Hello again! Life has been not easy, not a lot of time for intricate projects but luckily last Friday I got an abandoned and mangled computer that I was able to convert in a quick restoration project to, let`s say, get it back to its original state so be the base for a 233MMX based system.
According to the kind neighbor that give me the machine, he found it outside a relative nearby school on the sidewalk. Sadly, he was using its bike and the computer fell off and hit the ground quite hard. You can see the following video with my first exploration of the system:
(Additional note: please subscribe to my new channel, where I will concentrate on retro computing)
As you can see, ended pretty mangled but still in a functional state. Ideal quick project for the weekend and also an excuse to try out my hand in techniques like soldering again plastic using Super Glue and Baking Soda. The case itself is nothing to write home about, but is carrying the badge of a long defunct local computer store, that is close to my heart for being the place where I got my K6 II 550 computer and some of first new parts when I started fixing PCs.
Looking at the date, let`s say that the warranty is long gone lol
After the smoke test, but don`t worry more on testing later, the first thing to do was to dismantle everything to inspect better the damages and… oh boy… you can see how bent the case was!
After a bit of time with the hammer and some force, it was much better, even if I don`t have the means to leave it perfectly aligned.
The front of the case was intact outside but a good chuck of the screw stands were broken off, a couple in two parts. But since every bit was present it was only a matter of placing each bit in its place with some Super Glue and baking soda. You have to be careful with this method because the bond is almost instantaneous and very strong. I will not bother with trying to using a file to leave the plastic more tidy since: 1. the stands are in very awkward position; 2. the repairs are not in sight but hidden.
Of course, some cleaning was in order, so I went to town with Windex and some more baking soda to improve the looks of the front. I don`t think that I will try retrobrighting in this case due to the low quality of the plastic, you can see how splotchy the yellowing is and I have another machine with the same case and the same kind of uneven yellowing, so I think that retrobrighting could make things even worse.
Now, back to the guts of the machine. On the list of casualties we can count the floppy drive and speaker…
As you can see, one of the heads was rip of its pad and damaged, pretty sure that it’s a goner. 
Now was time to properly test the hard drive, after the first initial boot, I was hoping for the drive to be intact and it’s…
…mostly, but sadly the last 5% presents several damaged clusters due to the shock of the impact, not a surprise but not the end of the world.
Once I back up a few old games and a driver I found in the drive I will format the drive and try to repair it. Worst case scenario I can partition it to leave out that damaged part. But in any case I`m happy to have one of those first generation 1.2 Gb Quatum BigFoot to add to my collection. These hard disk were an oddball and not exactly the best, but part of history nerveless.
(Using this pic of the Wiki since I forget to take one when it was out)
Looks like mine was even sold before the next generation of BigFoot was released!
Nothing else to notice about the content of the hard drive aside of giving me 2011 as the date for that Windows 98 installation.
The LG optical CD drive works perfectly! So always nice to have another drive in good condition.
The PSU was also intact and show no damage aside a small dent and a lot of dust inside and a dead cockroach. The warranty sticker was intact, so I was probably the first one inside that PSU since it manufactured back in 1997. Cooler was also working fine, so after a quick cleaning was ready to go. 
Nothing in the sense of PCI cards aside a Trident 9440, at least over here those cheap cards were present in almost every cheap machine of the era so they are quite common. Good for basic installation and testing, I think what I have enough of those for a lifetime by now. 
The final interesting part is the motherboard, PCChips M537DMA33 or 08/14/97-VXPro+-USB-Ultr-2A5LDHO9C-00, a variant of the M537. USB only in the name since the USB standard was not completely finished when it came out and the boards have that function disabled. But leaving that aside it has a nice selection of slots for expansion, leaving room for an interesting build. It came with 32 Mb of 72 pins SIMM modules (all identical, nice detail) and a Pentium 233MMX in a ceramic package.
And there we have it, back again the almost its original state but more clean, even if its clearly not perfect in some angles. Was a fun a quick project for the weekend that makes an cool blank slate for a Windows build… thinking in a Windows 95 Internet Explorer edition, will see!
