need a term for "wanting to fix something even though it is absolutely not worth it, especially given its specific condition"
i've been kind of fascinated by Cybernet for years. they made/make a series of computers called ZPCs (Zero footprint PC) which are the only PC-based systems I'm aware of that are built into a keyboard, unless you want to count the laser xt or those poisk systems, and I'm not gonna because i'm only talking about shit you can actually buy (there are gobs of ZPCs on ebay)
cybernet made pentium 4 machines, and even newer, in this form factor. which is incredibly funny, though i'm curious if they actually make them. i found this machine at repc the other day and it's not their design - i was able to find pictures of this exact unit under 6 other names online, so cybernet was just branding some taiwan ODM design (common for the time.) but that was circa 96-97 so... are they still? did they bring stuff inhouse at some point? idk
anyway. pentium 266 with 64mb of simm ram which is... kind of respectable for what it is? board is kind of a mess, headers all over, no name, no labels.
at first i thought "industrial automation board" but nah, it's too clearly custom. the HDD/FDD come out one side and the ISA slot comes out the other, and everything JUST fits. it also has a 44-pin header for a 2.5" HDD and a ribbon for a little laptop floppy, without which it couldn't fit in here, so, deffo bespoke - this board was made FOR this machine, which is kinda dope.
and i mean - 16-bit ISA slot! i can put a sound blaster in here and have one of the smallest functional machines with an original SB16, and 266mhz is fast enough to actually do shit - plus it's socketed so idk maybe i can stick a K6 in there?
and... it has usb headers??? and... onboard ethernet?? i can't see the VGA chip (it's under the glued-in flying bridge VRM module lmao) but it's probably an SiS that'll do Alright. the keyb is alps mech (!) and the whole thing doesn't weigh much, so... in several ways, it's a neat machine.
but it's also just a little bastard computer, of which i have many. and more importantly, it needs... work...
at least three keyswitches are bad or failing. the case is rusty. the hard drive, ah , well. i turned it on and it made horrifying screeching noises five times, and then it suddenly started working, which is very funny, but i don't expect it to last too long. cpu fan is dying, hence the isa-slot blower mounted in there, which a previous owner tied into the main CPU fan power with telco crimps (wow!) so I need to replace the CPU to make it usable. there's also no way to connect a cdrom, so bootstrapping is going to be a tremendous pain in the ass.
but the biggest problem is the Goddamn power situation, because, of course the thing runs off an external brick with one of those nightmare-world 4-pin not-quite-DIN connectors that you find on old LCD monitors and old trunkmount police car computers and shit, which have no defined pinout, almost never show the pinout on the label, are incredibly difficult to meter without shorting out, and in 90% of cases have long since been thrown away.
i tried a rando 12V because i figured i had very little to lose. naturally it just crowbarred and shut off. disassembled the power supply (hiss. fuck you little guy. too hard) but found the circuitry too dense to easily RE due to wires flying over everything etc. irritating. found ground. tried putting 12V on one pin; variable PSU crowbarred. tried it on the other. .11A draw, fan on the PSU starts spinning. ok progress
the board uses an AT style power connector, but i don't trust like that so i assumed the pinout was wacky. took me a bit to realize i could just find all the DC rails on the ISA slot. did so, ohmed out the AT connector. yeah its toontown. fucking natch, they literally wired it backwards. go to hell and call me from there so i can tell you to fuck off harder
if i repinned an AT power supply I could plug it straight in but then I'd have a big fat AT power supply hanging out of the thing. no. so i'm down to either just trying to scrounge a power supply for it (which will probably set me back $40 if i find it online, and then I'll be lucky if the pinout is what it says it is) or sourcing a +/-12 supply and soldering it to the board, which, well, there are worse fates but it still sucks
oh by the way. why did it take me so long to figure out the voltages? because the sticker on the back said
POWER : DC 12V 5A
INPUTS DC-12V 1A
and my tiny brain couldn't figure out how the linebreak in "power inputs" worked so it got very confused and thought it was a misprint. but anyway, good luck finding a supply with those specs, ever.
so this all sucks, and this machine isn't worth the effort I'd be putting into it. it needs cleaning, parts replaced, solutions fashioned from scratch. I would probably never use it, and it would be a big miserable hunk of shit that takes up space and has a power adapter permanently anchored to it. i would spend hours working on it and it would not likely improve my life by much. and yet
