Home designed ? ? ?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homedesigned (More info?)

I was just wondering of anyone else in this newsgroup is actually interested
in, or actually making, any truly 'home designed' computer hardware ? By
this I mean as opposed to 'home built' (different newsgroup) where the
standard PC design model is followed with maybe some slight changes made to
the casing. The rest just being an assemblage off standard 'off the shelf'
commercial boards running ready made software (I'm thinking system software
here - op system or monitor). Does anyone here actually 'design' and make
any part of their hardware at all ?
Somewhat different to the old 8-bit days where you might actually be
designing your own circuits, etching the boards, soldering in the chips
(well, solder the chip sockets, anyway) and then re-write the CP/M I/O
routines to run on your own hardware.
Or has so-called 'progress' turned us all in assemblers of pre-fabricated
parts ?
Kevin.

 

[Philo]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homedesigned (More info?)

Kevin Lawton wrote:
> I was just wondering of anyone else in this newsgroup is actually interested
> in, or actually making, any truly 'home designed' computer hardware ? By
> this I mean as opposed to 'home built' (different newsgroup) where the
> standard PC design model is followed with maybe some slight changes made to
> the casing. The rest just being an assemblage off standard 'off the shelf'
> commercial boards running ready made software (I'm thinking system software
> here - op system or monitor). Does anyone here actually 'design' and make
> any part of their hardware at all ?
> Somewhat different to the old 8-bit days where you might actually be
> designing your own circuits, etching the boards, soldering in the chips
> (well, solder the chip sockets, anyway) and then re-write the CP/M I/O
> routines to run on your own hardware.
> Or has so-called 'progress' turned us all in assemblers of pre-fabricated
> parts ?
> Kevin.
>
>
>
guess i'm pretty much of an old-timer. back when i was a kid and built
ham-radio equipment...we had to drill holes in a chasis and wind our own
coils etc...
now days ...home made equipment is little more than merely assembling
pre-made components...
if i drill a few holes in the case and add an extra fan...that probably
qualifies as a major modification <g>

what i personally like to do...is take an old case...
such as a 286 or maybe a 486 and build a newer machine...
however due to the form-factor...i'm pretty mcuh stuck with super-socket7.

i think a real project for me would be to take this nice gateway2000
case i have from a 486-33 and modify it to take and ATX form-factor
board and build an XP2500+ or such...

it would require a bit of metalwork...kind of like the old days

(don't know if i'm up to it though)

philo

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homedesigned (More info?)

philo <philo@privacy.net> wrote:
| Kevin Lawton wrote:
|| I was just wondering of anyone else in this newsgroup is actually
|| interested in, or actually making, any truly 'home designed'
|| computer hardware ? By this I mean as opposed to 'home built'
|| (different newsgroup) where the standard PC design model is followed
|| with maybe some slight changes made to the casing. The rest just
|| being an assemblage off standard 'off the shelf' commercial boards
|| running ready made software (I'm thinking system software here - op
|| system or monitor). Does anyone here actually 'design' and make any
|| part of their hardware at all ?
|| Somewhat different to the old 8-bit days where you might actually be
|| designing your own circuits, etching the boards, soldering in the
|| chips (well, solder the chip sockets, anyway) and then re-write the
|| CP/M I/O routines to run on your own hardware.
|| Or has so-called 'progress' turned us all in assemblers of
|| pre-fabricated parts ?
|| Kevin.
||
| guess i'm pretty much of an old-timer. back when i was a kid and built
| ham-radio equipment...we had to drill holes in a chasis and wind our
| own coils etc...
| now days ...home made equipment is little more than merely assembling
| pre-made components...
| if i drill a few holes in the case and add an extra fan...that
| probably qualifies as a major modification <g>
|
| what i personally like to do...is take an old case...
| such as a 286 or maybe a 486 and build a newer machine...
| however due to the form-factor...i'm pretty mcuh stuck with
| super-socket7.
|
| i think a real project for me would be to take this nice gateway2000
| case i have from a 486-33 and modify it to take and ATX form-factor
| board and build an XP2500+ or such...
|
| it would require a bit of metalwork...kind of like the old days

Yeah - there's something a little cool about seeing an apparently
museum-piece box performing like the latest leading-edge ones. I have an old
original IBM PC dating from 1982. I still have all of the original parts,
and they all work (cassette interface included). Ten years ago I had it
running a 40 MHz 386 SX on a mini-AT m./board. The big modification was
getting the ISA I/O card slots to line up at the back of the case. Currently
it runs a Duron 1200 on a micro-ATX m/board. As I've fitted black-faced
drives, it looks much the same as the day it was made to a casual glance. It
runs Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS 6.2 at a fair old pace as well !
I've also got a couple of old ACT Sirius machines - similar in looks and
layout to the old IBM PC, but pre-dating it by a year or so. The non-working
one will be getting similar treatment - but will be running either a late
version of CP/M or maybe Linux, so that it 'looks' appropriate. Might also
do something with one of the ACT Apricots as well.
And then there's the PC keyboard and joystick interface (hey - something
which I made myself) built into a Commodore C-64 case, 'secretly' connected
to a modern PC running a C-64 emulator. Might do the same with a Sinclair
Spectrum as well.
It's a good laugh when a friend comes round with their latest case-modded
3GHz monster and it fails to beat the performance of one of my old 'museum
pieces'.
Oh yes - I also have a modern monitor built into the nice polished wood
cabinet of a 1950's television set. I'm thinking of building-in to it a PC
with a hidden DVD drive (it has a little door you open to access all the old
adjustments like 'vertical hold'). It should cause a few interesting
comments at least.
Kevin.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homedesigned (More info?)

Kevin Lawton wrote:
> I was just wondering of anyone else in this newsgroup is actually interested
> in, or actually making, any truly 'home designed' computer hardware ? By
> this I mean as opposed to 'home built' (different newsgroup) where the
> standard PC design model is followed with maybe some slight changes made to
> the casing. The rest just being an assemblage off standard 'off the shelf'
> commercial boards running ready made software (I'm thinking system software
> here - op system or monitor). Does anyone here actually 'design' and make
> any part of their hardware at all ?
> Somewhat different to the old 8-bit days where you might actually be
> designing your own circuits, etching the boards, soldering in the chips
> (well, solder the chip sockets, anyway) and then re-write the CP/M I/O
> routines to run on your own hardware.
> Or has so-called 'progress' turned us all in assemblers of pre-fabricated
> parts ?
> Kevin.
>
>
>
Aquarium tank, computer, with live fish!
http://www.nobispro.com/aquatank/

 

[Philo]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homedesigned (More info?)

> Yeah - there's something a little cool about seeing an apparently
> museum-piece box performing like the latest leading-edge ones. I have an old
> original IBM PC dating from 1982. I still have all of the original parts,
> and they all work (cassette interface included). Ten years ago I had it
> running a 40 MHz 386 SX on a mini-AT m./board. The big modification was
> getting the ISA I/O card slots to line up at the back of the case. Currently
> it runs a Duron 1200 on a micro-ATX m/board. As I've fitted black-faced
> drives, it looks much the same as the day it was made to a casual glance. It
> runs Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS 6.2 at a fair old pace as well !
> I've also got a couple of old ACT Sirius machines - similar in looks and
> layout to the old IBM PC, but pre-dating it by a year or so. The non-working
> one will be getting similar treatment - but will be running either a late
> version of CP/M or maybe Linux, so that it 'looks' appropriate. Might also
> do something with one of the ACT Apricots as well.
> And then there's the PC keyboard and joystick interface (hey - something
> which I made myself) built into a Commodore C-64 case, 'secretly' connected
> to a modern PC running a C-64 emulator. Might do the same with a Sinclair
> Spectrum as well.
> It's a good laugh when a friend comes round with their latest case-modded
> 3GHz monster and it fails to beat the performance of one of my old 'museum
> pieces'.
> Oh yes - I also have a modern monitor built into the nice polished wood
> cabinet of a 1950's television set. I'm thinking of building-in to it a PC
> with a hidden DVD drive (it has a little door you open to access all the old
> adjustments like 'vertical hold'). It should cause a few interesting
> comments at least.
> Kevin.
>
>
>

wow! pretty impressive...
now i know that i'll be modifying that old 486-33 some day...
my backup machine is an amd-450 built into an old 486 case.

btw: here's a good one...
i have an EGA monitor that i got working with win9x.

i saw some guy on ebay selling an (updated mobo) IBM XT
with and EGA monitor...but it was running win98.
(and he did not reveal his secret)
so i thought i'd give it a try but found it impossible to install win9x
with an EGA video card in the machine...

however...using a standard VGA video board...i decided to do a driver
"update" and selected "have disk"
then put in my win3x disk1 and selected and installed EGA drivers.

i was then able to put in an EGA card in place of the VGA and actually
use it ...for novelty purposes only

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homedesigned (More info?)

philo <philo@privacy.net> wrote:
|| Yeah - there's something a little cool about seeing an apparently
|| museum-piece box performing like the latest leading-edge ones. I
|| have an old original IBM PC dating from 1982. I still have all of
|| the original parts, and they all work (cassette interface included).
|| Ten years ago I had it running a 40 MHz 386 SX on a mini-AT
|| m./board. The big modification was getting the ISA I/O card slots to
|| line up at the back of the case. Currently it runs a Duron 1200 on a
|| micro-ATX m/board. As I've fitted black-faced drives, it looks much
|| the same as the day it was made to a casual glance. It runs Windows
|| 3.1 and MS-DOS 6.2 at a fair old pace as well !
|| I've also got a couple of old ACT Sirius machines - similar in looks
|| and layout to the old IBM PC, but pre-dating it by a year or so. The
|| non-working one will be getting similar treatment - but will be
|| running either a late version of CP/M or maybe Linux, so that it
|| 'looks' appropriate. Might also do something with one of the ACT
|| Apricots as well.
|| And then there's the PC keyboard and joystick interface (hey -
|| something which I made myself) built into a Commodore C-64 case,
|| 'secretly' connected to a modern PC running a C-64 emulator. Might
|| do the same with a Sinclair Spectrum as well.
|| It's a good laugh when a friend comes round with their latest
|| case-modded 3GHz monster and it fails to beat the performance of one
|| of my old 'museum pieces'.
|| Oh yes - I also have a modern monitor built into the nice polished
|| wood cabinet of a 1950's television set. I'm thinking of building-in
|| to it a PC with a hidden DVD drive (it has a little door you open to
|| access all the old adjustments like 'vertical hold'). It should
|| cause a few interesting comments at least.
|| Kevin.
|
| wow! pretty impressive...
| now i know that i'll be modifying that old 486-33 some day...
| my backup machine is an amd-450 built into an old 486 case.
|
| btw: here's a good one...
| i have an EGA monitor that i got working with win9x.
|
| i saw some guy on ebay selling an (updated mobo) IBM XT
| with and EGA monitor...but it was running win98.
| (and he did not reveal his secret)
| so i thought i'd give it a try but found it impossible to install
| win9x
| with an EGA video card in the machine...
|
| however...using a standard VGA video board...i decided to do a driver
| "update" and selected "have disk"
| then put in my win3x disk1 and selected and installed EGA drivers.
|
| i was then able to put in an EGA card in place of the VGA and actually
| use it ...for novelty purposes only

That's an idea I'd not thought of before, but can't imagine why - install on
modern hardware and then do a 'downgrade'.
Usefull for me as it now means that I can bring back into service a very
high quality / high resolution monochrome monitor and matching video cards I
bought just before colour monitors became affordable. It has only been used
for a few months from new. Fortunately, I have a m/board which has the
required two ISA slots but also supports quite fast Athlons - up to a 1.4
GHz Thunderbird, anyway.
I'd be carefull of relying on that old EGA monitor - particularly if it has
seen a lot of use. The capacitors used in some of the circuits inside
monitors and television sets have a habit of failing with age - most likely
somewhere between 10 and 20 years. Parts can be replaced, but it is time
consuming. I'd guess your EGA monitor is in the 'danger zone'. I also have a
little collection of vintage Hi-Fi, and most of the older pieces have needed
'capacitor replacement surgery'.
Kevin.

 

[Philo]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homedesigned (More info?)

> That's an idea I'd not thought of before, but can't imagine why - install
on
> modern hardware and then do a 'downgrade'.
> Usefull for me as it now means that I can bring back into service a very
> high quality / high resolution monochrome monitor and matching video cards
I
> bought just before colour monitors became affordable. It has only been
used
> for a few months from new. Fortunately, I have a m/board which has the
> required two ISA slots but also supports quite fast Athlons - up to a 1.4
> GHz Thunderbird, anyway.
> I'd be carefull of relying on that old EGA monitor - particularly if it
has
> seen a lot of use. The capacitors used in some of the circuits inside
> monitors and television sets have a habit of failing with age - most
likely
> somewhere between 10 and 20 years. Parts can be replaced, but it is time
> consuming. I'd guess your EGA monitor is in the 'danger zone'. I also have
a
> little collection of vintage Hi-Fi, and most of the older pieces have
needed
> 'capacitor replacement surgery'.
> Kevin.


the image size on the EGA monitor was too poor to be really
usable...
something like 320 X 240 ?

at any rate...it's back up in the attic...
along with a lot of my vacuum tube equipment !

 

[Philo]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homedesigned (More info?)

>>
>
> wow! pretty impressive...
> now i know that i'll be modifying that old 486-33 some day...
> my backup machine is an amd-450 built into an old 486 case.
>



all right...
i did a bit of metalwork today and re-cased my AMD-1200

into one of those spare gateway2000 cases i had

now i have 2 "matching" machines in those gateway cases....


it took a bit of sawing...but the whole thing only took a couple of hours!

 

[Philo]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homedesigned (More info?)

www.plazaearth.com/philo/gateway.jpg

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homedesigned (More info?)

philo <philo@privacy.net> wrote:
|| wow! pretty impressive...
|| now i know that i'll be modifying that old 486-33 some day...
|| my backup machine is an amd-450 built into an old 486 case.
|
| all right...
| i did a bit of metalwork today and re-cased my AMD-1200
|
| into one of those spare gateway2000 cases i had
|
| now i have 2 "matching" machines in those gateway cases....
|
| it took a bit of sawing...but the whole thing only took a couple of
| hours!

I see you're using some of those rempovable HDD racks. How do you find the
reliability ?
I used to use them a lot, but gave them up as the connectors seemed to wear
out quite quickly - so I would get spurious disk errors. The HDs inside them
seemed to get quite hot as well.
Kevin.

 

[Philo]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homedesigned (More info?)

> I see you're using some of those rempovable HDD racks. How do you find the
> reliability ?
> I used to use them a lot, but gave them up as the connectors seemed to
wear
> out quite quickly - so I would get spurious disk errors. The HDs inside
them
> seemed to get quite hot as well.
> Kevin.


I'm using the "cheapies" and they work fine for me...
the only problem is that quite a few of the fans got noisy .
(but i have plenty of spares)

Out of the hundreds of times I;ve plugged them in or out...
only a couple of times did I have problems with a drive not quite being
seated correctly.

I have at least 20 harddrives between my two machines..and find those
caddies
quite useful.

I can test new software on an "expendable" drive and then decide if I want
to
use it or not...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homedesigned (More info?)

philo <philo@privacy.net> wrote:
|| I see you're using some of those rempovable HDD racks. How do you
|| find the reliability ?
|| I used to use them a lot, but gave them up as the connectors seemed
|| to wear out quite quickly - so I would get spurious disk errors. The
|| HDs inside them seemed to get quite hot as well.
|| Kevin.
|
| I'm using the "cheapies" and they work fine for me...
| the only problem is that quite a few of the fans got noisy .
| (but i have plenty of spares)
|
| Out of the hundreds of times I;ve plugged them in or out...
| only a couple of times did I have problems with a drive not quite
| being seated correctly.
|
| I have at least 20 harddrives between my two machines..and find those
| caddies
| quite useful.
|
| I can test new software on an "expendable" drive and then decide if I
| want to
| use it or not...

Yes, I agree that they're dead usefull - even more so if your machines are
so similar that you can take a boot drive from one machine and use it in
another.
Can I ask what make of hard drive caddy you've been using ? - and are they
only ATA-33 compatible (ie: no 80-way connectors for faster IDE busses).
Kevin.

 

[Philo]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homedesigned (More info?)

> Yes, I agree that they're dead usefull - even more so if your machines are
> so similar that you can take a boot drive from one machine and use it in
> another.
> Can I ask what make of hard drive caddy you've been using ? - and are
they
> only ATA-33 compatible (ie: no 80-way connectors for faster IDE busses).
> Kevin.
>
>
>

most of my operating systems will only boot in *one* of my machines...
although dos and win3x don't seem to care...

most of the caddies have the name "databridge" on them
but i don't have any specific info as to model number...
the big problem is that if you order some...
then next time you order...you may not get the same type...
so i've had to do a lot of trading with friends.
most of the caddies i've either purchsed from tigerdirect
or locally

some of the caddies have 40wire...but most are 80 wire.

i use the 40 wire caddies for those older drives (200meg - 2gig or so)

and try to reserve the 80 wire versions for my newer drives


philo