The Vintage Computer Thread

[Arcade King]

Might be talking to myself here but interested to see what others are working on and doing with thie collections and yes I need to finish my x68000 thread.

Recently got this 20 mhz 286 board for 50 bucks. Doing some digging it seems to match the Hedaka HED-988 mainboard. It currently has 2 megs of ram installed.

when I first plugged it in nothing, reseated the CPU got this

Seen this before, 8042 is the Keyboard controller chip which also stores the bios settings.

Excuse my dirty work bench. I pull a M5L8042 out from a 386 and while it worked, I kept getting EEPROM flashing errors when saving to the bios.

The MEGA-KB-H-WP chip below it pulled from another 386/486 board worked perfectly, all settings now save.

Next I wanted to beef this thing to the max with 4 megs of ram. I don't have any SIPP ram so I converted some SIMM's to do the job.

a

and installed!

This is my current bios setup using a 512 mb CF card as the hard drive.

All installed in this beautiful case. I did have a 386 DX40 in here but the 286 is more period correct with those matching twin 5 1/4" drives. I just couldn't stick a CD rom and 3 1/2" drive in this case.

Lastly I wanted to use the extra memory in this thing which took a bit of digging.  MS-DOS has a EMM386 drive but obviously doesnt work for a 286 and DR-DOS has a EMM286 driver but it takes up too much base memory.

Luckily I found a proper hardware driver that works with this board which I've attached below.

hedaka_d60.zip

I can now configure the 4MB's with as much EMS / XMS as I like and use a hardware driver for EMS makes games that use it run faster. My test games was Might and Magic World of Xeen. It run amazingly good for a high end 286.

I also played around with different DOS version and HIGHLY recommend IBM PC-DOS 2000. The memory management is much better for a 286 for getting max base memory.

Pretty bloody good!

I'd love to get a 20 mhz FPU for this but fat chance! (Anybody got one?)

Its running a nice CGA/EGA/VGA dual head video card as per the resto stash thread, SoundBlaster II Pro and the usual 16 bit Serial, Parallel, FDD, HDD controller card.

NEAT!

 

 

[Pinoffski]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CtqlSBgtfta/?igshid=M2MyMzgzODVlNw==

[Arcade King]

17 hours ago, Pinoffski said:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CtqlSBgtfta/?igshid=M2MyMzgzODVlNw==

Click on the little Gif icon for GIPHY goodness. 🙂

[KJS]

[jbtech]

Sadly, while suffering from a severe bout of tidiness about 15 years ago I let all of my 286 - 486 era clunkers go…

Fortunately since recovering I’ve managed to fill most of the empty spaces albeit with slightly later models.

 

This one was a recent roadside pickup, an AST Bravo MS5100 from the mid- late 90s, a Pentium 1 @100 MHz with 24 MegaBytes of RAM and a COAST module on board ( L2 cache was a separate optional module in those days hence Cache On A STick).

The original IDE hard drive was failing but appeared to have been running Windows 95.

My Original Win95 is on CD but this PC never had that luxury item fitted as you can see the original covers which match the detail on the front panel are still present.

So I decided to go the full retro and install MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 as I still have a set of original AST branded floppy disk installers from back in the day.

The smallest working hard drive I had spare was 80 GigaByte so I created a full sized 2GB system partition leaving the remaining 97.5% of drive space unallocated.

I could always add some more partitions for data but 2GB was a lot of space at the time.

It has PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports and SB compatible sound on board but no game port. The network port is 10Mbit/second.

Here it is running some quality examples of Windows and DOS programs from the era. I had to copy the Activision CD to a floppy to install it.

…A few more machines to add later, regards John 

Edited August 9, 2023 by jbtech

[Arcade King]

Awesome mate, thanks for sharing.

[needlebat]

I still have Leather Goddess on my "to play" list. I once made a Beowulf cluster of 486s. Monstrous power, literally. The heat it made was a great comfort in winter. I replaced it with a pentium that paid for itself with powersavings :)

[narf_]

The compact flash to ide adaptors make a nice small HDD combo for older systems.

[jbtech]

Thanks @narf_ I might need to give the compact flash + IDE adaptor a try for this PC soon as all the old IDE hard drives are gradually failing.

A couple of files on it seem to be unreadable now, last time I fired it up and tried to run 'Lemmings' it gave me 'disk 1 not found' but had been working previously.

I do have a spare adaptor as I bought a couple and made up one CF drive to replace the hard drive for a Golden Tee Fore PCB.

It seems even Compact Flash cards are becoming hard to find these days, do you know a reliable supplier by any chance?

Also I did a brief search and found there are now some suitably small SSD drives on the market with IDE interface intended for commercial applications, has anyone tried one of them?

I'm not sure if a SSD would work well long term for a DOS or early Windows system or if it would gradually pack up without any maintenance utility built into the OS...

Regards, John.

[Autosteve]

On 10/08/2023 at 7:18 AM, jbtech said:

Thanks @narf_ I might need to give the compact flash + IDE adaptor a try for this PC soon as all the old IDE hard drives are gradually failing.

A couple of files on it seem to be unreadable now, last time I fired it up and tried to run 'Lemmings' it gave me 'disk 1 not found' but had been working previously.

I do have a spare adaptor as I bought a couple and made up one CF drive to replace the hard drive for a Golden Tee Fore PCB.

It seems even Compact Flash cards are becoming hard to find these days, do you know a reliable supplier by any chance?

Also I did a brief search and found there are now some suitably small SSD drives on the market with IDE interface intended for commercial applications, has anyone tried one of them?

I'm not sure if a SSD would work well long term for a DOS or early Windows system or if it would gradually pack up without any maintenance utility built into the OS...

Regards, John.

I have a CF to IDE adapter with a 32GB CF card you can have John but probably more useful would be the Sata to IDE adapters I have that your also welcome to.

I went through a lot of different ones finding ones compatible with old classic Xboxes and these ones allowed 1 and 2TB sata drives to work in place of the IDE drives.

These are left over ones that I have no use for but never threw them as they were rather hard to get but once I found a supply, bought a lot.

What sized IDE HDDs are you after?.

I ended up with a few of those from customers machines that wanted to go up from IDE GB HDDS to TB Sata HDDs

[danny_galaga]

Mad skillz Trav. I hate you.

[Arcade King]

2 hours ago, danny_galaga said:

Mad skillz Trav. I hate you.

Hey man I've always said If I can do it you can too.

You got anything left in your collection?

[jbtech]

5 hours ago, Autosteve said:

I have a CF to IDE adapter with a 32GB CF card you can have John but probably more useful would be the Sata to IDE adapters I have that your also welcome to.

Thanks very much @Autosteve although I'm thinking either of those two solutions would be way overkill for this purpose!

That Pentium 100 is the oldest PC which I have at the moment and seemed ideal to set up with DOS  and Windows 3.11 so the maximum partition size is only 2 GB...

I do have a spare CF to IDE adaptor so should just try to find a 2 GB Compact Flash card. A larger card could be divided into multiple partitions but they wouldn't really be needed, 2 GB is plenty as I only have so many DOS programs on floppy disk anyway...

I have a few old PCs for spares and some spare IDE drives removed from PCs in working condition but those are tending to fail more frequently. So for a slightly later OS the IDE to SATA adaptor would be a good solution, paired with a newer hard drive.

I'd like to give one of those a try for another system sometime if you have a spare, I know a lot of those adapters weren't fully compatible so it's great that you tested several models and found one which works well.

Speaking of classic XBoxes, I've been on the lookout for an OG model XBox in working order, if you know of any or sale let me know. Thanks! Regards John.

[Arcade King]

CF card to IDE are nice because you can get small CF cards to match the limitations off the retro PC.

[danny_galaga]

2 hours ago, Arcade King said:

Hey man I've always said If I can do it you can too.

You got anything left in your collection?

Where did you get that? Have you been spying on me? 😄

 

[Autosteve]

1 hour ago, jbtech said:

I have a few old PCs for spares and some spare IDE drives removed from PCs in working condition but those are tending to fail more frequently. So for a slightly later OS the IDE to SATA adaptor would be a good solution, paired with a newer hard drive.

I'd like to give one of those a try for another system sometime if you have a spare, I know a lot of those adapters weren't fully compatible so it's great that you tested several models and found one which works well.

 

Funny you should say that. The model of IDE to sata adapter I have is a model 3.

Models 1, 2, 4 and 5 made by the same company all did not work for what I needed them for.

2 hours ago, jbtech said:

Speaking of classic XBoxes, I've been on the lookout for an OG model XBox in working order, if you know of any or sale let me know.

I've got a few still left. Stock or modded. Personally see no reason for a stock myself because then your back to using discs.

[needlebat]

On 10/08/2023 at 7:18 AM, jbtech said:

gradually pack up without any maintenance utility

Hey John, the SSDs should be fine - the fancy maintenance stuff like wear leveling is done by the drive itself.

[jbtech]

9 hours ago, needlebat said:

Hey John, the SSDs should be fine - the fancy maintenance stuff like wear leveling is done by the drive itself.

Thanks @needlebat , I was just looking at these as a possible alternative to the Compact Flash / IDE drive. A bit more expensive it seems but maybe better performance, longer life - not sure. It was surprising to find these at all with a relatively small capacity and IDE interface.

https://www.amazon.com.au/SaZaK-Inches-Digital-Laptop-Notebook/dp/B0BS15SS66

11 hours ago, Autosteve said:

I've got a few still left. Stock or modded. Personally see no reason for a stock myself because then your back to using discs.

Thanks Steve, sounds good! Presumably the modded version can still play a standard disc as per original ?

Anyway, that's getting off topic onto consoles so here's a bit more Vintage Computer goodness...

This was another roadside pickup, complete with its 14" CRT monitor. It's a Gateway GP6-333c having an Intel Celeron processor running at 333 MHz with 64 MegaBytes of RAM and Windows 98SE on a 80 GigaByte IDE hard drive. The monitor has a Memorex Telex label but is actually a rebadged TVM brand which incidentally stands for 'Taiwan Video and Monitor Corp.'

Windows 98 systems are great for retro gaming as they have very good compatibility with MS-DOS programs as well as early Windows releases (seen below running a favourite DOS title). Win 98 Second Edition also supports USB flash drives for easy file transfer and backup or the system can be connected to a network.

The Mouse is a 3 button serial model and the Speakers are genuine Creative Sound Blaster ones to which I've added a little stereo amplifier in line. The tiny amplifier module is smaller than a postage stamp and runs from a 5V supply so I've added a short lead with USB plug to power it from a spare USB port.

https://www.jaycar.com.au/arduino-compatible-2-x-3w-amplifier-module/p/XC4448

As an added bonus when I collected this PC there was also a non working 14" colour CRT TV which had an intermittent vertical collapse, that turned out to be a simple dry joint so after repairing it now resides with my Atari 2600 'Vader' and Tempest (Hanimex, PC50x 1st generation console) - but that's another story.

Made        1999 approx.
CPU           Intel Celeron @333MHz
RAM          64 MByte
HDD          80 GByte*
CD/DVD    CD ROM 56x
+CD R/RW 40x12x48 BENQ*
FDD           1.44 Mbyte 3.5inch
USB            NEC USB 2.0*
Ports          1x Parallel, 1x Serial
Network     Realtek PCI Ethernet
Modem     Generic Soft k56 Data Fax
O/S           MS Windows 98SE (Second Edition)
Display     ATI 3D Rage Pro
Sound    Creative Ensoniq
Monitor    Memorex Telex (TVM) SuperSync 2A+ @640x480, CRT
Keyboard    PS/2
Mouse    Serial 3 Button Ball mouse
Speakers    Creative, with USB powered amplifier*

Regards, John.

 

Edited August 13, 2023 by jbtech
typo

[needlebat]

2 minutes ago, jbtech said:

A bit more expensive it seems but maybe better performance, longer life

Time and testing will tell. With the CF card you can select a card designed for speed, wear, or both. The prices are spectacular for the fast babies. The interface CF<-->IDE becomes the bottleneck, although the PC itself is probably the weakest link for any modern solution. I can't remember the specs on hdd controller chips, but I doubt they come close to the slowest of any solution you through at it.

[Arcade King]

New addition to the retro computer junk.

I've read the SC-55 is better than the SC-55mkii for retro gaming so I grabbed this....pretty cheap.

I need to ban myself from proxie Japanese auction sites...yeah right.

Lets hope it works 😄

This brought a smile to me dial. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade VGA running beautifully on my 20mhz 286.

[needlebat]

I can feel the fun from here!

[Arcade King]

6 minutes ago, needlebat said:

I can feel the fun from here!

Come on mate pull out some of your junk for us to look at 😄

[CandyLand]

Don't do it man...It's a trick.

[needlebat]

It is a trick, I feel the need to go through my boxes and boxes of old gear...
But look at this on my desk...

[Arcade King]

Just now, needlebat said:

It is a trick, I feel the need to go through my boxes and boxes of old gear...
But look at this on my desk...