Comments on: Interesting Motherboard Repair That You Should Not Miss

By: Albert van Bemmelen

Albert van Bemmelen — Sun, 21 Oct 2018 13:28:39 +0000

I guess we adults probably have too many things that occupy our minds to be entirely concentrated on just playing games, Humberto (;) But if someone helps me to survive the Picus Boss level it is well worth paying 15 euros (although the Director's cut of DEUS EX-Human Revelation only did cost me 5 Euros...LOL)!

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By: Humberto

Humberto — Sat, 20 Oct 2018 13:45:56 +0000

In reply to Albert van Bemmelen.

Ok Albert, I'm trying to get to the end of the Computer Game named Zuma Deluxe and it has been very difficult to me to surpass the level No. 10. But I think any Millenial kid can acheive it easily.

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By: Albert van Bemmelen

Albert van Bemmelen — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 07:07:41 +0000

I am beside becoming rather old already very long busy with computers Humberto. The first computer I worked with was a Tandy TRS-80. Also because my Senior Technical School in those days started using these in their classrooms. Which is the first computer my father bought too.
But my first computer was a Commodore VIC-20 that was announced in 1980, just 3 years after Commodore's PET computer. So I own and use computers almost over 4 decades now. Including a few XBOX and XBOX 360 gameconsoles because I always loved playing computer games. I however stopped playing XBOX 360 games about 4 years ago after I got stuck in the fantastic SF game DEUS EX- Human Revelation where The PICUS Boss computer must be killed. Sadly there is no cheat code to skip that impossible hard level in the game. Maybe I'm getting too old to play games like these? Still I enjoyed playing SF games like Riddick, and the about 3 Halo games which I all finished playing to the end! Games that never can be played on an old 486DX-2 66 computer of course, but I only need that computer to run all my repair engineer tools and testers when IC's in those other computers have to be tested and replaced or programmed.

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By: Humberto

Humberto — Wed, 17 Oct 2018 17:01:02 +0000

Albert, first of all, thanks for sharing this article with us. I had not seen a 486 MB for years.

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By: Albert van Bemmelen

Albert van Bemmelen — Wed, 17 Oct 2018 10:48:00 +0000

By-the-way: these Setup problems are bound to happen with many other mainboards and in laptops too when the internal battery is completely discharged after many years. Also resulting in a computer boot failure of the system and a Real Time Clock and/or set Date that no longer is correct. In laptops like in Dell laptops these battery packs can exist out of multiple cells connected in serie soldered to a 2 wire cable with connector that plugs onto the mainboard.

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By: Albert van Bemmelen

Albert van Bemmelen — Wed, 17 Oct 2018 05:23:35 +0000

In reply to Robert Calk Jr..

Understood Robert. Linux is a great option but only if you do not have Eprom-/Gal-/IC-/universal programmer/test hardware, that like in my repair only work on an old Windows 95/98 computer system with old standard LPT port.
And luckily my extra made Rescue CD with level1 8.3 character ISO only written disc, to keep the maps with the Ghost Windows 95 image selectable after booting from Floppydisk in plain MSDOS, works splendidly after writing that .gho image back to the internal Harddisk. All my programs including mouse driver, videocard driver and all other hardware related drivers for Windows 95 are now present ready working in that 94 MB rescue image! And it is even possible to use a small cheap IDE to SD or CF card adapter to replace the old 500 MB harddisk into a fast booting and running from memory card system too!

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By: Robert Calk Jr.

Robert Calk Jr. — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 20:25:37 +0000

In reply to Albert van Bemmelen.

I don't understand it either, Albert. I have read that many people that know a lot about OS's and computing hate Microsoft. Everytime I think about starting to investigate that stuff and think about switching to Linux or something, something else happens and takes precedent - right now it's my oscilloscope.

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By: Albert van Bemmelen

Albert van Bemmelen — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 07:35:11 +0000

I just managed to finally solve the not being able to read the Ghost image file from my Windows 95 Harddisk and burn it to a Rescue CD-ROM! As a last resort I used a Mini Recovery Tool to try to 'recover' the on my Windows 7 still invisible Ghost image file. Because I knew it was saved on there! And after finding and burning that file onto a CD-ROM and do an integrity check with Ghost on my Windows 95 computer it turns out that despite that Windows 7 or any other than Windows 95 OS was no help, recovery software of other firms had no problem with copying the Image file whatsoever! So it beats me why Microsoft makes a problem in copying its own software from a previous Windows version that easily can be solved with software from other firms!

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By: Albert van Bemmelen

Albert van Bemmelen — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 05:17:32 +0000

Hi Robert, I do not think of myself being a programmer. Although I took many electronics courses at Dirksen and learned Basic T5 programming in 1984 I never got really into C and Java programming. But I learned that programming is nothing more than breaking up large problems and ideas into smaller programmable sublevel codable parts. And I managed to program complexer
electronic projects like a 3 zone atomic radiocontrolled DCF timecode receiver. And I found in Flowcode from Matrix Multimedia a great platform to code PIC processors into real working hardware projects very fast! Keeping up with writing for Arduino, Android and other hardware platforms, and learning to write in VHDL code is something that I think where the younger generations excel in. Coding in C, Java and VHDL platforms sadly often require us to install large computer software development programs that often take up many gigabytes of our computer harddisk before we even got started.
But yesterday I struggled with another Microsoft related software problem after I noticed that I still was unable to copy my with Ghost 5 imaging software created Windows 95 image. I hooked the internal 3.5 inch hdd onto my Windows 7 computer thinking it would be a piece of cake but that image file was simply invisible. All other files however were visible. Something that
makes it very hard for me now to burn a Rescue CD with my working Windows 95 image on it. And it was the same message I got when I previously tried to copy that image file over parallel cable transfer that the Windows 95 ghost file was not readable on other than Windows 95/98 OS computers. I have to thank Microsoft again for creating another unsolvable problem! It is just as dangerous and badly thought through as their XBOX transfer copy solution like other manufacturers that use programs like pcmoverexpress where the old harddisk is deleted while the content is being moved over to another harddisk. Which to me looks like to stupidest thing to do!

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By: Robert Calk Jr.

Robert Calk Jr. — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 19:46:19 +0000

In reply to Albert van Bemmelen.

Hi Albert,

I don't know much about programming and writing code. When I first decided to go into electronics for a hobby, I thought about whether I should start at the top with writing code & programming and then work down, or start at the bottom with components & basic electronics and work up.

I decided to start at the bottom and work up because I thought it would be more fun and beneficial to myself and others. I am glad that I did because I really enjoy repairing devices and saving myself and others money.

I may start learning to write code before too long because it might be something I would be good at. In the third level of my Maxitronix 500in1 Electronics Lab that I started learning to build circuits with, it gets into programming. I followed the book, starting with the "Night Rider" LED program, and I could not get it to working using their code. So I wrote my own program and the circuit runs beautifully.

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