What retro things have you done today?

[paradigm]

got 2 "new" dallas chips for £3 each.

I have some doubts over how new they are....

Unlucky. It’s pretty widely assumed that you only buy genuine Dallas chips from the likes of RS/Farnell/Digikey/Mouser as the ones you are likely to find on eBay are typically old and/or harvested parts.

I think I’d rather do the Dallas coin cell mod rather than spend the Farnell price for a >2008 date code chip.

http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2009-10-10-renovating-a-dallas-battery-chip.htm

 

[LewisRaz]

Unlucky. It’s pretty widely assumed that you only buy genuine Dallas chips from the likes of RS/Farnell/Digikey/Mouser as the ones you are likely to find on eBay are typically old and/or harvested parts.

I think I’d rather do the Dallas coin cell mod rather than spend the Farnell price for a >2008 date code chip.

http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2009-10-10-renovating-a-dallas-battery-chip.htm

To be honest I got them as they were so cheap and I wanted to coin mod them

But as I can be a bit heavy handed I thought it better to get 2! My dell 486 wont work without a charged dallas so I needed to sort something long term. I did manage to get a proper new one a while back but it wont last forever... (and I need one for my socket 7 board as that has a lot of errors with a dead one.)

 

[cee-S-dee]

Dallas chips are a pain in the backside. I've coin modded a couple, but I do it when you sit the coin holder on top of the package and you end up blocking a slot depending where the module sits on the board.

 

[cee-S-dee]

These two are making there way to me. Especially chuffed about the Boxed Maui.

 

[LewisRaz]

Dallas chips are a pain in the backside. I've coin modded a couple, but I do it when you sit the coin holder on top of the package and you end up blocking a slot depending where the module sits on the board.

I still have the one you sent me aaages ago but I cant get it to work. It drains any coins you put in it right in front of your eyes . I sat with meter on it and watched the voltage drop from ~3 to less than 2 in about 5mins.

Also those boxed soundcards.... damn

 

[cee-S-dee]

I still have the one you sent me aaages ago but I cant get it to work. It drains any coins you put in it right in front of your eyes . I sat with meter on it and watched the voltage drop from ~3 to less than 2 in about 5mins.

Also those boxed soundcards.... damn

I probably soldered it to the wrong pins hahaha. I think that was the first one I ever did. I'm sure it worked though, been so long now though. I've seen ones on ebay you can get, which are a PCB with a coin cell holder on but they seem really quite expensive. They look cool and are slim line so you don't sacrifice a slot.

 

[LewisRaz]

I probably soldered it to the wrong pins hahaha. I think that was the first one I ever did. I'm sure it worked though, been so long now though. I've seen ones on ebay you can get, which are a PCB with a coin cell holder on but they seem really quite expensive. They look cool and are slim line so you don't sacrifice a slot.

haha I did check that! It seems right but not really sure why it doesnt work.

The good news is both of those dodgy ones work (for now).

I did see those PCB ones. Perhaps long term they would be a better bet but for now I am set!

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Wow! I was highest bidder on an untested x1950 agp on eBay until 4 seconds where it got 3 bids and jumped to 23 quid from 6!

Ah well lol

I sold one of those for mega cheapo on members market lol.

 

[phatboy]

I sold one of those for mega cheapo on members market lol.

I know....as per your Leadtek 6800LE I missed that by minutes too

 

[phatboy]

Getting rather cheesed off at present with 98, I have purposely installed the Yamaha non WDM drivers as they....well you know WORK! and it keeps intermittently just reverting to the WDM on its own accord. Found this today when I tried to play GTA and it just didn't think the card existed. check device manager....yep! done it again

Silver linings though, GTA ran perfectly afterwards and plays brilliantly in 3DFX mode too nice bit of breakfast time retro carnage lol

 

[phatboy]

Update on my morning coffee break. Have totally stripped down the X800 and cannot see a single thing wrong. Have now completely cleaned and re-pasted it hoping for a miracle, sadly a no go

 

[Guest2]

These two are making there way to me. Especially chuffed about the Boxed Maui.

Nice, where from? Not eBay I take it.

I'm on the look out for a reasonably price Yamaha DB50XG but not paying £150 seems as my entire system cost me £89 delivered. Granted I upgraded the Soundcard to an ISA SB 16 but still.
How much was the Maui?

 

[phatboy]

always remember my dads friend having a full turtle beach set up with a full size synth etc. for music making when I was a kid.

It was always "wow dream world" spec system when you had a Adlib at home lol

 

[cee-S-dee]

Nice, where from? Not eBay I take it.

I'm on the look out for a reasonably price Yamaha DB50XG but not paying £150 seems as my entire system cost me £89 delivered. Granted I upgraded the Soundcard to an ISA SB 16 but still.
How much was the Maui?

The Maui was £57 Delivered and the Awe was £45 Delivered. Both off ebay from the same seller. I saw the Maui and instantly purchased it. I have a non boxed one but to get a box one is kind of rare. It wasn't till a few days after I saw the seller had the awe32 too so I made an offer of £45 which he accepted.

 

[Guest2]

The Maui was £57 Delivered and the Awe was £45 Delivered. Both off ebay from the same seller. I saw the Maui and instantly purchased it. I have a non boxed one but to get a box one is kind of rare. It wasn't till a few days after I saw the seller had the awe32 too so I made an offer of £45 which he accepted.

It must have been a while ago, the only completed one I see is 'Turtle Beach Maui in Retail Box + Extras!' which sold for $199 and $50 postage. The only Awe 32 CT3900s I see do not have populated SIMM slots and sold for way more that £45 delivered... anyway, great find. I've been on the lookout for similar items but they hardly ever come up. If they do they sell for a lot more than you paid

 

[cee-S-dee]

Yeah, any boxed sound cards which are reasonably priced I tend to pick up.

Problem is with DB50XG is everyone wants them and has drove the price up. Look for the SW60XG (I think its a better solution than the DB50XG, its a DB50XG on its own card with its own circuitry and midi interface) or the MU10 external module which can be had for a very reasonable price.

 

[Guest2]

Yeah, any boxed sound cards which are reasonably priced I tend to pick up.

Problem is with DB50XG is everyone wants them and has drove the price up. Look for the SW60XG (I think its a better solution than the DB50XG, its a DB50XG on its own card with its own circuitry and midi interface) or the MU10 external module which can be had for a very reasonable price.

I did look into the SW60XG but it's an ISA card and I only have one ISA slot which is already populated by a Soundblaster 16

 

[!bluetonic!]

The Amiga 1200, after its recap was tinkered with. I found good use of the PCMCIA to CF card reader to transfer things across from my PC (USB to CF adapater).

I was porting more games and Demos over to the internal CF card / hard drive. It's now packed away for next time.

The disaster of this was the Philips CRT Amiga monitor stopped working. Does anyone know about repairing it? It's making a whining noise. I think the PSU has gone.

My 'original' retro PC is back out on display. This is a 1 Ghz celeron machine with 128 MB RAM and an S3 PCI VGA card. This became 'retro' by accident. When I started to get into the scene, it was an old PC I set up for my brother to use.

I remember we stored it in a cupboard somewhere. When I stumbled on PhilsComputingLabs, it had ISA slots, so jackpot. I installed a ISA soundcard and PCI network card for WFW311.

Being 1Ghz, it runs all DOS things flat out.

Last time it was out, I installed an AWE 32 Value card in it.

The network wasn't working, but after finding drivers for the 'E1' revision of the PCI DLink Network card, we're back online.

And the Overclockers site doesn't work. HTTPS wasn't supported back then.

My Siemens Pocket Reader is on display for good measure too.

The IBM CRT monitor is buckling the desk.

 

[cee-S-dee]

I did look into the SW60XG but it's an ISA card and I only have one ISA slot which is already populated by a Soundblaster 16

Ahhh, keep a look out for the MU10 or if you can find one reasonably priced a MU50

 

[LewisRaz]

Managed to get a socket 370 motherboard with 2 isa slots for a good price.

On the hunt for a CPU now. Seem to have lost my 1ghz chip >.<