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RetroTech Chris

Nov 18, 2024 • 11 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X

Scrolly

Let's have a look at some pictures I took at today's Washington DC Area retro meetup. I'll make a thread!

First, a Packard Bell Legend 100CD with some nice expansion, and an IBM PS/1. Also, a Compaq Portable 286, an IBM NetVista and Compaq Deskpro!

Next, we have @retrobitstv who brought an EVO64 with TONS of cool sound options!

Next, we have a Replay 68060 from FPGAArcade. Yep, that's a real CPU in there. Very cool device.

Next, we have some Amigas, featuring some reproduction hardware. Commodore was very well represented today!

Apple II was in the house. We have a IIGS connected up via FujiNet and a very nice IIc

Were there Macs? Oh you know it! Color Classics are awesome, as are Macintosh TVs. And there was a Macintosh Portable as well!

Believe it or not, this Compaq LTE 5300 is not mine 😂

An Acorn A4000. Paging @NoodlesTech 😂

@NoodlesTech An Apple Pippin running System 7.5.2, I believe! That's pretty cool.

@NoodlesTech This MZ-700 is looking pretty Sharp 😂. And, look, an Atari STacy. No, it was not powered on.

@NoodlesTech And finally we'll wrap with a TI99/4A, a Commodore VIC-20 and 64, and.. .a Vectrex!!

Lots to see at this regional meetup of ours. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

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More from @RetroTechChris

RetroTech Chris

@RetroTechChris

May 13

I did a system restore on my $3.33 Packard Bell Legend 11CD. This is a GREAT little 486DX2/50 system. Let's talk about the restore process, in a 🧵 of course!

The first thing that I did was to write out track 0 of the hard drive with Packard Bell System Credentials. I found credentials for a Packard Bell Legend 10CD, which is similar. I tweaked them a bit and then wrote them out! The HDD in this system is a 730MB Western Digital.

From there, I needed to track down a boot disk and Master CD. I found a boot disk that was close enough (thank you, ), and from there, changed the port in config. sys for the Panasonic 2X CD-ROM drive in my system. From there I wrote this image to a disk. ryan.thoryk.com/pb-restore/

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RetroTech Chris

@RetroTechChris

May 9

I decided to do "retro computing from the recliner" tonight, and set up Windows 3.11 For Workgroups on my "Super Armada 7770DMT". Let's talk about it briefly in a 🧵 here!

https://x.com/RetroTechChris/status/1999951648538734687

So, this particular computer doesn't have a traditional floppy drive since it originally had the dreaded Citizen W1D drive. No problem! We'll use OpenFlops and disk images where we need them!

https://x.com/RetroTechChris/status/1999951648538734687

I also decided that I would use my Parallel Port to SD (SDPPD) device to transfer files to the laptop. So after creating a DOS partition, I created a disk image with the driver for the SDPPD with the right changes to config. sys to load it!

Read 10 tweets

RetroTech Chris

@RetroTechChris

May 5

Let's explore my second $3.33 Packard Bell that I bought at the System Source Warehouse Sale on Saturday. This one is a Packard Bell Legend 2440 Pentium 75MHz system, and, well.. it had quite the transformation 😂 Let's talk about it in a 🧵

So... first.. this computer was EXTREMELY DIRTY. It had spent most of its life secondhand smoking, I think. That poor power supply and floppy drive 🤮🤮

I took a vacuum cleaner to it, and LOTS of cleaning supplies. In the end, it turned out pretty good! Let's get it upstairs to explore some more.

Read 10 tweets

RetroTech Chris

@RetroTechChris

May 5

I've really been meaning to dive into these two $3.33 Packard Bells since getting them on Saturday! Let's have a look at the one on the top, a Legend 11CD 486DX2/50 system. After some restoration, I'm in love with it 😂. Time for a quick 🧵

So, first, you can see from the into pic that this thing REALLY cleaned up nicely. It was kind of a mangled mess. My first attempt to fix the mangled metal was not the best way, but here it is. The case at least closed when I was done, but there is more work to do.

When I popped open the other Packard Bell, I realized how wrongly I had tried to fix the top bar. The problem is that it wasn't seating right, so I left the bend in. Well, I think it had just not snapped into place. Here's the end result after some better metal bending!

Read 11 tweets

RetroTech Chris

@RetroTechChris

May 5

I recently bought this lot of drives from eBay for $15, namely because I thought the Zip drive was cool 😂. Let's test time out, and talk about one serious testing blunder I made, in a 🧵 here!

The first drive: NEC CD-3200A, a 52X drive, but without the typical goofy branding on the front. This drive was not closing right, so I opened it up and cleaned it out, and then tested it. Well, I should have put it back in its casing before testing. 12V to ground killed it.

Next, we have this Samsung CDRW SW-252. It's also a 52X drive. It checks out! And after it did, I gave it a proper cleaning!

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RetroTech Chris

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May 4

I picked up a bunch of ESDI hard drives at the System Source Swap Meet. These were on the free pile! I figured at least one of them should work in my IBM PS/2 Model 70 386... well, perhaps. Let's find out! 🧵 time!

First, we have to start with the base case. Will the system start up with my 60MB ESDI drive in it? Yes. Good! Carry on!!

First drive in, but system is detecting a configuration change. That can't be good. Have a listen to the drive. Yeah, I think this one is a goner. I ran system configuration, and yea, not even detected. Oh well!