Zel's Fleet Blog...Rover, Renault, Peugeot, Trabant, Invacar & Sinclair C5

[gazza82]

Wondering what has changed in Zel's fleet since this forum went offline ..

(hoping this post triggers an email to alert Zel it's back and people are posting again!)

[Dick]

Wondering what has changed in Zel's fleet since this forum went offline ..

(hoping this post triggers an email to alert Zel it's back and people are posting again!)

Oh I can't wait! He has an interesting collection.. I nearly started collecting old electronic gadgets but soon realised I
have no idea what I'd be doing

[Zelandeth]

Aye, I spotted we were back up a couple of days ago (I'd been checking in every couple of weeks just in case). Had an email kindly sent to make sure I'd spotted it too, which was most appreciated.

*Checks back to see when the last post is from...*

Oh good god...Yeah, there's going to be a...somewhat sizable...summary update to follow shortly it's fair to say. The staples of the fleet remain unchanged, Invacar, Camper, Caddy are still here, though there's been a fair bit of change elsewhere on the drive though.

I've come to the conclusion that I'd quite like to replace the Caddy with a Berlingo, for two main reasons. First is that having rear seats which are usable for more than just short journeys would be nice. Secondly...and I know I've said it before, the ride in the Caddy is just so fluffing harsh. Which is a real shame as it's otherwise such a relaxed thing to drive, and it has a truly uncanny ability to devour hundreds of miles of motorway seemingly in the blink of an eye. However bumbling around locally where our roads are emphatically NOT as well maintained as the motorways, it's just bloody painful at times. Problem is it's also really not worth much... it's cosmetically challenged throughout and will want a clutch in the not too distant future (though admittedly I've been saying that for the last year and 12K miles and it's no different to when I got it). It's also a bit of an oddball to sell being an ex-wheelchair van...but without having the ramp any more so it's not actually any use to someone with a wheelchair. The void between petrol and diesel prices don't exactly help its value either. The truly astonishing economy the old 1.9SDI engine can return (I've seen 52MPG on a brisk, pretty well laden run between MK and Glasgow - which still breaks my brain a bit) has always been one of the big selling points...but when you look at the disparity between fuel prices in our area at least it works out though on a cost per mile basis as a petrol car doing 32MPG...and I can think of plenty far more comfortable ways to travel for roughly that cost per mile. Between fuel prices and an ever growing list of places you can't take it, it just doesn't look all that attractive compared to when I bought it.

I'd still like my long wished for Cherokee, but seeing how prices have continued to go I just can't see that happening. I'd wondered if between ULEZ refugees and the way fuel prices have gone if a few bargains might have popped up but that's just not happened...I might just have to mark it up as having missed the boat on that one. Plus having a 4 litre straight six engined daily in 2023 maybe isn't the smartest idea!

That said...when has sensible ever really dictated my motoring decisions?

Anyhow...yes, expect a no doubt long, rambling update sometime in the next couple of days when I get time to sit down at a computer and actually write it.

[Dick]

Roll on the long rambling updates!! With photos please

[Zelandeth]

We're starting things back off with an occasional distraction.

As I've ended up coming down with COVID for a second time. Which is annoying to say the least, especially as I had only got about 80% of the way through recovering from last time I got it a year ago.

This has however given me time to get the web page for this old slab of granite updated.



The last page was written in about 30 minutes back somewhere between 2006 and 2009. It showed.

The new version of the page is now live over here if you want to go read someone waffling on about what these days is honestly pretty pointlessly obsolete technology. This is one of my favourite machines, and was basically the thing which really kicked my vintage tech hobby into starting.

Kind of embarrassed it took me so long to get that page tidied up. Both because of how important it was in the chronology of my vintage computing obsession, and because it has always been one of the busiest pages on my website in terms of search engine activity. So it really needed to be sorted.

Given I'm really not in a fit state to do anything resembling physically strenuous beyond hobbling to the kitchen for the occasional Lemsip, I'll probably try to tackle another one in the queue during periods of actually being able to string a sentence together. There is a long, long queue waiting to be added there. The T1200 would probably be the most logical target given it's one that's in regular use...and is already sitting on the desk so I don't have to dig it out!

I do intend to get something by way of a mass update on here written too.

[Dick]

Get well soon mate

[Zelandeth]

Last time it was run, the T3200SXC was showing signs of power supply issues. Not surprising really...so let's dig into it and find what we're dealing with.

After uttering some quite spicy curses at sneaky designers at Toshiba anyway. It took me a good 15 minutes of struggling with the top cover before I tracked down the last two screws.



See it yet?

How about now?



First one I've one across with a screw down from the top at the rear.

It's never a good sign when you find the goo before you've even opened the unit.



Yeah, there's been a bit of leakage going on here.



These four look to be the main culprits.



At least nothing looks too crust...oh.



You see all that black stuff? Yeah, that shouldn't be there. That should be shiny and green. That is where the capacitor electrolyte has got underneath the solder mask and started to corrode the traces. On the plus side, while that looks quite spectacular, it's a single sided board with quite chunky traces, and the few areas I spectulatively scraped at it a bit revealed copper to still exist under the gunk...so I think it's saveable.

It spent a good portion of the afternoon taking a swim in some IPA.



This one is going to take quite a bit of cleaning as there's just so, so much slime everywhere and all over everything. Given this has mains on one side of it, I need to be absolutely sure I've got all of it.

Hoping it can be saved though as the rest of this machine is - unlike the vast majority of mine - otherwise near factory fresh. Seriously, I haven't even needed to vacuum the keyboard on this one. Hopefully with every cap in the PSU and display replaced it will come back to life.

One clean motherboard.



I'd wanted to strip it down so I could see the whole board to make sure there had been no seepage down onto the board from the PSU. Thankfully as it's always been stored with the power supply end down, that wasn't an issue.

So drive assembly went back in after giving the hard disk a test run. Being an old Conner (CP30104) unsurprisingly it sprang to life quite happily - despite sounding like the bearings are made of gravel. They're just like that! I've generally found these old 80s to early 90s Conner drives unless they've got wet to be supremely reliable. Think I've only ever had one or two fail - and those have been DOA. If they work, they just keep going. They sound like absolute hell - especially the single platter ones - but usually just do their thing.



Looks like this one has been fully maxed out in the memory department, which is always nice to see.



Though this one is never going to be a speed demon.



Oh dear, yes that is indeed an 80386SX, in 20MHz flavour here. For those of you not familiar with the 386SX, it's...well a bit pointless. While at its core it is a 32-bit chip, it only has a 16-bit address bus. This brings with it an obvious huge performance impact as it halves the rate at which you can get data into or out of the chip. It's actually worse than that though, as you have to waste at least a couple of clock cycles switching address banks. So it's even slower... I'm going to be really curious to do some tests to see how it actually compares performance wise to the 286 in the base T3200 - my guess is far, far less than you'd think.

In other news, a package for the one of the fleet arrived this afternoon.



Looking forward to getting that installed...though you lot don't actually know what the car is yet!

[Dick]

I remember a college freind had a laptop thing in 92, our head of I T at the college was impressed looked similar to yours.. over 2 k at the time.. I wonder what she's doing now..?
As for the radiator is for a nissan?

[Zelandeth]

I remember a college freind had a laptop thing in 92, our head of I T at the college was impressed looked similar to yours.. over 2 k at the time.. I wonder what she's doing now..?
As for the radiator is for a nissan?

The T5200 cost an eye watering $11,000 in 100Mb form at launch in 1991! That equates to somewhere around £25K in today's money.

The radiator is not for a Nissan. Not even close I'm afraid. Waaaaay wrong corner of the world.

I'll give you a clue which does actually narrow things down quite a bit. It's front wheel drive, but not a transverse engine. I'll help you out by confirming it's not another Saab (though the radiator would already have told you that), nor is it an old Audi. Wouldn't mind a shot of one, but definitely not something I'd drop all my existing plans for. It's also basically extinct.

It's also very, very me. Though given that covers or has covered everything from an Invacar to a V12 Jag, that's probably not a massive help!

I'll try to get the actual post up tomorrow to put you out of your misery, though it's interesting getting a glimpse at the thought processes when people try to deduce something.

I was thinking about a teaser photo, but struggling with something which wouldn't be uselessly obscure or more likely just give it away...especially with you lot! Was thinking a tiny crop of the instrument panel...

Oh go on then...if you've seen this before you'll immediately recognise it I'm sure as it's pretty damned distinctive.



Today's fun and games continued in my rehabilitation home for ancient technology. The T3200SXC is awaiting parts, which hopefully will arrive over the weekend to allow me to (hopefully) repair the power supply. My original plan had been maybe to get the T1200 photographed for the website. Right up to the point at which I realised quite how grubby it was.

I never took the opportunity to clean it properly before as I was highly skeptical that the repaired power supply board was ever going to work - keeping in mind I think I was on power supply number seven by that point. Then it's always been in pretty regular use so the opportunity had never really come up. However, it definitely needed sorted before I took a bunch of photos effectively putting it on show.

So today I stripped the whole thing down to pretty much to its component parts for a really good clean.

On the plus side, I've taken apart and rebuilt so many Toshiba T1200s by now I can do it in about ten minutes with my eyes closed! Which given how many brain cells I still seemed to be missing this afternoon was a good thing. Was it worth a few hours work? Well I'll let you make the decision.

Have some before and after photos.



Actually was quite a bit more organic disgustingness engrained around the latches than it looks in that photo.






Quite a bit of gunge in the seam between the case halves and around the controls, embossed lettering etc.



Not any more there isn't.

I'd tried several times by hand to get all the crud out of these grooves on the back of the display and from around the badge.





There was exactly as much fluff and grime in around the hinge as you'd expect after 33 years too. Much better now.

All in all I'd say that didn't scrub up half bad for a computer made in 1990 (which is surprising late for a T1200, the model was launched in early 1988 - imagine a *single* laptop model now lasting a full two years unchanged!) if I do say so myself. Someone once told me it wasn't possible to detail a computer like a car. I beg to differ. Just takes a different set of skills and tools.











Now feel it's ready for its photoshoot.

Here is a shot from during the reassembly process...not maybe for those who find the sight of electronics unnerving!



Oh, and the 9.54MHz powerhouse that runs the show.



Literally the only thing left attached to any of the case was the display cable as I didn't fancy taking the whole hinge apart to remove it.

Reckon it probably took me a couple of hours, and that was taking my time as I knew I wasn't running close to on all cylinders mentally today. Sort of job I quite enjoy. Pretty low stress on this one too as I know the process so well.

Glad to report that the system is indeed working quite happily despite it having been in bits earlier today.

One of my main tasks for tomorrow is to get you guys back up to speed on the fleet progress over the last six months.

[Dick]

I've a couple of suggestions
Lancia or alfa romeo maybe a vw k70?