What are /r/VintageComputers' favorite Products & Services?

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You can get one of these and it will show up as a drive on your PC. It was one of the first tools I got when I started my work study for my college 10+ years ago and it comes in handy whenever a friend needs help recovering files.

https://www.amazon.com/Vantec-CB-ISATAU2-Supports-2-5-Inch-5-25-Inch/dp/B000J01I1G/ref=sr\_1\_9?dchild=1&keywords=ide+sata+to+usb&qid=1626986842&sr=8-9

I get you're trying to do without extra cabling, but would a simple adapter like this be OK, combined with that one laptop you found with HDMI/VGA/S-Vid outputs? https://www.amazon.com/S-Video-Composite-Video-Adapter-Cable/dp/B0000BZ2WC

S-Video and Composite are super close, electronically speaking, enough that it's just a matter of combining the chroma/luma signals which is what this cable does. In fact, laptops of that era with S-Video ports were usually shipped with a similar adapter.

Hello, are you talking about something like this?

https://www.amazon.com/header-Female-Extension-Connector-Multilier/dp/B06ZYQPH7F/

My understanding is that this gadget takes the signal from the standard USB cable and provides it to the two headers.

I need the opposite, right? I need to plug in my multi-card reader into the male 9 pin header of this little PCB and then plug it into my PCI card.

Maybe to rephrase.... does this gadget work in both directions?

My need

Card Cable 1 -----> pcb 9 pin header ------|

|---------> USB cable -------> PCI card internal USB port

Card Cable 2 -----> pcb 9 pin header ------|

$70? Are you having it shipped overnight with a complementary ballwashing service or something?

Just order a similar or same product off one of the European amazons and the shipping should be much cheaper. Probably import tariffs as well. For instance this amazon.de listing is also an active PS/2 to USB converter so should work for your purpose.

It is an IDE and SATA PCI card. It has 2x SATA connectors and a IDE (also called PATA) connector. It allows you to connect 4 extra drives (2x SATA and 2x IDE) to the PCI slot.

IDE drives could connect 2 drives to one connector.

I found this one on amazon which is similar.

Not sure if serious or not.

Greetings! I ended up picking up a different adapter. I linked it here but I'll edit the main post. It's supposed to show up tomorrow so I can edit the post again once I get it and test it but this one has actual Master/Slave/Cable select jumpers on it where the one I bought did not.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EOJNGC2/ref=ppx\_yo\_dt\_b\_asin\_title\_o00\_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

>Thankyou! The software i use for this and plenty of other models is Magicavoxel which is free and can be downloaded here https://ephtracy.github.io/ should you be interested.
>
>There are a bunch of features such as metallics/glass/emission etc to use within it.

Thankyou! The software i use for this and plenty of other models is Magicavoxel which is free and can be downloaded here https://ephtracy.github.io/ should you be instrested.

Maybe this will help some. The same but not quite.

a different board

another set but newer

Travan and QIC tapes have two common issues that seem to effect the old drives.

1st the rubber capstans should be inspected inside the drive. The rubber in many old drives has just melted away, and on some drives the capstans and pinch rollers are just soft and mushy. These will need to be replaced. Inspect your drive and look at these rubber parts to see if they're still hard.

The other issue is inside the tape itself. There is an elastiband that runs from the plastic wheel (the one the rubber pinch roller in the drive is spinning) between each tape roll out to 2 plastic capstans on each lower corner of the tape. This belt, over time, becomes brittle or is broken. This belt is what is often the problem causing the tape not to move at all once inserted into the tape drive.

I've used these bands on amazon as replacements in my early QIC tapes (DC600 tapes). I'm not sure if they will work with your 3200 tapes. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08536J6Y5?

To use those I stretched them out as much as possible before installing them and replacing the brittle bands that were in the tapes I was looking at.

I've done this on many computers including a 486. When ordering the adapter don't forget the power adapter, like this one

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002J1KW6?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_dt_b_product_details

Rather than using an SSD on that old computer, I'd suggest getting a CF card and a CF to IDE adapter. A CF card will still be far more reliable and faster than a 30 year old hard drive, but they're a lot more compatible. It's only a physical adapter as CF storage is IDE/ATA.

Thank you very much for the advice!

So the "Initialize" definitely has to do with the floppy drive? I don't have any trouble when I remove the floppy drive and I can hear the drive growl before and after the "Initialize" prompt goes away, so I would assume so, but I just want to make sure.

The prompt comes up whether or not there's a floppy disk inside the drive. Perhaps you are right about the cleaning. I think the machine thinks that there is a floppy disk inside even though there isnt from all the noise the drive makes.

Regarding backing up the hard drive, would you recommend using an adapter like the this?