New Toys!

[tezza]

Covering plate not really doing it for me :/ Will have to work out something better.

I would have to agree

I had an IPC 286 machine at work once. It was the most unreliable computer i've ever owned, spending more time in the workshop than on my desk.

[SpidersWeb]

I've never owned an actual IPC machine, but that case is horrid. It's mounting features aren't really any improvement at all over an IBM 5150/5160 case. The board mounting is all metal standoffs with nuts securing the board down - which is considerably worse than the IBM 5150/60.
It's only redeeming feature is the bonnet hood.

Motherboard in that may end up getting swapped for another 386 coming this week which has SIMM slots.
Concord 286XT case will temporarily be a 486DX provided that board works when it arrives, which might get pulled for the 5170 board as I'm not sure right now how long until I can import one.

With the face plate, I'm thinking I may remove the ST225 and go back to using the NEC faceplate + IBM half height bay-filler. ST225 has no faceplate and a different coloured LED so I was trying to hide it.

[SpidersWeb]

LOL tezz, just as you say that look what appears on trademe:

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing ... =465340747

IPC 286!

(and yeah it's me who put the first bid in )

[recycled]

Not entirely sure how close to the mechanism of a ST225 drive my encounters with MFM drives on an ST506 are, but I've found unless they are 5 1/4" form factor drives they do run a tad warm. The Acorn 4x0/i machines run a ST506 HDD controller chip. In my first one I had to reverse the cooling fan in the case (and take out the filter entirely) as it was bringing cool air into the case, across the HDD and onto the floppy drive. The heat was causing floppy disc read/write faliures. My first encounter. (Second was an external 5 1/4" drive on the same machine, seems the Acorn PSU is a bit light for the extra load after a few hours). I scrapped a PC a while back that had had a fan added to the top of it's MFM hard drive - waaay before case modding required hundreds of fans to be added just to be cool.

and as a parting tease...

[SpidersWeb]

mmmmm Seagate faceplate

One of my cases has a fan under the floppy drive bays.
I guess this was to allow the drives to fill with dust and keep the hard drives toasty.

I may just ignore the heat, but take the ST225 out from underneath - giving it a bit more breathing room.

[SpidersWeb]

New toy that I thought was kind of cool arrived last night.
I got it off trademe for 5 big ones.

1.5Mb of Flash on an 8 bit card with a bootable BIOS that emulates a 360K 720K 1.2M or 1.44Mb floppy.
Came with manual and driver disk. Actually not that old because it was designed for older industrial machines as an upgrade. Also has a watchdog so that if the computer halts, you can wire it to perform a reset.

Haven't tried it yet but looked like a very useful accessory.

[SpidersWeb]

Also on my desk, a generously donated Compaq Portable 486C with a bad smoking habit, can't wait to have a nosey.

[SpidersWeb]

Got the Compaq Portable 486C back in action.

It was a PSU filter cap, so the PSU was fine. I dismantled and reassembled the machine to check.
It was fitted with a 600MB Seagate hard drive which started failing very quickly - all on the file allocation table for the first partion, then eventually the second partition after a few minutes. Because it was oversized, it meant the BIOS was already set to 1024/63/16 meaning all I needed to do was fit a drive larger than 504MB. The connector style and layout meant any old drive wouldn't work, but I did find a Quantum 1.2Gb drive that fit in fairly well.

I've installed DOS 6.22, Windows for Workgroups, a variety of apps including Doom of course, and got it authenticating via my Windows 2000 domain server It's running happy as larry.

Only 'failures' as such is a dodgy keyboard cable and it takes awhile for the screen to warm up. It's easily readble within a few seconds but it takes a while to come up to full standard - but when it does it's pretty damn impressive! Full Active Matrix TFT in colour and it's sharp as knives from any angle. Can understand the huge price tag these machines demanded back in 1991.

Big thanks to Radar for giving me the opportunity to play with this machine and get it running again.

Photos will come when I find where I put my damn phone :/

Also in the mail today, IBM 5170 motherboard, but I just realised it's midnight.

[Radar]

Got the Compaq Portable 486C back in action.
It was a PSU filter cap, so the PSU was fine. I dismantled and reassembled the machine to check.
It was fitted with a 600MB Seagate hard drive which started failing very quickly - all on the file allocation table for the first partion, then eventually the second partition after a few minutes. Because it was oversized, it meant the BIOS was already set to 1024/63/16 meaning all I needed to do was fit a drive larger than 504MB. The connector style and layout meant any old drive wouldn't work, but I did find a Quantum 1.2Gb drive that fit in fairly well.

Glad you got it working so easily and that its gone to a good home - it was the one of the few old units I had saved from the skip through multiple office shifts!

[SpidersWeb]

Good work!

Some pictures I took tonight:

Compaq Portable 486C, 486DX/33 16Mb 1.2Gb, back still removed because I'm waiting on a SB16 to arrive, the pictures really do not do the screen justice:




Testing a PC Analyser on a 5150 board - I have a 2364 to 27xxx adaptor which I was using to run tests but in this picture the original ROM is fitted and an AMD 8088 (I put the NEC V20 in my PC-XT). This board wont boot even the Lansoft ROMs - so I have four test ROMs I stole off the internet which display output on Port 80 (have not tried them yet):



New IBM 5170 version 2 8Mhz board + a nice suitable VGA board - I tested both this evening and they worked like a charm:


New Old Stock - IBM CGA display adaptor, and yes I had to painfully cut open the original seals to get inside but I'm not going to open the manual:

NB: this worked out cheaper than buying a used generic card, go figure

[SpidersWeb]

Few things I forgot to mention last night.

5170: I noticed that on a lot of these boards, the ROM next to the power connectors (guessing it's for keyboard control) has it's window exposed. I'm not sure if this was normal but it freaks me out, so I've installed my usual window-blocker - 5.25" diskette read-only stickers

I tried to fit it to a case but it wont fit in my 5150 or 286XT chassis, so it'll be unused until I order a 5170 AT case. It will be getting an AMI BIOS upgrade, Conner 170MB IDE, Everex AT-3000, and a PS/2 VGA.

CGA: On the manual it says "IBM Personal Computer XT","IBM Expansion Unit" and "IBM Personal Computer" but no mention of the AT - wonder if thats an indicator of its age or if the AT just was never mentioned on the cover. This card is eventually for the XT, so the 5150 (when working) can have the 5151 all to itself.

5150: before Lansoft ROMs start they do a few tests before they can start, like CPU + DMA etc, since the clock starts for a while before shutting off and I get a code when no ROM is installed I suspect the CPU is operating - maybe a bad DMA controller (or connection to it) or timer problems (I need to check the list)- further ROM tests will answer this but it's a slow process, I erased the ROMs last night but have images to burn and plug in.

[SpidersWeb]

Ok so my 386SX/16 thought it'd be awesome and have a random DRAM failure in bank 0 of it's chip RAM. I wasn't even working on it, just happened.
Took me a while to work out the fault because the beeps are really fast and hard to count, but it was 1 long 4 short 1 long 1 long which is Phoenix for 'DRAM oh noes'.

Normally I'd find the bad chip and replace it, but I already planned to replace this board because I wanted an AMI BIOS and SIMM memory because the Everex EV-135 (3000AT) memory card was 286 generation and made using Windows painfully slow - and I'd already bought said board and it arrived yesterday.

It was covered in dust, and the battery had leaked which caused the acrylic to peel off part of the motherboard and expose the copper traces - but other than that, it's 100%. I spent around 20 minutes with a toothbrush before even powering it on because even the SIMM slots needed cleaning.

Not installed but wired it up last night. I thought it was a 16Mhz board, but it's actually a AMD 386SXL/33 - nice!
By fluke the first 4 matching SIMMs I used turned out to be 4Mb each, so it has 16Mb of memory now, and worked first time. Soooooo much faster in Windows and my top disk speed has gone from 1.7 to 2.1MB/s just from the higher speed.

I thought it was interesting that the BIOS would let me specify more than 1024 cylinders - 65535 in fact, 63 heads and 63 sectors although I'm still using the XT-IDE BIOS at the moment - I may try just using a 2Gb drive I have spare to see if it works as expected (current is 20Gb).

Also have a 486DX2/66 VESA board which I guess will need to go in to my 286XT case since the 5170 board did not fit, haven't powered that up yet. I'm less motivated to repair the 286XT board because I found out none of the machine was really designed in NZ - it's just a clone with parts from other suppliers - motherboard is just a low cost bulk ordered Wavemate 286E - will save my time and money for now. Just going in to boxes, not being thrown out.

[SpidersWeb]

So, new member to the collection, an IPC AT:



This machine arrived hard-drive-less but otherwise working. But gave me a fair bit of trouble. It had no built in BIOS or support for custom drive types. So this leaves three options - find a drive matching one of the built in drive types (yeah that isn't going to happen), anydrive or XTIDE. Anydrive wasn't valid because the BIOS detected the hard drive paramters were wrong and threw an error, ignoring this gets you to DOS which CAN see the drive fine (at least some of it) indicating anydrive would've worked fine if not for this error on boot. So then it was time to burn an XTIDE ROM, you'd think would be an instant fix, but oh no, this machine crashes when auto-detecting drives that aren't there. Instead of timing out after a few seconds it actually hardware locks.

Even DOS based tools to identify the hard drives will not work if a slave is missing. So the solution was to burn an XTIDE ROM with support for only one controller and install two hard drives. I'm not really huge on this because I don't have a huge pile of small IDE drives lying around. It's currently running a Conner 170MB I got off a VCF user, and a Conner 210MB I got from TrashPalace (store at rubbish dump) for $5. I've run CheckIt diagnostics and used the system, seems 100% otherwise.

The floppy drives are interesting. Both the 1.2 and 360Kb drives write and read from disks 100%, but the springs in both for the latch mechanism are a bit worn so they take encouragment to let go of disks. But what actually makes them interesting is that if you don't use the disk for a few seconds, they activate a solenoid temporarily lifting the drive heads. Like a Zip drive you hear a 'click' when using them after a period of inactivity. They keep clamped to the disk, just lift the heads. I hadn't seen that before. They're also as loud as hell (I can hear them downstairs if I leave the machine copying from floppy).

Because I don't have the original ROM configuration program, I can't tell the BIOS to stop disabling the Turbo on bootup either, which is kind of annoying. Tried GSETUP and a Pheonix 286 SETUP (the later did a better job but no turbo setting). There is no switch on the board for this, or it's not working. I did find the RAM config switches and I can have either: 256KB or 512KB + 512KB XMS or 640KB. Set to 640KB, I can not use the last 384K. In Phoenix setup it comes up as 'Reserved'. That doesn't really live up to the name "Intelligent Personal Computer" I like it though, once the turbo is back on it's suprisingly quick.

Also in the picture above, the IPC XT which is actually a 386. The new motherboard is in, 386SXL/33 with 16Mb SIMM, goes like a champion and now I'm running Windows on high speed memory (instead of via an AT RAM card) it's very snappy. It sits on top because it has a bonnet hood and I use it for testing gear. I'd procrastinated doing this because the motherboard mounting system in that case is outright horid - took me around an hour to get the old board out and the new board in and secured.

Took a random trip out to Trash Palace in Porirua. Normally when I got to places like this I don't find anything, so finding a few useful bits was AWESOME.

- MS Excel 5 for Windows 3.1 shrink wrapped (3.5" disks but I can send in a voucher for 5.25" disks! I don't want to open it, but REALLY want to send that voucher in)
- Central Point PC Tools 6 - not sealed but when I opened it the package containing the disks was still sealed - never been used and all the manuals in mint condition (I love any software that comes on 5.25)
- Conner 210Mb IDE hard drive - worked perfectly first time
- two boxes of sealed 3.5" HD floppies

There was also Word Perfect 6.1 for Windows, but no box and I really hated the Windows versions. MS DOS 6 upgrade but in poor condition.
Lots of cables, power supplies (one was AT), and CDROMs too.

[SpidersWeb]

386 earning it's keep:



Backing up my new Central Point PC Tools disks. 6 x 360KB (and 3 x 720KB), they have lost a bit of their magnetic strength over time I think because my 1.2Mb drive has errors reading them in parts but my 360KB drive with it's big fat head had no problems. I'd like a machine with 1.2, 360 and a 1.44 at some stage. hmm guess I could get a parallel port backpack 1.44.

EDIT: ProTip - ImageDisk doesn't warn you that you specified a filename that is 9 characters, in my case PCTOOLS_1 PCTOOLS_2 etc, guessing PCTOOLS_.IMD is disk 6 :/

[recycled]

Try investigating EMS vs XMS to make use of the that missing 384kB. Unfortunately the terms are not interchangeable, we're just so used to it all being useable RAM these days that the technicalities behind the old 16 bitters is just ignored.

Your hard drive woes, well, use only a part of your hard drive - If you can find a disk 'type' in the list where all of the drive parameters are less than your drives, use that, the reported space on your hard drive will match the BIOS limit, the rest is wasted. I used 124MB (IIRC - probably less come to think about it) of a 130MB HDD in a Compaq 386sx because of this limitation. It's a quick solution, not the best. Lets see, solution 2, 'Sledge Hammer vs nut' : My story goes I decided to try Linux out on this box (first adventures in new software topic needed?) and looking at the CD full of software went out and bought a 1.2GB SCSI HDD for an AHA154x SCSI controller. That board would do everything! Later through carelessness - taking a component out while the computer was still powered I fried the onbaord IDE. No problem, change BIOS to no onboard hard drive, set SCSI card to bootable and amazing how much faster the computer ran. Since you have joined the cult of Amiga you will soon be a SCSI god, if you are still not convinced, buy a 680x0 Mac too. Soon your shelves will be creaking under SCSI spares and it's sooo easy to just check a few jumpers and plug another drive into the bus. My IBM PS/2 has a Seagate ST01 SCSI card. It's a jumperless 8bit PC card, there should be others out there, they were quite popular. There may be other drive interface cards out there with the BIOS extensions to work around your problem. I sold some lucky sod a Quantum Hardcard with a 120MB HDD in a rash moment of cleanout fever. He reported back that with a quick jumper change it fired up fine, very Gucci piece of kit that is. I hate my life sometimes ;o) I should have played with it more. I wish you luck, but the basic hardware is just that, you are expected to personalise it to the task you want it to do. Don't be affraid to add gear, if your biggest concern is keeping it within period as a piece of working history then putting a 386 motherboard into an XT is probably breaking a rule somewhere ;op but this sort of stuff had maybe a three to five year working life, so there should be a lot of 'period' gear you can fill the guts out with.

(Oh, and good to see you back on the 'Hard Stuff' !)