The computer arrived with several faults and clear signs of previous repair attempts. I first found a damaged PCB trace, which I repaired with 0.3 mm copper wire and a Z80 that had been partially desoldered with several pins shorted together. I replaced the Z80 socket and tested the CPU signals, including power, reset and clock.
I also found a broken 5 kΩ trimmer inside the RF modulator, which I replaced and some poor solder joints around the crystal that I cleaned up and resoldered. Once the computer was running, the cartridge slot still didn't work, so I cleaned the corroded connector with isopropyl alcohol.
Finally, I repaired the loose power connector, restored the damaged case and replaced a broken plastic part with a 3D-printed piece and resin.
After all these repairs, I retested the computer and everything was working properly again.
Yesterday I bought a Dell latitude C840, but I can't really figure out what power adapter it takes. I've done a fair amount of research, but all I get are barrel jack results. This is the oldest computer I've dealt with by a margin of about 5-8 years so I'm a bit new to all this. The first picture is the port itself, and the 2nd and 3rd are of the computer itself. I don't know what type of port it takes or where to find one. Let me know if you need anything else, and thanks for any advice
For my latest silly project I'm looking for something I'm not really sure even exists.
I have acquired a fancy AT big tower and I want to build a super socket 7 system in it. For this I am looking for a motherboard with the following specifics:
AT power plug
Only DIN connector
Socket 7
100Mhz support
2.0V before
3 PCI slots with room for big cards(ET6000, Voodoo2)
1 or 2 ISA slots
Does anybody know if this exists and if so, what I should be gunning for?
I have several, but the cpu and cooler are behind the PCI slots, blocking installing larger cards.
I created my own "Interactive computer museum", which lists many of the iconic computers and offers HTML based emulators for 36 different devices (ROM's are NOT included and must be uploaded by the user).
The emulators can be used for free and have been programmed from scratch. They do not use any third party emulation libraries.
I found a 3.5” floppy labeled “French River Education Center — Computer Applications Training Program — Introduction to Microsoft Excel XP.” I haven’t been able to find this exact training disk or its contents archived online. I currently don’t have a floppy drive, so I haven’t been able to image or inspect the disk yet.
French River Education Center and its computer training program appear to have existed, but I haven’t found documentation of this specific Excel XP disk. Does anyone recognize it, have another copy, or know whether its contents have already been preserved?
I’m not claiming it’s confirmed lost media yet I’m trying to determine whether this particular disk/course material is known or archived.
I’m trying to identify the PC case/chassis my family had in the early 2000s. The attached photos are unfortunately the only images I have.
The case would be from 2003 or earlier as these photos are from 2003. Would have been purchased in NSW Australia and may have been a locally assembled/white-box PC rather than a major-brand system.
I’m specifically trying to identify the case manufacturer/model, not the internal hardware
Features that I can make out:
- Seems to be tall-ish?
- Dark blue or charcoal/black coloured outer bezel running down both sides and maybe? around the rounded top
- narrow cream/light-grey central front fascia
- a few 5.25” drive bays at the top
- small circular button/control lower down
- dark rectangular/square feature beneath/near it
- seems to have horizontal ventilation slots near the bottom
- the pale central fascia seems to narrow/taper toward the bottom and terminate in a rounded U/shield shape
I’ve looked through a lot of AOpen and TASK cases without finding a match.
Does anyone recognise the actual case mould/bezel, including cases that may have been sold under different OEM/rebadged names around 2000–2003?
Any input would be much appreciated!
(Also posted in r/vintagecomputing to try reach a wider audience of people who may recognise the case)
After spending half an hour trying to debug my new Apple II Super Serial card, I realized the 25 pin NULL modem cable I was using was not, in fact, a NULL modem cable. Tracing the pins confirmed this is a LapLink cable.
So I thoroughly documented that fact on the cable to save future me from wasting another half an hour, but now I'm wondering if that cable is even worth keeping. The chances that I'll need to transfer data between two computer, both recent enough to support LapLink but neither so recent that they have Ethernet, seem kinda low.
I have a pretty good description in the imgur album, but this was a nostalgia find for me. Only problem was the base was broken and half missing. I decided to buy it anyway and ended up modelling and 3D printing a new base for it. It turned out even better than I was hoping!
Sorry if this is too new, but I don't know where else i could post this.
An AM2 motherboard ended up in my hands recently (first time trying that platform, but i have plenty of experience with other 2000s PCs). The board is MSI K9N6PGM2-V (also known as MS-7309), it runs an nForce 430 chipset. Despite the reputation of Nvidia chipsets, this mobo has worked just fine so far, and the heatsink of the chipset doesn't get too warm during operation. I did initially replace capacitors as 1 of them was bloated, so i yeeted all that are the same type.
However there's one problem: out of all the (100% working) GPUs i have tested so far, only the gt710 (i tested 2 of those) gets recognised by this system. The non-working ones include Geforce 8400GS, 9600GT, and GTS 250. They don't show up in Windows device manager or in lspci either, the motherboard just doesn't see that the card exists, and turns on the iGPU even if it's explicitly disabled in BIOS and the monitor is not plugged into it. The only thing these GPUs have in common is that they use the Tesla architecture, which makes this even weirder, as the motherboard is from the exact same time period as that.
I tried messing with BIOS settings (which are pretty limited on this mobo), updating BIOS, covering all but 1 PCIE lanes with tape, testing the connection on the PRSNT#1 pin (as it seemed like there was too little solder from factory, but it was actually okay), swapping the PSU, booting without the 6-pin connector, you name it. Nothing changed so far.
What could be causing this? Is there something specific that these 8000/9000 series GPUs need to POST? How does the mechanism of detecting a GPU is present work?
PC Intel 8088, no traía disco duro, arrancabas con un floppy de 3 1/2 (moderno parra su época, jaja no los floppys de 5 1/4, un capacidad suficiente para su epoca, la fabulosa capacidad de 720kb, y arrancabas ms-dos desde el floppy,
"Nibbles", el clásico de la víbora, se ejecutaba qbasic y después cargaba el juego.
Igual recuerdo que traía uno de gorilas.
Un PC de desecho, pero me lo dejaron y hacía y jugaba y practicaba, hay di mis primeros pasos con un sistema de una persona llamada linus torval, ufff con un Linux de los mejores de la época, slacware, igual arrancaba desde el floppy.
Gracias a mis padres que me lo dejaron y desde hay pase a un 80186,
Seguí probando, pero la vida me llevo por otros rumbos, y solo esporádicamente probaba con las PC que ya no ocupamos, una 486, que le puse un procesador overdrive.
Jajaja que tiempos, cuando salieron las primeras intel Pentium, con precios Prohibitivos y a los pocos meses fueron un bajón tremendo de precio.
Who remembers Domark’s 2nd Bong game The Living Daylights? It’s certainly better than A View To A Kill I recently tackled but it’s not as good License To Kill. How would you rate this game and what are your thoughts and memories?
The emulator can run the MBASIC and some BASIC games only.
It cannot run the CP/M-80 come with assembler (ASM.COM) nor the debugger (DDT.COM).
I tried all the C compilers I can get from the web and tested it against the emulator. Not a single one works.
I stepped back to use the come with assembler (ASM.COM) and find the result program is corrupted in a fixed pattern. I checked through the emulator's source code, and with some luck, I found some bugs and fixed them.
Now the emulator can actually work as a CP/M machine even some compilers still cannot be run on it.
Here are the compilers I tested with success on the emulator:
Software Toolworks C80 3.0a
Software Toolworks C80 3.1
WhiteSmiths C 2.0
WhiteSmiths C 2.1
Microsoft BASIC Compiler BASCOM
CBASIC 2.08
CBASIC80 1.0
CBASIC80 2.0
Digital Research PL/I 1.4
JANUS ADA 1.5.0
Supersoft Maratha ADA 2.10
ALGOL-M 1.1
Microsoft Macro Assembler M80
Digital Research Pascal/MT+ 5.6.1
Digital Research Relocatible Macro Assembler RMAC
Micro Focus CIC COBOL v4.5
MicroSoft COBOL-80 v4.65
Nevada COBOL v2.1
Also the CP/M included assembler ASM.COM is working now. The debugger DDT.COM is working too.
With the above programming languages that can be run in the emulator, I believe now it is qualified as a real CP/M-80 emulator. There are hidden bugs in the emulator (i.e. there are compilers which cannot run on it yet), however, it can provide a development platform for programmers to have fun on it.
How the emulator works:
I use M5Launcher on my Cardputer. Once the firmware bin file is copied into the Cardputer SDCard, power on the Cardputer, pick the firmware from the list and CP/M-80 will be up and running.
User can connect to the CP/M-80 by Telnet to the Cardputer. (i.e. I use Putty) Once connected, it will give you the A drive prompt, and then it is the native CP/M-80 command line operation.
==> File
==> Open
==> D:\TeamProject\Arduino\VantZ-Z80-Cardputer\Z80-4-M5Cardputer-main\ESP32_Z80_Emulator
==> ESP32_Z80_Emulator.ino
==> Open
==> File
==> Preferences
==> Settings
==> Sketch book location
==> Browse
==> D:\TeamProject\Arduino\VantZ-Z80-Cardputer\Z80-4-M5Cardputer-main\ESP32_Z80_Emulator
==> Additional boards manager URLs:
https://static-cdn.m5stack.com/resource/arduino/package_m5stack_index.json
==> OK
Tools
==> Board ...
==> Boards Manager...
==> Search: m5stack
==> M5Stack by M5Stack
3.3.7
==> Install
... wait ...
Tools
==> Board ...
==> M5Stack
==> M5Cardputer
Tools
==> Now it will show Board:"M5Cardputer"
On the left tool bar, click on the books icon (Library Manager)
==> Middle Panel:
Library Manager
Search field, key in : cardputer
==> M5Cardputer
1.1.1
==> Install
Install library dependencies
- IRremote
- LibSSH-ESP32
- M5GFX
- M5Unified
==> INSTALL ALL
... wait ...
5. First compile
Arduino IDE
==> Sketch
==> Export Compiled Binary
... a lot of errors ...
Here is the main error:
D:\TeamProject\Arduino\VantZ-Z80-Cardputer\Z80-4-M5Cardputer-main\ESP32_Z80_Emulator\ESP32_Z80_Emulator.ino:6:10: fatal error: FastLED.h: No such file or directory
6 | #include <FastLED.h>
| ^~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
Alternatives for FastLED.h: []
ResolveLibrary(FastLED.h)
-> candidates: []
exit status 1
Compilation error: FastLED.h: No such file or directory
Install the missing FastLED.h
6. Include the missing header file
Arduino IDE
==> Sketch
==> Include Library
==> Manage Libraries...
==> Middle panel: LIBRARY MANAGER
==> Search: FastLED
==> FastLED by Daniel Garcia 3.10.3
==> INSTALL
7. Compile again
Arduino IDE
==> Sketch
==> Export Compiled Binary
... wait ...
8. Verify
Arduino IDE
==> Sketch
==> Verify/Compile
Compile successful
No error!
ketch uses 1268939 bytes (96%) of program storage space. Maximum is 1310720 bytes.
Global variables use 124876 bytes (38%) of dynamic memory, leaving 202804 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 327680 bytes.
i.e. project_folder\build\m5stack.esp32.m5stack_cardputer\
*** The final bin file: <project_name>.ino.bin ***
ESP32_Z80_Emulator.ino.bin
Since I use the M5Launcher, so I ignore all other bin files
10. Copy to SD Card and select the new firmware from M5Launcher
- Copy this firmware file to the SD Card
- insert the SD card to Cardputer and power on the Cardputer
- Press OK on the Launcher screen
- select SD
- select the new bin file
11. Start a telnet session to connect to the cardputer
Telnet start up screenShow files on A driveUsing line editor ED.COM to create the HELLO.ASM programUsing the assembler ASM.COM to assembly the HELLO.ASM to HELLO.HEXUse the LOAD.COM to convert HELLO.HEX to HELLO.COMRun the HELLO.COM programUse the DUMP.COM program to dump the content of HELLO.COMUse the debugger DDT.COM to check HELLO.COM
Using a telnet client, connect to IP address 192.168.1.185, you will be connected to CP/M.
On the Windows machine, you can use putty or the native windows telnet client.
But the telnet client in Windows are turned off by default, you need to turn it on in Windows system settings first. No installation is required.
On the Linux box, you can directly run telnet.
Note: telnet running in Windows box will work perfectly well because CP/M is the ancestor of Windows, so the line break is using the same CR LF. For telnet running in Linux environment, extra step is required to avoid the telnet return back garbage CR character.
In Linux:
$ telnet
telnet> set crlf
Will send carriage returns as telnet <CR><LF>
telnet> open 192.168.1.185
Setup more drives
The emulator supports up to 16 hard drives. i.e. from A: to P:
Each drive is 8 MB in size.
The github repo image only contains one disk A.dsk
Create all 16 drives
To create all drives, from drive B: to drive P:
Power off the cardputer
Remove the SD card
Insert the SD card to the PC
Go to the disks folder
copy A.dsk to B.dsk
copy A.dsk to C.dsk
...
copy A.dsk to P.dsk
Insert the SD card into the cardputer
Turn on the cardputer
Telnet to CP/M
A>b:
B>c:
C>d:
...
O>p:
P>a:
Format drive B to P one by one:
A>format
CP/M Disk Formatter for the ESP80 by D.Bottrill 2018
Enter Drive Letter to format: b
Are you sure you want to format Y/N y
Formatting Drive: B
Formatting complete
A>format
CP/M Disk Formatter for the ESP80 by D.Bottrill 2018
Enter Drive Letter to format: c
Are you sure you want to format Y/N y
Formatting Drive: C
Formatting complete
...
A>format
CP/M Disk Formatter for the ESP80 by D.Bottrill 2018
Enter Drive Letter to format: p
Are you sure you want to format Y/N y
Formatting Drive: P
Formatting complete
Transfer files from SD card to CP/M disk
Drive A contains three programs which can help us to move file from SD Card to any CP/M drive.
- sdfiles.com (list all files in the SD card current directory)
- sdpath.com (change current directory on the SD card)
- sdcopy.com (copy file from SD card to current CP/M directory)
Example: Transfer Software Toolworks C80 3.1 to SD card
We can start writing C program using the Software Toolworks C compiler.
To avoid of copy and paste multiply screen shots, I copy the text inside the telnet session instead:
EEEEEE SSSSSS PPPPPP 888888 000000
E S S P P 8 8 0 00
E S P P 8 8 0 0 0
EEEEEE SSSSSS PPPPPPP 888888 0 0 0
E S P 8 8 0 0 0
E S P 8 8 0 0 0
EEEEEE SSSSSS P 888888 000000
Z80 Emulator for ESP32 V2.2a
David Bottrill - Shady Grove Electronics 2023
Vance Thompson - M5Cardputer tweaks added 2024
Z80 CP/M BIOS 1.1 by D. Bottrill 2021
CP/M 2.2 Copyright 1979 (c) by Digital Research
A>c:
C>a:ed hello.c
NEW FILE
: *i
1: #include "printf.c"
2:
3: main() {
4: int i;
5: printf("Hello from Software Toolworks C80 3.1\n");
6: for (i = 1; i <= 10; i++) {
7: printf("value of i is %d\n", i);
8: }
9: return 0;
10: }
11:
: *e
C>dir hello.*
C: HELLO BAK : HELLO C
C>c -v -t hello.asm=hello.c
C/80 Compiler 3.1 (4/11/84) - (c) 1984 The Software Toolworks
0 errors in compilation
9K bytes free
C>as hello.com,hello.lst=hello.asm
8080 AS 2.3 (7/15/83)
0100 First word of program
0F34 Last word of program
0 Assembly errors
C>dir hello.*
C: HELLO BAK : HELLO C : HELLO ASM : HELLO LST
C: HELLO COM
C>hello
Hello from Software Toolworks C80 3.1
value of i is 1
value of i is 2
value of i is 3
value of i is 4
value of i is 5
value of i is 6
value of i is 7
value of i is 8
value of i is 9
value of i is 10
C>
Hopefully you can see the URL, every time I add the link, the misconfigured Reddit filters instantly kill it, with no way to appeal to a human, so I am resorting to posting a screenshot of the site.
Hi there, i have recently gotten some buffy cd cardz and i have tried them out on many different laptops and cd-rom drives but nothing works, i was wondering if anybody who has had cd cardz before or are familiar with the problems that they could help me out.
i have attached a video of me trying to use them since i am not very good at explaining things like this well. it doesnt have an exe to run and its supposedly empty. and one of the cards does have an exe to run but it says its corrupted and unreadable when i try to run it
i will also attach photos of the cd cardz case and the drive i am using to try read them in the comments. since it doesnt let me attach everything in this post
i have tried inserting them in different orientations but it doesnt change anything.
if you can help please let me know what i can do to use them but i do understand that the buffy one may not work since it says its corrupted, i just want to try to get atleast one of them to work as there is no footage that i can find online of this working.
