On 27.8.2021 21:26, Jordan wrote:
And you too Mr. Tomas, I wouldn't be able to do anything with my Japanese PS/55 systems without the hard work of you and countless others. I'm new here so I guess this is my introductory post - don't worry, my regular posts won't be this verbose.
Hi Jordan, I'm glad you have found the PS/55 pages useful. When I
started working on Sandy's old website a few years ago, I didn't think
it would find much use after all the years, especially since all the
binary files were lost in the sands of time. It was more of a curiosity
than anything - a glimpse into the world of Japanese M.A.D.ness. But miraculously, when I've contacted Sandy the last year, he was able to
recover most of the missing files and even take photos of some of the Japan-exclusive hardware.
I'll ping Sandy with your message. I'm sure he will be happy to hear
that even some 20 years later, people still find his work useful and
that there still are fully working PS/55s out there in the wild!
I owned a PS/55Z 5530 sometime around 2014 but only got into the MCA world properly in late 2016, right as I was about to move back to Australia from Japan. A PS/55 Type 5551-T09 appeared for a reasonable price and I bought it without realising it
wouldn't arrive until AFTER the rest of my belongings had been shipped. I had no choice but to take it on the plane with me, alongside its massive 5576-001 keyboard - you should've seen the look on that Narita security guy's face. After a long battle
with unreliability in the floppy drive department, I became fed up with the machine and sold it on eBay. A quick search of the group shows some of you spotted it at the time.
I'm surprised you were allowed to board the plane with the "battle
station" keyboard. One could easily use that thing as a deadly weapon. :-D
Well, long story short, I regretted the sale almost instantly and began setting aside funds to buy another 5551.
Well, that's how it usually goes. The M.A.D. virus is highly contagious,
and it doesn't take long for the withdrawal symptoms to appear.
Late last year, I managed to get my hands on an externally pretty but internally troubled 5551-T19 and set to work fixing it up. After replacing a million leaky capacitors on the main board, FDD, and HDD, I had a nicely working machine. The 20MHz 386DX
within was a bit too slow for the sorts of games I enjoy playing, so I started looking for CPU upgrades and managed to snag a destroyed (case-wise) V2 planar version 5551 with an IBM Blue Lightning 25/75MHz upgrade, RAM card, and 120MB ESDI drive inside.
That motherboard and PSU ended up working perfectly, so I gave it the top cover from my 5551-T19, a PS/2 8513 monitor I found locally, my trusty old 5576-001 keyboard, re-capped the ESDI drive, and here we are today. I've been enjoying the new FastDoom
port and just installed a Texelec Resound New Wave MCA Sound Blaster clone tonight, fulfilling a dream I've had since 2016 of playing Doom on a PS/55 at a reasonable framerate with proper sound. I was going to build my own Snark Barker MCA using TubeTime'
s PCB and BOM, but I'm lazy and Texelec's price seemed reasonable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJcMzgcUf8Q&ab_channel=DeChief
That's one neat and well-equipped machine you got there!
Btw, which of the two "T" planars do you have? The larger "Stage 1"
board, or the later "Stage 2" version with memory expansion slots on a
separate board? And if you ever have to disassemble the machine down to
the planar, please take some photos of the board for our collection :).
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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