What retro things have you done today?

Soldato
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Built the modified DMG a friend today, will be used for GBC, GBA, NES and SNES on the go.

dmg-gpi.jpg

Just had a google on the Gpi case - Might have to get myself one of those!!
 
Caporegime
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Just had a google on the Gpi case - Might have to get myself one of those!!

and i have just done the same, i think i will be getting on as well!

For the price they are outstanding, even factoring in that I didn’t already own a Pi Zero (only got 1s 2s and 3s) I thought it was good value at £85 for the build.

I am going to look to see if I can mod it to either take a li-ion/lipo battery, or at least be made to charge the AAs whilst plugged into the mains/usb.
 
Soldato
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20191020-083734.jpg

Retrobrite done on yellow front port! Memory card shows just how bad it was and it's much better now :) only burned my finger tips a little bit on the chemical shenanigans.


20191023-083942.jpg

Made the Power button out of Aluminium to go with the Jewel I made a week or so back! Happy with the results but the prongs don't spring back out like the plastic ones so just had to do that manually from the underside.
 
Soldato
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‘Cube is looking ace!! How long did it take to engrave the G? Got a doosan machine at work,might give that a go.

Not too long mate. I had to draw it up on Autocad and then get all the dimensions from that to put in to a program on a cnc mill. More modern machines can probably just machine what you draw straight away but we are a bit ancient here. Program is saved now though as I may make some more of these. Blew up a bit on reddit!
 
Caporegime
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Discovered when rebuilding my 2nd dual Pentium 3 rig (socket 370) that my Geforce 6800 XTreme 256MB might be dead :(

Dang that means I'll either have to use my Geforce 6800 128MB, or Radeon 9800 XXL 128MB.

Also discovered that my go-to PCI card (Radeon 7200) is also dead which meant I had no PCI cards at all to test non-AGP boards with, so bought a cheapy Quadro NVS 400 which is essentially 2x Geforce 4 MX chips on one board. Bonus is that it will drive 4 displays!

On the plus side I found the PSU for my Apple Mac G4 Cube, so I can see if that still works after being in storage for... a while.
 
Associate
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I recently moved and took my CRT monitor. (Iiyama 454) I was being out voted by bloody everyone! "It will look naff, out of place" etc.

The reasons why they are rare nowadays, all got tipped!

B'ah none have played Doom etc.

Anyway, I stood fast. :D

Going to fire it up tomorrow and check it survived the trip (fingers crossed).
 
Soldato
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Ha, I was back at my parents' over the weekend and was wondering what to do with my old Iiyama 453 Pro CRT. I think mine is the same as the 454 but it has DVI. It was an awesome monitor, I can't bring myself to throw it away. It is huge though.

Something else I'm struggling to part with, is my Amiga 1200. I finally got it setup on my desk, next to my PC. It now has a 68030 40Mhz accelerator with 128MB ram and a 32GB cf card.

Runs really sweet now and has resulted in a retro gaming binge of late (Chaos Engine, Swiv, Speedball 2 and Gods). Interestingly I've got Chaos Engine and Gods on Steam, so I've been able to run them side by side for comparision. Even though the Steam games are 'remakes' they are pretty much identical. Oddly, even though I can now play these old games on Steam, there's something more enjoyable about doing it on the Amiga. I'll need to take a picture.
 
Associate
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I did lose one fight, took two eBay Dell beige boxes to recycling today. :(

One Dell looked mint having been restored; only once I got it running perfectly, I presume bad caps and duff PSU came to the fore - sadly beyond my techie skills so I never got round to fixing. I took the Dell boxes to an office recycling firm so hopefully, will find a home on an auction site rather than landfill.

Yet to try the Iiyama CRT as still unpacking. Hopefully the weekend when desk is setup. :)
 

GeX

GeX

Soldato
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Manchester
Discovered when rebuilding my 2nd dual Pentium 3 rig (socket 370)

On the plus side I found the PSU for my Apple Mac G4 Cube, so I can see if that still works after being in storage for... a while.

VP6? I have a BP6, did have a VP6 but only one socket worked and in the end I gave it to a friend for his display collection as he had one back in the day.

I've been looking at the G4 Mini Cubes.. I really want one, but not sure why - MorphOS.. maybe.. :D

Ha, I was back at my parents' over the weekend and was wondering what to do with my old Iiyama 453 Pro CRT. I think mine is the same as the 454 but it has DVI. It was an awesome monitor, I can't bring myself to throw it away. It is huge though.

Something else I'm struggling to part with, is my Amiga 1200. I finally got it setup on my desk, next to my PC. It now has a 68030 40Mhz accelerator with 128MB ram and a 32GB cf card.

Runs really sweet now and has resulted in a retro gaming binge of late (Chaos Engine, Swiv, Speedball 2 and Gods). Interestingly I've got Chaos Engine and Gods on Steam, so I've been able to run them side by side for comparision. Even though the Steam games are 'remakes' they are pretty much identical. Oddly, even though I can now play these old games on Steam, there's something more enjoyable about doing it on the Amiga. I'll need to take a picture.

Don't throw them away, always people wanting CRTs.

I've recently fallen down an Amiga hole.. and my most recent purchase was what I thought was a custom hacked up PC case was actually an Eytech PC-Tower.. and now I have to restore that. A lot of cleaning and sorting, and https://photos.app.goo.gl/KH3upUdeK5aTo4VA6
I've tracked down the Siamese hardware for it, and the plan is to have a dual Celeron, Voodoo2 SLI setup in there - and the Amiga 1200 :D I've added a pair of IcyDocks for the drives for the respective systems.
 
Soldato
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Today's retro fun after the win95 box being sat dormant for a month or so due to work and family commitments

128mb of sdram installed along with a 233mhz Pentium MMX Chip and a soindblaster vibra 128 PCI sound card installed to replace the failing ESS SCSI board

Only had a chance to boot to post screen but all looking good :)
 
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Associate
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27 Dec 2004
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I haven't bought this (because I already have the exact same board!), but this seems a pretty cheap bundle if anyone on here wants to get a more 'modern' Win98 setup going. Of course I have no idea if it's working, and the seller doesn't have much history, so buyer's own risk and don't blame me etc...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Asrock-K8-VM800-MB-AMD-Sempron-2600-CPU-512MB-RAM/362796072917

I assume it's ok to link to stuff spotted on eBay in this thread as others have, but my apologies if not.
 
Soldato
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I haven't bought this (because I already have the exact same board!), but this seems a pretty cheap bundle if anyone on here wants to get a more 'modern' Win98 setup going. Of course I have no idea if it's working, and the seller doesn't have much history, so buyer's own risk and don't blame me etc...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Asrock-K8-VM800-MB-AMD-Sempron-2600-CPU-512MB-RAM/362796072917

I assume it's ok to link to stuff spotted on eBay in this thread as others have, but my apologies if not.
The seller doesnt state that its not working so ebay/paypal should cover you over any issues :)

Ive got a spare ASUS A7V rev 1.04 motherboard from when I used the case for my win95 build. It had been a bit disrespected sitting in a pile of other old parts. Just had a bit of a google and it seems to be fairly desirable! Its not been upgraded to an anti static bag and its own box. Might have to make another system with it! I have plenty of geforce 4's including a new old stock one that would go nicely with it.
 
Associate
Joined
15 Mar 2012
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45
The only retro thing I've done today was change an old hard drive molex power supply I had lying around in to an Amiga CD32 PSU, simply snipped off the molex plug and soldered on a CD32 compatible connector I got for a few quid on ebay.

I bought the CD32 over a year ago but hadn't even tested it as it didn't come with a power supply and buying a genuine or compatible PSU would have been about £30-40.

It's a good thing I checked which wire was which with a multimeter first as you'd assume: yellow = 12v, red = 5v... but red was 12v, white was 5v and yellow was ground.

32JfXuk.jpg

The system powers up and spins a disc, not tested on a tv yet though. :)
 
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