wierd_w

this document-- https://ftp.whtech.com/hexbus_cc40_ti74/Hexbus Drive-Controller (Model 5102) Manual.pdf references a "Disk Manager 3" cartridge. Disassembly of that cartridge might give you what you need.

awww... I love a good mystery, but totally hate clickbait.

Noname brand too. Probably not even 2gb!! 😛 Do you have a linux box handy? I am curious what it's identity string says.

486 is iffy on 72pin simm. Later ones, yeah. Early ones, not so much. (Besides, this one has more than enough RAM in it for dos titles) I was originally looking for 486 era hardware, but the prices on ebay were sky high. (The OP simply asked for an AT compatible that was under 250$. This system meets that description. If it is overpriced, it's because demand has indeed driven prices up on everything.) That PII system should fill the need though, since it does have ISA slots, and clearly has a floppy controller. Its adapter rom region shouldnt be packed full of goofy things like modern systems are, so it should play nice with real DOS. The big issue is gonna be the CPU being too fast for some early games. MoSlo and pals were made explicitly for this purpose, and are themselves period software for that purpose. He can probably recoup some of his investment by reselling the adaptec card and tape drive as a paired item.

Whenever my TIPI gets here... I still intend to explore routing raw midi messages over the RAW-TCP handler to the PI. Part of the message forwarding scheme I have in mind includes an integer number appended to the front of the message, so that the handler script on the pi can route it to the correct midi device. (Allowing you to send messages to multiple devices, including keyboards attached via USB, assuming they are registered in the ALSA midi stack) It's just that my purchase has been stuck in "processing" limbo for almost two months now.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Compaq-DeskPro-EP-Pentium-II-300MHz-160MB-RAM-3-2GB-HDD-Windows-95-OSR2/372821741782?_trkparms=aid%3D888008%26algo%3DDISC.CARDS%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131227121020%26meid%3D7bf51cac3c99423aa52b505d947b32a9%26pid%3D100009%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26sd%3D193213718024%26itm%3D372821741782%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675&_trksid=p2047675.c100009.m1982 130$, including shipping. Includes adaptec scsi card and travan tape drive, and an ethernet card (So you can copy those floppies to images, and get them out easily). Has ISA slots, so getting and using a real creative labs sound blaster is an option. Looks like a good retro game system to me. Clearly has a floppy controller (1.44mb floppy in the front, also unpopulated 5.25" bay if you take out the tape drive. If you get one of the disk drives I mentioned, you are still under your spending cap.) Other than pure nostalgia, there is no reason to get a 386 or lower class system to play those. If you are concerned about the games playing too fast, get Moslo, or something similar. That machine is old enough to run pure DOS, and do it reliably. (It's a win95 era system.)

Clearly her soldering iron is a UV laser light source hazard, and she needs appropriately tinted safety lenses! https://www.phillips-safety.com/product-category/laser-safety/laser-safety-glasses/?gclid=CjwKCAiAws7uBRAkEiwAMlbZjvKGMaL-9b6RfRbsuGv0LnVUQ1JknTpO7JvnRfkSpmQ_c-47au95EhoCxckQAvD_BwE

I am kinda shocked they aren't available in WMF or SVG format.

I can try. 1) Where's the hot workstation? No sponge, no solder wick, no solder, no noclean flux, no temperature control, nothing! 2) Board on bare plastic table. Silly human, ESD aint just for kicks! 3) Really, didn't your mom tell you not to hold onto the business end of hot tools? 4) You DO know that applying direct heat to a coin cell battery will make it explode, right? That you should remove it from the socket if you are gonna reflow the socket? Right? 5) Why are you using the iron on THAT side of the board? That iron is not the right tool for surface mount work.. 6) The side of your iron is laying on the PCI slot. You know that will damage the slot, right? (I am sure there are more, but that's just a quickie rundown of the obvious things I see)

WYSE 60 terminal No need to waste a perfectly good mainframe.

It's also a cheap radio shack iron at that! I guess if you are just testing the operator for function you dont need a quality iron, but still..

I never really had problems with teac... milage really does vary I guess... regardless, yes those are both 1.2mb drives. they should be fit for purpose. They both need a retrobright treatment, but thats just cosmetic. He will still need the special controller to use them in a modern system though. No intel foppy controllers in anything modern.

Yup. Total space hogs they are. If you can't fit it, don't sweat it. Just I dislike the fully SMT micro USB ports, because they lack good anchoring. If it's what it ends up with, I will begrudgingly accept it.. But as an alternative, can you give a 2 pin header internally instead? You could probably squeeze that in at the back end of the card, where the LEDs and transistors are living. I could bridge off the Pi's 5v rail that way. (Pi has direct connect to its 5v rail on its GPIO header that I could bridge to. That way the Pi's power adapter could drive both units, without injecting power onto the sidecar bus.) another interesting tidbit; the Pi can be powered by those pns as well. This might let you control the startup sequence.

I am thinking either a teac or NEC drive. Those were quality name-brand models back in the day. In either case, to use it on a modern PC he will need a special adapter. The one I linked earlier can do raw sector MFM reads to disk images, meaning it can copy even copy protected diskettes with "special" sectors.

In the very early 90s, I owned a Rockwell based 14.4kbaud modem, then later upped it to a 33.6kbaud one. By about 1998 or so, I had upgraded to a USR based 56k with both V.90 and KFlex, but the extremely bad quality phone lines meant I never really connected better than 33.6k anyway.

Yeah, those are ready for something like an LS120 drive (in a modern system, attached to a SATA->IDE bridge), or for use with a retro 90s or older system. Wait, you said 5.25. You need a 90s or older retro computer for that, or you need a special controller. Depending on their age, the media may or may not be in a serviceable condition. Floppy media was always notoriously unreliable.

Yucky. You need to degauss that monitor bad...

I personally like the 3 legged ones for the stability they give. I can't really tell if that one is 3 legged or not with the orientation of the pic.

Dear lord... That iron clearly is not plugged in. She looks entirely too calm for that the be the case.

Dont be too excited just yet... In addition to dimensional data, one would need tools. Since none of us have a breakpress or hydroblock press, that means manual forming jig(s) for hand-forming. After making models and prints, I have to design tooling. My mind is already hard at work thinking about manufacturing processes for these, but tool design is voodoo. It's ghetto as hell, but I am considering how an automotive hydraulic floor jack and some wooden forms (with plastic nylon printed faces) could be employed to become a ghetto makeshift breakpress. More thinking needs to be done though.

I dont want to argue, but personal experience is that the port's tiny size and lack of a rubust shell downhanger thru-hole for the grounded shell, means that yaw-forces over time weaken the port. The contacts inside can handle the insertions, but the port's solder points get stresses on them that they shouldn't, because of the design. (Designed for low profile, in restricted area. Almost exclusively SMT in design.) I would much prefer something that I can gently retouch with a hot iron to reflow when it starts to walk out of its proper spot. DC barrel, and USB-B let me do that.

While nobody uses the things, I would be fine with USB-B connector. (like found on old printers.) https://www.newark.com/molex/67068-8011/usb-conn-2-0-usb-type-b-rcpt-tht/dp/49Y4726?gclid=Cj0KCQiAn8nuBRCzARIsAJcdIfMsntORFIG45__Zln6Axg-t5QXbgRRkoLaq82V7lZ2zNmMWtpa-RA4aAkHAEALw_wcB&mckv=s05lAeh4W_dc|pcrid|81515568741|plid||kword||match||slid||product|49Y4726|pgrid|20376566901|ptaid|pla-842094498124|&CMP=KNC-GUSA-GEN-SHOPPING-Connectors My beef with USB as a power plug, is that everyone wants to leverage shitty cellphone chargers (which use micro USB B, because of space constraints), while paying no service at all to the rigidity or longevity of the port. USB-B is very sturdy. Possibly more sturdy than DC Barrel. (just more expensive.) It's keyed, so you can't put the lead in wrong, and you don't have to worry about it being wired wrong internally or supplying incorrect voltage.

Is that a flat rate? Some items that contain magic smoke cost a lot more than 20$! A real bargain!

Interesting; I wonder what TI was thinking there? It would have radically increased the costs of the peripheral cards... In other news, Helocast has been extremely busy feeding me with dimensional data. I nearly have all the data I need for the "outer" sheet metal component. Just a few hole locations and some slots left. Here's a pretty picture of the work so far. (I also have a work in progress draft sheet, but I don't want to release prints until they are complete. When I release them, I want them to be accurate and useful.) Be sure to tell Helocast how awesome he is for taking the time to send me the data! I know all about how painful it is to try and collect it without good tools in hand, and he's been going at this like a champ.

The issue is "So, I must add yet ANOTHER DC power plug to my power strip?" I am rather fond of the idea of having what is essentially a passthrough car, except 5v line is terminated, and replaced with a 5v source generated in the car. The car has a voltage regulator, and accepts a higher input voltage. (Say 7.5v, 9v, or 12v? Maybe be multi-voltage tolerant?) The whole idea is to be the single point where regulated 5v is provided, and do so for hungrier devices. That way you do not need multiple wall warts. We terminate the line from the 99/4A so that we do not damage the motherboard. DC Barrel connector tends to be more rigid/mechanically stable than micro USB. Especially if you are plugging and replugging, the durability of the connector is important.