The Force Field Forums
Operating Systems => Windows (PUBLIC) => Topic started by: RoboGeek on April 06, 2011, 12:55:05 PM
-
ya.. this will be fun. A dead drive on a CNC mill that runs 3.11. I must recover the data off the 420m drive first, then repair the PC. I always asked myself why I saved all those old drives and 386 boards - now i know why.
I even have 3.11 set up on CD so it doesn't nag you to insert next floppy..
strange day here... see this post lol (http://www.theforcefield.net/forums/index.php?topic=4711.msg28565#msg28565)
-
I've got a couple CNC shops with machines controlled by either DOS or Win3.1 hardware. Fortunately, assuming I can access the drive, it's a simple matter to just copy the entire contents of the drive to new hardware and it boots up and works. Mostly all serial driven. The hard part is finding motherboards will serial ports.
Yeah, ancient stuff though!
-
CNC? Define this acronym please? :confused:
-
CNC? Define this acronym please? :confused:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_control (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_control)
-
Thanks. Never really dealt with that kind of machine before.
-
several of my customers are factory type places. I get to deal with CNC and machine vision PC's and some really old software/hardware. Nice thing is because nobody but me does that stuff around here or even has parts - I get to charge what I want.
All I need is a Novell 3.12 customer now.. lol (or Lantastic! ewww!!)
-
CNC? Define this acronym please? :confused:
Early robotics essentially. They've been around longer than PCs have been around. When I was in mechanical drafting in high school around 1973 we went to the Rockwell plant that makes Goss printing presses and they had serially attached punch card driven CNC machines. Multihead drills, grinding machines, mills, broachers and others. Vinyl cutters and plotters are also examples of CNC machines if you think about it. They use a different language than the G codes the CNC machinery does is the only real difference. You can even build your own CNC router from plans off the internet. I've been salvaging servo and stepper motors from old printers for a while to eventually build my own. My son did CNC for a couple years before he went to OTR trucking (boy was that a bad change of career).
Chris this is new to you working on a 386 in the market of the quad core? I work on 8088/8086 up through modern quads regularly. I still service a PDP-11 as much as I can when the owner isn't able to do his own repairs, mostly his 9 track tape machine and punch card punch and readers. I have 2 water treatment plants that use portable 286 machines for sampling at the wells. I service 16 286 and 386 (SX and DX) based CNC machines at the local factories and a couple PLC (prog logic controller) based ones. I service a dryer for a local lumber mill that runs on PLC system and their cutting line is PLC and serviced by the manufacturer of the cutter right now, then I will likely pick it up. I used to service both CNC milling machines for MTD's local plant till they changed to newer ones that the vendor has on service contract for 5 yrs. I work on all sorts of industrial equipment as needed since no one else even knows WTF they are let alone how to work on them. I work on the occasional C64 and other "obsolete" machines too.
If anyone comes across a need for the old OS's you can find boot CD's with all of them or individual disk images all over the internet - bootdisk.com was the place to go for a long time for people with older machines. I haven't gone to the site in a couple years now so I'm not sure they are still online.
-
several of my customers are factory type places. I get to deal with CNC and machine vision PC's and some really old software/hardware. Nice thing is because nobody but me does that stuff around here or even has parts - I get to charge what I want.
All I need is a Novell 3.12 customer now.. lol (or Lantastic! ewww!!)
Somewhere in my 5.25" 1.2mb and 3.5" 720k floppies I have copies of various versions of LanTastic and Novell Netware. First network I had after the simplistic serial to serial null modem was a LanTastic with a teenie coaxial link. It was so cool the first time my sons and I played Doom in network through it.
The last Tandy TRS-80 model 4 I had for sale on eBay was bought by Bayer (yeah the aspirin people) to keep their automated line going till their new system was installed - that was a mere 4 yrs ago.
Nice thing about the old stuff - I've never had a bulged or bursted capacitor on one.
-
Bayer had an assembly line running off of Trash 80s? O0
-
very true.. no bad caps to be found on the boards. But I have a prob with no PSU's available so whenever one goes bad I have to rebuild it
I have Novell 2.0 in the box still.. but no copies of lantastic.
I have a customer with a voicemail system on a 286, and 2 customers with 386 systems - also a few with 486 based firewall appliances. This is a new customer though and my only active 3.11 customer.
I still do PLC controllers that are 8086-8088 based.. those are in the same plant with the machine vision stuff. Its a plastics factory
-
Bayer had an assembly line running off of Trash 80s? O0
Yep. the equipment was driven by signals from the serial port. Just ran the process on the packaging lines IIRC. One of their units blew a CRT and they needed to repair it.
-
I used to see 386/486 systems running Win3.11 or DOS 6.22 or less at Avery Dennison here, and they are/were primarily used for basic mill machines, label printers etc. but as parts became harder to come by, and canabalization was becoming a joke, realization set in and upgrades to at least basic pentiums or higher took place, running 98 or higher
-
Back in the day when motion control was first starting out in the film industry. The S100 buss computers were the king of the day. Almost got a ground floor job working for a special effect company back then, but I did have enough experience with the S100 buss architecture.
-
Two of my clients are machine shops (one is very large- they are in the process of moving in to an 80,000 sq ft building) and another is a vacuum form plastics company that makes parts for the RV industry. They all use CNC controlled machines of some type.
Problem is that, on most of the machines, it's specialized form factor hardware. While it's still a standard Intel or AMD cpu and standard RAM with a standard hard drive and/or floppy with serial ports, etc the motherboard and other cards are all proprietary. Some of them I've been able to make do with micro ATX boards but, for some others, no such luck. That's when they have to call whoever manufactured the machine (if they are even still in business) and fork out the BIG bucks for a new control board or find someone that has the ability to repair the existing board (that is if it's something I can't repair).
-
Quite a few of them use IEEE-488 (GPIB/HPIB) boards to talk to the machines and some have some mods to BIOS but I haven't any with specific motherboards. Specialized boards on some but usually it's serial or GPIB with a non-standard connector.
-
My company still has clients running 3.1 and 95 as well with no desire to upgrade. They are odd to work on, its like stepping back in time
-
...
-
My company still has clients running 3.1 and 95 as well with no desire to upgrade. They are odd to work on, its like stepping back in time
I think 2003 was the last time I worked on a 3.1 machine. It felt ancient even then! :eek:
-
Man, there are all kinds of FREE cnc control software now for modern computers, that emulates the older stuff to allow modern computers to communicate with the old equipment.
Got any links? I have a couple machine shops as customers and they might be interested in some of those apps.
-
My company still has clients running 3.1 and 95 as well with no desire to upgrade. They are odd to work on, its like stepping back in time
I think 2003 was the last time I worked on a 3.1 machine. It felt ancient even then! :eek:
That's about the last time I touched it as well. We had to use a Win3.1 machine at the power company to run the Fujitsu PBX app. The software wouldn't run on anything newer than that.
-
I'll have to look at that issue again, but I'll get back with you on here.
-
I have been in retail stores where they are still running att/ncr globalists with the original software.
good luck finding parts for that, because when I was supporting them, parts were hard to get then too.
-
This is not the one they mentioned, but I found it by searching
LinuxCNC.org
I don't think it was AMA, I think it was an online article mentioned by AMA, and I went and looked. I used to foam cut, and would have always liked a CNC version, but never had the room or money.
-
I remember an oil and gas company I worked for in 1999 still ran OS/2 1.0 for an industry specific program that nobody had the source for anymore, and the mathematician that made the algorithms had passed away. They pretty much just said a prayer every day over the system that it wouldn't die that day lol.
-
See I just knew that my copies of 3.11 would still be needed.
Good thing I moved them to CD.
-
Anybody ever work on the Blockbuster computers? They looked old enough to be 386 boxes, but could have been newer. I am just going by the case I could see under the counter.
-
Anybody ever work on the Blockbuster computers? They looked old enough to be 386 boxes, but could have been newer. I am just going by the case I could see under the counter.
Yea I did those back when Halifax was paying me 85 an hour portal to portal as a backup to their full time worker here. Once they fired him and tried to get me to start working for their bottom feeder rates I bailed. Those machines were a hoot, you had to load them with the one nasty floppy disk in the managers drawer that worked about 50 percent of the time. They basically booted up and ran a script to start a thin client to connect to the server because BB was too cheap to buy real thin clients :).
-
Anybody ever work on the Blockbuster computers? They looked old enough to be 386 boxes, but could have been newer. I am just going by the case I could see under the counter.
DEC server and dumb terminals. I never checked what CPU the dumb terminals use. About 15 years old I would guess.
-
Hunter alignment machines are based on old hardware like this. I had a buddy that worked at a garage. There alignment machine would freeze when they plugged on of the heads in. I found that the head plugged into a serial board specific to hunter. $150 dollars for the service call and $450 for the new serial board. LOL
-
Anybody ever work on the Blockbuster computers? They looked old enough to be 386 boxes, but could have been newer. I am just going by the case I could see under the counter.
DEC server and dumb terminals. I never checked what CPU the dumb terminals use. About 15 years old I would guess.
First time halifax had me run one of them calls, they didnt even know what a dec server was.. I had to find the manual just in case.. cheap plastic crushable boxes
-
Anybody ever work on the Blockbuster computers? They looked old enough to be 386 boxes, but could have been newer. I am just going by the case I could see under the counter.
DEC server and dumb terminals. I never checked what CPU the dumb terminals use. About 15 years old I would guess.
First time halifax had me run one of them calls, they didnt even know what a dec server was.. I had to find the manual just in case.. cheap plastic crushable boxes
That's the DEC 90 but the other back office computer is also a DEC server. God
I hate talking to their Indian support. Mike at EES is pretty good and will also listen. Not sure any one else at EES support has much of a clue.
-
Anybody ever work on the Blockbuster computers? They looked old enough to be 386 boxes, but could have been newer. I am just going by the case I could see under the counter.
The ones that were up here said 1987 on them..... and that was in 08 lol they spend more trying to get the new scanner working then ALL new PC's in the joint would have cost!!!
-
Pretty sure I have a 386 board around here with CPU that was functioning as a router/firewall. Shout out if any of you are needing spares.
-
I have a good supply of working 386 boards.. but no PSU's. I also sadly have memory to fit.... its so hard to throw things away..
-
I have a good supply of working 386 boards.. but no PSU's. I also sadly have memory to fit.... its so hard to throw things away..
I've got at least one AT power supply with hard switch, think there are two. I could be talked out of one but no way would I let go the last one, never know when it will come in handy and what that customer would pay to get things back up and running same day.
-
ATX to AT adapter (http://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ie=UTF-8&ion=1&nord=1#hl=en&cp=17&gs_id=d&xhr=t&q=ATX+to+AT+adapter&qe=QVRYIHRvIEF0IGFkYXB0ZXI&qesig=v_VGeNFzSY0aJK94AbetLw&pkc=AFgZ2tmedOFFjtzZmqiLGxz0SvlzaZsSlnF8ypej8y_AbK5YU4i0oURkJwBM4IqJLI3Dl0lx1bFecNcTX0hk7KJW5nCefauOtA&nord=1&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&ion=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbm=shop&source=og&sa=N&tab=wf&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=2bbe01f9b9f72b5f&ion=1&biw=1066&bih=562), not all that hard to find.
-
the only one that will work - the one with a switch.. is out of stock
-
the only one that will work - the one with a switch.. is out of stock
The StarTech one, and most of the others I looked at, have leads(labeled PowerButton on some) for the switch, they just don't supply it. This one (http://www.atxpowersupplies.com/ATX-to-AT-Converter.php) shows it a little more clearly than some others. This one (http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_SPM5020554601P?sid=IDx20101019x00001a&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=SPM5494312702) has the labeling, uses three leads, and uses a molex-variety connector I don't recall from my own machines. I think they're hoping buyers will confuse it for having a Reset option others don't, but IIRC AT motherboards had the connection for a Reset button.
-
I have a big supply of switches.. that used to be a common replacement part back then
-
Some one looking for power supplys i have about 6 of those old one down stairs ( would have to be tested)
DV DPS-1454p
power tronic ck-4145de
solor power
austin
Hi gain DKS-2204ti
AGI
john
-
I have a big supply of switches.. that used to be a common replacement part back then
Even Radio Shack still carries those, surprisingly.
-
I have a big supply of switches.. that used to be a common replacement part back then
Even Radio Shack still carries those, surprisingly.
Now I would not have thought to look there. Wonder how widespread the stocking of them are.
-
I have a big supply of switches.. that used to be a common replacement part back then
Even Radio Shack still carries those, surprisingly.
Now I would not have thought to look there. Wonder how widespread the stocking of them are.
IIRC, this (http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062500&retainProdsInSession=1), or this (http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2049717&retainProdsInSession=1), should do, but Radio Shack does not advertise an AT-spec Power Button on their site and I would not be surprised to find I am wrong and a momentary or other switch mechanism is required.
The point I was going for is that the basics are still there for those who know what they are looking for, and definitely the correct switch even if its not one of the two I just linked. Judging by the site, a dozen of each switch model "The Shack" sells would fit in a couple of the drawers they keep their electrical components for sale in, and I would hope they had dedicated at least a full drawer among all of the other crap they stock anymore. There's still somewhere between 60-90 drawers dedicated to electrical components at each of the Radio Shacks local to me.
-
if anyone ever needs one let me know.. I have new in package still
-
Repaired a 486/66 running OS2 on Friday, how's that for going back in time?
-
you'd be surprised how many ancient systems are still around.. mostly as controllers in factories, VM systems, access systems, etc. And many even older things in controllers. I don't have a supply of Z80 and 8088 chips for no reason.. lol