TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[Trekkie4]

It seems a lot of work to just put it in an old case. And when does something became vintage?

In my opinion? When sometimes becomes very rare and/or difficult to find. Such as the original GoldStar drive for example - these things are really getting hard, almost impossible to find nowdays.

Where on the other hand, that "modern" 52X LG from 2001 is just about anywhere you look, you can literally choose between them or pick several. I guess it all comes down to the price, and how many people bought one, back in a day. Because I can assure you that the older 8x unit was considerably more expensive back in a day than any modern 52x CD ROM or even RW. In fact, I /did/ get a RW drive in addition to 52x CDR but since it hasn't been related to the build process in any way, I didn't see a reason to talk about it.

 

[Greenslade]

In my opinion? When sometimes becomes very rare and/or difficult to find. Such as the original GoldStar drive for example - these things are really getting hard, almost impossible to find nowdays.

Where on the other hand, that "modern" 52X LG from 2001 is just about anywhere you look, you can literally choose between them or pick several. I guess it all comes down to the price, and how many people bought one, back in a day. Because I can assure you that the older 8x unit was considerably more expensive back in a day than any modern 52x CD ROM or even RW. In fact, I /did/ get a RW drive in addition to 52x CDR but since it hasn't been related to the build process in any way, I didn't see a reason to talk about it.

I see your point there,when it is hard to find that is when it is called vintage.
I suppose that would mean up to say 1998 .in HIFI and computers and the like.

 

[Trekkie4]

I see your point there,so if it is rare that is what is called vintage.I suppose that would mean up to say 1998?.

I suppose so, yeah. Technically speaking, everything from around that time is considered "vintage". That being said, not everything is worth collecting or restoring.

Kinda like having a box of vintage paper towels or tissues for example ... it doesn't really have much or any value - vintage or otherwise. But if you happen to have a bottle of wine that's been properly stored & kept at ideal temperature, you got yourself a fortune!

 

[Greenslade]

I just collected my PC i got on eBay the shop is five minutes from the bus stop .i took a really big bag in there.The assistant was very helpfull but we could not get it in the bag.So i thought about tearing it so i can get it the bag,,thank god i got it in there see the photo.What i did was drag it to the Bus stop. It is a big bugger but not that heavy .until you carry it for a bit.Th,nithing io ere good bags to carry big stuff in like a big old PC .There just the job for that.I just hope it is all working well.It is 12kg.The cover is a bit bent in places nothing to do with me draging it .That is a bit if a pain .it is so thin i might snap it if i tried to straightin it.It seems to go on flash ,better than some other side panals fit.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I never used it!

This is sad..

I see no advantage over 98

That doesn't mean there isn't a few. His experience is limited. The first time he used it was in 2017;

That's a far cry from having it back when it was new.

Also, he has compared the two.

Where WinME has the advantage is in stablity and the fact the it can see & use more system RAM. There are other features that give WinME an edge over 98. WinME was entirely misunderstood and underappreciated.

Personally, I haven't heard of 20K drives even being prototyped.

They did. However....

They would have been very hard to engineer, for most likely marginal gains in performance.

... that's likely why they were never released. Though...

Even the latest 15K units weren't significantly faster than the 10K drives.

...this is not true. The SCSI 15k drive were a solid 15% faster.

 

[Greenslade]

There is very little stuff in there and i tiny Black GND cable not conected? there is a front cut out but no floppy drive in there .The IDE lead on the Hard drive want be long enough ro reach for a pcie Cf card,.And a *power led *is not is not connect? That is a green and white leads.*MS Reset *not connected I am wondering if i did the right thing buying thisThose leads could have come out in teansit,but i can,t see how.

 

[MaxiPro800]

That power LED does have the lead connected - it's one of those cases where the big 3 pin power LED header has an extension (about a quarter cm long, I think?) to acommodate newer mainboards that use only two pins for the power led, like this Winfast, and most ASRock mainboards.

If anything, you could reroute the whole front panel wiring behind the HDD pillars.

 

[Greenslade]

That power LED does have the lead connected - it's one of those cases where the big 3 pin power LED header has an extension (about a quarter cm long, I think?) to acommodate newer mainboards that use only two pins for the power led, like this Winfast, and most ASRock mainboards.

If anything, you could reroute the whole front panel wiring behind the HDD pillars.

Thanks for that Maxi This is a Winfast Foxten mothernoard.Wnat about the *MS Reset *red one.?And the*GND*one on the other side of the case,?
I am a newbe to all this Maxi

 

[MaxiPro800]

Reset switch. Should go right next to the HD_LED wires, as I see an unpopulated row of pins just to the left of the orange and white wires in the 3rd photo.

 

[Trekkie4]

My brother had an old TI-84 from who knows where (probably "borrowed" from a school ). And of course, it can be overclocked...

View attachment 249203
This is at stock speeds, as you can see the CPU hovers around 15.085MHz. At TI-83 game compatibility speeds it operates around 6MHz. This is dead-on average - the CPU may run at +/-20% the set clock speed, which for the TI-84 Plus was 15MHz. That variance is due to these two resistors, R07D and R08D. The former adjusts the fast frequency, and the latter adjusts both slow and fast frequencies. It's not recommended to touch R08D because it's more likely to make the calculator unstable in games which use this slower clock speed.
View attachment 249206
PCB Wk47/2005. This model was introduced in 2004, so this is relatively early-on. The CPU is a Zilog Z80, as I said @ 6/15MHz. The flash is a product of Fujitsu and AMD's joint venture Spansion, back when AMD made DRAM, and long before the Radeon rebranded Patriot / Dataram modules.

The limitation for these calculators is not typically the CPU, it's the flash. If the CPU operates too quickly (generally >23MHz), the flash feeds it incorrect data, as it's only specced to keep up until around ~20MHz. TI was conservative on the CPU clock side (highest stock I read about is around 17MHz). But you may push it higher, if you dare. I was conservative and wanted to bring it to the 20MHz zone. And to add heatsinks, of course...
View attachment 249207
Snip goes the foam, and I pried some of that plastic support on the backing with pliers to make room...
View attachment 249208
Pencil time

R07D Initial value: ~ 1.17mOhm
Final value: ~ 0.72mOhm

View attachment 249209
Messy, but...?
View attachment 249210
~ 33% overclock. Nice I noticed at the time of editing ( a few hours after-mod) that the clock speed has increased to 20.250MHz, likely due to temperature / battery voltage shift. These RC's are inaccurate, so I'm learning

Good resources here and here. The program for testing the CPU speed is here.

83+ and others

Spansion flash NAND Datasheet

Really nice! It kinda reminds me of my HP from around 2001, 2002

 

[Greenslade]

Reset switch. Should go right next to the HD_LED wires, as I see an unpopulated row of pins just to the left of the orange and white wires in the 3rd photo.

Is that the right place where i have put it ?That is right ,the left side you said has no socket to put it in.This is a good video for me although the board is lot different to mine.I agree with hin about the connecter leads being very flimsy .He did say the reset conecter does not need to connected same with the* power led*conecter.

I wish i had a Manual
for my one. So the reset conention can go any way.

 

[MaxiPro800]

Not those ones, that's the Clear CMOS header you attached it to.

What I wanted to mean is there should be a row of two free pins on the same header the power switch, HD and power leds - more exactly, it should be just behind the wires going to the power switch, looking from the direction of your photo.(which would make it be the pins behind the power switch, according to the mainboard's manual - Winfast/Foxconn K7S741MG-6L if you need it.)

EDIT: It's those two circled in blue, which would be right behind the power switch, depending on how you look at the mobo.

 

[Greenslade]

Not those ones, that's the Clear CMOS header you attached it to.

What I wanted to mean is there should be a row of two free pins on the same header the power switch, HD and power leds - more exactly, it should be just behind the wires going to the power switch, looking from the direction of your photo.(which would make it be the pins behind the power switch, according to the mainboard's manual - Winfast/Foxconn K7S741MG-6L if you need it.)

EDIT: It's those two circled in blue, which would be right behind the power switch, depending on how you look at the mobo.

Hopefully this should be right this time.Those wires are so delicate for someone with big hands like myself. Yes i would like the manual ,thanks for all your help.

 

[MaxiPro800]

Off by at least one pin or two, but you're almost there.

Going by the first photo, move it to the left ever so slightly, so the red wire on the reset header aligns with the green wire from the power switch. Don't move it down or upwards, just slightly to the left, so both black and red match the black and green.

Here's the manual:

FOXCONN K7S741MG MOTHERBOARD EASY INSTALLATION MANUAL

View and Download Foxconn K7S741MG easy installation manual online. Foxconn K7S741MG Motherboards: Install Guide. K7S741MG motherboard pdf manual download. Also for: K7s741gxmg-6l, K7s741gxmg, K7s741mg-6l.

www.manualslib.com

 

[Valantar]

So here's a bit of a quiz for the good people of this club: what, exactly, is this piece of hardware?

 

[stinger608]

what, exactly, is this piece of hardware?

 

[MaxiPro800]

So here's a bit of a quiz for the good people of this club: what, exactly, is this piece of hardware?

Looking at the bottom of it, I would say it's a RAM stick of sorts - question is, what system would use this format?

Can't be a SSD, that's for sure.

 

[Valantar]

Looking at the bottom of it, I would say it's a RAM stick of sorts - question is, what system would use this format?

Can't be a SSD, that's for sure.

You're onto something, but what kind of RAM, and from where?

 

[lexluthermiester]

So here's a bit of a quiz for the good people of this club: what, exactly, is this piece of hardware?

It looks like a DRAM module, but it might actually be an SRAM module, either for caching duties or DOM duties. Can't remember what system it was for though.

Nice retro movie clip to match a module that is likely from the same time period...ish...
(Now I want to Watch True Lies...)

 

[Valantar]

It looks like a DRAM module, but it might actually be an SRAM module, either for caching duties or DOM duties. Can't remember what system it was for though.


Nice retro movie clip to match a module that is likely from the same time period...ish...
(Now I want to Watch True Lies...)

.... and the answer is:

512MB of Fujitsu DDR2!

Why the weird form factor, you might ask? Because it's from this lovely little unit:

That's a Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P1500 Windows XP 2-in-1, ca. 2005.

 

[lexluthermiester]

.... and the answer is:

512MB of Fujitsu DDR2!

Why the weird form factor, you might ask? Because it's from this lovely little unit:

That's a Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P1500 Windows XP 2-in-1, ca. 2005.

Ah! One of those janky proprietary DIMMs. Interesting.

 

[MachineLearning]

Really nice! It kinda reminds me of my HP from around 2001, 2002

Now you got me looking at my HP's

I have the 18c and 12c as hand-me-downs from my grandfather.

The 12c battery cover is a replacement I ordered online - the original was lost to time decades ago.

18c has that IR port

 

[hat]

I have a Ti nSpire somewhere...

 

[Valantar]

Here's another little treat: ultra mobile cpu cooling, ca. 2005:

https://imgur.com/UOaZRiW

They beat Apple to the punch!

I do kind of want to try squeezing an actual heatsink in there, but then it would be a shame to ruin a rather unique piece of hardware.

 

[framebuffer]

I have 2 left...both have issues...does that count?

yes

Another good video from Phil *720p monitor*

How many of you use one for your Retro gaming?Very few on eBay.

I use an AOC C24G1 (1ms VA panel, 24" 1920x1080 144Hz with VGA/HDMI/HDMI/DP) which allows some interesting things
1. Use 1280x1024 in 1:1 (so pixel perfect and basically full vertical panel coverage) over VGA at 85Hz (for Windows 98 systems and VGA only video cards)
2. Use 1024x768 in 1:1 (so pixel perfect with borders, but still equivalent to 17"-18") over VGA at 85Hz-100Hz (for Windows 98 systems and VGA only video cards)
3. Use 1280x1024 in 1:1 (so pixel perfect and basically full vertical panel coverage) over (HDMI-to-) DVI at 85-100Hz (for early Windows XP games, using DVI video cards)
4. Use 1680x1050 (pixel perfect) or native 1920x1080 for late XP games (over HDMI or DVI at 85-120Hz)
5. Use a modern system for 1080p gaming at 144Hz over DP

It costed around $200 and I think it's as good as it gets for versatility