Retro PC thread

Retro PC thread.

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Other urls found in this thread:

lo-tech.co.uk/product/2mb-ems-board-pcb/
oshpark.com/profiles/maeslin
youtube.com/watch?v=Gbn_51IoJiM
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

what do you do with it except take pictures of the retro hardware?

Take pictures for internet points with fellow hipsters.

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Are you obsessed with these threads?
You repost your image in these every day

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whats a good use for an old PC ?

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that's the most useful a zx81 has ever been

Nothing much.

Something fun for the police to find when they raid you

The IBM AT had a lot of flaws because IBM rushed it to market.

>no software that could utilize the 286's enhanced capabilities
>compatibility issues with the new 1.2MB floppies
>trash-tier hard disks that had a 120% failure rate
>buggy, useless DOS
>slow (only 6Mhz)
>the EGA 5154 monitors were expensive and had reliability issues

Unfortunately they didn't have much of a choice. The original 8088 IBM PC architecture was three years old in 1984, competition was tightening, and they needed to have a next-generation PC out. IBM also had to handicap the AT to a certain extent so it wouldn't steal mainframe/mini sales.

nICE gET user

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>anything I don't like is onions

and that's why you don't have any friends

Specifically referring to the CMT Memories 20MB hard disks originally shipped with the AT. They were a garbage brand that IBM chose because it was cheap. The drives had a tendency to not park their heads when powered down, resulting in damage while moving the computer.

You have to remember that cost reasons were an issue here. Nowadays hard disks are as cheap as water, but in the 80s they were really expensive and in fact the most expensive thing in the computer. So IBM went with the lowest bidder to keep the AT's price tag competitive. Besides, the magic three letters were enough to sell the AT and the initial shipments of the new machines that went on sale in October 1984 were immediately sold out. There were shortages and a waiting list to buy ATs for months because demand exceeded IBM's ability to manufacture them.

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It looks like something from Fallout.

>those inputs

lmao

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After people discovered that they could install a faster 286 CPU by replacing the clock crystal, IBM modified the motherboards/BIOS so you couldn't do that.

Reminds one of an Ebay seller.

What's the best emulator? Fuck real hardware

Best emulator for what?

old computers

What machines in particular do you want to emulate?

Like, computers from the 80s and 90s, old stuff, retro.

I'm fixing up a power mac 7600. It has a built in composite video in so I'm going to put it in a cabinet with all my older consoles hooked up to that.

Still more of a novelty than a good use though.

Does anyone know any keyboards that would work with the commodore 128d and aren't super expensive?

The same stuff one used them for in 1985. Playing games and doing work.

Manchildren who want to play children's gaymes on mediocre mass-produced consumer PCs.

96 RAM chips. Enough juice to dim the lights.

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>IBM also had to handicap the AT to a certain extent so it wouldn't steal mainframe/mini sales.
This also explains IBM's delay in releasing a 386 PC; they didn't want to undercut their mainframe/mini business. Compaq had no such concerns and beat them to it.

Too vague to be useful.

Wasn't there one autist on here who always spammed pics of his AT setup?

The 286 was the first microprocessor with an on-chip MMU. It had been out since 1982, but manufacturers delayed using it and waited for IBM to make the first move.

Despite all that, somehow less of a chip than the 68000 because it had strictly 16-bit internal registers and a braindead way of accessing memory >1MB.

It also had no way to get out of protected mode short of resetting the thing (Windows 3.x exited protected mode by inducing a deliberate segment fault).

The fact that you needed a separate BIOS setup disk for these things and it wasn't in ROM was bull.

So what's the skinny with adding extended memory on ATs? They didn't use SIMMs like later PCs.

No. The AT motherboard held 512k and everything else had to be on RAM cards, usually some combination of 64kx1, 256kx1, and 512x1 chips. Late 286 memory cards went to using SIMMs.

Also I should add that the POST on ATs only counts the first 640k of memory (unlike 386+) so even if you have an XMS card, it will still only report 640k.

Nobody used protected mode on the 286

You're forgetting a very widely used thing that ran in 286 protected mode.

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The event of 386 PCs decisively killed off any alternative architectures because the 386 was so overwhelmingly more powerful than anything else out.

I think it won because it was somewhat standardized unlike any m68k platform

Given Intel credit where it's due, it's amazing they even got it to work at all and still retain backwards compatibility with the older x86 chips and pull it off within the limitations of 1985 manufacturing technology. The job would have certainly been a lot easier if they didn't also have to ensure it could run 8086/286 software.

Why are Windows 95 apps running on Windows 3.1?

It was a Win32s demo.

i see shit, i post

>The original 8088 IBM PC architecture was three years old in 1984

I liken it to the Apple /// fiasco. Apple also felt this compulsion to get something new out since the Apple II was turning 3 in 1980 and technology was advancing quickly.

Someone on VCFED by some miracle had a working CMT Memories hard disk.

Took me a while to fill up my Intel Aboveboard, had to get chips from Israel. A whopping 1.2mb

lo-tech.co.uk/product/2mb-ems-board-pcb/

Or you know, you just get one of these instead which has modern components and will use 1/5th the electricity.

Also I should add that Intel Aboveboards were crap anyway and the drivers included with them are not compatible with anything but DOS 3.x.

After the 386 came out, you could just simulate EMS RAM with extended memory so using these monstrosities became completely unnecessary.

Hmmm, wasn't aware of these.
I'll grab one when my MFM drive kicks the bucket and I move to an xtIDE.

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Those IBM-branded printers were just rebadged Epsons and the vast majority of them were sold to government agencies.

83 RAM chips on the beast.

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Yep, I think you can expand the character ROM too to get pseudo-bitmap graphics out of it.

IBM mutilated the original Centronics parallel port as part of a scam deal with Epson so you couldn't use any other printers on a PC without risking damaging the port (the Centronics standard included a 5V line not on the IBM port among a few other differences).

Yeah...

Thanks to those Lo-Tech EMS boards (two chips for 2MB), there's no need to use these Mesozoic monsters.

I'm really amazed that a last gen 486 (dx4 100ot 5x86 133) is capable to display simple web pages , even Jow Forums.But it is impossible to post due to the captcha shit, probably because it's based in JAVA, i guess.

JAVA ruined the fucking internet i guess. Fucking bloated Web.

I still prefer the plain Html based websites, much simpler and without all the modern CLUSTERFUCK.

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68000 had pure flat memory and no segment crap. On a 286, you still had to have everything in 64k segments.

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Yeah Microsoft discovered this l33t hax0r trick to cause the CPU to drop out of protected mode (on the 386, you just clear a register bit).

They also developed some workaround to get Windows to work with EMM386 since it already put the CPU into protected mode.

C 128 after some repairs,if i remember correctly i've replaced a failed logic gate driving the datassette.
Spare chips are lying on the c128 body.

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The Dallas 1287 Real Time Clock battery Mod.

It's one of the few things you must learn to assemble to mantain your collection of old Personal Computers.

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Above all, all brick and barrel batteries need to be removed before they leak and trash your board irreparably. Replace them with coin cells, which don't leak.

I think somebody has built a replacement PCB for those, I'll see if I can dig up a link.

One reason I fear early 90s gear and don't like collecting it--that was in the era of blue barrel batteries. So many poor Amiga 1200s and 2000s died and gone to heaven.

oshpark.com/profiles/maeslin
Here you go.

The Adlib clone.

Building your own audio card? Yes you can!

Online schematics by Malinov, Laser printers and cheap chemicals for the PCB,Ebay for the Yamaha chips.

Good lord we really live in a sci-fi future...

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Not necessary. Any SB16 (an ISA SB16, not PCI models) has a real YM3812 on it.

Well, i'll never have the courage to scavenge a fully working sound blaster . Maybe a broken one?

But interesting idea, tho. The chip will probably be Surface Mount Tech , tho , you'll need a steady hand to solder it.

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Well said.

Barrel Batteries are the worst nightmare.

Look at my Amiga 600 Memory Expansion/rtc.

But I did manage to clean and restore it.

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And after the treatment. Coin cell with a diode in series (to prevent pcb 3v to 'charge' the battery), all working perfectly.

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With the Amiga 500+/600, you're lucky because the main PCB doesn't have the battery on it. With an A1200 or 2000, you're probably fucked.

>With an A1200
You're the retard who posts random "facts"? At least do your research and stop shitting up these threads.

Good one.

Damn right.

Did you watch this EEVblog video, about this poor A2000 sitting on a shelf for 20 years? I think our Australian friend can fix it trace by trace, just for fun (if the PCB layers are not compromised, tho)

youtube.com/watch?v=Gbn_51IoJiM

>But it is impossible to post due to the captcha shit, probably because it's based in JAVA
I have brain cancer now.

Saw your new video a few days ago, nice!

You can have both at once. XT-IDE and a MFM controller.

I un-privated a few of my videos the other day. I'll get something proper out in the next month or so when I finish fiddling with this Minitel.

I should be able to post here from it once I'm done.

I ordered the parts for a Super Socket 7 system last night. Even scored a Voodoo 5500 so I can run a clearly overkill card for the system. If I can get 98SE and XP to dual boot then I should be able to get Diablo II online and playing with people on modern machines. Then if I massively underclock it into 386/486 mode I can try a whole host of DOS games. Pretty good for something nearly twenty years old. Shame it can't be used for shitposting. Any good 98SE or XP exclusive software worth trying? I'm open to just about anything.

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So, like MS-DOS, Windows 95, Commodore/Amiga, Sinclair, Apple 2, Amstrad?
You're asking the question so give us more info.

Naaaah, it's all discrete technology, nothing more than 5-10 watts per board

TRIPDUBS

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somehow that got a kek out a me

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Only need one? Screw etching a circuit board.

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CHECKEM

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>minitel
Are you french?

People really had more time back then

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Pixel arts

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>that joystick
*click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click*

impressive

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British, I bought one a few years ago.
Built a USB adapter to use it as a terminal but I'm working on something to make it operate stand-alone now.

wanted to do that too but I find the keyboard too shitty to my taste. It's reqlly super comfy to jam a rpi3 inside it and use it as a google browsing device, as it was intended.