Maya Saura 2

Microsoft Dinosaurs had a textured titlebar!

i love the weird packagings for cheap 90s speakers

I found a PS/2 keyboard for my PC! It’s a weird Alcatel MF-II K6356 (exist also with Acer branding). It has Acer-Alps hybrid weird switches with a tactile feeling, it’s satisfying but very light at touch compared to my Apple keyboards with beige or salmon switches. The keyboard itself is light compared to an AEK or Model M. (It’s comparable to an M2.) The box has the date code 06/11/95 but the keyboard don’t have the Windows key. I really like it! The Alcatel branding is lovely because in the eighties and nineties it was one of the main manufacturers of the Minitel and they engineered nice industrial telecom stuff.

i replaced the 350 MHz AMD-K6-2 cpu by a 500 in my aptiva 2158, the ibm documentation doesn't include the switch configuration for this frequency but the original documentation of the motherboard (acer v72ma) does ! i also replaced the old thermal pad by thermal paste and the computer boots without any issue on the aptiva bios!

i learned it's possible to use a 3com ethernet card to flash rom chips up to 128KB

https://www.flashrom.org/classic_cli_manpage.html#nic3com-programmer

it's the creative ct6950 variant

the graphic card works only in the bios and in dos:
- when trying to boot windows, i only have a blinking cursor
- vmtce crashes the computer
- checkit vram test shows multiple errors (but the graphic mode test patterns are fine)

also:
- the video bios display a text screen at boot
- there is no graphic corruption

after replacing the 70W PSU of the computer by a 300W one from another computer i have this behavior:
- windows still don't boot
- vmtce crashes with an error message related to memory and returns to dos prompt
- checkit vram test still shows errors but less

after using the 300W PSU only for the motherboard and using the 70W one for the hard drive i have this behavior:
- windows try to boot but fails saying some file is missing (it's not true)
- vmtce works and can test vram (no error)
- checkit vram test is now good

i measured the voltage on one of the 2 regulators on the board (RC1587M), it receives a 3V input and outputs 1.5V :thaenkin: ; there is another regulator that i did not test (AMS1505)

after that i desoldered the electrolytic capacitors: the 2 big 330uF are good (measured 360~) but the others (6x10uF and 3x22uF) are all bad :blobcatsip:

i have a modem to match with my computer! it's a french "olitec speedcom 56000" but with a blue shell and a Wanadoo branding! Wanadoo was the internet service of France Télécom before it became Orange.

It's a "no screw" design, the back panel slides out and reveal the speaker and 2 pcbs connected to each others by a connector and rivets (??)

i managed to identify these chips inside:
- RCVDL56ACFW/SP modem
- LBA120 dual relay
- CY7C1009 1 MB SRAM
- AM29F002BT-90JC 2 MB flash memory
- MC74HCT08A quad AND gate
- MC74HCT157AD quad 2 input multiplexer

When I will have time I must make a little guide about how to choose good vintage mouse / keyboard that are not expensive and not snobbery

DVI ports have disappeared as they never existed

I miss Montreal :blob_pensive: (lived there 5 years, leaved because of François Legault)

Best MIDI instrument?

it's so weird that the windows nt "boot screen" was just an empty blue screen