Hehehe

[Asteroid]

Originally Posted by Sol_Invictus

I friend who works at a major hotel here told me the other day they are STILL using pentium 2's I find it hard to believe that bits haven't fallen over yet but he insists it true so they can still work......sort of, if u call a P2 running, doing work. Not that the OP's is a P2 but it illustrates the point.

I have personally witnessed dozens of early Pentium AT machines still working as data terminals underneath inches of dust in machining workshops (it's common to have a pc next to each machine to transfer programs over RS232). PC hardware is tough. Much, much tougher than most enthusiasts realise.

[Madengineer]

Originally Posted by Asteroid

I have personally witnessed dozens of early Pentium AT machines still working as data terminals underneath inches of dust in machining workshops (it's common to have a pc next to each machine to transfer programs over RS232). PC hardware is tough. Much, much tougher than most enthusiasts realise.

yeah, My uncle who runs a joinery business has this massive automated machine, no idea what its called, you put plans in for cut-outs for cupboards/desk/etc and it does it, all controlled by a P3 PC with Windows 95 :S

It made me shudder when i saw it

[Asteroid]

Windows both 9x and NT core are surprisingly common as CNC controllers, and incredibly they are extremely reliable too but generally run on industrial grade hardware. However standard consumer stuff can and will happily run for years in industrial environments, as long as the air isn't corrosive (that stuff will destroy hardware fast).

[Madengineer]

Wonder how much somebody would pay for one of these old boards

[Phido]

Next time your in a shell service station have a look at the console they are operating.

Apple II baby.. 9" CRT green screen and all. The touch screen is actually a matrix of ~7x7 Ir led. System hasn't changed since the 80's. So when you buy this weeks special they have to actually type in codes to make the dam thing work.

[Phido]

Does anyone have one of these setup with a modern SATA HD?

Wondering if it would be good enough for Digital HD tv recording (no playing) and network storage.

[octagonalman]

Originally Posted by Phido

Does anyone have one of these setup with a modern SATA HD?

Wondering if it would be good enough for Digital HD tv recording (no playing) and network storage.

I had a Via C3 (mini-ITX PCV2 board) as a storage box for quite some time. It handles 1TB and 2TB hard drives fine through a IDE to SATA converter from MSY. Never could get a good signal from where the box was located so TV was never tried.

[sanjay]

Originally Posted by Sol_Invictus

I friend who works at a major hotel here told me the other day they are STILL using pentium 2's I find it hard to believe that bits haven't fallen over yet but he insists it true so they can still work......sort of, if u call a P2 running, doing work. Not that the OP's is a P2 but it illustrates the point.

at the small business i used to work for we still ran a pentium 3 as the register computer...was find running the attache till software but when it came to showing a customer where to download, oh i dont know, printer drivers for example, it started to struggle a bit with modern manufacturer websites

still, the boss had a strong 'dont replace it if it isnt broken' mentality. kind of an incompatible mentality with the inkjet printer business that he had built up since 1995, where he witnessed the printer manufacturers making more and more fragile products with every generation that was designed to conk out exactly a day after the warranty expired. it made for good business but i could almost see the tears in his eyes every time we had to bin a perfectly good epson stylus photo printer because it was just easier and cheaper to replace them!

thankfully he managed to get rid of the business and i think is living a well-deserved retirement. the current owner of the business just uses it to pump out refills and generic ink cartridges.

[Paronga]

Originally Posted by Phido

Next time your in a shell service station have a look at the console they are operating.

Apple II baby.. 9" CRT green screen and all. The touch screen is actually a matrix of ~7x7 Ir led. System hasn't changed since the 80's. So when you buy this weeks special they have to actually type in codes to make the dam thing work.

I've never seen that...
what state?

[pfrcom]

Mercury offer BIOS update 040819S.zip for OP's board, presumably name is yymmdd format

Seeing the board uses Via's VT8235 southbridge, there's a reasonable chance it'd support >128gb disks with the latest BIOS applied

Whether it's worth shelling out for a large PATA disk is the key question

[Asteroid]

NOS IDE hard disks are pretty close to unavailable now, not really worth it. It's better to use a SATA card in this case, which will allow current production drives to be used for the foreseeable future (even SSD).

[SLATYE]

Originally Posted by Asteroid

NOS IDE hard disks are pretty close to unavailable now, not really worth it. It's better to use a SATA card in this case, which will allow current production drives to be used for the foreseeable future (even SSD).

If I remember correctly, Via's PCI implementation was really slow (ie 30MB/s or so). A SATA card might not be a great idea simply because it'll flood the PCI bus.

You can get something like this that allows SATA drives to connect to the IDE port. Size may still be a problem, although most SSDs would be unaffected simply because of the small capacity.

[Asteroid]

Yeah I have used an IDE to SATA adaptor. It presented an 8.4gb drive to the bios and translated the full capacity to the OS, worked fine. PCI would be more economical as it allows several drives to be connected to the controller instead of just one. Interesting that it is slow. I guess these things weren't built for performance.

[Phido]

Originally Posted by Paronga

I've never seen that...
what state?

NSW.

I think they have a new setup for brand new sites, but up until 3-5 years ago that was all they had. I don't know if it is an actual Apple II, but the fonts definately are, it feels 6502 fast operating it (you have to wait for the text 40x25 or what ever screen to refresh).

I've still got my via c3's I was going to use for my solar powered relay stations, a project that is no longer very relevant for me as I improved my 3G mobile reception.

I have a 4:3 19" LCD and thinking about using one as a table top retro arcade machine. Any one tried C64, colevision, mame emmulation on this puppies?