Jump to content

pete_w

 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    90

  • Joined

  • Days Won

    4

 Content Type 

Posts posted by pete_w

  7. Latest x86 Project - The Amstrad 1512 PC

    in x86

    Posted

    19 hours ago, dad said:

    I had one and loved it!  Cost me £40 and a few days later had to get it in for repair due to a 'parity' error, but after that it worked perfectly :)  A bit later I upgraded to the 1640 with a 20MD (yes 20MB) hard drive and a whopping 8 colours.  I also installed my first 8 bit sound card and couldn't believe how good it was!

    HAPPY DAYS!

    Me too, i had one back in around 1992 or so, had a 20 mb hardcard its previous owner had fitted, which was slow but good enough, used that until i got a 486 around 1995 or so. Was slow but reliable. paid around £30 for it

  8. Latest x86 Project - The Amstrad 1512 PC

    in x86

    Posted · Edited by pete_w

    I have recently picked up an old Amstrad 1512 PC to restore. These were the first ever PCs under £500 that came out in 1986

    These had an 8086 cpu, 512kb RAM and come with 2x 360k 5 1.4 floppy drives, one of which i will replace with a Gotek

    I plan to upgrade the ram to 640k, install an XT IDE Compact Flash card and add a network and sound card

     

    20211223_093456.jpeg

    • Like 2

  9. Zeos Pocket Computer

    in x86

    Posted

    This little DOS Handheld PC is from 1992

    IMG_20211023_104935.thumb.jpeg.1062e2bfe4ba2b937f4bdd2a6b401228.jpeg

     

    Specs

    CPU:NEC V30 (80C86) @ 4.77MHz / 7.15MHz

    RAM:640K system memory

    Display:7.0 x 2.75-inch LCD

    80x25 text, 640x200 graphics

    Ports:mini-serial, mini-parallel

    Expansion:two PCMCIA card slots

    OS:MS-DOS 5.0 in ROM

    I have a working 2mb SRAM Card for it, which goes in a PCMCIA slot and a network card, which i haven't set up yet

    IMG_20211015_114629.jpg

    IMG_20211023_104144.jpg

    IMG_20211023_104210.jpg

    • Like 1
    • Awesome 1

  10. Zenith Supersport ZWL-184-97 Laptop

    in x86

    Posted

    As some of you may know I collect and restore vintage laptops so thought I would share some of them here. Starting with the Zenith Supersport ZWL-184-97, this one is a British Telecom branded version from 1987 or so

    IMG_20211022_134659.thumb.jpg.dcb1b81215bf2837beb5327c2a2b1390.jpg

    IMG_20211022_134705.thumb.jpg.e4f8298a16b34539fc95709519692624.jpgIMG_20211022_134709.jpeg.2930a9cf3e75666f4d68f8285221d70f.jpeg

    Original Specs

    1 Floppy Drive (720kB)

    1 Internal 3.5" Hard Drive (20MB)

    Internal 2400Baud Modem

    Extended battery pack (originally lasted up to 7 hours, still working)

    80C88-2 CPU at 4.77/8Mhz

    640kb RAM

    640x200 CGA Monochrome display (Blue/White)

    Full Size Keyboard

    The HDD is dead and is a rare proprietory MFM/RLL one so i have removed it (reduced the weight quite a bit lol)

    I replaced the floppy drive with a Gotek Floppy Emulator, the machine works with the 2.5 Mb DD floppy images supported by the gotek so a decent substitute. I have also got a 100mb Parallel zip drive working as well

    IMG_20211011_180928.jpg

    IMG_20211011_111348.jpg

    IMG_20211013_132406.jpg

    IMG_20211013_132553.jpg

    IMG_20211013_132823.jpg

    IMG_20211013_132911.jpg

    IMG_20211013_133457.jpg

    IMG_20211017_120601.jpg

    ZDS SupersPort - Service Manual.pdf

    • Like 3

  12. Using the Internet on old Computers

    in x86

    Posted

    One of my hobbies is fixing and playing old laptops from the 80s/90s. Trying to surf the internet on these is nigh on impossible these days of course. However help is at hand.

    First of all we have http://www.frogfind.com - This converts a large number of todays websites to just text and images so they load quickly and tidily on old computers e.g. http://www.frogfind.com/read.php?a=https://retrogamecoders.com/mister-fpga-tutorial-getting-started-with-mister/ - not very good with forums though for obvious reasons but apart from that its very readable

    then we have https://theoldnet.com/ - This uses archive.org and others to do a search on whatever year you specify, including a proxy where you specify the port as a year and it will base searches on it

    No network card on the device but have a serial port no problem, use a raspberry pi to create a fake "dial up proxy" - https://metalbabble.wordpress.com/2020/02/08/the-final-frontier-connecting-a-macintosh-se-to-the-internet-with-a-raspberry-pi/ 

    Other ideas, you can create a proxy server using https://github.com/tenox7/wrp - this uses the chrome engine on a server which then sends the page back to the browser as a GIF or PNG file along with image mapping so it can respond to your clicks.

    For slightly newer browsers there is the much better https://github.com/ttalvitie/browservice - this needs a slightly newer browser (mostly windows biased) but is much faster and uses javascript on the client end so is more flexible for input.

    Other sites include http://68k.news/ - which is a text only version of Google News, which also converts the linked articles to text.

    • Like 2

  23. Whats hapened to MPUMecca?

    in General FME Chat

    Posted

    On 02/08/2018 at 23:48, Ploggy said:

    Huge thanks for doing all the forums' background work, mate.  Keeping all the forums up-to-date must be a pain, so massive thanks for doing the neccessaries for all this time. :)

    I don't know if Fruit Forums is on the same setup as all the other forums, but it's down for me.  I know folks hardly ever post there anymore, but I thought I would let you know that it's down.  Are there any plans on bringing back the old FME Archive site?  It's been offline for years.

     

     

    I've not got round to putting it back up yet :) - FME Archive is planned but will take a bit of work now to update it to a modern forums version so will have to wait a while

×
×
  • Create New...