What retro things have you done today?

LewisRaz · 20 Jan 2020 at 20:22

mrbell1984 said:
What you plan on doing with that? urgh I hated desktop cases like that lol

I am trying to remake (or close to it) my first proper pc. A case that this is 100% required!
Plus as above with a CRT they are a must to raise the screen up.
It is also no just a desktop case.. But an AT case so quite useful for the older build with AT mobos. I doubt I will ever be selling this case on

LewisRaz · 20 Jan 2020 at 22:02

Picked up a soldering iron today and got straight to getting that leaking battery off of the 386:

The most stubborn part was actually the glue that was underneath the battery.

I did have a go at getting those caps off but it was impossible trying to hold the board vertical and heat the pads and pull the cap all at the same time! I might just snip them off.

Ordered the replacement ones anyway so hopefully they will turn up soon.

LewisRaz · 20 Jan 2020 at 22:15

Just to sanity check (its too late but I can order more)

Its bugging me that the u is after the 16 but isn't the capacitance meant to be the top value? so 10uF and 16v?

almoststew1990 · 21 Jan 2020 at 09:58

Just picked up a GeForce 3 ti200 for £10 delivered which I definitely wasnt planning on doing! :S

paradigm · 21 Jan 2020 at 12:24

almoststew1990 said:
Just picked up a GeForce 3 ti200 for £10 delivered which I definitely wasnt planning on doing! :S

I've got one of those that I bought a couple of years back for around the same price. Seems they still aren't particularly desirable yet a decent card for early 2000s stuff.

vanpeebles · 21 Jan 2020 at 13:05

Currently working away on my next Sinclair QL adventure game, this time a dungeon crawler. Title screen and room graphic below.

hohum · 21 Jan 2020 at 14:40

paradigm said:
I've got one of those that I bought a couple of years back for around the same price. Seems they still aren't particularly desirable yet a decent card for early 2000s stuff.

I had a regular Geforce 3 (non-Ti) back in the day. It was a decent enough performance upgrade over my GF2 Ti, but I found the image quality to be pretty poor to be honest. In particular I remember anything using texture compression being pretty ugly so I'd turn that off where possible (such as with Quake 3 - that would use S3TC on the GF3 and caused lots of awful looking purple and green patches of colour on darker surfaces). For that reason I don't think I'd bother with one again personally, but I guess if you can get one cheap then it's a good performer at least.

paradigm · 21 Jan 2020 at 14:50

hohum said:
I had a regular Geforce 3 (non-Ti) back in the day. It was a decent enough performance upgrade over my GF2 Ti, but I found the image quality to be pretty poor to be honest. In particular I remember anything using texture compression being pretty ugly so I'd turn that off where possible (such as with Quake 3 - that would use S3TC on the GF3 and caused lots of awful looking purple and green patches of colour on darker surfaces). For that reason I don't think I'd bother with one again personally, but I guess if you can get one cheap then it's a good performer at least.

Wasn’t that easily fixable by removing the filters before the video ports? Pretty sure I remember it was a case of knocking off some resistors or capacitors on the back side of the board.

hohum · 21 Jan 2020 at 15:19

Don't know much about that I'm afraid, I was only referring to image quality at the software level. It was around the time that driver performance was being given preference over rendering quality though to be fair, something I never particularly liked.

paradigm · 21 Jan 2020 at 16:47

See here:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/869/5

hohum · 21 Jan 2020 at 16:56

Not a problem I encountered personally, but looking at that article it appeared to depend on the vendor.

paradigm · 22 Jan 2020 at 19:06

So, been offered ANOTHER 486. Compaq Deskpro XE 466 (DX2 66MHz, 32MB RAM), IBM 14R28 CRT, Olivetti ANK-27 keyboard (already own one of these), and some random 3 button mouse.

Not sure whether to take it or not (for £75), I certainly don't NEED another 486 machine (assuming I can get mine working), but this one is complete so I wouldn't need to re-house my Pentium 200MMX.

Hmmm, decisions.

LewisRaz · 22 Jan 2020 at 20:07

paradigm said:
So, been offered ANOTHER 486. Compaq Deskpro XE 466 (DX2 66MHz, 32MB RAM), IBM 14R28 CRT, Olivetti ANK-27 keyboard (already own one of these), and some random 3 button mouse.

Not sure whether to take it or not (for £75), I certainly don't NEED another 486 machine (assuming I can get mine working), but this one is complete so I wouldn't need to re-house my Pentium 200MMX.

Hmmm, decisions.

I would take it if not just to sell the insides and keep the chassis. I certainly plan to try and hoard some AT cases if and when the chance arises.

LewisRaz · 22 Jan 2020 at 20:10

I just looked it up perhaps with the form factor and the riser card another board might not fit in that case.

jrwagh333 · 23 Jan 2020 at 10:49

Been reading into Gameboys as I recently found my Gameboy Colour. How did we all put up with non-lit screens?!

I've been trying to find the best way to play my GBC games and it seems the GBA SP 101 model offers the best screen but I'm no way paying the price they are going for.

paradigm · 23 Jan 2020 at 10:59

jrwagh333 said:
Been reading into Gameboys as I recently found my Gameboy Colour. How did we all put up with non-lit screens?!

I've been trying to find the best way to play my GBC games and it seems the GBA SP 101 model offers the best screen but I'm no way paying the price they are going for.

Backlit screen mod on your current GBC would be the route I’d take. Unlike the original Gameboy it’s not a hack to put a backlight behind the display, it’s a replacement IPS display!

jrwagh333 · 23 Jan 2020 at 11:42

I have looked and the screens look much smaller than the original that comes on the Colour

LewisRaz · 24 Jan 2020 at 19:51

I got the caps off of the 386 but need a desoldering pump now as there is no way I can get these new ones in with the solder already in place. Way too tight of an area!

GeX · 24 Jan 2020 at 20:47

Try some solder wick. I use a combination of that, poking it with the iron and a Duratool desolderering station.
Don't forget that adding fresh solder can help too.

GeX · 24 Jan 2020 at 20:47

almoststew1990 said:
Just picked up a GeForce 3 ti200 for £10 delivered which I definitely wasnt planning on doing! :S

Nice. Where from? I keep looking out for one cheap as I had one back in the day