creepingnet
Veteran Member
Been awhile since I wrote anything here.....it's been a bit grueling.....
First off, working on selling some stuff off for some extra income, some big box games, a few systems and whatnot. I just have too many systems and not enough time to give them all the attention, plus a pile of spare hardware I probably won't use since I'm looking more and more at modern open-source hardware solutions in the future.
Secondly, in order to make sure I archive some stuff I've not seen online yet, I had to setup my old 486 DX4-100 desktop system, Creeping Net 486 as I call it, so I could rip floppy images, build ZIP archives, and get data, and test piles of big box software disks that came on all formats from 360K DSDD to 1.44M HD. Just outright lunacy. Well.....a lot of "fun" ensued.....lots of folley and fumble.....
Basically spent all of Tuesday night trying to recreate a once-in-a-lifetime-fluke of coincidence where I put a 128GB mSATA SSD drive into a 44 pin adapter and put that on a 44pin to 40pin adapter into one of the Mobile Rack caddies and put FreeDOS on it - and it only took 10 minutes to install, and booted in about the same amount of time, yeah, sounds insane if you think about it, but it worked.
Anyway.....had 3 of those little mSATA drives, drive #1 went bad on me, basically the SSD version of a Track 0 problem, drive #2 would not even come up, probably because it might not be as compatible with the adapter as the other two, and then lastly, drive #3 finally worked, but it took a few hours of cussing, plugging the IDE cable in backwards trying to rush before time to sleep for work, and messing with a myriad of tools while taking down the 17" CRT to use my LCD screen.
Then came the irritating task of trying to install FreeDOS. Now, CN486 has an issue with FreeDOS 1.2 where as soon as HIMEMX loads pre-install it just crashes and throws gibberish endlessly down the left side of the screen upon boot of the CD or Floppy. So I though "let's try 1.3 RC4"...well, it would boot, eventually from the LIveCD AND The Legacy CD (I use OnTrak 9.4 DDO with CD-ROM Boot written in, so I can CD-ROM Boot the 486 that way) - but it would get a bit of the way through the install, and fail on drive #1, finally, after attempt...I dunno, 10, I FINALLY - with fingers crossed and tension you can cut with a knife in the room, got it to install the base install without errors.
I would file a bug report but it's really stability issues with the hardware. Basically, VLB card that gets loose in the slot, one memory module that's also loose because the PCB is a little thinner than the rest for some weird reason - once I cleaned some contacts and - that's when the finger crossing and sqinting began, LOL.
But once done, and all the network stuff done (Packet Driver, mtcp.cfg, Links updated, WATTCP, and all that fun stuff) - 10 second boot times, and the fastest I've ever seen FTPSRV run on a 10mbps LAN connection - files FLEW to the machine like I was on a way faster connection. 250MB used to take about 30 minutes on my Versa M/75 - not this thing - 250MB cleared in like 5, 10, maybe 20 minutes at most. So as of today, all of my software is loaded, now it's just the big "Unzip" job to do.
Meanwhile, the NEC Versa 40EC committed hary kary again, this time taking the LCD's inverter board with it. Luckily I saved the CFLs and Inverter board from a Versa Ultralite 25C (NL6448AC30-03) and transplanted those in, so the screen works, but something is up with the motherboard. Sounds like another $20 E-bay purchase again to get this one running, assuming I can get a power-board this time if the other computer with problems needs it....
The V/50 was readying old 2.5" HDD for E-bay when one of the drives must have come loose from the connector and caused a short. Now it shows signs of getting power and charging, but it won't power on. So looks like I'll be on a cap/resistor short/open hunt, luckily I have 3 E-series boards that are very similar to pull components from - assuming this is not a power-board issue.
On the flipside, the P/75 is all fixed up though the CMOS battery is not doing much ATM for some odd reason.....I really need to get a battery terminal welder, or a CR2302 holder. But audio is working again and it's quite happy otherwise, just have to put in CMOS settings every time it starts. This problem started when the case continued to crack, so I reinforced it with some more superglue and baking soda, this time needing to fix the centermost screw which is what holds the CPU Board down in that model. Once that was fixed, that one problem is gone, but the other is still there - for now.
Otherwise, the M/75 is going great and now the wife is playing on that one while I'm at work....hehehe, just hope I can get her 40EC (the marble one) back up and going soon.
First off, working on selling some stuff off for some extra income, some big box games, a few systems and whatnot. I just have too many systems and not enough time to give them all the attention, plus a pile of spare hardware I probably won't use since I'm looking more and more at modern open-source hardware solutions in the future.
Secondly, in order to make sure I archive some stuff I've not seen online yet, I had to setup my old 486 DX4-100 desktop system, Creeping Net 486 as I call it, so I could rip floppy images, build ZIP archives, and get data, and test piles of big box software disks that came on all formats from 360K DSDD to 1.44M HD. Just outright lunacy. Well.....a lot of "fun" ensued.....lots of folley and fumble.....
Basically spent all of Tuesday night trying to recreate a once-in-a-lifetime-fluke of coincidence where I put a 128GB mSATA SSD drive into a 44 pin adapter and put that on a 44pin to 40pin adapter into one of the Mobile Rack caddies and put FreeDOS on it - and it only took 10 minutes to install, and booted in about the same amount of time, yeah, sounds insane if you think about it, but it worked.
Anyway.....had 3 of those little mSATA drives, drive #1 went bad on me, basically the SSD version of a Track 0 problem, drive #2 would not even come up, probably because it might not be as compatible with the adapter as the other two, and then lastly, drive #3 finally worked, but it took a few hours of cussing, plugging the IDE cable in backwards trying to rush before time to sleep for work, and messing with a myriad of tools while taking down the 17" CRT to use my LCD screen.
Then came the irritating task of trying to install FreeDOS. Now, CN486 has an issue with FreeDOS 1.2 where as soon as HIMEMX loads pre-install it just crashes and throws gibberish endlessly down the left side of the screen upon boot of the CD or Floppy. So I though "let's try 1.3 RC4"...well, it would boot, eventually from the LIveCD AND The Legacy CD (I use OnTrak 9.4 DDO with CD-ROM Boot written in, so I can CD-ROM Boot the 486 that way) - but it would get a bit of the way through the install, and fail on drive #1, finally, after attempt...I dunno, 10, I FINALLY - with fingers crossed and tension you can cut with a knife in the room, got it to install the base install without errors.
I would file a bug report but it's really stability issues with the hardware. Basically, VLB card that gets loose in the slot, one memory module that's also loose because the PCB is a little thinner than the rest for some weird reason - once I cleaned some contacts and - that's when the finger crossing and sqinting began, LOL.
But once done, and all the network stuff done (Packet Driver, mtcp.cfg, Links updated, WATTCP, and all that fun stuff) - 10 second boot times, and the fastest I've ever seen FTPSRV run on a 10mbps LAN connection - files FLEW to the machine like I was on a way faster connection. 250MB used to take about 30 minutes on my Versa M/75 - not this thing - 250MB cleared in like 5, 10, maybe 20 minutes at most. So as of today, all of my software is loaded, now it's just the big "Unzip" job to do.
Meanwhile, the NEC Versa 40EC committed hary kary again, this time taking the LCD's inverter board with it. Luckily I saved the CFLs and Inverter board from a Versa Ultralite 25C (NL6448AC30-03) and transplanted those in, so the screen works, but something is up with the motherboard. Sounds like another $20 E-bay purchase again to get this one running, assuming I can get a power-board this time if the other computer with problems needs it....
The V/50 was readying old 2.5" HDD for E-bay when one of the drives must have come loose from the connector and caused a short. Now it shows signs of getting power and charging, but it won't power on. So looks like I'll be on a cap/resistor short/open hunt, luckily I have 3 E-series boards that are very similar to pull components from - assuming this is not a power-board issue.
On the flipside, the P/75 is all fixed up though the CMOS battery is not doing much ATM for some odd reason.....I really need to get a battery terminal welder, or a CR2302 holder. But audio is working again and it's quite happy otherwise, just have to put in CMOS settings every time it starts. This problem started when the case continued to crack, so I reinforced it with some more superglue and baking soda, this time needing to fix the centermost screw which is what holds the CPU Board down in that model. Once that was fixed, that one problem is gone, but the other is still there - for now.
Otherwise, the M/75 is going great and now the wife is playing on that one while I'm at work....hehehe, just hope I can get her 40EC (the marble one) back up and going soon.
