Category Archives: Hardware Hacks

Can This Conner Talk?

Posted on June 18, 2021 by Michal Necasek

As part of research into the IDENTIFY DRIVE command, the OS/2 Museum acquired two old Conner IDE drives, a CP-342 and a CP-341i. These drives look extremely similar at first glance, and they’re both 40 MB IDE drives, but on … Continue reading →

Posted in Conner, Debugging, Hardware Hacks, Storage | 19 Comments

Percussive Maintenance

Posted on November 25, 2020 by Michal Necasek

A couple of weeks ago this antique 1997 Cheetah 9 drive showed up at the OS/2 Museum: It was effectively a freebie, a faulty drive bought together with another, more desirable, and working drive. (Well, initially working, but that’s a … Continue reading →

Posted in Hardware Hacks, Seagate | 7 Comments

Seagate Serial Talk

Posted on August 5, 2020 by Michal Necasek

Some time ago, the OS/2 Museum obtained a 10 GB Seagate ST310014ACE hard disk (IDE 3.5″ low profile). The disk was unusable because it was locked. That is, it needed an unknown password to gain access to the medium. After … Continue reading →

Posted in Hardware Hacks, PC hardware, Seagate | 22 Comments

DiskOnChip

Posted on November 6, 2018 by Michal Necasek

This is a guest post by Nils aka stecdose What Is DOC? I would like to present a „storage card“ for the XT bus (8-bit ISA bus) that I built from scrap parts. It is based on a small device … Continue reading →

Posted in Hardware Hacks, PC hardware | 11 Comments

ThinkPad Fan

Posted on October 12, 2018 by Michal Necasek

I suppose I am one, but recently I had trouble with the other kind of a ThinkPad fan. An elderly ThinkPad 43p with a 2.13 GHz CPU (Dothan Pentium M with 2MB L2 cache) and a rather nice 1600×1200 IPS … Continue reading →

Posted in Hardware Hacks, IBM, ThinkPad | 4 Comments

Brightening Up

Posted on June 26, 2017 by Michal Necasek

A depressingly yellowed Roland CM-64 led me to try retr0bright for the first time. The short story is that despite a few minor missteps, the experiment was a success. Yes, it really does work! Here’s what the CM-64 looked like … Continue reading →

Posted in Fixes, Hardware Hacks, Roland | 7 Comments

Zapping the SVP on a T42p

Posted on April 29, 2016 by Michal Necasek

A T4x ThinkPad with a supervisor password is a ticking time bomb. The password is not needed during boot and is only required to change certain BIOS settings, something which isn’t typically needed. But if CMOS settings are lost, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Hardware Hacks, ThinkPad | 4 Comments

Fixing a Graphics Ultra Pro

Posted on March 13, 2016 by Michal Necasek

Just a few weeks after successfully repairing a trivial problem with a Roland LAPC-I caused by improper storage, I happened to run across another troublesome board, a VL-bus based ATI Graphics Ultra Pro from 1993. It’s a nice enough card … Continue reading →

Posted in ATi, Hardware Hacks | 4 Comments

The Nearly Ultimate 386 Board

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Michal Necasek

Spurred by the acquisition of a 386 ZIF socket adapter, I revived the semi-mysterious 386 board acquired over a year ago. To recap, the board is unusual in that it has CPU frequency configurable via jumpers, but I had trouble getting anything … Continue reading →

Posted in 386, Hardware Hacks, PC hardware | 9 Comments

386 ZIF Socket Adapter

Posted on August 3, 2015 by Michal Necasek

After a long wait, I decided to bite the bullet and order a ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) socket adapter suitable for 386 CPUs through Digi-Key. The manufacturer is Aries Electronics and the part number is 196-PRS14001-12, as established some time … Continue reading →

Posted in 386, Hardware Hacks, PC hardware | 13 Comments