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One mans trash

PostPosted: Thu Dec 26, 2013 4:44 pm
by caluser2000
Put a hasty bid on http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing ... =678658767

It'll be interesting to see what is servicable. Having a yard clean up next week so anything that isn't will be going in the skip ;)

Re: One mans trash

PostPosted: Thu Dec 26, 2013 4:55 pm
by tezza
Didn't take long I see. :)

Glad you could find a buyer.

Re: One mans trash

PostPosted: Thu Dec 26, 2013 5:06 pm
by caluser2000
Lol I am the buyer Terry. Considering how much a 51/2" drive went for recently on TM I thought it was a good buy :wink:

No shipping charges to consider either which is a bonus. Keen to see what's up with the 286s.

Re: One mans trash

PostPosted: Thu Dec 26, 2013 6:44 pm
by tezza
Oh. LOL. right. :)

yes, a local sale can be good in this way for getting those bits and pieces without huge shipping costs.

Re: One mans trash

PostPosted: Fri Dec 27, 2013 2:56 pm
by caluser2000
Turned out to be quite a nice haul. The chap selling it as only a few blocks away.

A working Zenith 286 with 4 megs of 30 pin simm ram. The Hdd is a doorstop but I had a Quatum 52 meg drive available to put it though its paces.

The bashed up "286" had a 486 mobo with one vesa slot which works fine. The 486 mobo just needs to be placed in a decent case with a new cmos battery. It has an Oak video card with both EGA and VGA ports.

Other scores were two 5 1/2" drives, a Socket 5 Digital system(not tested yet), along with a Socket 7 mobo with a K5 processor and a 9 pin dot matrix printer. A parallel port fat bed scanner with software was also thrown in.

The Amstrad was pretty bashed up and disassembled. That and the non functioning 386 mobo have been cleaned out of anything that is socketed 286-12 and 386DX40 processors and ram etc. I scrapped the Advantage Computer case as well but fist removed the two 16 meg and two 8 meg EDO 72 pin simms. I've keep the Amstrad 14" monitor for testing. It's quite yellowed and in two minds to keep it or not.

All in all quite happy.

Re: One mans trash

PostPosted: Fri Dec 27, 2013 4:38 pm
by RonTurner
Thats some serious discolouration on the Amstrad !

Re: One mans trash

PostPosted: Fri Dec 27, 2013 4:46 pm
by caluser2000
That is the Amstrads PSU. Looks like someone has tried some repairs. It's now buried in a skip bin. I've got a personnal dislike for anything made by Amstrad. Compared with the generic clones of the time construction of Amstrade x86 machines is complete garbage.

Re: One mans trash

PostPosted: Fri Dec 27, 2013 5:46 pm
by RonTurner
good for transferring dd-5.25 to 3.5 format.

Re: One mans trash

PostPosted: Fri Dec 27, 2013 6:29 pm
by caluser2000
Makes sence.

Ran Checkit! on the 286 and it passed with flying colours. I'll most likely fit a bigger hdd to the 286 but will have to use DDO software as the bios only has preset settings up to about 240 megs in the bios. I'll hut through my cable box and see I have a shorter FDD and HDD ribbon cables to tidy things up a bit. It's interesting how the card with the cpu mounts onto the planar.

Had second thoughts about the Advantage Comp. case and dived in the skip to retrieved it ;)

The Digital machine has a WINCHIP C6-200 cpu. I'll give that test some time over the weekend. Never seen one before. Haven't had a K5 either.

Re: One mans trash

PostPosted: Sat Dec 28, 2013 4:54 am
by caluser2000
Forgot to mention a pretty grubby Trident VGA card which needs a good clean up and a multi i/o card was with the haul as well.

Re: One mans trash

PostPosted: Sun Dec 29, 2013 8:29 am
by caluser2000
I've determined that the Zenith system is a Z286LP Plus with the aid of some serious interwebbing and VCF members help:
http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum ... ZCV-251-EC

Re: One mans trash

PostPosted: Sun Dec 29, 2013 8:34 pm
by caluser2000
Hooked the Digital machine up this evening. Not a beep, burp or bang. The keyboard lights stayed on. Couldn't be bothered trouble shooting, so stripped the PSU, RTC, ram and FDD out. I tested the psu (it has the standard P6 & P7 AT connectors) on a 486 and a P1 mobo. It works fine. Also tested the ram, two 8meg 72 pin simms, in the P1 mobo while I was at it. This psu is a 100w item which quite a bit smaller and lighter than my usual testing psu so it will replace that one. Tossed the rest in the rubbish ready for pick up tomorrow. The old test PSU can go in the Adv. Comp case when time permits.

Re: One mans trash

PostPosted: Mon Dec 30, 2013 9:32 am
by caluser2000
Stripped the 486 system this morning. A bit more testing of the mobo (ELITE UL486 that has a 486SX25 cpu & 128k of L2 cache), ram(8 x 1meg 30 pin simms), i/o card and video card using the psu mentioned above, mouse etc and a 402 meg conner IDE drive. All good. Gave the two 51/2" drives a good clean out and they're fine as well.

Re: One mans trash

PostPosted: Mon Dec 30, 2013 4:11 pm
by tezza
Some handy parts collected then. Well done.

Re: One mans trash

PostPosted: Thu Jan 02, 2014 3:41 pm
by caluser2000
Gotten even better. Turns out the the cpu in the Digital machine was a rebranded Evergreen MxPro 200 package which is for upgrading older socket 5 and 7 P1 systems. http://www.reocities.com/sjg/evergreen/mxpro.html

The K5, and maybe the cpu, board was dead but the socket 7 board with 166MMX Pentium in the Advantage case was fine. I tested the above upgade cpu it and it is reported as a 486, which was a giggle.