Apedrejando BuBKa

1997 was a year of a lot of changes: With Windows 98 on the oven, hardware produced around that year were still learning how to deal with more memory (64mbit), struggling to overcome the 512 mb and 2 gb HD barrier, introduction of PCI and USB, new multiple speeds on the board (processors, SDRAMs, ISAs, PCIs) and the idea of North-South architecture were still on going.

On the mother board:

The target mother board is a PcChips M537DMA66 with string: 08/14/97-VXPro+-USB-Ultr-2A5LDHO9C-00.

Back in those days, the USB standard were still under discussion, and several PcChips M537DMA motherboards ended up without the right controller on it - which was in its early days. The VXPro+ chip on it is just at the limit of not having all the functions.

This motherboard is also not stable on the 64 mbit SDRAM addressing, despite some manuals confirm the opposite. A good update on the firmware can help it out. Make sure you go through here: https://web.archive.org/web/20100201055613/http://www.zarniwoop.force9.co.uk:80/ The original site is long gone, but archive.org made a great dump of it, with lots of details and useful files.

Also, the mother board connectors might be a little off as well, and requires your attention. Make sure you went through the manual for that. Some connector will have blocked female pins - my choice was to drill a hole on the connector, but cutting one of the GROUND pins to adapt could also be a valid choice.



The Moai MA8168A Card Reader:

Chinese made, the card reader I got is branded under the name of Fortrek LDC-201. The Brazilian web site for such brand is just useless - they just have pictures of the reader and that's it! Nos instruction manual, and the box just states that it was from Windows 98 to Windows 8 compatible. Well for something close to USD 8, why not give it a try?

I got the reader and it was very poor received by Windows 95, already installed. While poking with it, I've noticed that turning it on and off with changing cards and booting would better accommodate its performance with this setup.
As the MA8168A created some sort of incompatibility while using the other USB port - the very one in the front of it - turning it on and off while the computer is running sounded a good option to enable back the USB port. A bit of honesty here: It is not 100% stable, but is usable.

The Hack:

Open it up: 4 screws and you are in it. Yes, very tiny board in deed!

I cut the +5 volt line of the lower left pins, remove all the connector and clean the pass through hole. You will be using that hole to connect one wire there (red in the picture). Solder another wire on the upper left connector, to get your 5 volts back.


Connect a on-off key between the two wires and you should be able to do the trick:


I used a Dremmel to dig the square hole on the case and, although it's not my favorite, I decided to use hot glue to fix the switch on the front of the case.

One side adjustment: I was somewhat annoyed with the light leakage from one led to the other. Although I didn't dig deep enough to understand what they do and how different they are, I decided to do some isolation on them with black isolating tape.

The final looks was this. Not marvelous, but will do the trick.


A more sophisticated version of this could be made: all the connections could also be isolated from the main board. As this simple switch is working so far, I'll keep it like that until I get annoyed.

Windows 95 version: 

Make sure you are running Windows 95 OSR 2 or more - I've Worked on a "C" version. The first versions of Windows 95 does not support USB connection, so just don't suffer for that.

Make sure you have the USB support installed: depending on the version you have, it should seat in a folder called OTHER\UPDATES\USB on your Windows 95 installation disk. Make sure you have all of those drivers up and running.

After having this installed, I've used the Sandisk drives once Windows recognized the hardware. Also, not 100% compatible, but worked somewhat. Those drivers can be found at: http://toastytech.com/files/cruzerwin95.html

I hope this helps you with those devices!

All the best and happy hacking,

Hard as a rock!

BBK

Marcadores: Retrocomputação