creepingnet
Veteran Member
Well, with COVID-19 spiking again, and the forest fires nearby making air-quality horrid, looks like I'm going to be spending more and more quality time with the retro-PCs. Looks like the only offroading Ill be doing is in 4x4 team racing and the only "gigging" will be recording on my 486 DAW Setups.
STUFF I'M UP TO
Purge/Sales On Hold
PayFiend (PayPal) f***ed me again, basically said my account was "fixed" - it's not. After 2 years of attempts to get this fixed, and many calls, f*** paypal! Seriously. They can screw off, I got a Venmo account that's vying for my attention. So if I actually do any selling of Vintage gear, it's going to be here or AMIbay.
Plus it looks like a lot of the big box software disks are going bad - good thing I backed up most of it when I did.
Desktop Tasks
Dell Dimension 3300 - Rebuild XP Install, setup file shares for vintage PC's on the network, and use that as my vintage PC server. I have a 128GB SSD and a lot of speed and space....so why not.
NEC Ready 9522 - Get velcro and secure the 2302, or put in a new Dallas Clock chip, my solder/weirdo fix is not holding up very well due to coming loose and free roaming the case. Maybe upgrade the VRAM to 2MB so it stops lagging behind my 486s in DOOM and Quake (yes, a Pentium 100 is getting schooled by a 486 in Doom and Quake over the network....sheesh).
486 Desktop - Just build out other drives. Thinking Win2K SP4 to youtube the crazy Firefox adventures I've done, Maybe an Ubuntu experiment, and OS/2 2.1 with Win OS/2.
286 - Upgrade to FreeDOS and remove all Windows installations. Install a TNDY soundcard.
Tandy 1000A - V20, 8087, build my own custom Gamepads for it, maybe FreeDOS it if FreeDOS runs well on it.....maybe even try out a CD-ROM drive (HEHEHE).
Laptop Tasks
NEC Versa 40EC - replace the fishy smelling LCD Backlight power board with one of the newer ones with replaceable CFLs for the time being.
NEC Versa V/50 - repair/replace the motherboard. I think it blew a MOSFET or caused a short or open circuit somewhere when the hard drive shorted out during drive wiping (connector lost contact with the board and caused a short and shut down the PC, now it shows charging life but won't power on). Found a replacement for $75 + 16 shipping but I"m tempted to ask for a discount. I've been watching YouTubes to fix the motherboards I have including this one, but I'm not sure how good my skills are at it yet. If I Can find the bad part, I have PLENTY of 40EC boards and a Ultralite board to pull from. Actually, I want to replace those, get some CPU boards, and build some custom Alumilite Versas where I graft in newer features not availible on the originals.
NEC Versa M/75 - Got a Panasonic KXL-D20 Multimedia card without dongle. I'm looking at maybe fabricating a new connector that allows me to slip in a flat speaker and use it as just a soundcard. Need to do the ground + audio test on it.
NEC Versa P/75 - Just enjoy it, it's running, it's happy again, it seems to like to be wrapped in packing tape on the cracked edges.
Other Stuff
I'm seriously tempted to take some of the info from YYZKEVIN's posts on VOGON'S and take a crack at my own PCMCIA Sound Cards. My ideas are a bit more simple though. Basically an Adlib Card first, then a ESS based card later with integrated OPL. Only control would be a volume slider on the card itself to control the output to the headphone jack or internal speaker.
Wife wants to game over WiFi so I might be able to do that with the Cisco Cards and the M/75 and P/75....which might also be cool. Seems those two are more equally matched than my desktop DX4 100 and the PEntium 100, the latter getting eaten alive by a VLB S3 805 2MB card by a near perfect framerate on the 486.
STUFF I'M UP TO
Purge/Sales On Hold
PayFiend (PayPal) f***ed me again, basically said my account was "fixed" - it's not. After 2 years of attempts to get this fixed, and many calls, f*** paypal! Seriously. They can screw off, I got a Venmo account that's vying for my attention. So if I actually do any selling of Vintage gear, it's going to be here or AMIbay.
Plus it looks like a lot of the big box software disks are going bad - good thing I backed up most of it when I did.
Desktop Tasks
Dell Dimension 3300 - Rebuild XP Install, setup file shares for vintage PC's on the network, and use that as my vintage PC server. I have a 128GB SSD and a lot of speed and space....so why not.
NEC Ready 9522 - Get velcro and secure the 2302, or put in a new Dallas Clock chip, my solder/weirdo fix is not holding up very well due to coming loose and free roaming the case. Maybe upgrade the VRAM to 2MB so it stops lagging behind my 486s in DOOM and Quake (yes, a Pentium 100 is getting schooled by a 486 in Doom and Quake over the network....sheesh).
486 Desktop - Just build out other drives. Thinking Win2K SP4 to youtube the crazy Firefox adventures I've done, Maybe an Ubuntu experiment, and OS/2 2.1 with Win OS/2.
286 - Upgrade to FreeDOS and remove all Windows installations. Install a TNDY soundcard.
Tandy 1000A - V20, 8087, build my own custom Gamepads for it, maybe FreeDOS it if FreeDOS runs well on it.....maybe even try out a CD-ROM drive (HEHEHE).
Laptop Tasks
NEC Versa 40EC - replace the fishy smelling LCD Backlight power board with one of the newer ones with replaceable CFLs for the time being.
NEC Versa V/50 - repair/replace the motherboard. I think it blew a MOSFET or caused a short or open circuit somewhere when the hard drive shorted out during drive wiping (connector lost contact with the board and caused a short and shut down the PC, now it shows charging life but won't power on). Found a replacement for $75 + 16 shipping but I"m tempted to ask for a discount. I've been watching YouTubes to fix the motherboards I have including this one, but I'm not sure how good my skills are at it yet. If I Can find the bad part, I have PLENTY of 40EC boards and a Ultralite board to pull from. Actually, I want to replace those, get some CPU boards, and build some custom Alumilite Versas where I graft in newer features not availible on the originals.
NEC Versa M/75 - Got a Panasonic KXL-D20 Multimedia card without dongle. I'm looking at maybe fabricating a new connector that allows me to slip in a flat speaker and use it as just a soundcard. Need to do the ground + audio test on it.
NEC Versa P/75 - Just enjoy it, it's running, it's happy again, it seems to like to be wrapped in packing tape on the cracked edges.
Other Stuff
I'm seriously tempted to take some of the info from YYZKEVIN's posts on VOGON'S and take a crack at my own PCMCIA Sound Cards. My ideas are a bit more simple though. Basically an Adlib Card first, then a ESS based card later with integrated OPL. Only control would be a volume slider on the card itself to control the output to the headphone jack or internal speaker.
Wife wants to game over WiFi so I might be able to do that with the Cisco Cards and the M/75 and P/75....which might also be cool. Seems those two are more equally matched than my desktop DX4 100 and the PEntium 100, the latter getting eaten alive by a VLB S3 805 2MB card by a near perfect framerate on the 486.