New Toys!

[SpidersWeb]

Also got my spare 1.2Mb drive working, must've just had dirty heads, no alignment needed! Although the heads touch, didn't hurt the disk but thought that was a bit weird - is that normal? I expected when fully depressed there would be a tiny gap, but I haven't really looked at floppy drives before, they're usually disposable.

Going to use the death of my 286XT as an excuse to buy a 5170 mainboard - either this week or next pay. Since they're about the same price as generic ones.
It doesn't seem to be able to work with the DRAM in bank 0 bit 0 (despite any chip changes I make). This will cost me a few $$, so if anyone has a 286 they're not terribly attached to let me know and I'll make an offer.

[recycled]

Although the heads touch, didn't hurt the disk but thought that was a bit weird - is that normal? I expected when fully depressed there would be a tiny gap

Yup, normal operating procedure is that they touch the surface of the cookie, just like the head of a tape reader.

[SpidersWeb]

Good to know, cheers for that.
Just as well I didn't try to fix it

Have one 1.2Mb drive that wont read at all, not sure if heads are damaged or not, just doesn't report any signal at all from either head..
Another 4 or 5 double density drives to go - although I've never tried the Tandon's in the 5150 case - they could be fine as is.

[SpidersWeb]

To cheer myself up, did a bit more smaller work.

Got my parallel zip drive working in DOS, and made a boot floppy with Zip100 support to help build up other machines.

Put the face back on the 386 case, but to be honest I think the rusted bare metal gave it character, and the dark yellow plastic makes it look just nasty :/ at least I have pretty lights now though. Mounting the floppy drives was horrendously time consuming, you're supposed to remove the drive cage, but the screws underneath have rusted over so it's not an option :/ Handy machine now though, Windows 3.11 with TCP/IP + sound card + VGA + 20Gb hard drive + network + 1.2 + 360K + Zip - and image disk software so I can use it for drive alignment and backups too. It may get a new motherboard though, relying on an expansion card to provide memory for windows is PAINFUL.

Also tried reviving the 5150 board again. Reburnt a diagnostics ROM and fitted adapator, changed some switch settings, changed CPU, still no signs of life. An old post on VCForum has links to a few test roms that beep after certain tests, so I'll need to try those and depending on which one beeps (if any) will tell me what part (hopefully) is failing.

Although I did find a replacement, tested recently, board on ebay for around $NZ100 delivered, so tempted :/ Same for 5160 and 5170 boards.

[SpidersWeb]

5160 board fixed

By complete fluke, the second cap I removed fixed the problem.
Just powered it up and got 3 beeps. I gave it a V20 because it really needs it :/
Still need to fix the +12 on the PSU, but will temporarily use the 286 PSU.

5170 board + VGA is on it's way from the US. Hopefully soon get a case/PSU sent over.

The 5160 floppies appear to be non-operational - just wont read anything even after adjusting the heads - but everything looks good - so possibly damaged heads or circuitry? They both do the same thing. Have not tested my 5150 Tandon's yet.

5150 board I haven't progressed with, may end up ordering a replacement and fixing the old one when I end up with a logic analyser / scope.

[lizardb0y]

I got out my 5155 yesterday only to find complete PSU failure. Only a few mV on any of the output lines, and no sign of capacitor failure anywhere on the board. The fun begins

[SpidersWeb]

Mine fixed itself apparently :/ +12.02V now, not complaining.
My IBM PC keyboard has been playing up ever since I first used it, and it's getting annoying, so wont be doing much with this until I get another XT keyboard (Mon hopefully). Pondering what to do with the floppy drive situation. It's booting up to DOS 4 just fine though

Best of luck with yours.

[tezza]

The 5160 floppies appear to be non-operational - just wont read anything even after adjusting the heads - but everything looks good - so possibly damaged heads or circuitry? They both do the same thing. Have not tested my 5150 Tandon's yet.

Can you plug them into a know good machine to test? So long as the BOIS accepts a 360k drive, any older PC-compatible should do it? At least then you can determine if it's the drives or something like the XT controller.

Tez

[tezza]

I got out my 5155 yesterday only to find complete PSU failure. Only a few mV on any of the output lines, and no sign of capacitor failure anywhere on the board. The fun begins

Yes, one project I have planned is to systematically go through my machines to check if they are all ok. Some haven't been switched on for a year. I'm expecting some "fun" too.

[SpidersWeb]

The 5160 floppies appear to be non-operational - just wont read anything even after adjusting the heads - but everything looks good - so possibly damaged heads or circuitry? They both do the same thing. Have not tested my 5150 Tandon's yet.

Can you plug them into a know good machine to test? So long as the BOIS accepts a 360k drive, any older PC-compatible should do it? At least then you can determine if it's the drives or something like the XT controller.

Tez

Oh it's definately the drives. I pulled them out and installed in the 386. I loosened the screws to do the alignment but no matter where I put the head I'd just get no track data at all coming through.

If I need a floppy drive, I'll just steal one from my 386, but I can't leave it with white drives in there just doesn't look right :/

The half heights are the original drives too, as it was the later produced 'enhanced' XT. They have an IBM cotton label on the power adaptors, dated 1986, and are shiny like new, just wont read anything :S I could steal a drive off the 5150 but I only have a single T-RES jumper (I have both blanking plates for the 5150, guess they must have come with it when new?).

[SpidersWeb]

Installed a 360 drive from the 5150, original Tandon with the colour wheel and belt. Worked first time!
Might just borrow it for the XT for a little while.

[SpidersWeb]

Covering plate not really doing it for me :/ Will have to work out something better.
But it booted MS DOS 6.22 off the floppy drive DOS 4 on HDD, and BASIC if the HD controller is out.
Keyboard is getting worse, to the point the system is basically unsuable, but should be getting an 8088 compatible model tomorrow morning.

It's running an NEC V20, so can't wait to see what I can get away with on it. C drive is full, but I added an ST225 for another 20Mb of storage.

Think the keyboard issue might just be the cable.

The IPC XT Turbo is my 386SX16, 20Gb hard disc (XTIDE BIOS), 3Com Ethernlink III, 1.2 + 360 + 100MB Zip, and a cheapo Advance Sound Card with an IDE interface - but it defaults to OFF and has to be enabled each startup, so only good for CDROM drives (which I did have in there at one point).

[SpidersWeb]

So I got a switchable XT/AT keyboard in the weekend yey
The right arrow doesn't work but besides that it worked perfectly, letting me setup the XT nicely. Interestingly I found it's ex Telecom Hamilton and originally had a PABX card for tracking outgoing calls. That software is gone now, but I left DBase, 123, WordPerfect etc (all registered to Telecom New Zealand).

Also made backup copies of my Xtree Gold install disks. Found the 360KB disks were faulty, so had to replicate them from files I found on the 720K floppies. Usually I just install applications via serial cable, so was a bit novel for me doing a 360Kb installation, especially on the rather unique sounding Tandon 360K. Put a nice menu on it, cleared out any applications that didn't work or were of no use, and threw a bunch of utilities on the second hard drive for playing with.

Also installed a Real Time Clock card I stole from the Concord 286XT, its at 240H but I couldn't find a clock app that will work with it :/ tried about 5-8 from minuszerodegrees.

Dismantled a 360Kb drive I had that was reading data but not seeking, discovered a bunch of gunk in it which I've cleaned out but haven't tested yet - fingers crossed.

One question, how hot do MFM drives usually get? My Seagate ST225 with it's big thick cover stays warm, but the casing on my NEC 5126 gets pretty hot, not burning hot but close. My dead 5126 gets toasty also, so I wondered if it was normal or if I should make better efforts at cooling it?

[tezza]

Hmm...not sure about the hard drives. I've only ever noticed mine getting warm, not hot.

Don't forget about viruses, with all the MS-DOS software you're collecting.
http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blo ... iruses.htm

[SpidersWeb]

Haven't discovered any viruses yet, most files go via my WIndows 7 machine first - exception my Xtree Gold and MS DOS install disks.
Will have to put a system in place to make sure everything is checked.

Wanting to get IBM PC DOS 3.3 manual/disks but prices eck
It has MS DOS 4.01 on it, but I found the ibm boot files and it appears it shipped with PC DOS 3.3 (which fits the timeline).