HELP! Noob Building a Parallel Port ROM HackStation . . .

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Well, I got a lot of cleaning, organizing and re-stuffing of a few toys back into their respective project boxen . . .

. . . so it was time to drag other stuff out and start the cycle all over again! [] ]'>

I'm in wait for it to get hereto try it mode because I ordered a tiny-bitty-bit-o-Win98 stuff for this project on payday.In celebration of the announcement that we'd be getting our quarterly bonus again, I figured I'd spend a little bit of it ahead of time for just for safekeeping . . .

. . . wouldn't wanna wind up wasting it all on food, shelter, gas or the like!

Anyhoo, I figured I'd try to fire up what I'd identified as a Kelut board and got it all put together nice and neat in the case from which I'd torn that crazy RadySys ENDURA EM945G P4 beast with the 2U cooling tower for want of a monster PSU. When I looked for the DIMMs for it I realized they were the two I'd tried to set fire to by halfway installing them in the Intel board . . . FEH! [!] !]'>

I figured, what the heck and tried it anyway . . . it's silent and does nothing . . .

. . . but just once I got it to do the Award BIOS POST test smelly cat song:

Repeating (endless loop) - Memory error - Check for improperly seated or missing memory.

According to the 18 page User Manual, I've brazed a MaxMem config:

2 x 184-pin DDR DIMM sockets support up to maximum 2GB unbuffered PC2700/2100 non-ECC DDR SDRAM memory

I'm not going to find this in any of may Macs, am I? Gotta head to the TP or cough up a few more PaPal $imoleon$

Are PC3200 & PC2700 1GB DDR400 really the same, compatible or just plain wrong for the Kelut board?

All is not lost, Dimetrodon (Kelut) is coming out of the case, back into its anti-static bag, back in the MoBo box and it's AtomicNetTop playtime! [] ]'>

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I've had a lot of fun sittin' on the dock of the 'Bay waitin' for the Win98 CD to sail in, but playtime has been fun and productive:

It may be a case of overkill, maybe not, but the aTOMICnETtOP™ is underneath the desk set up on the bedroom KVM Switch along with Pismo500 and HP_Maxi. Just gotta fab a nice padded footrest for the front/corner as it transforms my knee to an ergonomically correct elbow rest cum chinrest. As is, it feels better than the "Snow White" serrated edge of that LaserWriter cart was before I switched to an optically correct angled flight deck for landing the chair in front of the 20" 1200x1600 LCD Pivot. It doesn't even try to trip me up or savage my shin when I walk past it without pushing it back in! [] ]'>



Now I find myself in the curious situation of digging up a PCI ATA/ATAPI card just to run the DVD and Zip Drives! [:O] ]'>

If you look underneath the wires in the top bay, you can just see the pretty little purple Sonnet Tempo Bridge adapting that ATA drive to the SATA port of the MoBo . . .

. . . never figured on setting the Atom board up in a Vanilla Clone case (with IDE/ATAPI peripherals) but still, DuOh! [:I] ]'>

^Dimetrodon (that ASUS A7V8X-LA/2GB MaxMem config of Char-Broiled DIMMs) didn't have much need for its case until I find or acquire some RAM that's more on the rare side, so I figured the Atom board needed some exercise. I always figured on fitting it out with a USB FDD, but really now!

It's running ubuntu NetBook Remix 9.10 ATM . . . I wonder if this thing will run Win98? [] ]'>

p.s. Win98 finally made landfall and I wrassle'd with it until 4AM, but that is another story . . .

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Win98 came in last week and on the first night of my staycation I fought with it until 4AM when it decided to work . . .

. . . sort of. :

I figured out some buggies Saturday and found some updated drivers for it yesterday. Today the I/O has decided the "I" part ain't working after I tried to install a Zip Drive.

IDE Zip drives don't require a driver to work on Windows 98, it should auto detect. I do have the original iomegaware CD-ROM that should have both Mac and PC drivers though.

That's what I thought, something is screwy, the DVD's not working now after it did the '98 install. What should I set as m,s, or autodect with the two of those devices on that controller?

So, what's up?

 

[NJRoadfan]

What motherboard landed up on this machine? What version of Windows? 98 (4.10.1998) or 98SE (4.10.2222)?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Win98SE is running on the Intel Desktop Board D815EEA2 / D815EPEA2 that g recommended. manual.pdf

It's in the infamous PixelPusher can and looks just about the way I'd want a WindowsBox to, now that needs require one to be on the bench.

Unfortunately/fortunately I appear to have stepped all over the Win95 install on that MIA HDD. Apparently I'll be someone we'll call JD for a while. Running Microsoft Windows98 from Microsoft Press turned out to be rather disappointing when I pulled it out. Not only is is not really 5lbs (3.5lbs and yes I weighed it out of curiosity) it's probably the only Manual I didn't scrawl the Key on the inside front cover.

I've deleted all the personal stuff and did a clean sweep of every non-essential desktop shortcut, especially that hateful Internet Exploder icon.

 

[NJRoadfan]

Windows 98SE is a must on a late Socket 370 board. On a clean install you need the Intel INF tool to setup important stuff first.

Install the INF Drivers First: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=8178&ProdId=816&lang=eng&OSVersion=Windows%2098%20*&DownloadType=Software%20Archives

Optionally Install the IDE drivers: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=5471&lang=eng

After that you can throw on drivers for video, NIC, etc.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Thanks for all the help, the DVD and Zip are up and at 'em thanks to your advice. I'd never bothered to check, the DVD was jumpered for cable select.

On a humorous note, I remembered to plug the FDD power connector to the Zip, that's standard procedure, even if the cables look funny after all this time. However, I've been dinking around in the IIsi, the Quadras and NuBus PPCs so much and for so long that I forgot all about plugging that same power connector into the FDD! [:O] ]'> Not that I'll ever actually use the evil little thing until I make the emergency boot disk.

 

[markyb86]

especially that hateful Internet Exploder icon.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

ROFLMAO, hot damn! Win98 got animated gif icons? :-/

edit: never mind Win7 ain't got splodimation wallpaper yet either.

 

[markyb86]

Vista had DreamScene (or LagInducer) which let you play a video file as your wallpaper...

I think it was scrapped in one of the service packs.

Hey actually, in Windows 98, since it's got the web embedded on the desktop, you can set an animated gif as the wallpaper with Active Desktop enabled.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

OMFG, that would be so cool, but I'm keeping this as bare bones as it gets . . . on the Win98 dinosaur. [}] ]'>

I just swapped the CD-ROM from the AtomicNetBot™ (it's in that big Honking Mid-Tower under the desk, which is just an awful thing to happen to a cute lil' Atom NetTop Board) with the DVD from Ankylosaurus because I have no idea what a PIII would be doing with a DVD-ROM, though both were in the case with the neat Optical Media Storage draw in between. This is definitely the case from which the PIII board waspulled, I used to call it Dimetrodon, but that doesn't fit, that critter is so ancient it's not even a dinosaur. It has the PIII sticker right next to the WinXP sticker. [] ]'>

Gotta love it, the PIII box now has the has the best board I have aside from the AMD VISION in HP_Maxi, it has all the modern bells and whistles for I/O and I just slapped an IDE Card in there to run the desktop DVD and a Zip250, go figure!

It's starting to look like one of my hacks though wires hanging off the front and back, looping around and back in and the craziest I/O setup yet. [] ]'>

Gotta fire 'em both back up to see what I've borken, but I think that can wait for tomorrow, maybe it's time for some pocorn & a movie!

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

The AomiccNetBot™ lives! [] ]'> I had to swap out the cable for the DVD-ROM, but the Zip250 wotked like a charm the first time around. With the new cable, the board tried to play a movie, it needs somethingorother, nopro though, this is just a fun project, who could take this seriously?

I haven't got a SATA drive, so I snagged the Sonnet Tempo Bridge and the ATOM board has been booting just fine off that, but it was stuck in a full size case with full size I/O just sitting there. I've got a few of those Wall Wart combos with the SATA IDE<->USB2 doohickies, but I figured that was too iffy and too much junk in the case. I NEVER thought of using a PCI ATA card in its onliest slot before yesterday, but it's working like a charm. I've got some Dual head VidCards for that slot so I can run three monitors at once just for the heck of it, but cheap, reliable (and free) I/O works just fine for me for the time being.

I'm still working on a two or three possibilities for the tiny ATOM board, but meanwhile I can play with ubuntu on the main workstation KVM setup.

Tomorrow morning I get to finish putting the PIII back together and testing it again, meanwhile . . . :sleepy: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

[markyb86]

Sounds good I am glad it's all coming together! )

I need to get my Win98 box hooked back up to try out this "Snappy Video Snapshot" I found at the thrift. Parallel port video capture card, who-da-thunk-it... :lol:

 

[Gorgonops]

I used to call it Dimetrodon, but that doesn't fit, that critter is so ancient it's not even a dinosaur.

It's pedantic to point this out I'm sure but despite it's little plastic avatar regularly appearing in sets of dinosaur figures Dimetrodon wasn't a dinosaur, it was in fact a very distant cousin/ancestor of mammals, and predated the first according-to-Hoyle dinosaurs by 40-60 million years..

(Coincidentally my hostname convention for naming computers was/is in fact based on extinct animals, and I'd usually name PowerPC-based machines running *nix after synapsid/therapsid (mammal-like) reptiles... which lead to horrors like having to memorize how to spell "Estemmenosuchus".)

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Yeah, I named it that because it signified just about the amount of money I could afford to budget for this project. ;D

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Anyone who has never read Ball Four really ought to do so. For those of you who have, this case is the tractor.

_____________________________________________________________________________

I bought a pair of USB/FireWire/SATA/AV I/O units for the ubuntuGIMPbox™ and have used half of one of them for that hack so far. I still had the second one and I'd modified black plastic chassis for some reason or other, but I forgot why and I figured I needed one . . .

. . . so it's in here.

I also bought a DVD/RW for that same unfinished hack, but the bezel was black, nothing else was gonna match anyway . . .

. . . so it's in there.

I bought a SunBlade150 off craigslist and it had this kissy-faced doohickey in it. Somebody here explained to me just what it was and was used to do, but it was so utterly useless I've managed to forget everything about it. If I EVER try to get the sucker to work, it ain't gonna be in no Sun Box . . .

. . . so it's in there.



In my trips to pick up various crud for the GIMPer, I ran across a lot of cool stuff. I bought a pair of backplane plates with eSATA, Molex and some other power connector and it looked like the pair of PTOs might be useful. I had one left over . . .

. . . so it's in there.



I spent $50 ea. on a pair of SCSI adapted IDE Zip 250s on eBay and tried one on my Macs, it worked great until I tried to dismount the Zip . . .

. . . so it's in there.



The SCSI Zip250s have conversion PCBs with power/connector adaptation units bolted up to the bottom of the Zip and extending well past the back of the Zip case, making thema bit too deep for a 3.5" bay. So they came in nice 5.25" chassis/bezel adapters. I already had that very cool purple Sonnet Bridge Card with a built in activity LED, but it had no header. So it was backwards and the cables were already hanging out the front of the case. B@$$ackwards like that I could see the activity light . . and that empty Zip bay adapter was sitting right there on the bench . . .

. . . so it's in there.

So after all that, this little side project for the case intended to house the ASUS board that used the two special DIMMs . . . that I par-boiled, is finally starting to come together!

It kinda almost looks like one of my hacks . . . [] ]'>



. . . from the front . . .



. . . and the back!

But mostly unfinished, heh!

Now just what shall we do with all that boring beige in between? [}] ]'>

 

[IPalindromeI]

What's that thingie with all the A/V ports? Do they even work?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

So far just line in/out/mic are plugged into the backplane. USB is live along with the card readers. If I wanted to waste one of my two Tempo Trios on a box with USB2, I could have the FireWire400 piped into the front port, but somehow I don't think I'll really be needing it . . .

. . . and I'm sure don't need USB1.

It's the D525MW Dual Core ATOM Board my sweetie bought as a birthday gift two and a half years ago. I thought I could get it up and running with with the 5GB SSD PCIe Mini Card I first stuck in there, but that hasn't worked out yet.

It's finally up, I've been known to procrastinate a bit. :-/

Video has to wait for an easily OSXintoshable board/proc to get really inexpensive. By then it'll already be passe, which is how I like doing things with technology. The guys on the bleeding edge of technology are the ones lying crumpled on the ground with the arrows sticking out the front side, the bullet holes in the back and shod or unshod hoofprints all over . . .

. . . depending on which side is winning. :lol:

 

[CelGen]

BuMP.

Hey Trash80. For your inspiration here's a programmer I just completed.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Very nice, if my head weren't throbbing I'd take a really close look at it. Right now I'm waiting on another set of CDs and a new license to arrive for Win'98. Also gotta find the Arcade Pack! [] ]'>