Dazza

Hi audioguru, 1G to install Win98 :o, Ante suggested that you would need 200MB? my hard drive is only 161MB, I was hoping I would get away with a custom install, opting the things that I didn't need then once installed, use something like 98lite to get rid of anything else I don't need. I can't even try to install it

Hi majorthom :) I can understand how frustrating it can be, when there is no one "that can" offer you assistance with your project. I'm sorry but you are way off, this site is not useless. To call this site useless, is to point your finger at every member of this community and call them useless. Every member of this community no matter their level of expertise, has something to offer. Every member of this community is, as far as I'm concerned a "VIP" including you, I am proud to be part of this community, and the members that are dedicated to making it a great place to be 8). I'm sorry that no one was able to offer you assistance with your project, I'm certain if someone could have they would have, I"ve also had projects that no one could offer me assistance with or been able to give me the help I would have liked, but that's just the way it goes. Peter, please consider deleting your post. Regards Dazza :).

Hi All that I have been doing to get their articles is, after you view their projects about three or four times, delete your cookies and history, then you're right to go again ;D. You can't save their pages, but you can select all and copy it to a Microsoft Word document.

Hi RobiD, :) I was down that way last year ;), we went to sea world. It must be starting to get a little chilli down that way, it's still warm here in Bundaberg 8), I don't think winter is going to come this year ;D. You're about five hours a way from Bundy, a little too far to come see your project unfortunately :(.

Hi Ante, Alun I'm not too keen on using MS-DOS on this machine, but I would be very happy if I could install Win98 8). The first thing I want to use this machine for, is connect my PIC programmer to it and see if I can't get it to work ;D. I tried installing Win98 but it refused to install :(, it came up with a message saying that Windows 98 can only be installed on a system with a processor greater than a 80486 :-\. Does anyone know of away around this, so it will install? MP, did you have this problem?

Hi RobiD, :) Thanks for the link, Yes, I am an Aussie ;) and I live in Queensland Australia 8). Dazza/Darren.

lol, you got to be kidding me ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D [move] ;D ;D 8)Let's redline her, and see what she's made of 8) ;D ;D[/move]

Hi Ante, Sugardude :) 161MB hard drive ;D ;D. No I don't think XP would be a good idea ;D, but 98SE would be handy and I have it on CD. Win95 took up about half the hard drive, which doesn't leave much to play with, ;D maybe it's time to look on eBay for a bargain (hard drive).

The old Volkswagon Beadle, had a positive ground as well.

Hi Ante, MP :) Ed suggested that, I may of had the ribbon cable rear about face, the problem was the cable was faulty ;D. I knew that I had the cable connected the right way, because the top of the sockets was covered in dust and it was nice and clean on the bottom ;D. Well I've got it all sorted now, the machine is up and running with Win95 installed and everything works :D 8). It certainly is very slow :o, but still it will be useful for some think. Thanks for the advice MP and I will take it, and install Win98SE ;). I went with Windows 95 because I thought it would be a safe bet that it would work ok, and it could be installed using the floppy drive. My only concern is hard drive space there isn't much of it ;D, any idea on how much space win98SE will take up? :-\ I'm very surprised to hear that Windows xp would run on one of these old systems :o, what did you use it for? Thanks for your replies everyone, I very much appreciate it :).

Hi :) Good news, I'm finally getting a win with this machine :D, I think the problem has been the ribbon cable connecting the floppy drive. I've begun the installation of Win95 via the floppy drive, I'm transferring the files from my Win95 CD to floppy disks, the first disk was easy, but the rest of the disks are not, I have to fit 1.66 MB onto a 1.44 MB disk. I found instructions on how to transfer Win95 from CD to floppy disks :), it says to use a program called "Maxdisk" to be able to fit 1.66 MB of data onto a 1.44 MB floppy disk, but this program doesn't support xp. I gave it ago but it didn't work :(, does anyone know of another program that support xp that will do the job????

Hi Ante :), Yes that is very nice, very helpful :D Thanks Ante.

Hi GreekPIC, thanks for your reply :) Well that's a shame :(, I was hoping that this old 386 I was trying to get going, would do the job ;D. Maybe it will be good enough, for playing around with a prototype, to get familiar with the whole process.

Hi audioguru :), WoW, for free that's cheap ;D. I'm thinking that some of these BIOS's can't be flashed updated, is that why you needed to get a new chip other then updating the one you had. If this is the case for a 486, then it's not looking to promising for my $3.00 386 :( ;D.

Hi Can anyone tell me, what would be the minimum system (computer system) needed to reliably run this project? I understand that it would also depend on the software that you want to use as well.

Yes, it's definitely a good idea. :D

Hi Ante, and thanks for your reply :) Well I'm very close to calling it quits ;D, I'm having no luck with this machine >:(. Yes I've got the jumpers right, and it will fire up just the same with or without the CD-R connected. I have rebooted it quite a few times and in the end all it would do is beep at me ;D, I think the poor old thing is trying to tell me that it has had its day, and now just wants to be left alone ;D. I ended up replacing the power supply to see if it would make any difference, and what do you know it did :D, it stopped Beeping at me and fired up, and the floppy drive started working properly, but I still got an error message for the A: driver "floppy drive" it seems for some reason it couldn't read from it properly, and just as I thought I was making some progress, the floppy drive stopped working again :(. I was hoping this machine would be usable for controlling a milling machine, but maybe it would be best to just take it fishing ;D. If I could update the BIOS to give me CD-ROM support, I guess I could probably boot the machine from the CD-ROM, but to update the BIOS I would need the floppy drive to work :(, and then comes another problem finding the update, I know very little of the inner workings of a computer, the only computer that I've seen the inside of is the one I'm using now, and surprisingly I managed to successfully installed a DVD driver, CD burner, graphics card and a larger hard drive, and I think it was just luck that I got it right, I have already spent a lot of hours searching the net for a BIOS update for this machine, as well as a manual for the motherboard, it's like trying to find a needle in a hay stack :o , I would much rather be looking for a datasheet for an electronic component, I think it is much easier in comparison ;D.

Hi Ante, Edwardm :) I've been busy doing many things Ante ;), I find that I am more productive when I have many projects on the go at once ;D. Well C: is set as the primary hard drive, and the BIOS can detect it no worries, but it doesn't detect the CD-ROM, I'm thinking the BIOS doesn't know what a CD-ROM is ???, and I have to select the floppy drive manually. when I first fired this system up after repairing it, it detected the hard drive C: and the floppy drive A: worked but after rebooting the light stayed on the floppy drive and the system couldn't find it, so I guess some think has failed between where I repaired the motherboard and the floppy drive, it seems all the track work is okay, maybe the culprit causing the problem is an IC that I removed, (TC4069UBP) I have indicated it with an arrow PIC 3, I did have a hard time removing it and it could have been overheated, also in PIC 2 the IC that I have circled gets quite warm. PIC 3, shows the area that was damaged. I did try connecting the ribbon cable to the floppy drive the other way around, even though it didn't make any sense to do so ;D, because everything was working fine with the exception of the CD-ROM before I rebooted, and after rebooting this problem occurred :(. Any ideas on what I should be doing next, maybe replace the TC4069UBP that could have been damaged when I removed it, I'm thinking that it is just a 4069 hex inverter ???.

Hi I took a gamble and bought this very old desktop computer hoping I could fix it, I found that the backup battery had leaked and corroded away and damaged a few of the very fine tracks, it was quite a fiddly job to repair the tracks. Well I nearly fell off my chair in amazement when the thing fired up :o, and everything worked perfectly 8) for about half an hour :(, I shut it down and started it up again after installing and old CD-ROM drive, with the plan of trying to install Windows 95 on it, well it did not like it at all something came up on the screen about installing CD-ROM drivers but nothing else was happening, so I thought I'd shut it down again and start over, now one of the problems that I'm having is the light stays on for the floppy disk drive, and the system can't find the floppy disk drive or the CD-ROM. I've taken the motherboard out again and checked all the track work, and everything seems to be okay,and I've had a play around in the BIOS, and I should mention I got no idea what I'm doing, and I was able to select the correct floppy disk type, but it still came up with an error that it couldn't find it, and there was nowhere to choose a CD ROM drive I guess a CD ROM is a little to modern for this old dinosaur ;D. Anyway if anyone can help me get this system up and running it would be great, I think I'd better post a few picks soon of this thing, because I don't know what it is, except for the obvious it's a computer. He is a bit off info on it for a starter, ( AMI BIOS ©1992 Wegatreuds INC, ) ( 40-0220-001107-00001111-1111920PT4955X-F ) I am guessing it's a Pentium 386? This is what's on the BIOS chip ( 1987 AMI 386C BIOS 1499428 ) I'm way out of my depth with this one, I hope I haven't blown my money, this computer cost me a whole $3.00 ;D ;D ;D

I have been having these problems lately, as well ???.

Hi all :), pieterw0, you probably already thought of this or you may not want to go this way about it, but what kind of speedometer do you have, electronic or mechanical?

Hi Alun, steven :), Good idea Alun ;), I would never of thought of using a swimming hat ;D. steven, yes that's the plan for later on down the track, having a Stirling engine fuelled by hydrogen ;D, but I first must succeed in getting a standard car engine/combustion engine, to produce its own fuel "hydrogen from water" to run on 8). I'm finally posting some picks, Sorry for the delay :(.

Oh, that's great GreekPIC Thanks :D, not only a nice snapshot of the good parts ;D, but some good construction tips as well ;). Very much appreciated :).

Oops, I didn't get the chance to take some picks today :(, I did try just now but it was too dark and they didn't turn out, :'( Sorry, I will take some better pic's tomorrow in better light, and upload them tomorrow night. Oh,and I should mention that, Yes it is Friday night and I'm on the turps :P :P :P :P :P :P, and even though that last bit rhymes ;D it was not intentional but still I think it is amusing ;D ;D ;D. [move] :P ;D :P ;D :P ::) :P ;D[/move]