Ltning

@ltning@weirdr.net

He/him. This is one of my alter egos in the retro world. Read about this instance on front page. My goal is to be able to post here from a 286* running DOS. Might be a while..

and enthusiast with a craving for retro (mostly PC) hardware. Four kids and a wonderful patchwork family.

*Speaking of 286es: http://floppy.museum/

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Ltning »
@ltning@weirdr.net

So as usual, its eBay to the rescue. Found a board just like it, except there's good news and bad news: the good news is the CPU is socketed on this one, making the upgrade job a lot easier.

The bad news? See picture.

Zoomed-in picture of the new mainboard, showing green gunk on the board itself and in the RAM sockets. Yuck!

Alt...Zoomed-in picture of the new mainboard, showing green gunk on the board itself and in the RAM sockets. Yuck!

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    1 ★ 0 ↺

    Ltning »
    @ltning@weirdr.net

    I'm a bit of a n00b at this, but I have salvaged a couple of boards before using vinegar and a toothbrush, so I'm trying my luck with that. After applying the vinegar and watching, hearing and smelling it sizzling, I dunk the affected part thoroughly for a few minutes...

    Kitchen paper dunked in 12% vinegar, placed on the affected part of the motherboard to allow the vinegar to do its magic without disappearing into thin air.

    Alt...Kitchen paper dunked in 12% vinegar, placed on the affected part of the motherboard to allow the vinegar to do its magic without disappearing into thin air.

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      Network == Abstraction Layer boosted

      Ltning »
      @ltning@weirdr.net

      And I know one should not apply regular water to electronics, but I'm trusting Oslo Waterworks to supply me with nice, clean water from the tap. It comes at high pressure to boot, so I can quickly get rid of all the vinegar to prevent it from slowly eating through everything. As long as I dry it properly and quickly, it should be fine, I'm told.

      I said I was baking - It was not a randomly chosen term.

      The mainboard is literally in the oven! 60 degrees Celcius in hot air-mode for, say, an hour or so should do, I guess.

      Alt...The mainboard is literally in the oven! 60 degrees Celcius in hot air-mode for, say, an hour or so should do, I guess.

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        3 ★ 1 ↺
        Network == Abstraction Layer boosted

        Ltning »
        @ltning@weirdr.net

        And it lives! Apparently I'm officially operating a Motherboard Bakery! :)
        Now I need to get it properly configured and tested with DOS, then I can move on to the next steps - which involve the CPU upgrade, and assuming that works, creating actual, physical floppies.

        (In other news, the instance on this poor Pentium Pro server is sweating hard whenever I post something. So let me know at @ltning@anduin.net if you have problems receiving/reading my posts. I've made some tweaks but it will be unavoidably detained for a while following each post, my apologies for that..)


        Picture of BIOS during boot. It's a 1990 American Megatrends BIOS, for the TD60C board, BIOS version 2.42B. It shows a 20MHz CPU clock and 15872 KB RAM tested OK.

        Alt...Picture of BIOS during boot. It's a 1990 American Megatrends BIOS, for the TD60C board, BIOS version 2.42B. It shows a 20MHz CPU clock and 15872 KB RAM tested OK.

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          Headbanger75 boosted

          Ltning »
          @ltning@weirdr.net

          Herewith, the actual machine. Some specs ..
          - Motherboard: Zida TD60C
          - CPU: Harris 286 28MHz
          - RAM: 16MB "RainbowRAM", 55ns (check out the LEDs!)
          - Graphics: Cirrus Logic CL-GD5422, 1MB
          - Network: 3com EtherLink III (3c509)
          - Floppy: 2-in-1 90mm (3.5") and 1.2" floppy drive
          - Storage: Promise DC200M caching IDE controller, 2.5MB cache
          - SCSI: Sound Blaster 16 SCSI :D


          Dark-ish picture showing motherboard mounted horizontally on a transparent acrylic surface. Underneath a combined 5.25 inch and 90mm floppy drive. The installed RAM lights up in different colours, four sticks with blue, purpole organge and yellow LEDs, respectively. VGA, network and sound cards are also visible.

          Alt...Dark-ish picture showing motherboard mounted horizontally on a transparent acrylic surface. Underneath a combined 5.25 inch and 90mm floppy drive. The installed RAM lights up in different colours, four sticks with blue, purpole organge and yellow LEDs, respectively. VGA, network and sound cards are also visible.

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            Network == Abstraction Layer »
            @overunderlay@bsd.network

            @ltning any 286 over 16mhz is a unicorn!
            Great find!

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