Recent content by carlsson

The other year, I tried to build a PC to Apple II joystick adapter according to this schematic: http://apple2.org.za/gswv/a2zine/faqs/R029PCA2XRF.GIF As far as I can tell, the [4] and [5] on the PC joystick side really are GND lines misplaced on the diagram. When I plugged this adapter into my...

I am looking for a 5.25" full height front panel, ideally from a deceased hard drive but might consider one from a floppy drive too. It means I'm not looking for a complete hard drive or floppy drive unit, just the front panel. Too bad I traded away the last FH floppy drive panel I had in my...

A while ago I acquired an IBM RT 6151, the desktop model. The 6153 monitor doesn't seem to work, so I got ahold of a 8-bit ISA MDA card which allows me to see the system boots up allright into AIX. However I don't know the root or any other password. Is there some default that I could try? I...

Does anyone have insight in if, which and how floppy disk formats could be partially shared on the same floppy disk? When it comes to so-called flippies (single sided formats like Commodore, Atari, Apple, BBC Micro, very early IBM PC etc), it is rather trivial. Place the format that potentially...

I kind of like the Olivetti PC-1 (this is my specimen on the picture). While there were many all-in-one computers, both PC compatibles and others, most had a single floppy drive on the side. Olivetti in this design fitted two on the front, of which one could be exchanged for a hard drive as far...

One of my remaining PETs gives me sparkles and smoke. It is the one I previously lifted ROMs and big chips from to verify they all seem OK. I spotted the sparkles come from the diode rectifier (?) bridge in the power supply department, and planned to replace at least the four 1N5402 diodes that...

This past weekend, I decided to play around a little with my Philips P2000c, a "luggable" CP/M machine. Mine is a P2012 which means it is equipped with two 640K QD floppy drives. I got the impression those won't be able to read 160K disks, but since I haven't really tried I don't know if that is...

People sometimes report the ability to get a standard PC to take a 80 track floppy drive of the DD/QD variety, the ones that in native FAT12 format would hold 720K. I have a couple of suitable drives but so far have failed to get them to work as 80 track drives. Most specifically I have a...

Today I've had a PET day. I brought out two 3032 from the basement: one known working and one labeled as "emits smoke". Emits smoke was an understatement. The four big diodes on the power supply part of the motherboard were crackling, smell really badly and have almost corroded all the solder...

I found an article in the magazine InfoWorld, December 1982 about the Japanese computer manufacturer Sord about to enter the US market. What confuses me is they would do it under a different brand name, Socius. See pages 1 and 5. http://books.google.se/books?id=FzAEAAAAMBAJ After further...

I have posted my SWTPC PR-40 printer on the Vintage Computer and Gaming Marketplace. http://marketplace.vintage-computer.com/auction_details.php?auction_id=109253 The auction runs for 14 days. Feel free to spread the word to other forums, mailing lists etc where there may be interested bidders.

Yay, another PET thread! ;-) In this thread, I will summarize the results of checking both Stèphane's and Alex' ROM sets. Both sent me two sets of ROMs: * Stèphane sent me the Basic V2 ROMs (FR) that were present on the motherboard I sold him + Dave's 2532 EPROM's with Basic V2 (DME) sent...

Last year, I set up one of my PET's in a Christmas spirit. I used this picture to send Christmas cards to a few of my friends around the world. I am considering doing it again, perhaps even one better. The actual PET in the picture has been sold, but I've got plenty of other machines to use...

After plenty of tips from Mike Brutman, I almost managed to connect to the Internet with two of my vintage PC's. First I have an Olivetti Prodest PC-1 that eventually got to boot DOS but which the Xircom packet driver doesn't detect my Xircom adapter in the parallel port. Then I managed to boot...

Regarding the chips, I can't tell if they're on the post box or not.