What retro things have you done today?

[Retro6]

I found a bunch more of my old floppy disks which I thought were knackered considering they hadn't been used since 2003 and were all Acorn RISC OS formatted disks. The PC failed to re-format them but then I tried the 720 KB option and they began to format, some of them took a very long time to format.

I had games on Floppy Kings Quest but I was missing the other game disks so I thought I may as well format those. I'll have to see if I can get those games again on floppy but for DOS. The old floppy disks you can tell are better quality, they feel heavier and less flimsy.

If I can get Badger Trails for DOS I'd be a happy man.

 

[quackers]

I may of picked up an MSI MS-6378 ATX board as part of a retro bundle we collected, it's got some sort of processor in there (not had the chance to look yet), Original Athlon or Duron and even two 512mb ram sticks. Does it work, is the million dollar question

 

[GeX]

So the other day I did an AMOLED Game Boy Color build and today I finished off the yellow IPS build;

I'm not happy with the buttons (need to order some better ones) or the light bleed at the top of the shell. I need to work out how to mask that, or replace the shell.

 

[Retro6]

Well I've finally got around to clearing out a room where two of my retro PC's are setup but they haven't been used since lockdown. They were working fine but my Dell D333 is asking for a BIOS password... there was never a password on this machine... I'm hoping the motherboard hasn't gone kaput after sitting for sometime. Hopefully it just be a case of replacing the CMOS battery and looking for a jumper to disable the password. Worse case scenario, it be a board replacement. I have one spare.

Once I've got everything cleared up in there I will get the computer on the work bench and find out what the deal is. I was planing on upgrading it to OSR 2.5 anyway and maybe upgrading the RAM to 128MB. or just max it out to 384MB RAM which is its limit. That would have been insane in the 90s

What I might try if I can get the machine working again is, install FreeDOS then Windows 95 OSR 2.5 on top. I have a fully functional 40GB IDE hard drive in there and FreeDOS supports FAT32 so I should get all 40GB of my HDD. Its a slot 1 processor at 333MHz a has a Diamond Fire GL video card. It was always good for DOS games... lets hope its just a case of removing a jumper to disable the password.

 

[Metalface Mark]

Picked up my first ever Sony PVM monitor, a 14" one - cannot wait to get setup!

 

[lcg]

I set up my Gateway 2000 4DX2-66P which I haven't used in a while. I joined it to my Windows 2000 Server domain.



It's running Windows 95. It runs well as the original owner upgraded the CPU to an 83 MHz Pentium OverDrive. I'm interested in trying Windows 3.11 though.

Picked up my first ever Sony PVM monitor, a 14" one - cannot wait to get setup!

Nice! What model is it?

 

[cee-S-dee]

Picked up my first ever Sony PVM monitor, a 14" one - cannot wait to get setup!

You going to hook up the Mister to it?

I've got the 14M2E and I love it. Lovely little monitor and awesome picture quality!

 

[Metalface Mark]

You going to hook up the Mister to it?

I've got the 14M2E and I love it. Lovely little monitor and awesome picture quality!

yeah ive hooked it up to my mister, and its freed up my phillips diamondtron to now use in a retro pc build too, double win

 

[Retro6]

I give up with my DELL 425/L I bought yet another RAM stick this time its identical to the original RAM stick the computer came with. Again the seller said the RAM has been tested and is 100% I put it in with the existing module and the computer didn't like it so I removed the original RAM placed the RAM I bought into the first slot and I'm only getting 03360K RAM? Its an 8MB stick ironically the other module that it came with is also an 8MB stick and not 4MB as I previously thought so there is an obvious issue with the RAM slots / motherboard where its forever limited to 03360K of RAM no matter what the capacity of the RAM stick is. They saw me coming, I get the feeling they would not have sold it otherwise.

 

[Armageus]

I give up with my DELL 425/L I bought yet another RAM stick this time its identical to the original RAM stick the computer came with. Again the seller said the RAM has been tested and is 100% I put it in with the existing module and the computer didn't like it so I removed the original RAM placed the RAM I bought into the first slot and I'm only getting 03360K RAM? Its an 8MB stick ironically the other module that it came with is also an 8MB stick and not 4MB as I previously thought so there is an obvious issue with the RAM slots / motherboard where its forever limited to 03360K of RAM no matter what the capacity of the RAM stick is. They saw me coming, I get the feeling they would not have sold it otherwise.

What sort of RAM did you buy? Presumably it should just be 72pin FPM SIMMS (Not EDO)? Single or Double Sided?

Where is it showing 03360K, in the BIOS or in DOS?
(to be fair 3360K could be correct, if the sticks are actually 4MB sticks, depending on how it's being reported i.e. once you exclude 640Kb base memory and anything that's shadowed or cached)


Possibly just a jumper set correctly limiting things?


Various info here:

https://www.ardent-tool.com/media/PS2_MOST/ACROREAD/TSSFACT/TFSPC/DELL/2006026.PDF

Dell System 486/L

Dell System 486/L is a motherboard based on the Headland HTK340 (Shasta 486 Chip Set) chipset. Get specs, BIOS, documentation and more!

theretroweb.com

Dell 425s/L - Higher Intellect Vintage Wiki

wiki.preterhuman.net

Dell 486 help \ VOGONS

www.vogons.org

 

[Retro6]

What sort of RAM did you buy? Presumably it should just be 72pin FPM SIMMS (Not EDO)? Single or Double Sided?

Where is it showing 03360K, in the BIOS or in DOS?
(to be fair 3360K could be correct, if the sticks are actually 4MB sticks, depending on how it's being reported i.e. once you exclude 640Kb base memory and anything that's shadowed or cached)


Possibly just a jumper set correctly limiting things?


Various info here:

https://www.ardent-tool.com/media/PS2_MOST/ACROREAD/TSSFACT/TFSPC/DELL/2006026.PDF

Dell System 486/L

Dell System 486/L is a motherboard based on the Headland HTK340 (Shasta 486 Chip Set) chipset. Get specs, BIOS, documentation and more!

theretroweb.com

Dell 425s/L - Higher Intellect Vintage Wiki

wiki.preterhuman.net

Dell 486 help \ VOGONS

www.vogons.org

The RAM I bought is EDO single sided at 8MB 72 pin that is also what the computer came with when I bought it and because the PC shows 03360K at startup and in the BIOS I thought I had a 4MB stick in there but when I tested it in my other 486 it reports it as an 8MB stick. The stick I bought is identical to the stick of RAM that was already in the machine. I thought I couldn't go wrong if I bought an identical stick. They wont work when tried together but work when tried with a single stick. Each stick is 8MB but the PC only counts 03360K no matter what. It did the same thing when I tried a 32MB stick, it still read 03360K

So from what I understand I need 72 FPM SIMMS and not EDO... I'll order some FPM SIMMS and see how it goes.

 

[Armageus]

The RAM I bought is EDO single sided at 8MB 72 pin that is also what the computer came with when I bought it and because the PC shows 03360K at startup and in the BIOS I thought I had a 4MB stick in there but when I tested it in my other 486 it reports it as an 8MB stick. The stick I bought is identical to the stick of RAM that was already in the machine. I thought I couldn't go wrong if I bought an identical stick. They wont work when tried together but work when tried with a single stick. Each stick is 8MB but the PC only counts 03360K no matter what. It did the same thing when I tried a 32MB stick, it still read 03360K

So from what I understand I need 72 FPM SIMMS and not EDO... I'll order some FPM SIMMS and see how it goes.

Yep I'd say it's down to not liking EDO Simms (Pentium was generally the point when EDO started being used), certainly the manual for your 486 Chipset doesn't mention anything about EDO

https://theretroweb.com/chipset/documentation/htk340-645130d697833640777893.pdf

 

[LewisRaz]

my Dell 466i is the same, use FP memory not EDO

 

[Retro6]

Thanks people... much appreciated, I learn something new everyday. I have ordered a FPM 8MB SIMM this time so hopefully fingers crossed everything will be good.

 

[jamie2497]

Gone a bit overboard on the retro this week, ended up buying an Analogue Mega SG and Super NT with everdrive.. even though I own a mister!

 

[Retro6]

I've been getting some ideas on building something like this... an ATX PC case from wood that would look something like this... I'll base it on the Apple II design Not quite sure how I would do the keyboard but my idea is progressing... A toggle switch on the front for power. The back part of the case would have to be metal but the rest will be wood.

I wouldn't be hard to build a box like this

 

[Retro6]

Strangely my Lemmings game doesn't work anymore. It worked before with no issues its either that or I'm going crazy...

I get to the part where it asks me to select video I type VGA

Next part where do you want to install Lemmings example: C:\LEMMINGS)

I type C:\LEMMINGS

nope just just repeats the question

This is how I always installed it before and it worked but this time its just repeating itself.

I think I will have to find another download that doesn't require an install.

 

[OpenToSuggestions]

Been in the Shadow Temple on Zelda Ocarina of Time this week on the N64 .

 

[Radec]

ive collected everything videogames related all my life. kept all the boxes and looked after everything.
but recently decided to get rid of the lot. im tired of it suddenly. if i play retro games i prefer to emulate.
it's going to be a long process if i want to get close to what it's all worth.

 

[Retro6]

I found more cheap CF Cards in CeX and I've got DOS installed on them. I just love installing DOS on CF Card then setting up directories and adding Unisound and CTMOUSE plus and extended partition if they are over 2GB.

I use the extended partition to drop games and stuff onto into a directory.