Retrocomputing

23/11/2014

Vintage ISA super I/O card Winbond W83757F

For reference. I'm playing with this card from time to time, although the IDE controller is not behaving well (at least with Compact Flash drives) chip: W83757F (205NA47075) super I/O card FCC ID:ID2-W83757 output ports: COM + LPT onboard ports: IDE + FDC source

05/11/2014

Can I turn this old Toshiba laptop into a synthesizer?

Some links only... http://dynabook.com/assistpc/download/winxp/readme/sound/a1x10sndx.htm https://www.google.fr/search?q=YAMAHA+DS-XG+msdos https://www.google.fr/search?q=ymf+754b+msdos http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/product/lsi/download/ So this is for later. Maybe...

10/05/2013

Upgrade Bios on a not too ancient computer

I got my hand on a 2005 computer which needed some fresh OS and a bios upgrade. The PC didn't have a working floppy drive but could fortunately boot on USB (which is not a given on older computers). The trick was to get a USB stick with a bootable FreeDos on it. It was quite easy! Use gparted to create a single FAT16  […]

11/11/2012

Recognize SDRAM and DDR Modules

Just a quick reminder on how to recognize DDR DIMM modules And also, SDRAM DIMM (2 holes instead of 1, 168 pins) And some vintage SIMM DRAM modules! 72 pin SIMM DRAM (486, Pentium) 30 pin SIMM DRAM (286, 386, older 486) Sources source 1 source 2 source 3

31/12/2010

Amstrad CPC revival

Nostalgia... I recently got a good old Amstrad CPC+ to play with, unfortunately without monitor. The Amstrad monitors also act as power supplies. I therefore need to find a power supply and a SCART cable. Power supply is easy: the CPC+ only needs 5V and 2400mA (the 12V line was necessary for the first generation of  […]

25/09/2010

DOS Floppy Disc Formats

I recently acquired a floppy drive emulator. I can't say I have too much free time to play with such useless things, but I had the strange desire of getting one of these beasts. I did have trouble setting up some virtual images -- as there are not any predefined formats in the tools provided. I ended up with this  […]

21/09/2010

Computosaurs

I recently got a hand on two "computosaurs". Both are PC compatible, running at respectively 200 and 400 MHz. As I started my digital life with a 4 Mhz processor I'd tend to say 200 MHz PC are not completely obsolete yet... But for a day to day usage it seems they are! Which OS can run on them? Windows is clearly out  […]

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