0067 PC-XT overclocking record? New homebrew projects for the IBM PC, Apple II, C128, Mac and more
![Adrian's Digital Basement ][](http://yt3.ggpht.com/ytc/AIdro_k7CrQRe71qN6c0Ua7A1P_I8KkxjqLa70u0zYeCvdvnKw=s48-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj)
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 22 авг 2023
- Welcome to SMMC episode number 0067! On today's video we have some really cool homebrew projects for the IBM PC, Macintosh, Apple II and C128. I'm covering all the bases! (Plus a few other neat things)
-- Video Links
PC Sprint Project:
github.com/reeshub/pc-sprint
Ron's channel and website:
ronscompvids.com/ (including link to Github)
/ @ronscompvids
Brad's channel TechTimeTraveller:
/ techtimetraveller
Idun: • Idun cartridge for Com...
github.com/idun-project/idun-...
ESP32 Softcard project thread:
www.applefritter.com/content/...
Adrian's Digital Basement Merch store:
my-store-c82bd2-2.creator-spr...
Support the channel on Patreon:
/ adriansdigitalbasement
Adrian's Digital Basement (Main Channel)
/ @adriansdigitalbasement
-- Tools
Deoxit D5:
amzn.to/2VvOKy1
store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.16...
O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)
amzn.to/3a9x54J
Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:
amzn.to/2VrT5lW
Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:
amzn.to/2ye6xC0
Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:
www.rigolna.com/products/digi...
Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:
amzn.to/3adRbuy
TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)
amzn.to/2wG4tlP
www.aliexpress.com/item/33000...
TS100 Soldering Iron:
amzn.to/2K36dJ5
www.ebay.com/itm/TS100-65W-MI...
EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:
www.eevblog.com/product/121gw/
DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:
amzn.to/2RDSDQw
www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Logic-DS...
Magnetic Screw Holder:
amzn.to/3b8LOhG
www.harborfreight.com/4-inch-...
Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)
www.ebay.com/itm/14-16-18-20-...
RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)
www.retrotink.com/
Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)
www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-5-10PCS-...
Heat Sinks:
www.aliexpress.com/item/32537...
Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)
amzn.to/3b8LOOI
--- Links
My GitHub repository:
github.com/misterblack1?tab=r...
Commodore Computer Club / Vancouver, WA - Portland, OR - PDX Commodore Users Group
www.commodorecomputerclub.com/
--- Instructional videos
My video on damage-free chip removal:
• How to remove chips wi...
--- Music
Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino 
Наука
Side note, I found my other PC Sprint that Bong sent me, and have done the rework on it, so it works as well. These accelerators came out in the 80s, so they seem period correct, so which machines should I put them in?
Hey Adrian, Bong here. Yes, I was one of the people screaming at the screen about the reset pins. lol. You can put a reset button on there if you want. The jumpers ON should be turbo and jumpers OFF should be normal. So weird it was backwards when you put in that 35mhz crystal. I can't believe you got it over 2X speed! I'm going to try to go faster now. I have the V20 that goes up to 10Mhz. Some V20s only go to 8Mhz so gotta be careful.
the second jumper position is a soft reset that need to be connected to a momenary switch that's why when you switched the jumper it didn't worked I have built one for my Columbia Data Products but haven't tested it yet, apparently unlik a real turbo otherboard, the isa bus is running at the cpu speed and floppy read-write operations need to be at regular speed because of a timing issue
Definitely put one in your 5150. Gotta go with the V20 processor though. I think there are some variants that can run at 15Mhz.
I have one on my Compaq Portable 1 - works fantastic and the PC-Sprint plus the v20 speedup itself makes a huge difference!
Oh, I had missed this video haha, I just tried the PC-Sprint in my 5160. It boosted the machine by 80%, but apparently, it might go even faster! A turbo switch instead of a jumper is a good idea because the XT can't write to floppy above 5MHz
I love the fact that you just plopped a 36MHz crystal in there on a whim and it actually works at 11MHz!!! I'd have been just as excited as you were!
I'm frankly shocked it works!
Bong was smoking the RIFAs, no wonder he put in the diode backwards! 😂
The moment you said Bulgaria I knew it was going to be Apple II related. Every Gen-x computer guy I met from Bulgaria grew up with their country's clone. (Pravetz) The Bulgarian Apple II clone almost has a cult following.
What a cool stack of stuff! Between the simplicity of 'The Potato andthe C128 goodness of the Idun, there was planty for this Commodore 'kid' to chew on and order. :)
I have one of the Apple II ESP32 softcards; I was one of the first adopters. Wolfenstein plays amazingly, doom plays quite well, and I've used the Apple II Keyboard, Joystick, and Mouse simultaneously as well. Firmware updates are now done on the card via the CLI. Just download the file and put it in the right folder, and the CLI will guide you. MP3's play very well. I can't say enough good things. As Ivo noted it's not a bootable card, you need to boot the control software some way; I've used a microdrive turbo as well as ProDOS ROM Drives, the options there are endless. If you want a ProDOS Rom Drive that auto-boots it, let me know.
I worked at a computer store in the late 80. Everytime we got a new system board in, we'd tweak it. It was usually the isa bus that was a problem io cards tended to be the worst. Two of the most popular 286 boards (both DFI) were the tops-20 an the racer-12. The tops (20 MHz) had to have the bus running less than 8MHz, but the racer worked at 12. So, you could actually get better disk performance from the racer.
The way you were experimenting with the crystals reminded me of my friend who got a Mac IIsi when it came out. It had a single crystal for the motherboard so people were swapping them out and experimenting how fast they could safely take it.
Funny that the ESP32 softcard has over 200+ times the speed of an Apple, and 10+ times the memory, for < $10 worth of parts!
I remember building one of those clock circuits back in 1985 or 1986 for my first non-turbo PC. It was very worth it. I don't remember the magazine name but I might still have it in a box. The other half of the upgrade was of course to use a V20.
I never knew I needed a DIN solder helper, but now I do. Awesome!
If I'm not wrong, having built a few of these years ago, the other jumper position is actually a reset position. You can connect a momentary switch to that
Thanks for the awesome shout-out for the idun-cartridge, Adrian!
It just now sold out on Tindie, but more kits are already ordered and should be in-stock again next week.
These look amazing! I'm going to pick up a kit for sure.
Pretty awesome. You can see a few of my Applefritter posts as he scrolls by them. I was one of the early receivers of this card and it is absoluetely as awesome as it sounds.
Brings back good memories of doing similar things (and a lot more) on my Turbo XT with a V20, lol…. Those old computers were just so much fun. Simple to understand, simplw to modify.
Yep, the 25MHz crystal may have had a strong harmonic that made it effectively 50 MHz. Little too fast for the memory, hence the parity errors.
8:00 it was quite common when overclocking for some speed ratios ti not be stable. I remember this even as late as my G3/750 upgrade in my Umax S900 Mac. It was a 50mhz board, but would run stable at 55 or 63mhz, but none of the speeds in between.
That DIN connector holder is quite a nice tool .
Thanks for the shoutout! I did do a redesign on the shirts per your recommendation, so they're available both ways. I also created a new SWTPC one, the 'cube' design I did now resembles a 6800 computer somewhat. :) I'll get those sent asap. But back to the video!
The most infectious, enjoyable and instructive channel on RUclips! Just love your content. Thanks Adrian..!
Milpitas! Former home of Adaptec HQ!
Ooh, "The Potato" is a fantastic idea! I usually use a set of "helping hands" to hold my DIN connectors when I solder them, but I'm always running into issues where I hold the heat on for a little too long and start melting the plastic.
Oh how I wish I had one of those DIN connector things back in the day when I used to make a lot of these cables...
Note that while the 8088/8086 has 33% mandated duty cycle, the V20 is 50% duty cycle. There is a way to trick the original Intel clock generator into 50 %. I did that in the 80's.
Funny you should make a brief mention of miniscribe - remember the company well - used to know someone who worked for the company.... as always - great video!
This is the most times you've ever said "bong" in a video, I guarantee..
Oregon resident moment
You know, going to College in Austin and now living in California, I've heard people use that word so often in public, sometimes I forget people are trying to get my attention.
@@macrohard007😂 well played
@@macrohard007thanks for sending in the cool board. I’ve never seen one and def love seeing it in action
I’m installing one of these pcsprint boards in my 5150 just the fact that it does not need a slot like an accelerator board is awesome!
"Idun" is the norse god of youth. She keeps the other gods young and healthy by bringing them magical apples. Suitable name maybe, since it helps keep the Commodore young. :)
Another great video Adrian
Bulgaria was a big deal in computers and electronics in eastern Europe in the days of the Warsaw Pact. There are some great small companies working out of there like Olimex. They're really just held back by their political class.
26:35 - when I solder DIN connector pins to make a cable, I usually but the opposite gender too and plug then together because sometimes the heat from the soldering iron melts the plastic just enough that the pin gets loose, moves in or out a bit or just tilts. Today I use some flux, pre-tin the legs and the wires and then solder the wire to the legs, all while the plug is in another plug and a mini vise or a helping hand thingy is holding the opposite plug.
My first official PC was an XT.. in 92. What I would have given to of known about the clock hack. Getting my first hard drive for it was a big deal. Rest is history.
I made a software-defined card with a Pico W for the RM Nimbus PC-186. I always intended to emulate the disk controller, but I have a thing for doing little hardware projects and not going as far as I could with the software, and I'm working on a Z280 thing at the moment.
that's very cool :)
Rarely see the RM machines get a mention
Imagine getting one of those in the 80s it would breathe new life into an old pc for doing work on and playing some simple games!
You should so a live stream where you are building things you have set aside for projects. Not only can you get a video recorded you can live stream after assuming it doesn't take too much time away from editing.
The crystal upgrades were a thing in the hotrod 286 era too :-)
The Potato DIN soldering helper is something I could have used years ago. I don’t do anything with DIN connectors any more.
Gildan makes great hoodies
I had a Bulgarian roommate once. I believe that name is pronounced like EEVO.
It comes from Ivaylo short is Ivo. Pronounced EVO/EEVO
Love the Ohio Scientific t-shirt as my first own computer was a Superboard II that I bought 1979. (I Still have it)
Try the game Sopwith. If i recall, it was written without proper timers and would speed up as the clock speed increased. (Fixed in sopwith2)
Try that ESP32 card in a Laser128.
I can try it... it should work. One minor thing would be you couldn't pass through the audio, but a small external 8 ohm speaker for the softcard itself is fine according to the cards creator.
My tip for soldering din connectors: push them into the appropriate din socket supported in a mini vice. This will hold the pins steady and prevent them moving out of alignment when soldering.
Or just push them into a raw potato.
It will hold the plug in place, you can grab it as a handle and the moisture of the potato cools the pins so you don't accidentally melt the plastics if you dwell too long with your iron.
EDIT: Ah, just reached that point in the video.
Funny, I mentioned this technique to Sven on Twitter, which inspired him to build this jig and name it accordingly xD
That PC-Sprint is impressive. I imagine it would be the sort of thing ordered from the backs of magazines.
Being from the pre-internet era, few people outside of technology fields would have been aware of such upgrades. I don't know what it would have cost, but that would have been very nice to have back in the day.
The way those shirts have a small logo on the front and the design on the back - that's why I don't like Kerusso's "Cherished Girl" shirts, they do the same thing.
tee shirts: i'm exactly the opposite. i won't wear a tee that is big image on front, nothing on back.
I used to overclock a nec v20 at 12mhz but that can run intk problems with the cards
You could install that board in an AT case now, and connect the turbo button to the jumper :-)
XT form factor boards won't fit in an AT case. Or rather, they might fit but the connectors won't line up with the back.
Hi Adrian
DIN stands for: Deutsches Industrie Norm: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Institut_f%C3%BCr_Normung
a typical German thing ;-), responsible to standardize everything and make it exchangeable. The most prominent standard is the widely used paper size standard A for sheet of papers and C for envelopes, or DIN-611 for hex-screws and tools.
When I grew up in Germany in the 70th, every audio connector was a DIN-connector. The first VCRs (VHS and Video-2000) used Video-DIN connectors before SCART was introduced.
Maybe with 36 MHz crystal some of the clock division goes wrong and you get a slower speed in result?
the side where it says DE KANTUFFEL is misspelled as that should be german it should spell DER KARTUFFEL which means the potato
„De Kantüffel“ means „The Potato“ in the local low German dialect of my birth place :-)
You should put an external switch to switch back to normal speed or you won't be able to format any other floppy on this machine. The format routine is clock dependent.
really? 'cause my XT clone has a variable capacitor to adjust the clock frequncy, as I understood to sync for composite, but my CGA card has its own crystal, so i fiddled with the cap for no reason... does that mean the floppies I made will be wrong for another system?!
@@ericwazhungthat capacitor is okay you don't actually make the computer slower or faster by turning it.
I can see why 386 was just a quantum leap compared to the other chips that came before.
Rather the 286 that was a quantum leap in speed, at least per clock. But the similarly fast 386 was indeed important as the first 32-bit x86. The 486 was another quantum leap in pure performance, the first Pentiums as well.
I have a clock mod on my TRS-80 model I level 2 48k computer. I've only seen this mod on one other model I. You can switch it on and off by out 255, 1 or 0. Has anyone else seen or have this mod?
(@11:44 or so) maybe the faster speed introduced unwanted wait states in the CPU? Like going too fast and getting pulled over for speeding. 😂
The original PC design has no wait states (or even capabilities for them.) It runs as fast as the clock speed can take it :-)
@@adriansdigitalbasement2 I thought that [in addition to generating the weird duty-cycle required by the 8088/6] was exactly what the 8284 was for...?
There was actually a routine in the original IBM BIOS that checked if the clock generator was ran out of spec. Probably partly because they wanted to prevent people from messing with the system, but also because they wanted to guarantee reliability of all the parts running on their intended frequency and not having to deal with warranty claims for damage from "tweaked" systems.
Hey Adrian! I would like to see you doing some Linux in this old retro machines. That could kind of neat!
Loved your channel.
Best regards.
An emulator running in an emulator that's running on hardware emulation, the things people do for fun eh? :P
Die you realize at 9:00 that the clock runs slower than normal ? Looks like 36 was too fast 😊
Why is the 8088 accelerated CPU clock listed at 4.797 MHz but the CPU is only measured at 3.06 Mhz? Where did the remainder of the speed go?
The 3.06 is a calculation, this XT clone is running at the supposed equivalent of a 3.0mhz AT(286) machine. The 286 of course got more done per clock cycle…
@@jdownj thanks for the info. So should the 3.06 be ignored and I should just focus on the number at the top, in this case 4.97?
@@JoeTooman Yes, in practice the 3.06 is only useful as a comparison to benchmarks conducted by the same program
Hey, please avoid cutting the plastic bags, it might have another use.
Love your channel!
Bong
Actually my real name. Lol
I believe the RAM can't run that fast. If you can get faster RAM in there, you may be able to push it harder.
Wait I thought the Tech Time traveler was named Robin. What have I been hearing?
TTT is Brad, 8-Bit Show And Tell is Robin
@@BradinSiouxCity oh my god I went back watched both and I’m sure I thought these were the same channel with maybe slightly different segments. Are they at least both Canadian?
@@tristanbuckner yes, you're forgiven for your confusion eh!
8:10 always possible that the crYstal is bad😅
"Hi to all my California viewers and Bong smokers... " ^-^ Sorry, i just had to.
I don't smoke, but gummies on the other hand...
Your pc is not running at lower than stock IBM XT in terms of frequency, but in terms of performance your XT is worse than an IBM XT (probably because of ram or cache lower performance) so your PC at 4.7 Mhz is less powerful than the IBM XT at 4.7 Mhz (by a factor of 0.8) 🙂
DIN3(180°) is an real old connection of Tapedrives, Radio, Phono and Revcievers - one of the best Solutions ever made to shield the Cables against Interferring the signals.
You know such kind of Stuff from Studio equipment: XLR - the Bigger ones with higher Voltage and Amp as the Other Part of the Medal.
Those Jacks are still in Airplanes, Cars, Big Vehicles and many More for the Radio and all Kind of Connections with lower Lines needed
Notification Squad! :)
(@1:04) No, dude! That was a ziploc baggie, no need to cut it open!! 😢😢😢
Leave it to developers to name something "Idun" and then insist it's called "edon."
That's more that English spelling is a hot mess compared to most other languages.