[rescue] Various

[Jeffrey Nonken]

Well, let's see.

First of all, I dug out all my MFM drives and my ESDI drive and ran some
tests. Ironically enough, the only two drives I could get working were the
two Mitsubishi drives. You know, the ones with the head sticktion problem.
Even the ESDI drive didn't work.

Very odd, but I guess it's no great loss.

Actually, there are two drives I didn't test, but that's because they have
no buffered seek and therefore won't work on anything from an AT on up.
That would be the Rodime RO204 and the Tandon TM603SE.

I also found I have two VLB 80486 motherboards that I'd forgotten about.
Therefore I was able to test my VLB cards. Both work. I've already promised
the one to somebody for the cost of shipping. I haven't decided what to do
with the mobos or the other card; I'm considering selling them on eBay for
whatever I can get (plus shipping).

I have an Intel Slot something motherboard that Koyote gave me with the Sun
stuff. Looks like it'll take a PII to 450 MHz or PIII up to 600 MHz or a
Deceleron up to 433, but I'd have to buy one to find out. Might make a nice
little system. But I think I need the cash more than I need another nice
little system, tempting though it is.

I've got a Duron socket whatever processor but no (working) motherboard for
it. The processor works. (OK, I DO have a working motherboard. Except that
I have an Athlon 1.333 in that motherboard.)

I'm not giving my my 80286-16. Works great, I did the MFM drive tests on
it. I'm also not planning to give up my IMSAI-8080 any time soon.

I've got a couple working MFM contollers, and two RLL controllers that may
or may not work. At least, they failed consistently with the only RLL drive
I've got. I should look up the jumper settings just to make sure. I should
also test the drive in MFM mode, come to think.

I've got multi-I/O cards coming out of my ears, and at least two 1200 or
2400 bps MODEM cards.



Hey, I did a rescue today! I found two new-looking PS/2 keyboards and a
cheap speaker set on the curb, and three power cables. Big rescue. :)


I recently tried to buy a 4MB VSIMM on eBay (for my SS20) and got sent an
NVSIMM instead. As far as I can tell, the NVSIMM is totally useless. The
guy says he's sending me an 8MB VSIMM. I'll believe it when I see it,
though. This guy has a good rating overall; over 3000 sales and only about
48 bad feedbacks. However, after I got the wrong part, I started reading
the feedbacks. I note that most of them claim "FRAUD!" outright or say he
either shipped the wrong part or never shipped. I note that in this case,
he sold a fairly popular item for a low price ($10) and substituted
something that's totally useless. I see a pattern here, but I'll give him a
chance to make good.

Meantime I've ordered another VSIMM from eBay, and this guy is slow to
respond. Seems like it's not my lucky month.

*sigh*

Anybody got a job for me? :/


Anybody got the specs for an Hitachi 51W16165LTT6? The part number matches
the patterns I see in the current parts list, but I can't find that
particular part on their web site, or in the Orcad library, or in my
(admittedly very old) IC Master. From the application, I'm conjecturing
that it's a DRAM.



Speaking of which, I've got three IC Masters, the newest is 20 years old.
Should I just drop them in the paper recycle?

---
They say that behind every big man you'll find a big behind. -Elliot Maxx