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My second (third) SWTPC 6800

February 18, 2017, 10:12 pm
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So yeah, after Christmas I had some bonus money and this system popped up on ebay -- a 6800, a CT1024 and AC30 along with spare parts and complete manuals and documentation, all from original owner. Buy it Now was $675, which is less than I paid for just my other 6800 alone. Technically I have a third one here -- I have all the parts to build a third one, but the motherboard has never been used so I'm leaving it as is. Anyway I thought, hey, I can get that running and maybe make a few bucks towards my Altair! Hah! Who am I kidding. I never sell anything.

20170218_185536.jpg 20170218_185607.jpg 20170218_185805.jpg
20170218_190017.jpg 20170218_190423.jpg 20170218_190755.jpg
20170218_190810.jpg 20170218_220052.jpg 20170218_220112.jpg

This system was built later than my first one. I didn't know this but the case top SWTPC was using changed somewhere during production and became a much finer mesh. The keyboard on the CT-1024 appears to be a later KBD5. I'm curious where he got the perfectly fitting case from. The CT-1024 predictably doesn't work -- when I power up (after testing the PSU to be ok) I just get columns of solid lines. No actual characters. But it's getting the horz/vert sync right anyway. The 6800 itself fires right up! No problem at all getting the SWTBUG prompt!

I was pleased to see everything is socketed! Makes life a lot easier.

I'm not sure what some of the cards are -- I'm assuming the Gimix prom board is for storing things like BASIC in ROM? No idea what the homebrew perfboard card is. And he's done something to the MP-S. The computer has two switches on the front - one for baud rate and the other marked 'SWTPC' and 'TI'. No idea how that works or how that second connector hooks up.

Really cool having the manuals though. He kept everything, and he even kept a journal of his progress building everything! Very cool! Not bad at all for the price!
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Vintage PC storing

February 19, 2017, 12:48 am
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Hi, my question - how to correctly storrage my IBM PCs? Some tips for PCs HDDs and monitors?
It is better to power on occasionally or its better to not power on and just storing covered in dry room?

Thanks
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Identify this 286 board

February 19, 2017, 2:23 am
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Could you help me identify this late 286 board?

placa.jpg

I had been looking for in various places without luck. It works fine but I intend to house it in a properly build system and I want to know if I can improve its specs a bit.

Thanks for your help.
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Help resurrecting SER 386-ADIII motherboard - Battery leak damage

February 19, 2017, 2:26 am
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Hello people,

I got this motherboard not long ago and at first sight I could notice it was heavily damaged by a battery leak.
Thankfully it booted, but the keyboard wasn't working.

ser-386ADIII-front.jpg

So I cleaned the leak which left some traces exposed.

At least one trace was damaged, one that goes from the keyboard DIN-5 female connector to a... is that a resistor? What is it? What are those two?
ser-386ADIII-front2.jpg

I soldered a wire to fulfill the duty of the damaged trace, and now the keyboard works!

ser-386ADIII-back2.jpg

But there's more.

The motherboard is very unstable.

Sometimes it doesn't even post
Sometimes the display doesn't work (I have tested all different ISA 16-bit sockets and many different video cards)
Sometimes the display works but then it freezes along with all the system
Sometimes if I finally boot to MS-DOS, I may see this message:

Invalid device request reading device CON
Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?

And then all hope is lost. It's frozen.

Only a few times it has worked OK but only for a few minutes.

I wonder, maybe these two black... resistors? Have been damaged and are causing this problem (I hope). I included pictures so you can please advice me what to do.

I looked at my dead motherboards and found this one that has these similar, again, resistors? (please tell me what they are) And I was wondering, could I replace them with the ones on this motherboard? Are they the same? Do they have a fixed orientation?

non-working-slot1-mb.jpg

Do you think this sounds like a good idea? What have been your experiences dealing with this kind of damage? What sorts of tests and diagnostics do you recommend me to do?

I tried with different PSUs, I/O cards, video cards, etc.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge, experiences and helping.

More info about the motherboard:

SER / SERITECH 386-ADIII or 386-AD3

Chipset
ALI M1429 A1/9403 TS6/B17707 and M1431 A2/9349MA020

BIOS String
American Megatrends Inc., 40-0212-001133-00101111-040493-ali1429-f

CPU
Am386 DX-40

Cache
128 KB

http://th99.classic-computing.de/src/m/S-T/32373.htm
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My 286 clone build

February 19, 2017, 2:29 am
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Finally I will give my 286 a proper house. This one:

caja.jpg

I'm trying to identify the homeless in this thread: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthrea...this-286-board

The specs:
* 286@12Mhz NMOS Intel processor
* 2MB of RAM (1MB in 80ns DIPs and another one in 256KB 70ns SIMMs). An AMD CMOS 287@10Mhz
* SUNTAC chipset. AFAIK this chipset can work in EMS or Extended memory memory but you cannot have both types of memory. I've configured mine in EMS mode which IMHO it's much more useful on a 286.
* Acer M5105 super I/O chip. It has a 2 COM ports, 1 LPT, 1 floppy and 1 IDE.

These are the cards:
IMG_20170219_100436.jpg

For the OSs I intend to multiboot PC DOS, MS-DOS 3.30 and an DR DOS 3.40 or older if I can find it

I intend to show my progress with this build, get new ideas and ask questions in this thread.

Thanks a lot to everybody
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Defining Eras of Vintage

February 19, 2017, 5:09 am
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I was just reading a thread up in the Pentium forum in which the OP asked if Pentium MMX counted as vintage, and then another poster commented that they thought that vintage was a moving target. I guess if you liken technology to automobiles once it hits a certain age then it could be considered vintage. I'd like to know if there are different eras of vintage or should there be.

In my own mind I look at it like this...

1977-1984 8-bit Era
1985-1994 16-bit Era
1995-2005 32-bit Era
2005->64 bit Era

thoughts?
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B128 missing parts

February 19, 2017, 8:01 am
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I picked this up because it was in Canada already. I looked up the missing ICs and it doesn't seem like there are any I can't get.. but I'm wondering about power supply.. can I use another switching psu for this? Or what are my odds of coming across the original psu in the wild?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/252766340004
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AT&T 6300 (Olivetti M24) mouse software compatibility query

February 19, 2017, 8:42 am
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Hello, I've got a query about the compatibility of the keyboard connected mouse for the Olivetti M24/AT&T 6300. I was just wondering what other people experiences with it were.

Following advice on this forum, I've re-wired an Atarti ST mouse to work with the AT&T6300 keyboard.
Without a driver, it's working, and providing arrow key input and responding to button presses.
With the mouse driver (AT&T version 1.0), it's also working, but only on a sub-set of programs. It works (as a full mouse) in the provided configuration program and Microsoft Works. But it doesn't work on lemmings or Monkey Island.

Is this expected behaviour, and if so is there a work-around? Is it just that the mouse has limited support?
Are there any other drivers that work with the mouse?

I'm running DOS 3.3 and BIOS version 1.36, if that makes any difference.

Thanks,

Alastair
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Tandy 1000 SL overclocking

February 19, 2017, 9:03 am
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Hey there fellas,

i recently got a loose Tandy 1000 SL motherboard, including both satellite boards. I've always wanted a Tandy 1000 system. The Tandy i'm really after is the TL/3, but these are a little hard to find. Let alone the cost of shipping one from the US to Europe. Canada is even worse...

I've always wanted a Tandy system and i also wanted a 8086/V30 system. Generic 8086 XT boards are extremely hard to find, so i thought i would kill 2 birds with one stone. However an 8MHz V30 is a very small improvement on a 12MHz V20, and since the desired speed for a V30 system for me would be 10MHz i'm wondering if it's easy to replace the crystal on a Tandy 1000 SL.

From the pictures i can see the board has 2 crystals, although i can't see the values, but i assume the 2 crystals at least gurantee one is used for the 14.318MHz ISA bus / timer etc... and the other for the CPU.

I assume the CPU is using a 24MHz crystal which will give 8MHz divided by 3, so i'm wondering if changing to 30MHz will overclock the CPU to 10MHz without affecting the system to a point of instability. Usually 10MHz is well tolerated.


Has anyone tried to overclock a Tandy 1000 SL? If so, what were the results?
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Pocket Computer PC-2

February 19, 2017, 9:19 am
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Just snagged a Pocket Computer PC-2 on eBay. Unfortunately, no cassette interface or other plug-in goodies. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for any ideas you may have.

smp
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AT adapter for ATX power supply

February 19, 2017, 12:38 pm
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I've followed the various discussions here about using an adapter on modern ATX power supply for older AT motherboards. Of interest of course is the idea that one must find an ATX which supplies a -5v line for proper operation.

First I present a YouTube channel wherein the speaker has said that he has encountered no problems in that respect except for very specific circumstances, usually involving older sound cards. Don't have a url offhand, but I can find it again if someone wishes.

Second I present this ebay sale. Seller says the adapter includes a dummy 3.3v as well as a -5v line.

I invite comments, especially on the latter. It sounds like a good solution to the problem.
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Seagate ST351A/X

February 19, 2017, 1:31 pm
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Box of Network Cards (ISA & PCI)

February 19, 2017, 2:05 pm
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http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=262861098374

PCI-3Com Fast EtherLink XL PCI (3C509B-TX)
ISA-3Com EtherLink III (3C509) (2 of them)
ISA-Olicom AS Network Card (OC-3118) Token Ring
ISA-NCR LAN (460-0133-003)
ISA-3Com EtherLink III (3C905B-C)
PCI-Stuart Connections Low Profile NIC
PCI-Winbond W89C940 Based NIC (2 of them)
PCI-AON PCI Ethernet
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Where to buy a 64?

February 19, 2017, 7:20 pm
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So im looking for a Commodore 64 (preferably original breadbox version) and i dont want to deal with the high ebay prices. Where do i look to buy one?
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IBM 5150 Rev.B boot issue

February 19, 2017, 7:47 pm
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Hi, I have a set of 5150 and 5153 which I have not turned on for a couple of years. I turned those on recently and found out that it wouldn't boot up well. 5153 seems to be okay showing up white screen as it used to before memory check, but it wouldn't proceed to ROM Basic anyways. I doubt that the cause of this problem can be found easily, but can you tell me some common issues regarding boot of 5150? I'd appreciate it if you recommend what to do or check first.

Thanks,
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Xenix VIS (Videotext Information System) Cat. #26_6470

February 19, 2017, 9:56 pm
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Wanted: IBM PS/1 mod. 2123 faceplate

February 20, 2017, 1:40 am
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Hiya!

I am looking for this faceplate of a PS/1 pro model 2123:



If anyone has a spare please PM me.

Alternatively if someone has a device that is made for that spot then I could also consider it.

Thanks!
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US console market crash 1983

February 20, 2017, 3:13 am
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Hi all, a few days ago at work a colleague suggested reading this article, which I don't find much convincing: https://qz.com/911737/silicon-valley...-20-years-ago/

Anyway, my focus shifted quickly to the US console market crash. I googled, checked on wikipedia and other sources and it seems that everybody agrees that the main reasons for the crash were:

1) too many consoles (AKA too much choice)
2) too many bad games
3) the rise of home computers

I find the first two arguments not much convincing... I mean, the third point seems by far the main reason to me.

The first (too much choice) was happening also in the computer market, which instead of crashing was expanding, to the point that it contributed to the console market crash (point 3).

The second (too many bad games) was happening also in the computer market: I have tons of cassettes full of cheap, ripoff, ugly games for Atari, Commodore, MSX, Sinclair computers. Most of the kids were playing with them, not with the more expensive computer shop software editions, at least here in Italy.

So, IMHO the very main reason for the crash was the home computers prices drop and raise in quality: you could have the same value (roughly same graphics, same sound, same/similar games and gameplay) for a fraction of the console game price (also thanks to piracy and newsagents game cassettes). Computers probably costed still a bit more than consoles, but had the "you can do much more than games with them" appeal on parents.

Am I missing something here regarding the first points?

By the way, is there any book that specifically addresses the 1983 game console crash? I did a quick search on amazon without much luck.

Thanks,
Andrea
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Commodore CBM-8032 European model 220V issue

February 20, 2017, 3:23 am
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Hi, I recently bought a Commodore CBM-8032 which was sold as defective. After the usual cleaning and checks, I confirmed that at powerup it was not working: 5V current was missing.

The issue was in the transformer, I was getting to much voltage out of it. Eventually I started the computer using a dim bulb tester in order to get a few volts drop and it worked perfectly, except for the screen which was slightly distorted, too much drop there ;)

Now, I live in Europe Italy, so we're talking 220V machines. Since a few years Europe switched to 230V (233V according to my voltmeter), I think this could explain the issue with the transformer... does anybody experienced the same problem?

Thanks,
Andrea
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WTB: 2 ROM chips flashed with XTIDE Universal BIOS

February 20, 2017, 5:37 am
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I need to get better storage options in my 5162 (XT-286) and soon to be complete 5170 (AT), and I have given up on SCSI for either. I plan to put ROM chips onto some 3Com ISA network cards and use them with generic IDE controllers coupled with either some sort of CF card or small IDE hard drive (2Gb or less). Eventually I plan on getting a EPROM burner, but that won't happen for some time, and till then burning my own BIOS chips is not really an option.

So I am looking for someone who can burn these ROMs for me. I do not have the chips, so I am also looking to buy them from this same person, they don't have to be brand new so long as they work.

I am Willing to pay for the parts, shipping and a reasonable amount for your time.

Unrelated to this, it would be awesome if you'd be able to flash some extra ROMs with the latest (rev 3) BIOS for the IBM AT so that I can get 1.44Mb disks to work.
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