Posted 2018-12-06 11:21 AM (#1467 - in reply to #1466) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 671
Recieved the last piece for my Amiga500 restauration project. An trapdoor cover/lid to be precise.
This is the cheapest part, and the easiest part to source. So I have waited untill the machine was back in working state.
Last two things that I need to fix up, are raising the internal drive 1 millimeter and then spraypaint the case.
Posted 2018-12-06 10:18 PM (#1468 - in reply to #1467) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 618 Location: Hull, UK
I painted a case a while ago, but you probably don't want to see it. It did briefly appear on another board you might have heard of, but I can't say for sure. :D
It's nice to know your project is almost complete, you've put so much work into it by now.
In the mean time, this is now mine;
Also grabbed Banjo Tooie for the N64, might livestream that closer to Christmas.
Posted 2018-12-07 10:57 AM (#1469 - in reply to #1468) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 671
#DXZeff:
Sweet. Those are nice things you got. For some strange reason, I have always thought that digital cameras would not really be your cup of tea. So I am positive surprised by your move there. And well.... JVC is not the worst brand. Never heard they are the absolute "top of the fineschmecker line". Just heard that JVC usually makes good, decent and nicely build equipment. Great haul.
Regardeing the Amiga500 project. Yes. It has come a long way. I am no professional repairman at all, so if the traces was broken, then I were in a hell of trouble. Yet recapping, cleaning and finding new parts are just up my alley. Yeah... Just need that paintjob now, and the drive-mounting issue. As of now, floppy disks will not clear the bottom part of the "slid" or hole or whatever that is called. I actually have no idea what the correct term is. So I need to raise the drive by 1mm. Perhaps 1.5mm. Still having thoughts on what color the case shall be. Most likely a dark green or something like that. Perhaps that blue the old 1970's NCR computers had.
Posted 2018-12-08 11:14 AM (#1470 - in reply to #1469) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 671
Finished up the last thing on my 500 refurbish project. I am only talking about functional things. Or things that makes it a fully working machine. I still need to fix up the cosmetic part. It is now ready to be used again.... Gave it a memory upgrade as well. (and take some nice pictures, when it is 100% finished). The cosmetic part will however not be possible before summer. I need warm and dry weather for the paintjob, as I will be doing it outside.
EDIT:
People have said that it was a NO-GO and I would kill or destroy the plastic when using liquid acetone for welding. To that I can say that it holds up beautifully. The structure are like new and nothing have melted more than it was supposed to melt. It simply works. There are only two things to take into acount when working with liquid acetone. One is to use a tiny amount, and the second is that you need to work extremely fast.
Posted 2018-12-08 8:37 PM (#1471 - in reply to #1470) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 618 Location: Hull, UK
On the subject of welding plastics, I recently stuck some bezels back together using ABS Solvent Cement, these bezels were made of ABS and I figure if this stuff works on pipe so well, typically they rate it at 3 Bar, but the pipe will almost certainly blow out long before the weld does, they use a variant of this cement for household water supplies in some US states with plastic pipe instead of copper, so it's strong stuff, then it stands to reason it will work on other things made of the same material.
Of course I can't vouch for its use otherwise, mostly due to the way in which it cures, it could definitely discolor something and will make an irreversible mess if it goes somewhere you don't want it to. Still, once it does cure it's as if the plastic was never broken apart, it should also work on PVC. It does not, however, work on whatever those plastic storage containers are made of (PE?) whatsoever and produces some very noxious smelling gasses when applied to them.
This thread may lock soon and a new one will take its place. It won't be erased, but future posts would have to be in the new thread, it's starting to grind on the SQL server a little harder than I'd like and I'm not sure this board software is really tested with threads over this size.
Posted 2018-12-08 8:45 PM (#1472 - in reply to #1471) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 671
#DXZeff
I have noticed that as well, on PVC. I had some spare spacers/leafs that you put into a floppy disk box. And I bet they were PVC as well. Because I thought that I could use them for "ABS Cement", the same way as I used ABS plastic dissolved in acetone. They did not dissolve a bit. And they feel more PVC'ish than ABS'ish when I touch them and slide my fingers over the surface. I guess those plastic bottles that you buy acetone in, are made from PVC.
Posted 2018-12-17 4:10 PM (#1474 - in reply to #71) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
IDT WinChip
Posts: 237 Location: USA
Hightreason.... your channel is not even in HD... just what the heck do you think you will be doing with that camera? Just don't let Mullet Man get a hold of that thing cause we know he will be using it for his xhamster page.
Brostenen I am impressed with how much effort you have put into restoring an Amiga.
I am still waiting on this item from Germany of all places but if it ever actually shows up I think it will be an interesting board to mess with. These are not terribly common and I like strange motherboards, of which this is among the end of that strange upgradeable motherboard era.
Posted 2018-12-18 8:29 AM (#1475 - in reply to #1474) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 618 Location: Hull, UK
Most videos have been rendered in 720p for the last year or so, but with most of the editing time taken up with resampling crap due to having a 50fps camera, this one does 1080p60 so should save time in editing and rendering. The 4K features are something for later. Doubt Mullet Man would go anywhere near it, he's not likely to leave the realms of VHS.
Indeed, serious dedication on the Amiga. Brostenen, you have far more patience than I.
Part of me wouldn't mind having one of those ECS boards from that era which could take both Intel and AMD CPUs, one of which used a peculiar card, can't remember the model of it, possibly PF88. In reality that ASRock is probably more useful however.
Posted 2018-12-18 3:42 PM (#1476 - in reply to #1474) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 671
waybacktech - 2018-12-17 6:10 PM
Brostenen I am impressed with how much effort you have put into restoring an Amiga.
Thanks.... Yeah. It is a long time project, that I am doing. Nearly finished. And I ran into memory conflict issue on the other Amiga500. It turns out that when I have 512k of additional ChipMem, used from the 2mb expansion card. Then it will be alocated in the same adress space as the Accelerator's 2mb FastRam space. Sooo.... I need to source 4 Ram chips with sockets and one logic chip with socket, and upgrade the mainboard to Amiga500-Plus spec's. Else I can only run the 500 with 512k ChipRam. That is if I want to use that TF-530 accelerator card. And looking at prices of loose 500-Plus mainboards, compared to the chips I need, then it is a no-brainer.
The sweet news is, that in the near future, a TF-534 card will be avaliable to buy. It will come with 4mb of FastRam and not 2mb. And it will adress the memory, using Zorro-III adress space. And not Zorro-II as on the TF-530. This way it can accept any ChipRam and FastRam expansion that are on the market. If the 534 will run perfectly and stable, then an Amiga500 as mine upgraded to Plus spec's, will be able to have 2mb ChipRam and 12mb FastRam and 2mb SlowRam without any conflict.... Or was it more? Anyway.... Check out here for some TerribleFire information... If you are logged in, you can go to the discussion tread (link provided in the post)
DXZeff - 2018-12-18 10:29 AM
Indeed, serious dedication on the Amiga. Brostenen, you have far more patience than I.
Yup... I just need to get that case painted, then it is all ready for one of my children, when they are old enough to know what it is and take care of it. That is in the next 10 to 15 years of time. And imagine getting something like this handed over for free at that time. :-D First criteria is that the one that will be getting it, have to have an interrest in vintage computers. The next is that they need to understand what it is, and how hard it is to repair and how rare it then have become. I will however take good care of this Rev5 machine, as it need to be kept running untill then.
Posted 2018-12-24 9:30 PM (#1478 - in reply to #1477) Subject: RE: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 671
Old Guy 88 - 2018-12-24 10:56 PM
Just a quick message to everyone
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year
Thanks... Hope you got some nice stuff and had some good food. I shure had a good evening. I got clothes, a bottle of 15 year old Glen fiddich single malt, some money for vintage hardware and a pair of shoes.
Posted 2018-12-27 8:09 PM (#1479 - in reply to #1478) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 618 Location: Hull, UK
Hope everyone had a good Christmas. Mine was just like any other day, which suits me fine.
Haven't had much time to work on anything as of late, though I do now own a 287 and a boxed Athlon 1800+ that I will post a picture of at a later time if I can get the camera going; The Sony hasn't been working right for a long time, won't charge and the battery is flat right now. The new camera is still with the tax man and I've had to fill out a bunch of forms, haven't gotten the bill for that yet.
In the mean time, this neighborhood has a huge mouse problem, so I kept a few because I wanted mice and none of the pet shops around here carry them any more;
These were very young mice and so they have been domesticating quite well, likely they don't know any better. There is one male, I'm actually hoping they breed so I can steal the young when they're old enough to raise by hand, means a few weeks with disrupted sleep (which I have anyway) but would result in fairly tame mice, I'd let the ones I have now go in the middle of nowhere as I'd feel bad drowning them after looking after them for so long. The whole thing about 'dangerous mice' I'm talking about in the video is because I shot it for a friend, I'd been talking to them about someone who had complained - long story, basically they don't even have anything to do with me but threatened to call environmental health if I didn't get rid of them - so I was making fun of that, as the complainer seemed to think the mice were dangerous somehow. Luckily the friend I shot that video for, as well as most everyone else, is much more sensible. Since filming that the mice have a nicer place to hide and a new wheel which runs better than the old one. Also in answer to the question, yes, it seems some wild mice will use a wheel if they find one.
Also, I caught three of the mice by hand, I just sat in the shed and waited for them to come out (I knew where the nest was), then simply grabbed them. They're slippery little bastards, hard to hold on to.
Lastly something interesting, I store my food and the rodent food in my living room. Whilst mice are in my house, none of them have ever entered the living room, despite the food being here, which makes me wonder if they're either smelling the rats, or smelling my mice and are scared of invading their turf. Obviously I'm trapping and killing any more mice that show up, but there are so many on the estate due to the garbage problem we have that they just keep coming back.
Posted 2018-12-28 7:32 PM (#1480 - in reply to #1479) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 671
Wow.... That is one great story, and a real shame that mice problems are so big. That is really shitty. Yet... Think about it. Cheap pets if you can have them tested for all sorts of ill shit. You know. Better be on the safe side, as most mice are disease free, yet some will have. I guess it is not any worse than outbreak amoungst humans. Not like all have something.
Think about it... Free source for making money. Minus what it costs to get them checked.
Today I bought this... I have saved up for over a year, waiting for them to make a new version.
Posted 2018-12-31 4:17 PM (#1482 - in reply to #1481) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 618 Location: Hull, UK
I don't believe there is any serious difference between one ET4000 or another, using the same chipset version. Being an ET4000AX you probably aren't going to go much faster on ISA at any rate, though this chipset predates GUI acceleration and you may be limited to 256 colors (my Adda AVer 2000 does this) depending on the RAMDAC they used - odds are you won't need either the GUI acceleration nor the high color modes if you're using it in DOS anyway, should be a good card.
Posted 2019-01-01 1:29 PM (#1483 - in reply to #1482) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 671
I don't think it is faster than other ET4000's. It is more the quality of the output that I am qurious about.
My plan with this card, is to put it into my DX33 machine. It has a power color ET4000 as of now.
Posted 2019-01-09 11:13 PM (#1485 - in reply to #1484) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 671
#DXZeff
Those are nice things you got. Did you get any life in that Wii? It is a wonderfull machine for modding and well... You know what it then can do. ;-)
For me. I recieved that Orchid Prodesigner-II card, and I am extremely surprised. I have never seen such a good signal on any ISA card at all. It shows ZERO spaghetti lines at all. Normally I see them in Lotus turbochallenge (Lotus-III for Dos) and Civilization1. I was like WOW, when I hooked it up to my 19 inch IBM thinkvision LCD monitor.
Else I tested an Adaptec 1542-C ISA SCSI controller. Floppy is working and SCSI is working. Gave it a test with an old Seagate Hawk drive and it gave just under 2mb/s in transfer, using my Dx33 machine. Not the fastest, yet way faster than my first IDE based PC... That old SLC2-50, gave some 600 to 800 kilobyte/s transfer rate. So I think it is good enough.
Posted 2019-01-10 2:20 PM (#1486 - in reply to #1485) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 671
Got these things in the mail today. One IndivisionECS V2 scandoubler. There are an extra socket in the box, and I suspect that it is for mounting in an Amiga600, in order not to shorten out. Sadly it can not be stacked like V1, yet the good part is that they have integrated the Denise in a type of FPGA solution. The standard output should as far as I read, be set at 72hz. There should be even more features, like flashable firmware. This is all I know about it so far....
The other things that I recieved, is a 512k Kickrom fixer and kickrom stabeliser board for Amiga500 Revision 5 boards. Installing it, will make the machine compatible with 512k chips, and it should get rid of the machine hanging on coldboot and other Kickstart related issues. The screws are a set of case screws for Amiga500 and the contact is just to have a spare for some future Amiga related project.
Posted 2019-01-14 1:42 PM (#1487 - in reply to #1486) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 671
Installed my IndivisionECS V2 scandoubler in my Amiga600, and tested it out with some games. It is a nice product. :-)
It goes straight onto an Individual a604n memory upgrade and is plug and play if only I want to load games from Floppy.
In workbench, it shifts the screen into an odd position, yet there is some updates and drivers that can be downloaded.
I need too look further into this. Yet the image quality so far is great. Just perfect without any artifact or stuff like that.
The VGA connector are mounted were the RF modulator was. The person that recapped my machine, removed it for me.
Posted 2019-01-23 1:01 PM (#1488 - in reply to #1487) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 671
Solved the issue of getting full screen, border to border, on my IndivisionECS V2 scandoubler in my Amiga600. As it turns out, I had to install a lot of third part screenmode files, then make shure that they are all present in both "dh0:storage/monitors" and "dh0:devs/monitors" at the same time. Then reboot. Now my 600 is running at 800x600 and only 2 or 3 colours (limitations of the ECS chipset), yet I have border to border and in 800x600. Weeeee.... Uh... And because it is still running the old 7mhz 68000 CPU, then it is slow as f*ck. At least I have solved this issue.
Now I need to lower the resolution, until I have saved up for a CPU upgrade accelerator board. Anyway... I am happy to have found a workaround for this issue.
It turns out that my 600 are not fully happy with the IndivisionECS V2 scandoubler. If it is the machine, the ram expansion that it is sitting on or the actual flashing tool that are making the issue, I am not 100 percent shure of. Yet it can be flashed or firmware upgraded, if I mount it inside an Amiga500. I only have to do this, if I need to do a rescue or there is a core upgrade. All in all, I am very pleased with this little thingy. It display a great picture, and it has stuff like v-sync feature and a somewhat vague scanline generator of some sort. Though the brightness of the monitor need to be lowered, in order for the scanlines to be visible.
If any of you guys have an Amiga500, 2000, 600 or 3000. Then this is a solid purchase. A bit on the expensive side of things, yet one must remember that it is the only scandoubler avaliable at all, that can go inside an Amiga600. Else you need to purchase an old 1990's or late 1980's external scandoubler that most likely is not compatible with modern flatscreen monitors. Picture wise, it delivers a picture that are 90 percent close to a CRT monitor. And if one desire, a real CRT VGA monitor can be used, because it can do 50hz refresh rate. Hence the 99 euro not being that steep, compared to what a real Commodore CRT monitor will set you back these days. Another thing with the Amiga600, is that the VGA plug can be mounted inside an Amiga600. The procedure is to remove the RF modulator by just desoldering it, and then use the hole in the back for the VGA output. The hex screws can be used to fasten the plug on the internal RF shield, and you only need to cut plastic for them to fitt. Thereby making it a snug fitt.
Posted 2019-01-28 12:36 AM (#1489 - in reply to #1488) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 671
Drinking a couple of beer's, while reading old computer magazines from the late 80's to the early 90's. That time period of 1991 to 1993, is the most fascinating period. Commodore machines were replaced by PC's. Everything was put on it's head and flipped around. It is most noticeable, when reading the games reviews, and looking at the sales add's. And finally reading what people have wrote and asked for, in the the readers section. I too remember that time period as one of the best in my teenage years. So much happened back then. Well... It is always nice to look back and reflect.
Posted 2019-01-29 1:19 AM (#1490 - in reply to #1489) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 671
I finally managed to get my IndivisionECS V2 to display full screen, and border to border without stretching the aspect ratio that much. Here I am talking 4:3 versus 5:4... Oh man... That nut was hard to crack. I choose a setting that I would normally not use, and it kicked into full screen. The configuration tool is a bitch to use, to say it mildly, as the settings and menu's are rather difficult to use. I saved the configuration to a file, and rebooted the machine, in order to test games loaded from floppy. It worked perfect. Now I need to save the config to my PCMCIA/CF-Card and a couple of floppy disks, then report my settings on various forums and especially those that have asked for help on Individual computers support forum. Another owner of the IndiECS V2 have had luck getting full screen on 640x512-PAL. Mine is a bit higher. This issue has bothered me for the last 14 days or so.
The bad thing is that I am running on 60hz, and the Amiga will only do smooth scrolling at 50hz. Yet this is a monitor related issue and not the IndiECS V2 that are the cause of the non-smooth scrolling. And I must say that there are a BIG difference in monitor's at the setting I have. The best monitor that I have as of now, are an IBM Thinkvision L170. Actually an awesomme monitor for this. Better than my IBM Thinkvision L190.
Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TrapdoorCoverA500.jpg (292KB - 467 downloads)
Just don't let Mullet Man get a hold of that thing cause we know he will be using it for his xhamster page. 
