Ah! I finally came across this again… I’d been looking for it:
Yes, it’s a schematic of a NMI switch which fits into a PCI slot, and it’s provided by Microsoft. Quite nifty, in my opinion.
Also, add DWORD CrashOnCtrlScroll set to a value of 1 under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters to enable manual crashing when holding the right CTRL key and pressing Scroll Lock twice.
(This is documented for my purposes.)
Oh, when at Gibralter Trade Center’s ‘Computer Show’ (to get the aforementioned DB25 cable) I was walking past a table of $25 laptops (old Zeniths and such) I heard the guy there saying to someone else “…oh, then you need a RAID. R-A-I-D. It’s what companies use. Have you ever heard of it?”
Yeah, it’s that kind of place.
Well, the problems with the eBay auction for the C64s is working out well. I’m talking to the guy on AIM and it seems my shipment did get mixed up with one from another auction.
It seems like everything is going to get sorted out. I may end up with only one SID out of the deal, but that’s all right.
While I don’t normally have a problem with eBay auctions, I’ve just had the first transaction which may turn into an issue.
In this auction, #8796103506 I won a C64 and spare motherboard. The auction lists the items as follows:
Hello and welcome to my auction!
What I have here is a Commodore 64 unit with a spare motherboard for parts / chips. It's in great shape but I no longer have the power supply for this unit...therefore I was unable to test it before I put it up for auction. I remember it working when put in storage years ago but as with anything recently untested of this age..it is...yep you guessed it...as is.
I'm thinking that this would be a great chance to grab some sid, vic, or ram chips for your next project. I just need to clear everything out of my house! If you can give these units a good home this please feel free to bid!
Thank you, take care, and good luck!
The description doesn’t sound too bad, and with the photo (mirrored here) showing an intact C64 and a board with all chip locations populated, I figured it would be a reasonable place to look for a few SIDs.
Well, what I ended up receiving is what you see above. The C64 is missing keycaps, the motherboard is missing parts, and its layout doesn’t even match the one shown in the auction. I can understand untested, but wholly misrepresented? I’d rather not go through the whole process of reporting the person to eBay and PayPal and whatever else is involved in handling this. < sigh >
I’ve sent the person the following message, so we’ll see what becomes of it all:
Tyler,
I received the C64 and spare motherboard today. Thanks for
getting those out so quickly. Everything was also very nicely
packed. However, there is a bit of a problem with the items I
received. The items I received don't match the photo nor
description in the auction.First, the 'spare motherboard' doesn't match the photos, and is
missing parts which are clearly shown in the photos.Second, the 'whole' C64 is missing keys which are shown in the
photo, and parts have been removed from the inside of it.
Most notably the CPU and SID.While I understand that the auction was for untested parts, the
parts I received are clearly different from those described and
pictured in the auction.I have photos of the items I received today available for you as
proof if you wish to review them.Please contact me as soon as possible about this, as I'd like to
get everything sorted out as easily as we can manage.Thank you,
-Steve
Sure, it was only $18 or so, but I could really use the parts there. Reading into what I’ve found on him thus far on Google, he seems to be a bit of a musician. I’m wondering if he bought some C64s for SIDs, parted them out, and is trying to dump them on eBay with false photos and misleading descriptions. I’m hoping that he just was running multiple auctions and send me the wrong parts. But hopefully he can correct the problem.
We’ll see.
Just so everyone knows, Apple has released Aperture v1.1 and dropped the price to US$299 (US$149 for students). Everyone who purchased it before at the higher price is eligable for a US$200 e-coupon. (US$100 if EDU was purchased.)
With the educational price being so much lower, I think it’s time that I pick it up. Canon’s DPP is nice, but Aperture seems ideal. Also, Canon has told me that they currently have no information on when a Universal Binary version of DPP will become available.
Hmm, now, do I buy a 4GB memory card (about US$230) for the upcoming UK trip, or do I buy a 2GB and a copy of Aperture? I think Aperture + the 2GB is a better idea…
Hrm. It seems that I may need the $400 version of CadSoft Eagle to lay out a PCB of the size I need. The free version can only do 100mm x 80mm boards, and the $200 version can only do 160mm x 100mm.
This is disappointing. I guess I should figure out if there is another way I can do it.
This is really bad. I think I somehow screwed up and never saved the artwork I drew for making the above drilling template. I think that I thought it was saved, made some other experimental (post-drilling) changes, then said not to save.
Uggh. This is really, really bad. Now I’m not completely sure where everything is drilled at, and because the drilling was without a jig, I can’t just measure to see.
Fortunately I still have my notes at home… I hope I can remember which number was which, and I can re-figure the hole spacing and such and re-draw it all.
Guh. I feel really, really bad about this.
I would have sworn that I saved it somewhere…
UPDATE: Found it! So I didn’t screw up as bad as I had thought. I had forgotten that I did a ‘Save As…’ with the file over to my G5 at one point. I must have kept working on that file, so I was saving my changes all along, just as I thought. It’s just that the file was being saved over to my G5 and not to this laptop. Thusly it didn’t show up in ‘Open Recent Files…’ or anywhere on this machine.
I SSH’d home, WOL’d the G5, SSH’d over there, FTP’d the files up to nuxx.net and poof. There they are. I feel amazingly relieved.
This sort of response to my earlier inquiry about a possible power failure is why I like my colo provider:
The contractor doing the inspection of the halon fire suppression system
(fire codes require an inspection every 6 months) managed to trip the EPO
(Emergency Power Off) for our Troy facility and shut down all power. Total
outage was about 5-10 minutes, at which time we began the process of
restoring everything. Most all services were back by 3pm, most customers
before that -- we restored our own equipment (that not needed to serve
customers like our webserver and the like) last.
Not a fun day.
-Bill
Well, it looks like my colo provider suffered some sort of power failure, causing rez.nuxx.net to reboot. It’s back up now…
