creepingnet
Veteran Member
Have not even posted anything for this year yet. So here's what's been going down....
- #SEPTandy is already filmed, and I filmed a little too much this year...almost every day of September is going to have my Tandy 1000 recorded on it in some way.
- #DOSCember has started but my Fosmon VGA-to-Composite capture crapped out. That's fine I've already made quite a few videos with it already. I also did the last video with the GEM 286 before I sold it (yep, it's gone to a new home), and the Moondog was supposed to be the same, but it ended up back in my hands, so I might have to re-post that computer with a new video updating the scenario around e-bay.
- I'm doing some videos of random fun shovelware from Windows 3.11 For Workgroups since that's my favorite O/S, and it came out in November 1993.
- My collection has been reduced to 4 laptops and 4 desktops (so 8 total)
THE CURRENT COLLECTION
Another change incoming is that my desk setup will feature a Wireless Bridge for whichever Vintage computer is there....possibly TWO in the future. SO I don't need to be plugging ethernet cords into everything all the bloody time. I'm also toying with the idea of Power-Line Ethernet to the garage as well. The bridge will just let me seasonally swap out one PC....the schedule for the PCs is as follows....
June->September = Tandy 1000A
September->November = Compaq Deskpro 386s/20
November->March = Creeping Net 486
March->June = Compaq Deskpro 386s/20
I'm considering the Moondog as a year-round Garage PC possibly, with a wireless keyboard/mouse setup of some kind, and displaying through the UHD 4K TV I have hung up in there.
- #SEPTandy is already filmed, and I filmed a little too much this year...almost every day of September is going to have my Tandy 1000 recorded on it in some way.
- #DOSCember has started but my Fosmon VGA-to-Composite capture crapped out. That's fine I've already made quite a few videos with it already. I also did the last video with the GEM 286 before I sold it (yep, it's gone to a new home), and the Moondog was supposed to be the same, but it ended up back in my hands, so I might have to re-post that computer with a new video updating the scenario around e-bay.
- I'm doing some videos of random fun shovelware from Windows 3.11 For Workgroups since that's my favorite O/S, and it came out in November 1993.
- My collection has been reduced to 4 laptops and 4 desktops (so 8 total)
THE CURRENT COLLECTION
- 1985 Tandy 1000A - NEC V20, 8087, 4.77MHz, 640K, 128MB HDD (2.5" IDE), XT-IDE REV 1.1, TGA, Tandy 3-voice, DOS 6.22, LYNX, mTCP, RTL-8019 Ethernet ~ as of this writing, the Tandy is fully setup at my new apartment (I just moved) and will be in use until December when I'll switch to the Compaq Deskpro below. I'll probably return to working on my lightpen next year, and a new "gamepad" I'm designing for it.
- 1991 Compaq Deskpro 386s/20- IBM "Blue Lightning" BLX3 w/ 16K L2 Cache, which is a "Evergreen RevTo486" upgrade chip (apparently the most sought after version), running at 20/40/60MHz depending on clock - it performs about like a 486 DX2-40 in 60MHz, intel 387 SX-25 Co-Processor, 10MB of RAM, 1.44MB slimline 3.5", 1.2MB Slimline 5.25", Connor CP-30203 HDD, MS-DOS 6.22, mTCP, Links Browser - Planned for this year (probably the next DOSCember video for hardwarE) will be upgrading the Compaq to have a CD-ROM Drive. I have a spare DVD-ROM drive stowed away in a box in my garage ATM. I just need to order the rails.
- 1995/2012 Creeping Net 486 - AMD Am486 DX4-100MHz w/ WriteBack, 512K L2 Cache, 64MB RAM, FIC 486-PVT motherboard Socket 3 w/ VLB, 1.2MB and 1.44MB Floppy drives, Lian-Li RH37 Mobile Rack w/ 5 Caddies, LiteOn white panel DVD-RW drive, S3 805 2MB VESA 2.0 SVGA, Creative Labs SoundBlaster AWE64 Bronze Edition (no wavetable RAM card), Linksys Etherfast TP PnP ISA, multiple OSes and Browsers. I might shoot most of the #DOSCember stuff on this machine (probably swap mid-october) once I get my hands on a VGA FrameGrabber that will grab the whole screen.
- 1995 Moondog Computers 486 - AMD Am486 DX4-100MHz, 32MB RAM, Cirrus Logic CL-GD5424 1MB SVGA VLB, SoundBlaster Vibra 16, Linksys EtherFast, 80GB HDD, 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy, Creative Branded CD-ROM, PC Chips M912 with a REAL working 256K L2 Cache (!!!). I sold this computer for around $400 mid-summer before moving and lost about $200-300 on it when FedEx damn near destroyed it despite being packed literally bomb proof. I have not booted it up since, so it might be a fun winter project, actually, I have not taken it out of the box yet....so, uh, yeah.
- 1993 BSi 433DX/NanTan Notebook FMA3500C - i486 DX-33, 8MB on 30 pin SIP RAM, 203MB Connor Peripherals CP-30203S HDD, 1.44MB Floppy, Rare Trackball Option, Cirrus Logic CL-GD6420 1MB SVGA w/ Sanyo LCM-55NTK 9.4" DSTN color LCD, 12V NiCad Battery, generic power supply of my own finding. I just replaced the CMOS battery with a modern coin-cell equivalent from a Dell E-series Latitude that died. Otherwise working great as-is. Planning Serdashop WiFi Modem and one of those LPT Sound Cards.
- 1995 NanTan Notebook FMAK9200D - i486 DX2-66, 8MB on proprietary card + Motherboard, 1.44MB NEC Versa Floppy, 80GB ATA-133 2.5" HDD, Cirrus Logic CL-GD6440 1MB SVGA w/ 10.3" Sanyo LCM Display Panel, ESS488 AudioDrive w/OPL/2 (SB Pro Compatible), Cisco Aironet LCM-352 802.11b WiFi PCMCIA, Netgear XJ10BT Wired Ethernet Xjack PCMCIA. This one is pretty much done and has all it's software loaded on it. It's running MS-DOS 7.01 and Windows For Workgroups 3.11
- 1994 NEC Versa M/75CP - i486 DX4-75MHz, 40MB RAM, 1.44MB VersaDock Floppy, 80GB ATA-133 HDD, C&T 65445 1MB SVGA w/ 640x480p Active Matrix NL6448AC30-06 and 3M MicroTouch, Crystal CS-4231KQ WSS Compatible Audio w/o FM, Cisco Aironet LMC-352 802.11b WiFi PCMCIA, Panasonic KXL-D20 Sound/SCSI PCMCIA w/ ESS1868 w/OPL3. It triple boots DOS7/Win95/WFW311. I'm currently hacking the D20 so I can attach a pair of speakers or a way to send the output from the KXL-D20 into the audio amps of the Versa to output OPL and SoundBlaster through it, as well as replacing the touch screen digitizer. Once that's done, this will likely be the ULTIMATE RetroGaming Laptop, including the working battery (30 minutes of life). If I figure out the BMC hack on the NanTans, I might also do that for this one (3 hours of life out of LiIon w/ proper double management would be awesome). I may hack in some Stereo speakers from a Dell Latitude that died to the D20.
- 1995 NEC Versa P/75HC - iPentium 75MHz, 40MB RAM, 1.44MB VersaBay Floppy, 80GB ATA-133 HDD, C&T 65545 1MB SVGA w/ 800x600 NEC NL8060AC24 LCD panel (9.4"), ESS688 AudioDrive w/ OPL/3, Avocent/Lucent WaveLAN Silver Orinoco Silver 802.11b WiFi PCMCIA, shares XJ10BT with my NanTan. Runs Windows 95 OSR 2.5. This one does not have much left except file xfers - mostly ISO files for Windows 95 games and some DOS games.
Another change incoming is that my desk setup will feature a Wireless Bridge for whichever Vintage computer is there....possibly TWO in the future. SO I don't need to be plugging ethernet cords into everything all the bloody time. I'm also toying with the idea of Power-Line Ethernet to the garage as well. The bridge will just let me seasonally swap out one PC....the schedule for the PCs is as follows....
June->September = Tandy 1000A
September->November = Compaq Deskpro 386s/20
November->March = Creeping Net 486
March->June = Compaq Deskpro 386s/20
I'm considering the Moondog as a year-round Garage PC possibly, with a wireless keyboard/mouse setup of some kind, and displaying through the UHD 4K TV I have hung up in there.