modelrail.otenko

10Sep/250

Satsuma-Sendai, Kyushu – April, 2025

After the usual trip down to Miyazaki and Nichinan, I was ready to make a longer trip back to Osaka. I actually had to take a few days as I my usual long-stay apartment was booked out. On the way to Miyazaki, I'd already checked out Kagoshima City and therefore checked the freight timetable to work out the next area-of-interest to the north. This happened to be the town of Sendai, not to be confused with Sendai in Tohoku. To distinguish this it often is known as Satsuma-Sendai, where Satsuma is the historical name of the province of western Kagoshima.

I arrived around 3pm and, after a brief wander to Hard-Off (located a short walk from the station), I wandered south of the station to find vantage points for the incoming north-bound freighter. The sun was lovely, but the track tightly winds through suburbia leaving few areas for photography. Thankfully there's a nice bridge with views of both the Shinkansen and main line just south of the station.

Before-long the freight train arrived and, well, a photo was taken. I dawdled back to the main station to see the EF510 detached and shunting around. An older EF81 was also in the yard, looking quite decommissioned.

The rail line north from here is actually a private 'third-sector' railway operated by Hisatsu Orange Railway Company which will take you all the way to Yatsushiro. You'd think it'd take you into Kumamoto Station itself, thanks to the Kumamon livery, but it falls just short.

I rode this service to the first station north at Kami-Sendai to get a shot of this same freight service which was going to eventually continue north after its shunt at Satsuma-Sendai yard. I had enough time and visited a local Sukiya where the staff were impressed that I could use chopsticks. Small moments like this, where everyone is surprised, really remind you that you're in the country-side! Returning to the station, I then checked the surrounding area for photography spots. It turns out that there's a great location just south-east where the small streets parallel the railway.

The sun was starting to fade, but there was enough light for the imminent freight service. Thankfully, thanks to the use of a single line, the signals tell you everything you need to know... and before-long the path was set!

The freighter was actually put into the station loop to allow the next northbound passenger service to pass.

I then (incorrectly) waited for the next freighter (that wouldn't come for hours) as I mis-read the timetable. As the sun set, I then had to wait for the next-next southbound Hisatsu Service, which wasn't coming anytime soon!

Fortunately, the crossing activated (you can really hear the bells in the quiet night-time air!) unexpectedly? What was coming?

I really wasn't doing well following the timetable... as I REALLY should've known if the 7-Stars was operating in the area! Anyway, it was already too-bloody-dark and the next southbound arrived, liveried in a splash of colour relating to "Diesel Girls".

As you can tell, it was bedtime. I got up early the next morning to see the south-bound freighter to Kagoshima. It happened to be held in the station awaiting a clear path south.

The sun wasn't quite up yet...

Which was good, as it allowed me to get further south of the station, on-foot, to a level crossing on a nice curve. Just in time!

And then some passenger services...

I dawdled back to the hotel and checked-out. I forgot to mention... I stayed at the Toyoko-Inn right next to the station which has great balconies (and room views, if you get the right side of the building) of the railway.

Breakfast was included, but the restaurant was full of 30-odd student baseball players in town for a tournament... all very surprised to see me! I grabbed snacks from the station Kiosk instead and waited for my Sakura through to Hiroshima.

I jumped on, ready for an over-nighter in Hiroshima.

Filed under: JPN No Comments

9Sep/250

Kirishima and Miyazaki, Kyushu – April, 2025

Another trip to Japan meant another trip to visit friends in Nichinan, Miyazaki. The southern end of Kyushu is always amazing to visit. This time was a little different and started in Kirishima thanks to a stay at the Hoshino Resort in the hills. Whilst in the area, I had to check out one or two Limited Express Kirishima services passing through:

I was even lucky to see a Tanuki in broad-daylight crossing (successfully) the tracks! Anyway, the real trip started from Kagoshima Station, where I fluked a passing of the 7-Stars.

Being the end of the freight line from Hakata, the yard is always full of silver EF510s.

My Kirishima arrived on-time and we were off to Miyazaki.

Miyazaki Station

The usual offenders were to be found...

Odotsu - Nango Castle Ruins

And then it got interesting from here. My friend asked me to get off a few stations early and that he'd pick me up. We then bolted ahead down the highway towards Nichinan, but took a right turn in Odotsu. After travelling nearly-vertically up the mountain tracks, we ended up at the remains of Nango Castle, with an amazing vantage port of Odotsu. I can't say Odotsu Port as the "tsu" in Odotsu literally means port. So... Odo Port?

Beautiful! Hilarious to be taking photos of the train that brought me from Miyazaki.

The Old Line To Kanoya

There used to be a railway connecting MiyakonoJo south to Shibushi and then west to Kanoya via Kimotsuki and Aira. The remnants and railway parks are all there and you'll, at least, find a DMU or an SL loitering around. I'm sure the elderly residents are the only ones keeping these parks alive and that the rolling stock will eventually just become too hazardous to leave in open to the public.

First up was Shibushi's Railway Memorial Park, just west of the station on the old alignment. Both a C58 and a KIHA52 were well-kept and looking great!

Next up was Aira Railway Memorial Park with another KIHA52, unfortunately in a slightly worse state. At least you could see that they caretakers were trying to keep the unit in one piece...

The last stop on the memorial tour was the Kanoya Station precinct and its railway museum!

The caretaker was amazing and dealt with my terrible Japanese. He told me all about the previous operations and how freight was key. The passenger services disappeared not long after the freight service stopped.

On the way home, after a recycle shop or two, we passed a love hotel that has seen better days...

Not much love to go around anymore... not even for a beautiful old CRT... instead, love was found at a bridge on the way back to Nichinan...

There it is. Dismal weather, but a great view.

Nichinan

Back to the usual loitering on the pedestrian crossing in front of the temple!...

I love that, since the pedestrian crossing is unmanned with no gates, you instead get a timetable to review. Should you cross? Check your watch. Fortunately the DMU drivers love the horn.

Back to Miyazaki

After a few good nights, it was time to return home, but a surprise for lunch was in-store! Before this though, we stopped at a few spots I'd determined thanks to google maps.

Based on my calculations, the train was around 5 minutes late when it chose to pass... and we nearly left! Next up was a stuffed-and-mounted SL at the baseball park near the airport.

And a final snap of the Umisachi Yamasachi as it was heading south.

But then, the surprise! Curry lunch at a train-themed cafe in north Miyazaki city called Railway Cafe Rokuro (鉄道喫茶ろくろ).

Delicious food with a great display of authentic memorabilia. The cafe was run by an elderly couple and the husband was an ex-driver. A freight train driver came in for lunch at the same time and told me all about how freight only comes down to Nobeoka. Heh.

From there I was off to Sendai (Satsuma-Sendai, not Tohoku-Sendai) for a long-winded trip back to Shin-Osaka as the apartment was busy with other guests.

Filed under: JPN No Comments

23Aug/250

Kishu Railway, Gobo, Wakayama – April, 2025

Ok, fine, it's time to actually detail a few trips I took back in Japan over April/June this year. It's only been 4 months? The first was a daytrip on the Kuroshio down to Gobo in Wakayama. From Gobo Station is the Kishu Railway which runs single-car DMUs on the second-shortest railway in Japan. Back in the day it used to operate freight to the Oji Paper and Daiwabo Wakayama Factories... but this has long since been abolished.

It was a Friday and I took the first Kuroshio out of Shin-Osaka Station, making it to Gobo by ~0930. I was hoping for a 283-series, but the 289 was just as nice. The Kishu service wasn't due in for 15 minutes, so I walked to find a nice scenic spot in the countryside to catch it coming in.

Whilst it was turning around in the station, I wandered around (scaring the locals) to find another vantage spot for it's next down service.

It's so cute! I didn't ride it! I'm embarrassed.... as I prioritised going to HardOff in Wakayama instead of being a rail-fan! I've traded one addiction for another. The End.

Filed under: JPN No Comments

2Jul/250

Netatalk 4.x on a Raspberry Pi

I have just spent a lot of time trying to compile the Appletalk kernel module for my Asustor Lockerstor 2 running ADM 5.0 and Kernel 6.6.x, but to no avail. Instead, I resorted to side-loading the Netatalk Docker Container onto a raspi which has been serving as a VPN hotspot to allow some Japanese TV time. I wasn't even going to bother until I realised that latest Raspberry Pi OS simply contains the module ready to load:

swh@raspi-jpn:~ $ sudo modprobe configs
swh@raspi-jpn:~ $ zcat /proc/config.gz > .config
swh@raspi-jpn:~ $ cat .config | grep ATALK
CONFIG_ATALK=m

If you're starting fresh, then you'll need to update your apt-get package list....

swh@raspi-jpn:~ $ sudo apt-get update
Get:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm InRelease [151 kB]
Get:2 http://archive.raspberrypi.com/debian bookworm InRelease [55.0 kB]
Get:3 http://deb.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security InRelease [48.0 kB]
Get:4 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates InRelease [55.4 kB]
Get:5 http://archive.raspberrypi.com/debian bookworm/main arm64 Packages [543 kB]
Get:6 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/main arm64 Packages [8,693 kB]
Get:7 http://archive.raspberrypi.com/debian bookworm/main armhf Packages [544 kB]
Get:8 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/main armhf Packages [8,508 kB]
Get:9 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/main Translation-en [6,109 kB]
Get:10 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/contrib arm64 Packages [45.7 kB]
Get:11 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/contrib Translation-en [48.4 kB]
Get:12 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/non-free arm64 Packages [75.8 kB]
Get:13 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/non-free armhf Packages [55.9 kB]
Get:14 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/non-free Translation-en [68.1 kB]
Get:15 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/non-free-firmware arm64 Packages [5,832 B]
Get:16 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/non-free-firmware Translation-en [20.9 kB]
Get:17 http://deb.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security/main arm64 Packages [264 kB]
Get:18 http://deb.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security/main armhf Packages [250 kB]
Get:19 http://deb.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security/main Translation-en [160 kB]
Get:20 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates/main arm64 Packages [756 B]
Get:21 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates/main armhf Packages [756 B]
Get:22 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates/main Translation-en [664 B]
Fetched 25.7 MB in 12s (2,094 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
N: Repository 'http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm InRelease' changed its 'Version' value from '12.10' to '12.11'
swh@raspi-jpn:~ $

And then, following the docker installation instructions, add the docker package repos to the list:

sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/raspbian/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

# Add the repository to Apt sources:
echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/raspbian \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get update

You're now ready to install docker proper:

apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

Yada yada... test it!

sudo docker run hello-world

If that worked, then you're now ready to stand up the appletalk server. Make sure you configure a data directory and a timemachine directory somewhere and make them both writeable! The username and password can be adjusted where required... they don't have to match an actual raspi user. Finally, eth0 should be correct, unless you've done something whacky with your ras-pi, such as adding USB ethernet adapters.

Note: I have --rm in the command line which means that the docker container will perish once the container is exited with Ctrl-C. Remove the --rm once you've got the configuration correct and want the container to persist. I always make sure to have --rm at the start, otherwise you get 101 crazy named lingering containers in your catalog.

docker run --rm --network host \
  --env AFP_LOGLEVEL=debug \
  --privileged=true \
  --security-opt apparmor=unconfined \
  --cap-add=ALL \
  --volume "[ADD_DATA_DIRECTORY_HERE]:/mnt/afpshare" \
  --volume "[ADD_TIME_MACHINE_DIRECTORY_HERE]:/mnt/afpbackup" \
  --volume "/var/run/dbus:/var/run/dbus" \
  --env AFP_USER=old_user \
  --env AFP_PASS=password \
  --env AFP_GROUP=afpusers \
  --env TZ=Australia/Melbourne \
  --env ATALKD_INTERFACE=eth0 \
  --env SERVER_NAME=apple-pi \
  --name netatalk netatalk/netatalk:latest

And then it Just Worked(tm)!

Of course, AFP sharing from the Asustor Lockerstor ADM 'just worked' also, but only via TCP. This meant that nothing ever showed in Chooser and one always had to type in the IP address. I really need to get in touch with Asus and see if they'll help me work out why I can't correctly compile the kernel module.

Filed under: Apple No Comments

30Jun/250

Nostalgia – Complete: 601 FX Martell Advertisement

I'd recently done some archeology to find cover CDs from my childhood. After working out the first challenge and finding the executable/animation on the Walnut Creek CD, I started scouring PC User CDs thinking that I could find the second animation I was after.

Turns out I was barking up the wrong tree... as another tree had made other paper into another magazine known as computer arts interactive. I was hoping to link that title to some kind of article describing their history, but nothing exists! Anyway, I was browsing eBay and saw a mildly familiar CD art design and realised that I must have bought one of the first editions of the magazine back in '95. It wasn't until stumbling upon Vintage Keepsake's site that I realised I knew the CD my animation was on:

That top-left CD was it. The listing had me worried at first, but the price was for the bulk set. They came in quick order from only a few KM away, and only mildly cracked. Fortunately, none of the discs were damaged!

I imaged the CD and slapped it into 86box. From there, I was presented with a very familiar splash screen and muscle-memory allowed me to find the video very quickly!

Ah, it's revolting. 320x240px? But that's what I remember! Actually... the next video is what I remember. I didn't dare slap it into Youtube as it'd hit (at least) 3 copyright flags.

Here's the video from the Youtube video, as-is.

And here's ground-breaking technology showing off Toy Story, which was still to be released.

Now to ISO the rest of the CDs and keep them preserved!

Filed under: Retro No Comments

2Jun/250

IO-DATA CDBOX

I found this at Beep in Akihabara in the junk pile whilst in Tokyo a few weeks back. It had a label saying "No Power", but I couldn't resist after all the effort I'd spent in the past on 110-pin junk for PC98.

At first glance, it could just be a box containing an CD drive... but flipping around to the back shows some interesting ports! CRT in and out seems to imply there's a window accelerator inside? There's also a C-BUS slot!

The switches underneath definitely indicate that there's a window accelerator. Opening up the unit shows that it's Cirrus Logic-based.

No Power?

The power supply inside smelled fishy, so it was (at least) time to replace some capacitors. I removed and re-inserted a few of the caps, as they didn't seem too bad. I replaced three that I felt were suspect, but the daughter-board only let out a sad squeak/sigh when power was applied.

The wiring between the power supply and the main unit seems to have 12v, 5v and a blue line to power up the relay which is probably something like a power-good signal. The voltages were all non-existent... so I decided to go the sneaky route.

Thanks to PC-standards, we know the pinout of the molex power to the CD unit, so let's just use a splitter and inject +12/+5v there via a Pico ATX supply.

Ok, it works. The LED even lights, meaning the power is flowing into the bus appropriately from this connector!

Installing It

In true IO-DATA style, the drivers are still available on their site. And, of course, in true IO-DATA style, the archives only contain updates to disks you're already meant to own. Fortunately, the archives can be expanded in 7-zip. Inside you'll find all the drivers you need.

The Matsushita version of the CD-ROM Driver was installed (there's a Creative driver there too!) and the Atlas CD was read...

To the point where it even wanted to install...

Using the original power supply

I heard the relay on the board switch when the attached notebook was turned on. It then occurred to me that the "junk" "no power" status was probably a lie. I bet the shopkeepers had just plugged the unit into the wall and not actually tested with a laptop connected. It turns out that the laptop needed to be connected AND powered-on for the relay to throw and the power flow from the internal power supply. Otherwise you'd get nothing. If you do have a totally dead power supply, this is the pin-out:

Note that 5v is on the orange wires and gets two wires. 12v is the red wire and only needs one wire. Finally, the power supply is switched by the blue wire. When the power supply sees the -12v from the Notebook then it'll engage and provide +5 and +12.

Cirrus Logic 98 Graphics Accelerator

This 'just worked'. Doom 2 has drivers for it already, so it was a matter of choosing the right one and booting in.

Excuse the image quality!

Filed under: Retro No Comments

12Feb/251

Nostalgia: Two Animations From The 90s

I don't know where to start... was it the eBay auction for a cheap DX4/100 in Canberra, perfectly timed to end the weekend that I was in town... or the random discussion of what olive-oil-naming conventions ACTUALLY mean, at work, that lead me to remember a random video on a random cover CD from the 90s that lead me to try and think of the brand that sponsored that 3D animation demo on a CD from the past that I've long lost and long forgotten?

Either way, here are the two vivid memories, of two pieces of animation from the family 486 DX2/66, purchased from Harvey Norman Fyshwick (even though Woden had already opened, replacing Normal Ross, when it was above The Model Shop... damn I miss that shop and thank you for repairing (removing the track nail from the electric motor's brushes) my HO Scale Hornby Maroon Princess Elizabeth which I bought at a basement-bargain price from Mr Odd, father of David who lived off McTaggart Crescent in Kambah back in the 1990s when we went to St Anthony's and... well... he also had Load Runner going on his Apple II which I drooled over.. but he also wanted to sell me a full Candy set Lima XPT in HO which I have also just been recently re-buying) on a 24-month loan from let-us-take-all-your-money-if-you-fail-the-interest-free-period shitty finance company.

Can you believe Gerry Harvey is still going and still offering the same shit? No computer repair corner though... where we took our copy of Free DC which had already been virus-trashed...

I do believe I might have digressed.

The mission today is to find two animations which are most-possibly lost to time...

The first is something that ran on Windows 3.1+. It was an EXE and was literally a demo app for windows. An encapsulated animation in an EXE that ran when you executed it, took your whole screen... played the animation and then returned you to where you were prior. This is what I remember:
- A red parrot is flying on a blue sky background (no clouds) left to right.
- It is a simple cartoon animation and it has a yellow beak.
- From the right, a bi-plane zooms in, chews up the bird and just the beak is left.
- The beak then falls through the bottom of the viewport.
- The credits scroll and the authors are Huon and Maverick.
The second is a sepia-toned 'birds-eye view' of a bird flying into a spanish/greek vineyard/olive-plantation, discussing the qualities of the olive-oil/wine that the company produces. It was a movie file (not an EXE!) sitting in the videos/movies/demos folder on a magazine cover CD. Maybe it was quicktime? But I think it was AVI as I don't recall codec issues when watching it. Either way, the hints are:
- From a Cover CD from an Australian Magazine in the 90s.
- Sepia-toned landscape, dry, vineyard/orchard ... somewhere middle-europe.
- Following right on the tail of a bird (maybe a swallow?)
- Either an Olive Oil or Wine advertisement.
- It's actually meant to showcase the video compression technology, fitting on a Cover CD with all of the other bloatware.
- The brand could be: Martelli, Martell, Mortell

Update: The second animation has been found!

With all of this in mind, I started scouring the web. I quickly landed on the APC Mag Cover CD Stash on Archive.org. Sheesh, I definitely bought a few of those mags and used their CDs... but they didn't have what I was after. A quick goog' of "aus mag cover cd" brought me to Australian PC User (now TechLife) and ... woah.. I think I was a subscriber? This was 30 years ago. Am I meant to care/remember? Either way... One of those cover CDs hit me like a sack of bricks. Maybe I wasn't a subscriber and maybe I might have only bought one of those mags from Wanniassa Newsagency with its cover CDs?!

Why do I have this photo? I bought the same fkn Cover CD from eBay 4 days ago. It's all still circulating... But I actually bought it as I want to archive it all. archive.org has a good selection, but it's not as clean-and-tidy as the APC Mag CDs are.

Anyway! The CDs I could find did not contain the olive-oil/wine (herefore known as OOW) demo.. nor the BIRD demo. At this point I was chatting to my Brother, Rodger, who is awake when I sleep in Amsterdam. I do believe I triggered a dragon when I mentioned I was looking for a bird flying on a blue background in Windows 3.1... He proceeded to go for a stroll down memory lane and list the games he remebered from our childhood, but none matched what I was digging for. I thoroughly enjoyed adding to his memory games like Xenon 2 Megablast, but it didn't get me to where I needed to go. One thing though... during his search of nostalgia-ware... he mentioned that I might be thinking of something from "one of those 100000'in'one shareware compilations....".... oh.

Walnut Creek

This actually hit a nerve. At this point I would've written a new blog post asking about a "random shareware operator in the late 90s with a wizard on the cover." and ... well ... I don't expect any comments on this post, let alone a ficticious wizard post. Fortunately, buried in the depths.. I had a hint of "Warlock" software, with a wizard.. then "Walmart".. and then ... don't ask me how, but I came up with "Walnut CD". A quick search of that lead me straight to a suite of CDs on archive.org. Get out of here...

It's that #$%#$%#$%#$% wizard. Time to digress: Back in Canberra in the 90s, we had BitStorm in the Canberra Centre, ACTCom in Belconnen Mall and Boomerang Software in the Tuggeranong Hyperdome. The first sold me Screamer. The second showed us Doom I running on a demo PC in the store and the last sold me countless shareware floppies, Settlers I, a Dreamcast and so much more. Whatever happened, Boomerang Software, when it was in the Hyperdome near The Candy Shoppe and Cafe Rendezvous, was at its peak selling shareware with its own branding. It also had an amazing selection of second-hand software and hardware and I'd check it out every friday night.

It was at Boomerang that I bought a Walnut Creek shareware CD and I could not tell you why... but I'm sure there was something lucrative on the title. The cover art was navy/purple and the wizard was on it, and this was all I had to go by as I had no method to check the quality of the media as the cases were shrink-wrapped. I vividly remember their price-tags being 20mmx20mm and split horizontally. Top half having the current sale price and bottom half showing the price you'd get if you traded the same item in?

Either way... this CD had the bird animation on it. I'm only sure now as I went through the entire ISO collection on archive.org looking for a file with BIRD in the name. I had expected BIRDFAIL or BIRDDIE or BIRDPLANE... but it seems I should have been searching for BIRD_ANM. It was just this name that appeared on the September 1994 version of Walnut Creek CICA Windows Shareware. Interestingly, I don't remember the CD art in that listing's shot... however I do click with the cover art from April 1994.

Regardless, I ripped open the zip archive and inspected the BIRDY.TXT text file...

FINALS WEEK PRODUCTIONS
=======================

PROUDLY PRESENTS THE 1RD INSTALLMENT OF THE "NATURAL SELECTION SERIES"

TITLE: Survival of the Fittest!!
COMPLETED: May 1, 1993
AUTHORS: Jeffrey Cubillos and Alfredo Rojas

Bird, vs. Plane?, Survival? How can this not be it? The names don't match... but... wait... how do we even test this? Install Virtual Box, Install Windows 95...

It'll crash when trying to boot.. so install the "Fix CPU" patch...

And keep fighting...

So, Windows is running... mount the CD and..

It has an interactive text menu? and it UNZIPS THINGS FOR YOU? WHY DOn'T I REMEMBER THIS PART? Screw the animation... this is actually the systems integration part that pays the bills!

Because I'd found the location of the ZIP in archive.org, I knew which folder and which ZIP to extract. It was quickly deployed to C:\

The moment was then upon us... was this the file?

No way. It was. That's it! I got the names slightly wrong and the bird was also flying in the wrong direction... but the rest wasn't far off... at all?

The worst part? It was all of 4 seconds of animation! Those 4 seconds, on a CD-ROM, in ~1994 stuck.. and somehow in 2025 (do the maths.. that's 31 years?) I wanted to see it again... and.. it existed?

.. now to find the other animation! ... but in the meantime, here's the backyard tree that has also had 40 years to grow:

Enjoy.

Filed under: Retro 1 Comment

11Jan/250

Suitetsu / Mizuna Tetsudou – June, 2024

Suitetsu has always been on the to-do list, but it's also always been physically located to the south of Kansai Airport and, although easy to get to, it's just so far out of the way! The name is interesting. The URL is "Sui" "Tetsu" (water railway), the name on the main station building at Kaizuka Station is "Suitetu", which I can't fault, bu the standard for "tsu" is "tsu", not "to". Finally, the ACTUAL railway company name is Mizuma Tetsudou. So, not only have the done the usual Japanese method of use-first-syllable-of-both names Mizu[na] Tetsu[dou], but they've then used the "second-reading" onyoumi/kunyoumi and converted "mizu" to "sui". Confusing, to say the least!

Getting there from Shin-Osaka was pretty darn-easy. Subway due-south with a transfer at Namba to the Nankai Line. The Suitetsu starts at Kaizuka Station, which also happens to be a Nankai Station. Due to a fully-packed schedule this time around, there was no need for a JR Rail Pass and therefore any railway company would work.

I'm going to try something stupid here and use the Google Maps "Embed" functionality... I don't know how well this will age.

And so yeah, the subway was easy and the transfer to Nankai even easier. I actually happened to take the Hankyu Senri line south to Tengachaya Station, instead of Midosuji, but they're all much-of-a-much from Shin-Osaka. Whilst transferring, I noticed that the next service stopping was going to be special... so I waited for it.

I then exited the station and transferred to the Suitetsu platform. After purchasing a ticket, I rode the next EMU all the way to Mizumakan-Non Station.

From here, the goal was to dawdle line-side, taking photos of anything that passed. Unfortunately, it started raining horizontally and I wasn't really into it...

Dodging the rain, I caught the next train west to Ishizai and walked from there to the JR Station at Izumi-Hashimoto.

I happened across a Haru-Kitty on the way!

Along with some nature.

Junk Shopping!

From here, it was just a few more hops and a few Hard-Offs. Note that the path doesn't include any of the walking I did above! This is just for anyone who may want to check out the local attractions the easy way.

I actually don't remember purchasing anything significant and the rain was unstoppable. Not really the train-day I was expecting!

Filed under: JPN No Comments

9Jan/250

Extending Rokuhan Z-Scale Shorties

Rokuhan makes a selection of Z-Scale "Shorties" which you can motorise and run on Z-Scale layouts. They're all 3-car sets and this proves a problem when you want to run a longer consist.

With the shinkansen specifically, the 3-car consists are extremely short and not very prototypical. Purchasing extra packs to extend a consist would result in a collection of cab cars which can't be used. You could modify a pilot on a cab car to allow coupling, but there's another option.

Let's chop two cab cars in half and make a extra internmediate passenger car. This is mildly scariligious, but ... meh.

I whipped out a set of tools and got to work.

The final result really wasn't too bad!

I wonder if I can get the same results for Dr Yellow and Hello Kitty?

The bows might be a little more obvious.

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19Nov/240

Toshiba T3200 + Fairy YL-23 IC Tester

This beast happened to be in a store-room at work and was about to go into the e-waste bin... rest assured I prevented that from occurring! Thanks to my eagerness, I was then tasked with taking a backup of the HDD. Would it even boot?

Sorry, yes, it was already in pieces on the workbench... I should care more about blog photography, I suppose.

Don't apply power, check the caps first!

I didn't want to send unwieldly voltages into the motherboard, so I pulled the unit apart. The unit was caked in factory 'dust', so this also gave me a good chance to clean it. Thankfully there were actually no problems detected internally.

I had planned to extract the data by extracting the IDE HDD, but it turns out this unit is MFM! I'm going to have to do something trickier.

First boot in 25 years

Although this unit seems to have had a hard life, I was quite sure it hadn't been turned on in ~25 years. Knowing that the capacitors in the power supply were stable, I plugged in the 240v cable and sent it. The fans, display and HDD all came to life!

Look at that glorious screen! I've seen numerous posts where these screens have expired, so I was very happy to see this come to life.

Floppy woes

The floppy disk would seek to track zero and nothing else. As I've done on the PC-98s before, the first bet is to clean the heads with isopropyl. That didn't work, so I then extracted the drive and checked out the drive-speed sensor circuit.

Oh sure, that cap is crap... I touched it with tweezers and it took the pads with it! Fortunately the traces could be beeped out and a ceramic cap was installed instead. With my bodge in place, a DOS 5.0 boot disk loaded!

Backing up the HDD

The HDD was loading fine, so I had to find a way to get the data off the system. Via floppy would be a last-resort as it'd take a few of them. As nostalgic as spanned-volume pkzip'ing is, I'd rather not. Instead, I grabbed my trusty XT-IDE and found a 48mb CF card. I used the default configuration on the card, only setting the CF to 'slave' via the dip-switch.

Sure enough, with the CF as master, the card booted into it's copy of DOS 5.0 and XCOPY was used to transfer the entire HDD contents (all 19.4mb!) onto the CF card. Success!

Games!

The CF was also used to bring games to the system. Police Quest, Space Quest, Kings Quest, Alleycat and... A-Train? Railroad Tycoon?

Everything of the correct vintage worked fine!

Fairy YL-23 EPROM Programmer And Chip Tester

I'd purchased this ages ago via FB Marketplace and hadn't found a need for it yet. Also, being ISA, I'd have to keep my P2 in an accessible location to be making use of this device. What better host than a chunky 286 laptop? Yes, this laptop has ISA slots!

With the card in the slot, I realised I had no idea how to orient the cable! I extracted it again and checked for grounding. Here's a clear example for anyone else:

Back in, with the laptop powered on, no life was shown in the unit. The software was downloaded (two exe files, only YL.EXE is really needed!) and copied over via CF card.