, the same with both power supplies. One hard drive had a head strike and the floppy drives are still an unknown since I haven't looked at them yet.
Luckily I have an LC III, which the Quadra 605 boards slot into and can be tested. Probably going to leave one of the boards in as an upgrade. On the hunt for another good case in that pizza box form factor since both Quadra cases are destroyed.
Now I need to find a 68040 to replace the 68LC040, and 512k VRAM SIMMs to get 1 MB of video memory so I can get 15/16 bit color.
Fortunately, *most* of the hardware itself survived. Both logic boards work after recapping, the same with both power supplies. One hard drive had a head strike and the floppy drives are still an unknown since I haven't looked at them yet.
Luckily I have an LC III, which the Quadra 605 boards slot into and can be tested. Probably going to leave one of the boards in as an upgrade. On the hunt for another good case in that pizza box form factor since both Quadra cases are destroyed.
Now I need to find a 68040 to replace the 68LC040, and 512k VRAM SIMMs to get 1 MB of video memory so I can get 15/16 bit color.
XoR_
[H]ard|Gawd
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Playing with VIA C3 Nehemiah 800MHz with 256MB memory
Have ISA backplate for it and tested so far with ESS sound card and it works gloriously. I only have to figure out how to connect keyboard to backplate to get normal AT keyboard connector working. Also I need to work on cooling as default fan spins at 7K RPM and is very loud. I put connector with resitor but it still spins at 3K-4K so still pretty loud.
Video card is S3 Twister which is S3 Savage derivative so DOS compatibility should be very good. I also didn't detect any issues in Win98 in DirectX or OpenGL. 16-bit rendering on this card is very good, superior to anything Nvidia ever did and similar to dithering on ATI cards or even better so card should be perfectly usable for simple DX/OGL Win9x games at lower resolutions. In 3dmark 2000 card got 1002 points. Slightly higher with some CPU and GPU overclocking.
Card can be overclocked or downclocked and caches and other CPU features can be disabled in real time in DOS/Windows with slowest speed being around 386DX 40. Not slow enough for all DOS games but I will try playing with changing FSB. If I can change it from 133MHz to 66MHz then it should bring it down enough for slowest machine types I would ever need around 20MHz 386.
This CPU card also has VIA chipset compatible with VIA SB emulation and even SBEMU detected it. For now I didn't test it because I first have to make header for audio from this card. If anything ESS or some SB16 card will be better anyways.
Performance-wise it is around there with something like 500MHz Celerons. In some more nuanced FPU tests it scores much lower but Quake seems to run well with ~100. At 933MHz I get 116 or something like that in Phil's Dosbench's Quake 320x200 test.
Windows 98 SE installed on old 8GB hard drive works surprisingly well. Unlike faster machines like AMD K8 there is no tweaking needed for things to just work. The only issue I had was 500Hz USB mouse spamming system with request so much it caused whole system to a crawl. It is more of a Win98 issue than of this computer. USB keyboard works well in DOS. If mouse works too then it will be pretty good computer.
I have more retro computers including one Pentium II 450MHz on 440LX, also in AT form factor. Might be fun to compare these machines.
It might also make sense to get smaller ISA backplane and rather than putting it in AT case make small form factor PC out of it.
Have ISA backplate for it and tested so far with ESS sound card and it works gloriously. I only have to figure out how to connect keyboard to backplate to get normal AT keyboard connector working. Also I need to work on cooling as default fan spins at 7K RPM and is very loud. I put connector with resitor but it still spins at 3K-4K so still pretty loud.
Video card is S3 Twister which is S3 Savage derivative so DOS compatibility should be very good. I also didn't detect any issues in Win98 in DirectX or OpenGL. 16-bit rendering on this card is very good, superior to anything Nvidia ever did and similar to dithering on ATI cards or even better so card should be perfectly usable for simple DX/OGL Win9x games at lower resolutions. In 3dmark 2000 card got 1002 points. Slightly higher with some CPU and GPU overclocking.
Card can be overclocked or downclocked and caches and other CPU features can be disabled in real time in DOS/Windows with slowest speed being around 386DX 40. Not slow enough for all DOS games but I will try playing with changing FSB. If I can change it from 133MHz to 66MHz then it should bring it down enough for slowest machine types I would ever need around 20MHz 386.
This CPU card also has VIA chipset compatible with VIA SB emulation and even SBEMU detected it. For now I didn't test it because I first have to make header for audio from this card. If anything ESS or some SB16 card will be better anyways.
Performance-wise it is around there with something like 500MHz Celerons. In some more nuanced FPU tests it scores much lower but Quake seems to run well with ~100. At 933MHz I get 116 or something like that in Phil's Dosbench's Quake 320x200 test.
Windows 98 SE installed on old 8GB hard drive works surprisingly well. Unlike faster machines like AMD K8 there is no tweaking needed for things to just work. The only issue I had was 500Hz USB mouse spamming system with request so much it caused whole system to a crawl. It is more of a Win98 issue than of this computer. USB keyboard works well in DOS. If mouse works too then it will be pretty good computer.
I have more retro computers including one Pentium II 450MHz on 440LX, also in AT form factor. Might be fun to compare these machines.
It might also make sense to get smaller ISA backplane and rather than putting it in AT case make small form factor PC out of it.
w1retap
[H]F Junkie
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Retro project related.. I designed a Mini-ITX minimig for FPGA Amiga use, however I made it ATX compatible and gave it a full size Motorola 68k socket. Tested with the Pistorm CPU accelerator and it works great.
https://github.com/wiretap-retro/MigStorm-ITX
https://github.com/wiretap-retro/MigStorm-ITX
From my understanding and memory, all that did was pass through the power to whatever was connected and the computer switch would also switch those on. We actually got an adapter from that to a regular plug to plug in a monitor, but eventually went back to individually powering the monitor because the newer monitors has the power switch on the front versus the side or some other weird location.
funkydmunky
2[H]4U
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To me it is picture perfect for an Atari Portfolio. I recognized it the second I saw it.
It was also in the movie T2 which explains the screen image.
Prince Valiant
Gawd
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Nostalgia is part of it but, I do play games on them. Mostly on an XP machine and I have a 98 machine for any problem titles. I spent more on MIDI hardware than I did on the machines themselves
.Must sound awesome! We have a AWE32 with the Yamaha wavetable and the music in Decent was so awesome I wanted to record it to a wav to just play. I wish I would have done it because who knows how much restoration it will take to get to that place again.Nostalgia is part of it but, I do play games on them. Mostly on an XP machine and I have a 98 machine for any problem titles. I spent more on MIDI hardware than I did on the machines themselves
Red Falcon
[H]ard DCOTM December 2023
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The Quadra 950 uses a full 68040, and never utilized the 68LC040 for numerous reasons - yes, specs are important.
As for the beard messager, I think a Pentium Pro might be better suited for that task.
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