On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 23:08:12 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 6/23/2011 9:40 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:51:34 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 6/23/2011 9:14 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 01:00:26 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 6/22/2011 9:57 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 22 Jun 2011 15:20:09 -0700,
wrote:

On 6/22/2011 2:27 PM, wrote:

You will want an older xt/at style supply, not the newer ATX, if you
want it to be "simple"

The proper ATX supply is sufficiently simple. It should also have an
on-off switch, which some ATX supplies have.

1. The 3.3V sense wire (orange or brown) which will be connected to one
of the orange 3.3V power wires on the connector before the connector is
cut off (probably pin 11) needs to be reconnected to a +3.3V wire after
the ATX connector is cut off.

2. PS-ON (green, pin 14) needs to be connected to ground.


You are correct - it's not rocket science - but the old XT/AT supplies
were also significantly more reliable. LOTS of them still going strong
at 20 years of age, while the "average" ATX supply is toast in less
than 10 - many not lasting 2.

Yea, the original IBM PC made in America was built like a tank with high
quality components

That's why they were only rated for 5000 power-on-hours. ;-)

which is why the darn things cost 4-5 thousand
dollars back then. :-)

No, they cost 4-5 thousand dollars because they could. BTW, I paid $2500 for
mine. ;-)

Well, I think the MTBF was rated a bit low.

Sure, but that design point was needed to get the cost of the components down.
The same sort of parts were used in 100kPOH devices. The real difference was
testing.

I pick up those things, plug
them up and they run. For something 30+ years old that's not
too bad. Do you remember the original Lear 8 track tape players
and the units produced by Delco for GM? The construction was massive
and tough as nails.

I haven't plugged mine in for probably 20 years. I still have it, with an
expansion unit with a *huge* 10MB disk drive. ;-)

When the Asians started building them they made
them out of tin cans. :-)

Didn't know they made tin cans out of plastic. ;-)

I had a 5MB hard drive with the one I put together out of various parts
I came across. It was so much fun back then but in the mid 1960's, the
darn computers were too freaking big and expensive to play with. ^_^

Actually, they were cheaper then. I didn't even have to own one. ;-)