TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[lexluthermiester]

You know they made GUI programs for DOS. I still have one.

Until Windows, I have never seen one for PC. Even then it wasn't impressive until Windows 3. IMHO, Commodore had the clear advantage in GUI OSes.
(No, I do NOT count Apple MacOS as the early Macs were only Black & White screens, but were also pathetically small. I'm also NOT one of those people who look back fondly at CGA/EGA.)

 

[Ruru]

Is it too bad that I got really into PCs in 2003 so I don't have much DOS experience..?

It's enough for me that I know how to use a motherboard/graphics card bios flasher..

 

[Audioave10]

Crucial got rid of the Ballistix name about 2 months ago - I don't understand it. I've never yet had a failure.

 

[80-watt Hamster]

Is it too bad that I got really into PCs in 2003 so I don't have much DOS experience..?

It's enough for me that I know how to use a motherboard/graphics card bios flasher..

No; MS-DOS kinda sucked. UNIX-likes are a much better CLI experience, as is the CLI in modern Windows. OS/2 was supposedly similar-but-superior to MS-DOS. I've no experience with it, though.

Crucial got rid of the Ballistix name about 2 months ago - I don't understand it. I've never yet had a failure.

Too many cheap competitors in the "gamer" space, maybe? One seems to pop up every other month.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Is it too bad that I got really into PCs in 2003 so I don't have much DOS experience..?

Not at all. Everyone starts their experience with technology at different times. It's all good. Trust me, you didn't miss out on much.

UNIX-likes are a much better CLI experience, as is the CLI in modern Windows.

Yeah, but it's still CLI... The CLI is for nitty-gritty work, not for enjoyment and relaxing.

 

[Ruru]

Not at all. Everyone starts their experience with technology at different times. It's all good. Trust me, you didn't miss out on much.

Tho I had 98SE on my first "gaming PC" then and its HDD wasn't fully partioned I successfully got the rest usable using fdisk.

I had PII400 @ 450, 160MB, Asus P2B, GF2 MX & SB Live! 5.1 Digital (bought that new in 2004) then ran Diablo II hella fine even with Winamp in background..

 

[Audioave10]

I know the feeling! I went from a VIC20 in 1981 to nothing for 20 years. My first (again) was 2001 with a Pentium MMX 233 Sony VIO with TV out.
That might have been an ATI All-in-Wonder card. I don't even know. Windows 98.

 

[Ruru]

I know the feeling! I went from a VIC20 in 1981 to nothing for 20 years. My first (again) was 2001 with a Pentium MMX 233 Sony VIO with TV out.
That might have been an ATI All-in-Wonder card. I don't even know. Windows 98.

Well, I had a P1 MMX 166 from 2003-2004 but I don't count that.. as it didn't run 3d games.

 

[Greenslade]

Oh yes. The C64 was a very capable machine. Though originally envisioned as a game console, and primarily remembered for its extensive games library, the C64 was a personal computer after all. It was used for office productivity, desktop publishing, graphics design, music composition, and even for accessing online services (among them some of the earliest MMORPGs). And did I mention demoscene?

So why is it that all the other non gaming stuff is not included with the c64 and the new Amiga 500?.That is what i would like to see.And just 25 games with the mini Amiga ?I see that the new c64 comes with a lot more games than the Amiga.Good stuff Bob. Who sings the commodore song?.It is a good song.

 

[68Olds]

Not at all. Everyone starts their experience with technology at different times. It's all good. Trust me, you didn't miss out on much.

The "good old days" when we had a stack of floppy boot disks with various autoexe.bat & config.sys files to boot with extended memory or expanded memory, a list of irq interrupt assignments & sound card configuration. All of that was required due to different DOS games have different requirements and accessories. I remember keeping a list of irq's on graph paper to keep track of all the various devices.

 

[Jetster]

Until Windows, I have never seen one for PC. Even then it wasn't impressive until Windows 3. IMHO, Commodore had the clear advantage in GUI OSes.
(No, I do NOT count Apple MacOS as the early Macs were only Black & White screens, but were also pathetically small. I'm also NOT one of those people who look back fondly at CGA/EGA.)

Clearly The Commadore 64 had its advantages in the GUI department, but I still have a program that works good for a Menu interface for IBM PC. Also the 8088 had a hard drive which the Commadore did not. This was way before Windows. Nothing back then was PNP, it was a pain to set up. God we are old

 

[68Olds]

I still have a Commodore C64 stashed away in the basement.



I also have a still in the box TI99/4a. I haven't played with either in quite a few years, but hate to get rid of them too.

 

[QuietBob]

To me, the Amiga line was when Commodore really hit success as a personal computer maker.

It's just too bad that they went down so quickly. They had an excellent, and in many ways unparalleled product - and still managed to screw up royally. The history of Commodore International post-C64 is a very sad tale of gross mismanagement, internal conflict, unadaptability, and ineptness in marketing and selling own products.

I mean, how do you bankrupt a company with a clear technological edge over the competition? A business with a brilliant R&D team, great support from software developers, selling the world's most successful 8-bit home computer?

For anyone interested, there are some great YT documentaries depicting Commodore's demise. See for yourselves!

So why is it that all the other non gaming stuff is not included with the c64 and the new Amiga 500?

My guess is copyright issues first and foremost, and also limited interest. Office apps or content creation software from the period would only matter to a few retro geeks or long-time artists. Games appeal to a much larger audience. They bring out childhood memories and all the related emotions. And emotions always sell

Good stuff Bob. Who sings the commodore song?.It is a good song.

Thanks! I sing this song every time I hear it The original one was used by Commodore Australia in a series of TV commercials.

 

[Greenslade]

It's just too bad that they went down so quickly. They had an excellent and in many ways unparalleled product - and still managed to screw up royally. The history of Commodore International post-C64 is a very sad tale of gross mismanagement, internal conflict, unadaptability, and ineptness in marketing and selling own products.

I mean, how do you bankrupt a company with a clear technological edge over the competition? A business with a brilliant R&D team, great support from software developers, selling the world's most successful 8-bit home computer?

For anyone interested, there are some great YT documentaries depicting Commodore's demise. See for yourselves!


My guess is copyright issues first and foremost, and also limited interest. Office apps or content creation software from the period would only matter to a few retro geeks or long-time artists. Games appeal to a much larger audience. They bring out childhood memories and all the related emotions. And emotions always sell


Thanks! I sing this song every time I hear it The original one was used by Commodore Australia in a series of TV commercials.

I will have to go with PiMiga 1.5.

this looks cool. Will any of you be buying the new Amiga mini .or the C64 maxi?I should think you want, want to buy the C64 mini.

I have downloaded Amiga Forever Value Edition from the exealant Internet Archive, if i upgraded could i use it with the Amiga or the C64 ?

Easy to use thats me. there,s a lot to do in the settings.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I successfully got the rest usable using fdisk.

That's kinda cool. Most people would have had no idea what Fdisk was, let alone known how to use it.

The "good old days" when we had a stack of floppy boot disks with various autoexe.bat & config.sys files to boot with extended memory or expanded memory, a list of irq interrupt assignments & sound card configuration. All of that was required due to different DOS games have different requirements and accessories. I remember keeping a list of irq's on graph paper to keep track of all the various devices.

Yup, I remember that too. I just don't look back fondly on it. For me, the Atari 2600 was my first gaming system.

Clearly The Commadore 64 had its advantages in the GUI department

What? I don't remember that. The C64 was all CLI. If you're talking about Geos, that didn't come along until after Amiga and it wasn't impressive due to the lack of computing power of the C64.

God we are old

HA! Speak for yourself, I was a kid in the 80's..

It's just too bad that they went down so quickly. They had an excellent, and in many ways unparalleled product - and still managed to screw up royally.

True!

 

[Ruru]

I still have a Commodore C64 stashed away in the basement.

View attachment 241134

I also have a still in the box TI99/4a. I haven't played with either in quite a few years, but hate to get rid of them too.

View attachment 241135View attachment 241136

I sold my C64C to my friend (that guy who has the tuxedo cat... posted pics of it in the cat and general nonsense threads)

 

[68Olds]

Yup, I remember that too. I just don't look back fondly on it. For me, the Atari 2600 was my first gaming system.

I forgot to add /sarcasm after the "good old days" comment. lol It's more like a flashback than a fond memory!

 

[lexluthermiester]

I forgot to add /sarcasm after the "good old days" comment. lol It's more like a flashback than a fond memory!

No worries!

 

[dorsetknob]

I am really cheesed off i ordered a PC part from china ,and the delivery service said they had delivered it showing a picture of a door not mine
The first one is where they delivered it .And my door with no letterbox.The item was only a PCIe unit it does not look very well packed to say the least.I don,t know weather the seller put the wrong address on it,

All You can Do is
1, Contact Seller and verify the Delivery address
2, contact Delivery service asking for Confirmation of Delivery address and inform them it was not delivered to your Address (include photo of your Door)
Open Claim on Ebay/paypal if thats where you ordered from.

 

[QuietBob]

I have downloaded Amiga Forever Value Edition from the exealant Internet Archive, if i upgraded could i use it with the Amiga or the C64 ?

Amiga Forever is probably the simplest way to get into emulation. It is also the only fully legal option, as it includes licenced Amiga ROM and OS files, with a selection of games and other software. Those are the systems emulated by Amiga Forever and C64 Forever:

Not sure if you can upgrade from the version you found online, as the Value Edition is also a paid option.

 

[Greenslade]

All You can Do is
1, Contact Seller and verify the Delivery address
2, contact Delivery service asking for Confirmation of Delivery address and inform them it was not delivered to your Address (include photo of your Door)
Open Claim on Ebay/paypal if thats where you ordered from.

I did and sent the photos that you can see on here ,and gave him my address .I got a message from the delivery company asking how it went ,they asked would you recommend them to overs i gave them 0 because they delivered it to the wrong address.And they asked me why because i they delivered to the wrong address. Unfortunately there was no way of getting my photo of my door on there. No attach files. Genrally
speaking the postal service is good.Sometimes mail is sent to the wrong address or in one of the other postal boxes .because this is a house with four other flats.I managed to get the photos on the Royal Mail message asking how it went ,it is actually from eBay.I looked down the short road i live in and could not find a door that looked like the one the delivery person posted it.So where the delivery person posted it is a mystery The seller got back to me after i sent him all the details i mentioned on here with the photos.He said do i want to wait and see if it arrives.I can,t see anyone sending it on from where it was delivered to me.I just can,t believe the delivery person delivered it to the wrong address.

 

[MachineLearning]

Gave a home to my Abit AB9 QuadGT It's running an X5470 with no complaints - absolute champ. For P965, it doesn't get much better

Like I said in the last post, I have more Ballistix D2 on the way... this sytem will get some of the best... or 8GB total, haven't decided yet.

[obligatory mid-2000's-style dark photo]

Not my best cable management, but not my worst.

Snagged the CNPS9900A as NOS, then realized I could just buy it new off Amazon for $20 less... oof. It's here though and has everything included, even thermal paste from ~2012.

Yes, I know this is wasteful. But it's 10 year old paste, I wasn't going to use it even if it were fine. My goal was to find out if 10 year old paste is a rock or not. Pushed the beginning of the tube out in a straight line, then piled the rest as you see. It seems only the beginning was drier, the rest actually remained intact. I reckon this was usable paste after discarding the first portion. A lot of it for just one cooler - 3.5g.

No joke, worst mounting experience ever... lol. Firstly, the bracket was too long, so I had to slightly bend out the top of the motherboard cutout outward. Then I had to take the top off as you can see, the stupid allen key they give you doesn't have any easy access to 2/4 of the bolts. There's no straight shot to them either, it's always at an odd 45⁰ angle. I ended up having to mount twice because the first one was bad. Even be quiet! does better....

Only one tells the truth...

Specs:
- Xeon X5470 (LGA775 modded)
- Abit AB9 QuadGT (P965+ICH8R, BIOS 17)
- HIS Radeon 4870X2 (hynix DRAM)
- Zalman CNPS9900A (blue LED) w/ MX-2
- 2x2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 ending in 16FE5 [temporary]
- Team Group Vulcan G 1TB SSD
- Phanteks P300A, w/ 2x Phanteks 120mm + 1x Arctic P12
- EVGA B5 650W
- 2x internal USB -> external USB 2.0 ports (x4). 1x internal USB -> USB 3.0 internal for front panel.

 

[Bones]

Snagged the CNPS9900A as NOS, then realized I could just buy it new off Amazon for $20 less... oof. It's here though and has everything included, even thermal paste from ~2012.

Specs:
- Xeon X5470 (LGA775 modded)
- Abit AB9 QuadGT (P965+ICH8R, BIOS 17)
- HIS Radeon 4870X2 (hynix DRAM)
- Zalman CNPS9900A (blue LED) w/ MX-2
- Team Group Vulcan G 1TB SSD
- Phanteks P300A, w/ 2x Phanteks 120mm + 1x Arctic P12
- EVGA B5 650W
- 2x internal USB -> external USB 2.0 ports (x4). 1x internal USB -> USB 3.0 internal for front panel.

Looks good!

Have any problems with the cheap (Pot metal) screws and nuts with the cooler?
I did and solved it by getting and doing it in a different way than stock, still mounts up the same but don't have those annoying potmetal hexhead screws, went phillips with the replacements from the hardware store.

This is exactly what I did:
I replaced the pot metal allen screws with quality pieces and used nylon spacers of the same length as the unthreaded part of the old screws, everything worked out perfectly. Used fine threaded philips headed screws (5mm) in place of the cheap hexhead screws. Used screws that were slightly longer than the cheap ones replaced with these nylon spacers, all else is still "As was" from the original install including the threaded studs for the backplate that goes through the mounting holes.
Best of all if I ever should have to install or remove the cooler for any reason it won't be a problem to remove and remount as it should have been in the first place.

The cooler install and removal is also easier and faster too.

As for how it does, it's a great cooler - No doubt about it.

 

[MachineLearning]

Looks good!

Have any problems with the cheap (Pot metal) screws and nuts with the cooler?
I did and solved it by getting and doing it in a different way than stock, still mounts up the same but don't have those annoying potmetal hexhead screws, went phillips with the replacements from the hardware store.

This is exactly what I did:
I replaced the pot metal allen screws with quality pieces and used nylon spacers of the same length as the unthreaded part of the old screws, everything worked out perfectly. Used fine threaded philips headed screws (5mm) in place of the cheap hexhead screws. Used screws that were slightly longer than the cheap ones replaced with these nylon spacers, all else is still "As was" from the original install including the threaded studs for the backplate that goes through the mounting holes.
Best of all if I ever should have to install or remove the cooler for any reason it won't be a problem to remove and remount as it should have been in the first place.

The cooler install and removal is also easier and faster too.

As for how it does, it's a great cooler - No doubt about it.

That mounting system makes way more sense vs what Zalman paid (paid!) their engineers to do. I think after reading the installation manual I can see in the 5th dimension.

When I inevitably take this cooler off at some point, I'll absolutely rig up something like you describe. Honestly wonder if I could skip the hardware store trip altogether and just do it with that I've got spare...

 

[Bones]

This is how mine is done.
The cooler ATM is dusty because it hasn't been in use for awhile, that setup was torn down and hasn't been reused (Maximus VIII Impact/ 7700K) and made sure I kept the mounting hardware together as you see it.
It's really simple as you can see and works great. You'll have to angle the screwdriver to the screw heads but it's not a big deal, as long as the tip has a good bite on the screw heads it's fine, just run them down to the limit - Done.
The nylon spacers I got were the correct length when I got these from the local hardware store so that was nice but can be worked with sandpaper or a file to the correct length if need be.

As for mounting, I did it with a small/mini screw driver and it worked.