Melbourne BG SCS Train Timetable 
DE10 Locomotive – Co-Bo or AAA-B?
Any idea what I'm talking about? It's the wheel arrangements of diesel/electric locomotives. As per the old steamers (Whyte Notation) and their arrangements of 2-6-4 or 4-8-4+4-8-4, more modern locomotives use a similar nomenclature known as the UIC classification.
The basic idea is that, per bogie, a letter starting from A is assigned, determined by the amount of wheelsets; where a wheelset is 2 wheels plus an axle. The letter is incremented from A for each wheelset. A bogie with two wheelsets will be defined as a Bo, 3 wheelsets means a Co.
You'll notice I put the letter 'o' after the B and C above. This is because, on some locomotives, the wheelsets can be mounted on the frame. The 'o' indicates that the wheelset is mounted on an attached bogie. I was about to write that I hadn't officially seen an 'Ao' yet; wouldn't the bogie spin on the wrong axis and derail? It turns out that it wont if you mount it correctly. The Japanese DD54 (wikipedia.jp) is of class Bo-1-Bo. I do note that it's not an 'Ao'... but it is indeed a bogie with only one axle!
As above, not all wheelsets are mounted on bogies, and not all wheelsets have power attached, so you'll need to read the wiki link on UIC classifications to really get the full picture.
Japanese wheel arrangements
My favourite Japanese electric, the EF-66 as seen below, is a Bo-Bo-Bo.
This majestic piece of equipment therefore has three bogies with two driven wheelsets each. The Japanese fashion is to have traction motors strapped onto each axle in parallel.
An now, the DE10
This is one of the more light-weight, shunting-type locomotives used around yards in Japan or for shorter freight movements. It's seen below at Aomori, ready to pull the passenger consist of the Nihonkai that I travelled on away from the EF81 that was ready for a snooze.
I recently acquired a Micro-Ace model of one in the Watarase Railway colours. Gold and Maroon is really quite fetching over the standard Red/Grey/White/Black.
Anyway, back to the point, I was reading the back and saw that the 'real world' technical specifications indicated that the wheel arrangement was infact AAA-B (where that B can be translated to a 'Bo'.) I was expecting Co-Bo... not AAA. What gives? It turns out that, for tractive effort and weight distribution, the front bogie is actually articulated! So they've classified it as three mini-bogies of one driven axle each.
I then recalled seeing mentionings of this on the JNS Forum posts here [DE10 - What does it haul?] and here [More tech questions re Class DD51 and DE10 diesels]. The latter links to a blog post titled 【仙貨へGO！】この足は誰のもの？仙貨に搬入されたDE１０の台車たち from a Japanese enthusiast by the name of 歩王(あるきんぐ) (Arukingu). 仙貨 (Sen-kamo) is actually an abbreviation of Sendai Kamotsu, the freight yard in Sendai. Do not get this confused with Sendai Transport, a comedic rock band! The title of the blog post loosely translates to: "[Let's go to Sendai Freight Yard] Who's wheels/legs are these? Lifting a DE10 Locomotive." Here's the main picture you really need to see:
SqlDateTime vs DateTime (The battle of the Milliseconds)
This was a good one. I had stored a data row both locally in SQL CE 4.0 and then remotely via a WCF service to SQL Express 10.50.4000. I also then stored the 'most recent' date of the most recent local row in a local 'settings' table as an nvarchar. This was formatted as yyyy-MM-dd HH:ii:ss.fff. I'd then pull this date from the settings table and send it to the remote service that asked are there any records newer than this date?.
The remote service would usually repond with the correct answer, when there were newer rows. But, every so often, it would also respond with Yes! In fact there is! Here is the record with the date you just specified!. WTH? I sent the remote service the exact date and it responds with the same record, which is supposedly newer (no greater-than-or-equals here) when it is exactly the same? ... or is it?
It should not have returned this record. The date should have matched the check date I sent the service and the is there a record with a date greater than the check date should not have been true...
DateTime objects stored in MSSQL lose accuracy
Turns out that, in the land of the datetime data format in MSSQL, that the accuracy is not maintained.
MSSQL, with the datetime format, can only store milliseconds of ##0, ##3, ##7. There's a lot of posts on this splattered all over the web.
Be careful when storing a datetime as a string
So what was my issue? I was getting the datetime from my local record and storing this as a string in another table, called settings, which was a key-value-paired one-size-fits-all user-settings table.
I was formatting it to the correct SQL format, preserving the milliseconds. Of course, I could, in this case, store any 3-digit millisecond value I required.
When I then read that back as a datetime in C#, the value was rehydrated correctly.
When I then sent that to the server, the value was up to 2 milliseconds less/greater than the ACTUAL record in my local db and the remote db. Therefore the server would, every so often, return the record I had based my date off... because I was storing it as text more accurately than MSSQL was in the datetime format.
SqlDateTime to the rescue
C# has a data type known as SqlDateTime. If you grab your DateTime from any object, pipe it into the constructor of a new SqlDateTime and then grab the .Value on the other end, you'll wind up with the DateTime as it would be stored in the database!
Tada! You'll no longer have to worry about inaccurate milliseconds!
In fact, you should probably switch ALL DateTimes in your C# app to SqlDateTimes if you want to get rid of shitty little bugs that will only occur when you do something at an exact millisecond that CANNOT BE STORED IN MSSQL.
End Rant.
Power Mac 7200: PC Compatibility
The 7200 was marketed as PC Compatible out of the box and came stock with an 820-0728-A Apple PC Compatibility Card. Getting one of these to work without the original disks was quite a challenge! Let's start by checking it out...
Once in the case, there's ribbon cables and audio cables running everywhere.
The External Cable (is not required)
It turns out that if you boot the machine up without the cable patched in then it isn't needed; the PC display is routed internally through to your monitor.
I'm going to guess that the internal ribbon cable, as seen in the last picture above, is the reason for this. It must route the video output through to the standard Macintosh video. I don't know if this causes a performance hit.
Upgrading it
My initial understanding was that the CPU is fixed and so is the on-board 16mb of RAM, but there is an extra slot that you can slap up to 64mb into. See Oliver Schubert's notes here. I therefore purchased an additional 64mb on eBay to get my card to 80mb. Make sure it is 5v NON-EDO FPM 4x64!
The RAM arrived from eBay (new DIMM is above old in the picture above) and I plugged it in and turned it on. Windows still reported 30mb of RAM (2mb to video, I imagine) and so did the BIOS. I initially thought I'd bought a dud... after a few reboots and poweroffs I still couldn't get the total amount to register. I powered the machine down completely and inspected the card. It seems that the DIMM had around 0.5 of a millimetre more to be pushed into the slot!
Rebooting with a properly seated DIMM showed 64mb in the BIOS. I had actually expected 80mb if it was working properly, as the on-board 16mb should've totalled to that. Nothing I did further remedied this. 64mb worked for me though.
For fun, I removed the DIMM altogether and rebooted. Trying to start the PC got a loud beep. Nothing. It wouldn't start... I then read the actual manual:
Your PC Compatibility Card has one socket available for RAM (random access memory). Some versions of the card come with a DIMM (dual inline memory module) already installed. On these cards, you can increase memory by replacing the installed DIMM with a greater-capacity DIMM.
Some versions of the PC Compatibility Card do not come with an installed DIMM. On these cards, you must install a DIMM in the socket prior to installing the card in your computer. Otherwise, the card will not work.
Hah... so... my card had 32mb in there.. I removed it and added 64mb. When it was partially inserted it somehow appeared as 32mb. When correctly inserted the 64mb was visible.
I then checked out PC Setup and saw that, when no RAM was in, it told me NO RAM.
Duh...
Mac OS 8.1-8.6
The card just works. The PC Setup Control Panel is installed with the OS and command-return switches you to the PC. I hadn't tried networking from Windows... but I had found that it didn't seem to be configured.
As that the machine came with this OS and had Win95B installed on the PC side, I didn't have to go through anything to get it working. It wasn't until I installed 9.2.2 fresh that I was at the whim of 90's vintage technology.
Mac OS 9.2.2
Nothing. No control panel, no command-return. Mac OS 9 Cross-Platform Issues reports that you can get it to work under 9.0.4... and so I tried for myself on 9.2.2.
Note: This turns into a rant very quickly. If you just want the required files, then jump down to here.
Tips for Running Windows on Mac has a FAQ for getting it to work. They state that networking hadn't worked since 8.5 (probably why it didn't work when I tried.) Their link to PC Setup 2.1.7f failed me, but I found it over here at the PC Card FAQ. It is also available on alksoft's site labelled 'Stuff that might be useful'. Of course... that 'Mac Drivers' link didn't work... so grab it from the PC Card FAQ.
Did that work for you? It didn't for me... the zip from PC Card FAQ had a __MACOSX folder in it and a file that was unrecognised by my 9.2.2 installation. If it still works when you read this, go to the official site here and download the actual driver itself from them.
It worked! And then asked for registration details... enter the following:
- Licensee Name: FREE
- Site Number: 469
- Authorization Key: UEV-EVZ-7TU
...and I then it tells me that I need PC Setup 1.6.4 installed first. Yey! You'll find the first file you need here. Extracting the BIN will give you a disk image. Simply double-click it and Disk Copy will mount it onto your desktop. Run the installer and reboot.
Once rebooted, I thought I'd try and muck around with PC Setup 1.6.4. It seemed to work, but I had no HDD. I had a 1gb disk in there that I wanted to use natively. Don't even bother trying to use real PC Partitions... go with a Drive Container on a spare disk/folder.
PC Setup will take years to build the drive file, so go make a coffee. Once it's done, start the PC. You'll need a boot disk. There seems to be one at the PC Card FAQ with CD-ROM drivers and the like.
Note: You must insert the floppy only once you are on the PC side. A floppy inserted on the Macintosh side will be mounted onto the desktop and be invisible to the PC. Switch to the PC using command-return and then insert the disk. Use command-E at any time to eject the disk.
Anyway, back to the floppy disk image... the files you've downloaded will prove problematic. It'll be next to impossible to create the disk images as the metadata from the zip files seem to be missing and the files wont be openable in Disk Copy or any such program. Your best bet from here is to load up another machine, say Linux or Windows, and create a floppy. Here's someone else who had the same trouble. Their answer was to get another person to write a physical floppy and mail it to them!
I tried this, booting up my old windows PC with floppy drive, but it didn't work! I'm thinking the zip format was the issue... so I started searching deeper. Googling for more information got me to Oliver Schubert's DOS Card FAQ which had pointers to Apple's download site. This was full of dead FTP links, but gave me the real file names in BIN and HQX. I slapped these into google and came across this directory listing. I don't know who you are yahozna, but I love you. The files were there!.. sitting, waiting to be downloaded. And shite, sometimes things just work: they extracted and mounted perfectly via Disk Copy! I took a copy of the second disk for safe-keeping also.
Turns out this disk isn't bootable. Go figure. You're actually meant to have installed DOS 6.22 from the disks that were originally included with the DOS Compatibility Card. I don't really want to do that, so we'll try trick it. We really just want the drivers for our Win98 install.
Grab the Windows98_SE boot image from here and burn it to a floppy. Once created, grab CDROM.SYS from the PC_Compatibility_1.6.4-2of2 and copy it onto the Windows 98 disk. Either delete an existing driver (like BTCDROM.SYS) and rename it to that, or edit CONFIG.SYS and add in a line for CDROM.SYS.
Or, you can just download the boot disk here that I created which will work fine! It also has all the required networking files.
Boot this floppy and crawl to a DOS Prompt. You'll get a warning that C:\ is no good, as expected when no partitions exist. Run FDISK and create a new logical partition. Reboot, booting off the floppy again and we should be set... you should now have a CD-ROM drive and usable C: Drive.
Usually from here, you'd run setup off the CD. Fortunately, we know in advance that the CD will be inaccessible on the second reboot into Windows setup. So, format your disk here and then copy the win98 folder to C:\. You can then run SETUP.EXE from C:\WIN98SE\. This will save a lot of headaches!
That last screen... Windows will sit there 'updating settings' for a very long time! Prepare to wait for around 30 minutes.
Now you're at the desktop, slap the PC_Compatibility_1.6.4-2of2 disk back in and run setup.exe. Keep all the boxes checked, install the drivers and hit restart.
After a reboot you should then have your CD-ROM drive in My Computer! Command-Click on My Computer and then choose properties. Go to the Devices tab and you'll see three items that need drivers. With the Windows 98 SE CD in there, you can choose properties and then Reinstall Driver. Let Windows choose the driver off the CD and you'll be set.
At this point, audio still didn't work. Looking at all of the manuals for the cards, you'll note that they all output audio through the CD Audio cable. It's actually patched in... instead of the audio from the CD drive going straight to the motherboard, it is fed into the cd audio input on the PC card, mixed (I assume) and then another cd audio cable connects the cd audio output of the pc card to the motherboard.
The big hint here was that, after installing Mac OS 9.2.2, had I correctly set up the Mac for CD Audio input? Switching back to the Mac and checking the sound panel, I noticed that I was mute to the world. There was no input specified! An easy fix: set this to CD Audio and switch back to Windows. Tada! All the nasty sounds of Windows 98 SE. Actually... I never did mind that guitar solo on the Welcome screen.
Networking wasn't too difficult. Following the 'How do I network the Mac and PC side at the same time?' instructions at the bottom of the pc card faq, I downloaded the DOS NetWare Client file from FreeDOS, copied it to a CD and then transferred it over to Windows on the Mac.
Note: You cannot use multi-session 'USB Style' CDs in the Macintosh. If you're copying files onto a CD in Windows and want it to work in the Macintosh then you have to do it the old way. Select 'With a CD/DVD Player' rather than 'Like a USB Flash Drive'.
Anyway, back to the networking... There's no need to do much here, I've put all that is required on the floppy image I've created. Slap it in and drag the NWCLIENT folder to C:\.
Edit AUTOEXEC.BAT and make sure the following lines are at the end of the file, in the following order:
C:\NWCLIENT\LSL C:\APPLE\MACODI
I'm assuming you would've done all of this from a Command Prompt window inside Windows 98. So reboot your machine once this is done. Hit ESC when you see the pretty Windows 98 loading screen to see what DOS is doing underneath.
Once back in Windows, go to control panel, networks and then add a new adapter. Select the ODI adapter under the 'detected' category. It'll take a really long time... and won't really tell you that it's doing anything... but it is busy! Just leave Windows at the desktop at this point. It shouldn't ask you for a Novell Disk at this point; if it does, then you need to restart the windows side and check your errors on boot up.
Once installed, reboot as Windows asks. When Windows loads, you should be prompted with a login for Client for Microsoft Networks. You can just hit enter here to set your password as blank.
Once booted, I got to Windows, jumped into a command prompt and typed in IPCONFIG. Oh goody! I had a 169 'internal' IP. This wasn't going to work. There had been no errors, everything seemed to be fine... but PC Setup 1.6.4 on Mac OS 9.2.2 wouldn't let my packets flow. Trying a renew_all on ipconfig reported that my DHCP server wasn't available.
I thought I'd try the patch that was meant for Mac OS 8.5, but that didn't work... it installed, I got my newly patched extension, but on a reboot I still couldn't contact the outside world. Based on the post from Phil Beezley on the FAQ from Oliver Schubert:
...On some Macs, it is also necessary to replace the extension called Apple Enet with the Ethernet (Built-In) extension provided with Mac OS 8.5.
The more official solution to the network problems when using Mac OS 8.5 onwards is to use PC Setup 2.x.
Prior to trying 2.1.7f, I thought I'd try replace this extension. I inserted the Mac OS 8.5 CD, located Ethernet (Built-In) and copied it into the System Folder. It complained that there was an older version in there... how does that happen in 9.2.2? Anyway, You then need to delete/disable/move Apple Enet. Reboot the Macintosh.
It came back up... no errors. Chooser still worked, so did browsing the internet on the Macintosh side... so... I booted into Windows. Command Prompt reported a perfectly defined IP address from DHCP. Internet Explorer even tried to render a page!
After rebooting, I was on the internet! Windows 98 SE is working beautifully! I quickly tried MOD4WIN... nostalgic much? I do wish I could find a copy of Vibe, the MP3 Player that turned into Sonique.
For those who didn't read the fine print
Here are all the files mentioned and how to use them.
| Files | Comments |
|---|---|
|
Apple Macintosh PC Setup 1.6.4 Disks PC_Compatibility_1.6.4-1of2.img.bin |
The first disk contains the Macintosh side and will get 1.6.4 installed on any Mac OS up to 9.2.2. The second disk contains the PC drivers. This is NOT a boot disk. The original expectation is that you have already installed MS-DOS! |
|
Macintosh PC Setup 2.1.7f pcSetup217Mac_22Aug2000.sea.bin Windows Drivers for PC Setup 2.1.7f PC Setup 2.1.7f Setup/Installation Manual |
These files were all secured from the Wayback machine. I have no idea if they work or not! |
|
My Windows 98 SE Boot Disk BOOT98SE.img.sit.hqx |
This disk is bootable and contains the CD driver. It is originally the 98 SE Boot Disk. So it'll drop you to a command prompt where you can use FDISK, FORMAT.COM and then run SETUP from the CD.
I actually recommend that you copy the WIN98 folder to your C drive first! (call it WIN98SE) and run SETUP.EXE from there... that way you wont have to practice magic when it can't find the CD drive during installation. This also contains the Network Drivers. Copy the NWCLIENT folder to C:\ and edit AUTOEXEC.BAT as specified above. |
|
50mb Hard Disk Image of above boot disk TinyBootDisk.sit |
As mentioned, this is a bootable harddisk image that should work for people having issues booting from floppy disks. It contains everything you need for CD and network. The Win98SE Boot Disk RAM DRIVE is also loaded as D:\ (CD as E:\) |
|
PC Compatibility Card Manuals 7" Card Manual12" Card Manual |
The original Macintosh manuals for each card. |
It's been a pleasure...
Power Mac 7200: OS 9.2.2
Mac OS 9.1 is officially the final OS supported on the Power Mac 7200. I've got a new PCI graphics card and PCI USB card on the way and so I'll need Mac OS 9.2.2 for full compatibility. Below details how to achieve this.
Mac OS 9 Lives
I had previously downloaded 9.2.2 from here. It's known as Mac OS 9 Lives and it comes as an ISO with Apple Software Restore and a disk image of a partition with 9.2.2 fully installed. To install the software you only need to run the restore and it'll turn a partition on your local machine into a bootable system image.
..of course, I installed this and rebooted and got the standard This startup disk will not work on this Macintosh. I assume from here you could hack the system folder and edit the gestalt ID matching code (as was done with the 68k) but I instead chose to use OS9 Helper.
To get my machine booting again, I had to find a boot disk that worked fine on my hardware to switch back to the 9.1 startup disk. My old Presto PPC boot disk wouldn't work on this PowerPC... so I had to guess how to boot from a CD. Turns out, with the 9.2.2 boot/firmware, that holding down C at boot will startup from the CD.
Official 9.2.2 ISOs
If you want the real ISO, then go there's more information on it at Macintosh Garden: Mac OS 9.2.2 Universal. You can also get it at winworldpc.
This wasn't going to work either, so I started researching and heard out about...
OS9 Helper
There's quite a few links that explain how the Power Mac 7200 owner should use OS9 Helper to hack OS 9.2.2 into submission. The basic idea is to download OS9 Helper and run it on your machine.
This application will not hack/fix an installed version of OS 9.2.2. Instead, it requires that a version of 9.1 or a patched version of 9.2.1 reside on a local hard disk. It will then update this to the version you require.
This stopped me from using the partition I'd just created with Mac OS 9 Lives and therefore made me use my previous 9.1 startup disk.
The app requires that the relevant Apple OS Update for the version you wish to install be downloaded locally. I didn't try the download links available... instead I searched the net. Finding this was much easier than expected; it turns out that my own ISP still has a cache of Macintosh software! iinet's public FTP located here has a whole swathe of archaic Apple software to download!
Once you've got the required updater, re-run OS9 Helper. I quickly found out that you can't just jump to 9.2.2, you'll need to follow the upgrade steps and install 9.2.1 first. Installing 9.2.1 via OS9 Helper is a breeze. Once done, restart your Mac. It should boot back up to your desktop without issue.
Once booted, set up 9.2.1. You're now ready to apply the 9.2.2 update. Do this via OS9 Helper once again.
And now you're done!
Power Mac 7200: Power Supply
Whilst searching for a CRT on eBay for the Quadra (that's another story), I came across this item. It was listed as being PC Compatible and, after my last efforts of trying to get a DOS Card to work, I decided to tackle this one.
The Power Mac 7200 was marketed as a PC Compatible because it came with a PCI card containing all the required hardware to run a PC. This card includes a 100 MHz Pentium processor that can have a maximum of 64 MB of RAM dedicated to the DOS/Windows operating system.
Powering it on
The case contents rattled a little, so I opened up (there are two push-buttons on the front under the lip) and inspected it. A few plastic lugs had snapped loose, but there was nothing conductive. With the case open I jammed in a power cable and hit the power button.
Nothing. Not even a zap, whirrr or beep. Just silence. I hate that...
Basic principles told me to disconnect all unnecessary components and try again. No love... Pulled the CMOS Battery, held the CUDA button (but not for 15s), left power off 10minutes... no go.
Testing the power supply (Delta DPS-150GB A) (Apple 614-0039)
From here I thought I'd tackle the power supply first. I didn't want to believe it was the logic board. I disconnected the cables and removed it from the case.
There are 4 screws holding the lid of the power supply on. After removing these, you'll then have to slide the lid along the main trunk of power cables. Pushing the cables into the supply will make this easier. The fan has a 2-wire cable which easily pops off the main power supply circuit board.
Once open, I first inspected all components for damage... all looked good. Testing the fuse showed that it worked fine... conducting power. I then grabbed the multimeter and tested all of the pins. I found 5v on pin 4, but no voltage anywhere else.
Here's the pinout for the main 22-pin connector, looking at the plug as if it was facing away from you. Pin 1 is top-left, pin 22 bottom-right.
| +5v | +5v | +5v | +5v | GND | GND | GND | GND | GND | N/A | -12v |
| TRKL | +5v | +5v | +5v | +5v | GND | GND | GND | GND | /PFW | +12v |
And then the secondary 10-pin connector. Pin 1 is top-left, pin 10 bottom-right.
| GND | GND | GND | GND | -S |
| +12v | +12v | +12v | +12v | +S |
These power supplies are triggered by the power switch on the motherboard. Plugging them into the wall will get them in to 'stand-by' mode and power should be visible on certain pins. To test this, plug the power supply into the wall and check the following:
- (22-pin connector) +5v is visible on pin 12 (Yellow)
One important point is that, in my case, the 5v above showed up on the correct pin. The power supply still would not power up. It turns out that the above test is not fool-proof; it'll simply tell you if the initial 'trickle' power is available.
To get this thing to power on whilst disconnected from the motherboard, follow these steps (Thanks goes to LT.Maddog420 on the Tech Guy forums):
- On the 10-pin secondary cable, connect pin 5 (White) to any of pins 1-4 (Black)
- Still on the 10-pin secondary cable, connect pin 10 (Brown) to any of pins 6-9 (Orange)
- Confirm the power supply is plugged in to the wall and that the pins connected above are not exposed or touching metallic surfaces.
- Now, on the main 22-pin power plug, connect pin 12 (Yellow) to pin 21 (Purple)
The above should jump-start the power supply. The fan should at least fire up. If you get nothing then you've got a dead power supply. This would be the first item to replace in a Macintosh that doesn't power on. Of course, when the supply died it could've also fried other parts... but replace the power supply first as it's cheaper. I tried to jump-start mine and it didn't work at all. I decided to pull it completely apart for thorough inspection.
Cracked Circuit Board
Once out of the casing, the issue became quite obvious. The base circuit board for the power supply had a crack in it. The crack formed a semi-circle around the area where the circuit board is held by notches in the metal case. It seems that, somehow, the board has received lateral pressure and cracked! It doesn't quite make sense as the board is thoroughly enclosed. I can only imagine that weather/heat has caused this. I have a hunch that this machine had been out in the elements for a while.
There also seemed to be new flux and solder at the base of a 3-pin component. I really wouldn't be surprised if this had been repaired in its past life; this machine is nearly 20 years old.
Repairing the crack was pretty straight-forward. I was really lucky that this was a single-sided circuit board with large tracks. If there had been tracks on the top side, then this would've been a lot more difficult.
I bared the copper on the tracks around the solder joints and messily bridged all of the component pins. I made sure that I followed the tracks and didn't bridge any circuits. My butane-powered soldering iron decided to let its tip melt in the process and so the first fix shown below looks really crappy. I bought a proper soldering station (I needed it to work on the DOS Card for the Quadra 950) and re-did the soldering. Hence the two pictures of the finished job below.
And then... the friggen thing spun up! Using the jump-start instructions above, I bridged the two wires and then joined yellow to purple. It felt like I was hot-wiring a car and I, honestly, had very little faith in my hack working. I had a celebratory beer as the fan kicked off and I then crossed my fingers that the logic board wasn't also damaged.
A final note: be careful when pulling/pushing the bunch of wires in and out of the power supply case. You can easily peel the insulation off the individual wires and the last thing you would want is a short!
Quadra 950: DOS Cards
I remember back in high school that we had DOS Cards in the Macintoshes we used for Multimedia class. We were either programming Hypercard Stacks or switching to the DOS environment and fragging eachother in Doom II. We weren't meant to be doing the latter... but it was hard to resist.
I had always been impressed that the DOS side worked just as well as the Mac side and switching was seamless. It all makes sense now why the DOS side kept running when switching and why it all ran so well; the DOS card created a whole PC running independently of the host Macintosh.
To re-live all this, I wanted to find a DOS Card for the Quadra 950. Researching the cards lead me to believe that the majority would fit into the the PDS Slot, but I wanted to keep my PPC upgrade in there. I therefore began the hunt to find a Nubus DOS Card.
Some light reading...
- Jag's House: Installing a DOS Card Into 68k Macs (Not Supported by Apple)
- Tom and Lisa's Weird Web Page: DOS Card Madness !
- Vintage Mac World: 20 Ways to Misuse an Orange386 NuBus PC Card
- Andrew's OrangePC 290 page (Absolute Goldmine!)
- Low End Mac: The Once and Future Mac286 Page
- A Brief Overview on DOS Compatibility
- PC Card FAQ
First attempt at acquiring one
I happened across an Orange Micro PC Coprocessor Card (dated prior to the OrangePC 290) with a Cyrix 5x86 on eBay. Bidding started at USD50. I bid up to USD70. I was in the lead until the last second when the price nearly doubled to USD126. Sounds like I'm an eBay newbie but, on the contrary, I just wasn't expecting the price to go that high. I actually wonder what the final bidder put down as a max bid... only the bidder ever knows with eBay, the seller only ever gets to see the final auction price and any bids below that.
This kind of crappy bidding brings up a good point: I like how Yahoo Auctions Japan actually extends the auction in the last five minutes, for five minutes, if someone places a bid. That way, just like in a real auction, the final bidder with the most money actually wins; rather than the one with the lowest latency.
The conclusion? These things are in demand!... This model happened to be a Cyrix 5x86 SL50 and was a little below-spec anyway, so I was happy to sit tight for something gutsier.
Orange Micro: OrangePC 290
eBay alerts are all well-and-good when the sellers list their items correctly. Unfortunately, this item was listed as shipping to the US only. I usually don't bother begging, as you usually get a flat-out "no" in response, but I asked the seller if they'd ship to Australia. As luck would have it, they did... but it was through the global shipping program. Not to be discouraged, I took the gamble and bid anyway... I won!
It seems that this card was worth over USD$2500 back in the day. See The Original Macintosh DOS Compatibility Card (Houdini I) for a price list... way down the document. I haven't checked the rest of the doc for valid information on my scenario (I don't have a Houdini card), but I'll read it at a later date when I have Win95B+Plus! running on my Quadra.
This card is came equipped with a genuine Intel 486 DX4-100 CPU and 32mb of RAM. I scoured the internet and found the drivers on the Wayback Machine. Product information is here and Downloads and drivers for the OrangePC 290 are here. Installation seemed overly-easy. Running the application gave a very simple configuration interface. Thanks to all my partitions I could easily allocate the space on one to a virtual HDD file. It seems that you need to use real floppy disks instead of images... Use Disk Copy to create those via the "Make Floppy Disk..." menu item.
The first warning, as below, was that my Video mode was unsupported. As you can see, it was configured for internal video, but the desktop mode didn't seem to gel with the OrangePC card. I tried quite a few resolutions (not really trusting my MAC to VGA video converter) but couldn't get it to agree with any mode. I was beginning to wonder if this was actually a hardware issue with the card itself.
I then hit Cold Boot on the setup panel and ... nothing ... 10 seconds later an error: The OrangePC card is not responding to the Macintosh and the error code 32. I couldn't find anything on that error number, but googling the text gave the standard advice of (taken from Orange Micro's FAQ page):
Q: When I launch OrangePC, I get an Error message saying ``The OrangePC is not Responding."
Remove the OrangePC from the Macintosh. With a pencil eraser, clean the PCI contacts. Do the same for the Memory (DIMM or SIMM) modules. Reseat the memory modules on the OrangePC, and insert the OrangePC into the Macintosh. If possible, place the OrangePC card in the slot closest to the Macintosh processor.
I decided to go down the cleaning route and removed the RAM SIMM. Everything then started to become very clear... the teeth in the socket were loose. I don't even know if that's the right term, but either way the three left-most contacts were going to be making very dodgy connections... no good for low-level digital logic. I jumped straight on eBay and found a local 72-pin SIMM socket and ordered it... it's 90-degrees instead of the 22.5 angle, but it'll be a good test.
In the meantime, I removed the SIMM, put the card back in the Macintosh and tried again... this time OrangePC told me that the Memory configuration was incorrect. Slightly interesting... it can tell that the chip isn't there (there must be a latch driven when the chip is in, must be on other pins.) I unseated the CPU and checked for further damage, but it looked ok... I then inspected the rest of the board. There are dints and scratches all over it, but none look track-threatening. I reseated the SIMM as best as possible with its loose teeth and tried again.
Finally, prior to any actual surgery, I grabbed a hair-drier and gave it a once-over. The age-old trick of reheating dry solder joints is a good one. I've never tried it, but I could see dry joints all over the place. A hot hair-drier will actually slightly melt the joints and, as long as you don't angle the board, hopefully re-join any damaged connections. It's a crap-shoot, but it was worth a try. Unfortunately it didn't improve the situation.
Googling further, I came across Andrew's OrangePC 290 page. This guy is a legend; That is all. The site might as well be the technical manual for the card. So lucky to find it. It documents the jumper settings... I assume these would come set out of the factory, but they are there to be configured. It turns out that he has all the information I need for the CPU I have installed. I reviewed the jumpers, and found that they were all wrong. They didn't match the CPU installed at all. I reconfigured the jumpers as per Andrew's page... but the board still would not function.
Re-inserting it and starting OrangePC threw an error Type 1 at me... hadn't seen that before. Oh, the joys of playing with vintage hardware! Type 1 errors are address errors... I assume it's having issues finding the hardware. A reboot didn't help. I powered the machine down and was about to put the card in another slot when I realised I'd bent a pin on the Nubus connector. No wonder the software couldn't find the hardware.
Don't do anything with vintage hardware in a rush... Straightening the bent nubus connector pin proved relatively easy. I inserted it again, gently, and power up the machine. No love... errors... I think we'll see if the RAM socket repair will work.
One note, I attempted to set the video mode to external via jumpers 11 and 12. Andrew's site indicates that there are two configurations, but I tried all. The software actually registered that external mode was selected... it even stopped me from opening the internal view of the dos environment. That only confused me further... the Macintosh could talk to the card fine... it just seems that when it throws the final boot command that the card does not respond... maybe it is the RAM/CPU combo. I really don't know what the history of this card is... for all I know it's been out in someone's flowerpot catching rays for the last 20 years.
Further attempts to get this working resulted in very hot CPUs and other ICs on the board, random bus errors on boot of MacOS and system crashes left, right and center. Not much fun... this card is about to get written off as a dud. I tried reverting to 8.1, switching off the PPC card, switching back to the stock crystal. Nothing. It just wouldn't boot.
I had a lightbulb moment: I could re-wire the first loose tooth on the ram socket prior to receiving a whole new socket. I found some winding wire from my toolbox and installed it. Nothing... it still failed with the same errors... made me believe that the card was hopeless.
...this effort proved fruitless. No change in error messages.
In the never-ending quest to fix this thing, I also replaced the CPU with a valid substitute. I bought an AMD DX4-100 from a seller on eBay and gave it a go... no love.
The RAM socket arrived... I replaced the socket, but that didn't work either.
Could it be the RAM SIMM? I've another arriving sometime in the next week... will give it a go.
Otherwise... I'm beginning to think that this is a dead-loss. Time to sit back and wait for another one to appear on eBay.
My Pebble Time has arrived
I've always thought a smartwatch would be fun, but I've never really been keen on any of the models available. This stood true until I found out about the Pebble. The previous models were butt-ugly, but the kickstarter project for the Pebble Time took my fancy.
I backed the project and received my Pebble Time last Thursday. The contents of the package were very simple: A manual/quickstart, a charging cable and the watch itself. The watch came pre-charged and I was ready to plug it in.
Initiating Connection
I enabled bluetooth on my phone and loaded up the Pebble App. It found the watch and then tried to update it's firmware. This managed to fail 3 times in a row... I held down a number of buttons on the watch but could not get it to reboot as per their recommendation. On the fourth attempt, the firmware updated.
I could now view the installed watchfaces and apps on my watch. Watchfaces are apps, but they get maximum screentime as they're the default app shown, displaying the time. Extra Apps can then be installed to do any number of tasks. The watch is effectively always connected to the world, as long as your phone is... and as long as you have battery... everywhere.
First Impressions
The battery life is intense. It lasts around 5 days without charging. It's warned me today that it's at 20%, but I thought I'd keep going to see how long it lasts. Last charge was Thursday evening. Better to deep-cycle the batteries, I suppose.
Off the shelf there is a remote to control music, an app to configure alarms (not tied in to any Android app), watchface selection and settings. The Music remote works great, although it tied in to 'Apollo' instead of Google Music... I have no music in Apollo.. will need to sort that out.
There's a whole plethora of watchfaces to install. Anything you can think of. I tried WeatherLand and IsoTime, two great designs. The former takes into account your location and the local weather and renders the background mountain scene accordingly! There's also the shadow clock, which is installed by default.
I haven't installed any third-party Apps on the watch yet... I'll do that and report back here... but I have gone ahead and created my own custom Watchface!
Cloudpebble and Developing
Development for the watch couldn't be easier. Browse to Cloudpebble, create an account and you're already set to go. You can program in C++ or Javascript via their online IDE, which works extremely well. It can even allow you to emulate a watch via the web or directly upload your project to your own watch via your phone! The upload works via your phone's internet connection and then bluetooth... just enable Developer Mode in settings and you're off.
You can choose to develop an App or a Watchface. These are really the same thing, but a watchface will be categorised correctly and perform the correct actions on button-press events.
Mimicking My Old Arnette Watch
Here it is... it was a clunker and it contributed to a broken wrist. (Don't wear watches whilst playing sport!) This is the last remaining photo I have of this model and it is near-on impossible to find any reference to it on the internets.
As you can see, my watch bit the dust after a decade of punishment. I had loved the 'text mode' so much that I decided to emulate it on the Pebble Time. I used FontStruct to create a 30px high font that resembled the Arnette font. This then worked perfectly as a resource in cloudpebble and rendered pixel-for-pixel on the watch itself.
I then just had to write the logic to write out the text of the time. This was a little tricky, but nothing that couldn't be solved by a few arbitrary values and if clauses. The result speaks for itself! There was the odd bug or two to start with... but I've been testing the watchface out in the field and it's working great. I think I might add a battery meter on there and a few other doo-dads if possible. I'll then release it to the greater community.
Note that the old Arnette actually had a 'magic-a-ball' if you held down the top-right button. I hadn't known about this feature... 4 years in to owning the watch I accidently held down the button whilst trying to set the time and the friggen a-ball came up. It read back to me "YEAH SURE". Nice fortune! After that it became a great decision-maker whilst intoxicated. I might also program this into the watchface... will need to work out if I can commandeer the buttons whilst in 'watchface-mode'.
In the last shot you can see that I realised I'd had the colours the wrong way around... flipping them gave me goose-bumps... although the screen is 4x the DPI of the original watch, the result is so similar it's not funny. I love it!
Got any other ideas/development requests?
Feel free to leave a comment here and request something custom for this watch? Am happy to work with anyone who wants to design/develop something for this watch. It's a great platform and the only limit would be one's imagination!
Osaka – May 2013
More from the photo album I'd neglected... This time it's Osaka and it's 3 years since I'd last visited.
Shinosaka station
Staying at the same apartment as usual (Thanks Masa-san!) I had the same great view of the trunk from Shinosaka Station to Osaka Station north of the Yodogawa.
With my freight timetable in hand, it was easy to be there at the right time to see the transfers through to Umeda Freight Yard or Ajikawaguchi.
Later that night I ventured to Shinosaka Station itself and checked out the expresses on platforms 11 and 12.
Hankai Tram Network - Ebisucho
The Hankai Tramway runs from the southern end of Den Den Town into the southern suburbs of Osaka. It has a cute selection of very well looked-after aging rolling stock.
The two photos at the end are from the steps on the northern side of Spa World as you head into Shinsekai. It's a display of one of the old Hankai Trams and has mentionings on the history. I couldn't read it ....
Noda Station - Tetsudou Library
I waited here one night for the Super Rail Cargo M250. It didn't come... The Railway Library is still there though! Very impressive... something that wouldn't commercially survive in any other country, I'd imagine... the photos below are the most recent from May 2013 and then photo I took in 2010. Not much of a difference, just different paper posters in the left windows.
A Haruka also bolted past on its way to Kyoto...
Taking the long way from Osaka to Kansai Airport
Digging through my backed up iPhoto album, I'd realised that I'd completely failed to upload and blog about my 2013 trip to Japan. I'll be collating (and trying to remember) the photos and trips and hopefully write about them in due course.
This post is about a trip I took from Tennoji to Kansai Airport. Usually you'd just jump on the Nankai Rapi:t or JR West Haruka, but I had time to burn and new places to visit.
Why not take the express?
Scenery from a train window in Japan is, more often than not, impressive. It's not as educational as a TV, but the quality is realistic and the views picturesque. The audio quality is also fantastic and there's often a connection to the soul when one of the clicks or clacks actually physically interacts with you.
Realising this, I had decided to extend what would be a very short and fast trip into a long and thoroughly enjoyable one through the south Osaka countryside.
Kansai Main Line
From Tennoji, I watched the expresses depart southbound towards the airport and realised that 3 or 4 of them would reach my destination before me. I was in for a much longer trip, starting off heading east, instead of south, towards Oji.
This is the Kansai Main Line (the translation could also be "Kansai Original Line") which cuts across the Kii Peninsula from Tennoji through to Tsu. I travelled on the west side of it from Tennoji through to Oji, which uses an assortment of EMUs. Further to the east you switch to a DMU to get over the mountain range to Tsu.
Note that Google Maps correctly shows the name from Kamo to Namba as the Kansai Main Line. JR West has given the stretch from Namba to Kamo the nickname "Yamatoji Line" and runs the "Yamatoji Rapid" on it.
Wakayama Line
This line runs from Oji to Wakayama. From Gojo Station, the track parallels the Kino River (Kinokawa River? Kino River River?) giving the passenger some fantastic views. I was there in early Summer and there were carp kites hanging from cables strung across the breadth of the river. For the life of me I can't believe that I didn't take any photos.
Hanwa Line
This is the stretch of track from Tennoji to Wakayama. Multiple express trains run along here... The Haruka to the airport and the Kuroshio/Ocean Arrow to Shingu. I checked out Wakayama station, a junction for the Kisei Line and the Wakayama Railway Kishigawa Line.
Musota Station
This is the first station north of Wakayama on the Hanwa Line. The expresses don't stop... and there's a sweeping curve and bridge to the south, providing a great spot to get them coming through at full-tilt.
You then get great shots from the north with the mountain range in the background.
Yamanakadani Station
Heading north, the track enters a mountain range just after Kii Station. In the middle of that range is Yamanakadani Town. This little town has a tiny station where the expresses bolt through.
Shinge Station
Further north, after the mountain range, the track makes it way towards the branch to Kansai Airport at Hineno. Two stations before this is Shinge Station. It's extremely urban and sees very much the same traffic. No express trains stop here.
Hineno Station
The branch to Kansai Airport starts here. The Haruka Express trains therefore stop here to allow connecting passengers to continue south to Wakayama.
From here it was a quick transfer and trip through Rinku Town before arriving at Kansai International Airport.
6029 to Wagga Wagga
That beast of an engine from Canberra was on the move again, this time southbound. It was the June Queen's Birthday long weekend and they were running a 'Winter Safari' tour to Junee and Wagga Wagga.
I wanted to check it out, but didn't feel like covering the 100s of kilometres there and back driving; so I chose to take the trusty XPT once again. The Friday night service would get me to Junee just before 0100 hours. This was ok as I'd arranged with the motel across from the station to stash my room key somewhere accessible. All went well and I slept for the arrival of the train the next morning.
The overland arrived just before our train departed. It was busy shunting the auto-rail off the rear and over to it's dock to put the cars back onto the road. The trip into the night was peaceful enough, although it seemed that getting drunk and walking up and down the corridors all night was to be a good hobby for some locals.
Saturday Morning
I'd inspected the ARTC timetables and put together the following diagram. There wasn't too much freight in the area, but there was enough to keep one's self entertained. I had initially thought that the steam engine shuttles were from Wagga to Junee and back, but it turned out that (once I actually read the website correctly) that the shuttles were just between Wagga and Bomen. It seems that quite a few others, who came looking for the engine on the platform at Junee during the day, made the same mistake.
Coota Junee Bomen Wagga ST22 CLK 0137 0048 0033 0022 6MB4 PN 0329 0221 0158 0150 6MB7 QN 0539 0405 0340 0332 5BM7 PN 0354 0441 0522 0528 9L03 ARHS 0449 0543 ---- ---- 3PW4 PN 0903 0757 0727 0719 9S05 ARHS ---- 0805 0830 0840 9L06 ARHS ---- ---- 0915 0855 9S07 ARHS ---- ---- 0920 0940 9337N PN 0852 0944 ---- ---- 9L08 ARHS ---- ---- 1015 0955 6WP2 PN 0900 0952 1021 1028 9S09 ARHS ---- ---- 1030 1050 9L10 ARHS ---- ---- 1125 1105 9S11 ARHS ---- ---- 1130 1150 3314N QUBE ---- 1159 ---- ---- 9L12 ARHS ---- ---- 1225 1205 9S13 ARHS ---- ---- 1230 1250 SP41 CLK 1219 1258 ---- ---- 3315N QUBE ---- 1300 ---- ---- ST23 CLK 1251 1327 1346 1354
I'd bought my return ticket from Junee and had considered trying to change it to depart from Wagga instead. Unfortunately there weren't too may transportation options to get to Wagga, so I stayed put in Junee to watch the festivities. In hindsight, I could have actually purchased a ticket on 6029 and travelled south to Wagga in the morning when they left... but meh, I'd no idea.
6029 arrives with assistance
4501 and 4403 lead 6029 into Junee around an hour late. Still under the cover of darkness, the consist made its way into the yard and then detached. All three engines came off the consist to allow 6029 to shunt off and proceed up to the roundhouse. As with most typical gunzels, there were ramblings of mechanical failure and other doom/gloom. I would've assumed that 6029 would've lead into Junee, but then again... it was pitch black and there was no need for spectacle. They would've also needed to keep up with traffic, so having the diesels do all the work makes sense.
The engine stayed in the roundhouse for quite a while... missing the initial slot it was meant to take from Junee to Wagga.
A northbound freight was then given the path and 6029 covered it in steam/smoke as it came through.
Once the path was clear, the consist was shunted into the station and passengers boarded.
It then proceeded off to Wagga, looking great, but requiring quite a bit of help from 4501 on the tail as it climbed the grade out of Junee.
That was it for 6029... the next site was from the window of our southboard daylight XPT. One of its shuttles was to Uranquinty and it was in the loop there as we bolted through.
Freight around Junee
There's always containers stored in the yard... Qube shunt here from Harefield. It seems that they can't fit their entire consists into the roads at Harefield, so they shunt rakes of container trains back and forth to load and unload. They then bring the portions together in Junee yard and take them south to Melbourne.
Junee is also the location of the triangle to Griffith. I lie though, it's no longer a triangle. The branch is only accessible when heading north from the south, so any southbound train wanting to go to Griffith has to head into Junee Yard, run around and then proceed back out again. A grain train did this whilst I was waiting at the station.
A random Aurizon track vehicle then appeared at the crossing, mounted the tracks and then bolted off north.
Finally the Qube service from Harefield arrived to drop off one rake of containers and take another off to load/unload.
Railmotor Societies 721/621
The radar then showed that an unusual vehicle was headed south. Speaking to folks on the platform, it turns out that the Patterson Railmotor Society was running a tour over the long weekend also.
XPT shennanigans
Only one platform is in use at Junee. Whether it be for lack of accessibility, patronage or care, the second platform that would cater to northbound passengers is out of use. This means that, on approach, the northbound XPT needs to cross over to the southbound tracks to reach platform 1. Of course, it can only do this is the road is clear. Funnily enough, the road isn't often clear as the southbound XPT usually crossed the northbound here. It's the half-way point between Melbourne and Sydney.
Due to the track arrangement, the northbound XPT is, more often than not, sent north past the station into the siding north of the level crossing. The southbound XPT then comes through, visits platform 1 and then proceeds to Melbourne. Once clear, the northbound XPT then reverses (well, it's got a cab at either end, so it's not too much hassle) onto the southbound road and accesses the platform. Once loaded it then continues north on its journey.
Quite a lot of mucking around when they could just reinstate the other platform. It's the age-old issue with Australian trains and 'customer' service. They've slapped it in the too-hard basket and it's frustrating to watch the infrastructure crumble.
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