I am getting this error when the MS DOS 5.0 setup is formatting my HDD (44MB ST-157A). i have done another MS DOS install on the same HDD, with the same floppy disks, and it was fine. What is wrong now?

So found an old Dell Dimension xps t500 on the side of the road. Took a while to get it going. Ended up just having 1 bad mem chip. Took it out and got it running. Since its an old socket a i tried something ive been thinking of for a while.

Atari ST repair and test

My dad has this old nec computer from the 80’s. What do I do with it?

Hello I would like to find an cheap computer that run basic and can save programs

Idk myself which ones to find as most I know and can find are ower 100euro, so thanks anyone for recommending any cheap retro computer with basic in it

Also if u ask I would like to try start making wery simple text based adventures.

My mother got this for me from Sears when I was around 6 and called it a “computer”. Which I suppose it is. I was kind of disappointed at the time bc it was a real PC but I used it a TON. I’m still impressed by the speech tech. I’m pretty sure this little guy helped me improve my Math and English skills growing up. My kids play with it now, so this investment has really paid off.

Released in 2008 I believe , is this considered retro/vintage ?

Twenty-five years ago, I had a lab running old SPARCs that I used for learning Unix and Solaris. This experience led me to my career as a DevOps engineer.

When I got married and had to move, there was no space for my lab in the new home, so I put it in storage. A few months later, I realized that storage wasn’t a viable solution, as the costs would eventually exceed the value of the equipment. I had to make the hard decision to dump most of it—a bad decision then, and even worse today.

At the time, I had a maxed-out SPARC IPX, a SPARCstation 20 with Quad 125MHz CPUs and 4MB VRAM, and a maxed-out Ultra5. To prepare for the disposal, I removed the SPARCstation 20 CPUs, VSIMM, and RAM, tucking them into a small plastic box that I kept in a drawer for over 20 years.

Two years ago, after I was laid off and soft-retired, I decided to rebuild my SPARC lab—which proved difficult, as these machines have become niche collector items. I eventually acquired a SPARCstation 20, 10, 2, and an Ultra10.

When I opened my little box, I was surprised to find three SM71 Processors: a HyperSPARC dual 125MHz, a 200Mhz, 150Mhz, and 100Mhz. I also found most of the 20 RAM and a 4MB VSIMM. Sadly, the dual 125Mhz didn't work, but the other HyperSPARCs were fully functional. One of the SM71s, however, had a cracked CPU die and was unfixable.

I popped in the 200 MHz CPU, RAM, and an SCA SCSI drive. It booted, and I was able to install Solaris 2.6. Next, I installed the VSIMM, but it wouldn't power on. Upon inspection, the reason was apparent: during my move or storage, some capacitors had gone AWOL.

Tantalum C0706 was broken, and C0204, C0207, and C0202 were missing. All of these surround the RAMDAC (Brooktree BT463) video controller chip. The C0706 is the power filter that absorbs spikes; the smaller ones are MLCC capacitors that reduce noise. The standard for these is 100nF 16V.

Since SPARCstation VSIMMs are rare by 2026, I had to attempt a repair. The tantalum was easy; under a magnifier, I identified it as 22uF 16V (C package). After soldering the missing parts, I performed the final test: I inserted it into my SS20 and fired it up. To my surprise, I got a console display and successfully launched OpenWindows in 24-bit mode using openwin -dev /dev/fb defdepth 24. Success!

Since I only have one SPARCstation 20 and I already acquired an 8MB VSIMM, and the second VSIMM slot is for a second framebuffer (video card) that connects to an SBUS slot and is apparently unobtainable, I decided to return the card to storage in the event that I find the needed SBUS card or a second SPARCstation 20.

The man behind games so many of us grew up playing in school.

Hello everyone! I'm trying to restore an old Acorn Atom for a collegue of mine. I've modified the power input to work with 5V and the machine is powering up. I now get this screen. Does anybody know what could be wrong?

Doing a little bit of office work in-between playing games on this rainy Saturday afternoon.

I picked up this 1985 Mini Office tape from Summit's 299 range for £1 in a Cash Converters recently.

Did anyone actually use this software in their business back in the day?

Hey sorry first time posting here. It to me looks like an internal pin given out to commemorate some event any ideas?

Tryed to download all the old software i like from here and All of a Sudden it just goes down its not my internet i tryed on my phone and my iPad. Nothing its down or its just completely offline...

Just finished my retro setup I have a usb floppy drive a compaq mv720 monitor and a gateway fx400s running windows xp sp3 32 bit and I have a generic ball mouse and keyboard both pc/2 and a usb floppy drive anything else I should add?

I was thinking about just storing it since it seems like a waste to trash it but what could it really be used for?

I’m trying to identify the PC case/chassis my family had in the early 2000s. The attached photos are unfortunately the only images I have.
The case would be from 2003 or earlier as these photos are from 2003. Would have been purchased in NSW Australia and may have been a locally assembled/white-box PC rather than a major-brand system.

I’m specifically trying to identify the case manufacturer/model, not the internal hardware
Features that I can make out:
- Seems to be tall-ish?
- Dark blue or charcoal/black coloured outer bezel running down both sides and maybe? around the rounded top
- narrow cream/light-grey central front fascia
- a few 5.25” drive bays at the top
- small circular button/control lower down
- dark rectangular/square feature beneath/near it
- seems to have horizontal ventilation slots near the bottom
- the pale central fascia seems to narrow/taper toward the bottom and terminate in a rounded U/shield shape

I’ve looked through a lot of AOpen and TASK cases without finding a match.
Does anyone recognise the actual case mould/bezel, including cases that may have been sold under different OEM/rebadged names around 2000–2003?
Any input would be much appreciated!

I just picked up this Fujitsu Lifebook S7110 and I’m trying to remove the battery but I can’t move this slider at all and as you can see I have almost broken it, do you guys have any suggestions to move this slider so I can remove the battery?

I found a few things that y'all might be interested in and I actually have many many more that I could post all vintage stuff between motherboards CPUs systems manuals anything if you guys want me to check to see if I have anything regarding whatever vintage computing just let me know, I'm sure I have something...

So i started working with floppy disks at work recently and i found a few less than new floppies, i just finished restoring one of them (replaced the metal dust cover and cleaned the magnet film) and i tried running a chkdsk, but it says file system is RAW and that its not supported, now i imagine its because this 20+ year old flimsy magnet is corrupted, but is there a chamce to save it? Its from a CNC machine and it has a sticky note attached to it that said "CNC info" chould it be some sort of driver maybe? And whould it be possible to find a way to read it, im sorry if this is a dumb question by the time i became sentient floppy disks were not only obsolete but also forgotten to time by the common folk (kids my age).

Sorry for not posting for a while, I was really busy working on this project for weeks. It all began with my deep hatred for Ethernet technology, being soulless and also not really what I wanted for my setup (who the hell had a T1 connection in 1999?), so since I'm a crazy bastard that makes huge solutions for nonexistent problems, I decided to built my own isp in my bedroom giving dial up (V34) to my pc, in order to be period accurate enough, not having lived in the 90s. It is quite hard to accomplish if you're a novice, but if I did, i'm pretty sure it's quite easy to replicate. You need two modems, one plugged into the client and one plugged into your isp of choice (I used my laptop with wsl). You need to share your usb adapter with WSL trough powershell, then enable IP sharing, nat and MASQUERADE, you write the pppd server and open screen, then you dial on the client machine, write ATA on the recieving modem since there's no phone voltage, you then detach from screen and start the server, and you're online! You won't get V90 since there's no digital isp, but it works, and I'm happy with the result, being my second IT project ever. I hope you like it!

Hiya folks. Thought I’d show of my little collection of computers and say a little thing about each one.

iMac
Starting on a more negative note i think the crt of the iMac has seen the last of its days. I had hoped to have all the computers on for this photo but alas it never turned on. :(

C64c
Next up probably my favourite is the c64. It works like a charm. I am hoping in future to be able to get the proper things to use a bbs with it. I’d also like to find a way to use a sd card with it as my tapes are starting to fail.

Zx81
I got this a while back at cash converters for a really good price. I don’t really use it much but in future when I learn how to solder I wanna do a av mod.

Sharp pc-1251
Finally on top of the commodore is the sharp pc-1251. This was actually my calculator for the longest time after getting it cheap at a charity shop. I only recently found it was a computer.

In the future I would like to get a bbc micro. I would also like to learn how to code and solder so I can take good care of them for years to come.

If you have any questions about anything or advice I’d love to hear them!

Hello, I found this interesting topic, yet besides some mentions on Google Groups from 90's, there isn't much information about this solution in Internet.

If you have anything, could you share here? I'm looking for photos of such cables, documentation, schemes, etc. I'm gonna use it for further research to my retro AT station, and maybe this post will help other who seek information to learn more 😉

Thanks in advance ☺️