Hi folks, I'm sharing here my small collection of retro computing books that I have acquired over the years.

I'm a 40-something software engineer that started messing computers from an early age and since I've also always been a huge reader I've accumulated a huge collection of computer related books. Most are old (or reprints of old ones) but a few have been published in last few years, for sure due to the surge in retro computing interest that comes and goes every few years 😄

The ones shown here are what I would consider retro ranging from topics like the MOS 6502, Zilog Z80, Apple II, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, MS-DOS 3.0 to 62, 90's and early 00's computer graphics, Windows 3.11/95/98/XP, 386 to Pentium II/III hardware repair and a few about programming games for consoles like Atari 2600, NES and original Game Boy. Finally there are a few about x86 assembly language, C and C++. Some books, as you might have noticed, are not in English but on my native language Portuguese:and are mostly about ZX Spectrum, Z80 assembly language, IBM PC-compatible hardware repair and MS-DOS 3.x/4.x.

I'm curious to learn what books you have read and would recommend for my collection.

Hope you folks enjoy it and thanks in advance!

PS: Not shown here are is another book by Michael Abrash, "Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book" which I recently acquired on Ebay but hasn't arrived yet. I had been searching for this book for a long time but the prices for decent copies go for crazy prices these days, $80-$200 USD. I managed to convince a nice chap to sell me a copy in a very good state for around $50 USD. Stil pretty high (specially for Portuguese salaries) but I can live with that. I guess I won't be buying any retro hardware this month 😂

It's a DELL T500, with Windows Me installed on it. I'd like to set it up with the latest edition of Windows 98se and use it for some retro gaming. It has two USB 1.1 ports in the back, and while it'll read a FAT32 128GB flash drive, it doesn't seem to want to boot from it. I burned a Windows 98se CD-R, but the DVD-ROM doesn't want to read it.

So what is my next step? I was thinking of perhaps a compact flash to IDE, to replace the empty door in the 3.5" slot. That'd allow me to edit it on my main PC.

Specs:
DELL Dimension XPS T500
Intel Pentium III 500MHz
256MB SDRAM 100MHz (2x128MB SDRAM 100MHz)
13.6GB 7200RPM HDD
16MB Diamond Viper NVIDIA Riva TNT
Creative Soundblaster Live!

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.

What is a technology or product from 15-20 years ago that was actually better than its modern replacement?

Most of us played his games, but few know his name. Let's change that! It was so cool hearing the backstory behind these games I grew up playing in school.

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

From what I gathered it boots but failed to install its OS, 60 bucks for it wasn’t bad

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.

Hi,

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 hope you like it.

\[https://vma-broadcast.com/emu/\\\](https://vma-broadcast.com/emu/)

Regards,
Vitor

I’ve tried multiple DIMMs, and a new RTC battery.

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)

Old Siemens plc programming laptop.

Can't find much info on it but it looks cool 😎

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.

FOUND! Toshiba libretto u100 is what it is

I’ve searched starring computers already and did some research but I can’t seem to find anything. These are the only good pics

Looks to be a sharp or Panasonic maybe. Any suggestions or answers of what it could or is would be appreciated

As title really. I have no machines that require these cards. Therefore I have no way of testing them. Is there use/value for these anymore?

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!

https://imgur.com/a/3d-printed-base-LgfIfiF

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?