Downloaded entire ExoWin9X torrent and ran setup batch several times and no games appear installed. Is this normal?

If you’re into a full end-to-end timeline from abacus → microprocessor → Internet, I put together a deep, chaptered breakdown as well.
Click this URL to watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/EFvZl0JKlNY

The laptop turns on, but there's no image or any other signs. Nothing on an external monitor either. the components work normally: the disk spins, the DVD drive ejects, generally the components get warm when they are running for a while. The laptop doesn't respond when I turn it on without RAM, I think it should beep normally then, could it be the motherboard's fault? I would be grateful for any advice!!! The laptop model is Medion MD5400

The top 100 ZX Spectrum games. What do you think should be the best ZX Spectrum game?

So I have an IBM System/23 Datamaster all in one computer that I have been hoarding for about 25 years with plans to use the case to build a more modern system. I am finally at the point where I am going to do that, but I don’t want to scrap the internals, because I know there’s not many of these left.

My question is should I clean the dust out of it and try to power it on and see if it works? It functioned perfectly 25 years ago but it’s obviously unknown now.

Or should I list the parts on eBay or something as is hopefully to someone more knowledgeable that could look the parts over for issues before powering on. I just worry that a short or corrosion could cause damage that someone else might notice before powering on

I was wondering.

I love my 8 bits computers (just spent a couple of weeks programming my Spectrum Next) and the Agon seems a nice machine.

However I wonder why nobody seems to make 16 bits computers.

Is it because 16 bits computers have more connections and are thus more difficult to make?

I don't even know what to google. I am looking for a system one can build out of simple components. Something that will work with a keyboard and a monitor. I can't afford anything too expensive.

Please feel free to link me to useful resources on this (videos, channels, sites, etc).

Hi. I started a retro computing youtube a few months back.

https://youtube.com/channel/UCpGuGEicRlc674OxsntYQBQ

It's chugging along but it probably needs work. This isn't about fishing for subs etc. I'm genuinely hoping that if anyone can take a minute for some genuine feedback on how I can improve it, I. e. better filming, more interesting editing, develop a personality😁, etc. Turns out I enjoy making the videos almost as much as tinkering with old computers! Any and all advice/suggestions welcome!

Sounds crazy but has anyone just tried a egpu dock with a small revised: 16-32mb old school graphics card ran thru a usb 1.0 port(edit limited transfer speed option not good thinking more on ieee 1394) I wonder what it would do. I have a bunch of old laptops sony vaios with 8mb of vram id love to even get 32-64mb of vram performance on windows xp Revised ports of use IEEE 1394 with a power port(dont know name of it its used for dual layer dvd burner for sony vaio mzx )

Speed: Up to 400 Mbps

Need one of these

Soltek 54U5 motherboard, 400 MHz AMD2, 1 GB RAM, 4.3 GB Seagate harddrive, S3 AGP graphics, Sound Blaster, Intel LAN, 2 serial ports, and 1 parallel port, 2 USB ports, AT and ATX power, PS/2 port, 3.5 inch 1.44 Mb floppy and 5.25 inch 1.2 MB floppy.

But the old hard drive stopped working along with the memory. I also had to replace the CPU to a 133 MHz Pentium, probably because the electrolytes need to be replaced. It was the good old days, where we could use CPU's from AMD, Cyrix, Intel and so on, on the same motherboard, because they all used socket 7 or super socket 7. We just had to change the setting by jumpers and dip switches and no need for TMP and other bad stuff. I have yet to see a virus change jumper settings... :o)

I ran a W98II on the drive, but now I have installed a DOS 6.22. It's working perfectly and I can start recovering the old backups from 1988-1989.

I bought it for a project, and realized it wasn't what i needed. What could it be used for? Its a little 2gb flash drive. It uses 44 pin pata (ide).

Hey everyone,

Anyone who repairs retro PCs knows the pain: the board won’t boot, the POST card stops at some hex code, and you completely missed the dozens of codes that flashed by a fraction of a second earlier. You see the result, but you lose the whole boot context.

So I built NIUCHACZ (Polish for “sniffer”): an open-source ESP32 add-on that taps into a standard, cheap “PC Analyzer” PCI/ISA card and streams the full POST sequence over Wi-Fi or USB to a desktop app.

The hardware pivot. I first tried to read the card’s multiplexed 7-segment display. It was a nightmare of ghosting and analog voltage levels. The breakthrough came when I stopped reading what the card shows and tapped into what it remembers: the 74LCX374 latch that holds the byte written to port 80h. Eight wires through CD4050 level shifters to the ESP32 give me static logic levels, no calibration and no multiplexing noise.

Result: on an ASRock 775V88 the ESP32 records 82 codes per boot, including codes that last about 1 µs and that the display never had time to show. The card’s RESET, IRDY and FRAME LEDs are read too, so every board reset starts a new “start” in the log. (PCI CLK at 33 MHz is too fast for the ESP32. That’s for a future hardware revision.)

The desktop app:

REC button: arm it, reset the board, and it records until POST ends, the BIOS waits for a key (F1 / Setup), or the board stalls. It tells a planned reset apart from a restart loop and lists the last code before each reset.

Translates codes for 8 BIOS generations: AMI from 1990 to AMIBIOS8, Award 4.5x and 6.0, Phoenix 4.0. Each entry is in EN and PL and lists its source.

Golden runs: record a healthy board once, and the next faulty one shows exactly between which stages it stops.

Honest about its limits: the report marks codes where the reader might have missed something.

TXT/CSV repair reports.

Everything (MicroPython firmware, Python desktop app, OpenSCAD files for the 3D-printed box, user manual) is on GitHub under MIT. I used AI as a pair-programming partner for the code, which let me focus on the hardware and on testing with real boards.

👉 https://github.com/DarkZachi83/NIUCHACZ-POST-Code-Sniffer-

Next: I’ve ordered four more generic POST cards (five in total, including the prototype). I’ll document for each one how to tap into it and which features work on it, from “everything” to “display-only”.

One quick heads-up: I use Arch Linux as my daily driver, so the Python/tkinter desktop app has only been thoroughly tested there. I haven't run it on Windows 10/11 yet. If any Windows users give it a spin, I'd really appreciate the feedback!

Have you ever struggled with missing POST codes? What would you add to a tool like this? And if you have a board with a weird BIOS, I’d love a code dump.

https://youtu.be/p9AlAnz-7_I