Table of Contents
Target-Earth Blog!
Welcome to the blog section of my website. Here you'll find my mostly useless information on various retro gaming computers and consoles and a few other hobbies…
Some useful shortcuts:
- Video Game database - Online database of all my computers, consoles and games.
- Home Power Monitor - Electrical grid monitoring reports.
- Book Collection - Cataloguing my book collection.
- Cars - Rebuilds, projects and previous cars.
- Digital Photography - My very amateur attempts at digital photography.
- Diorama & displays - Various scenes in my display cabinets for figures and models from my model and miniature collections
- Model making - Scale model making, sci-fi; Gundam, Macross, Maschinen Krieger, Military vehicles…
- Miniatures - Miniatures painting.
- Personal projects - Days out, DIY jobs, other unsorted stuff…
- Tech stuff - Retro gaming and computers, old electronics, programming, software.
These pages have recently been changed or updated:
Games Workshop / Warhammer 40000 / Eldar|Aeldari & Harlequins | 2025/02/08 11:34 | John |
Sony Vaio PCG-Z505/Z600 | 2025/02/08 10:46 | John |
Miniatures & Painting - Rackham: Confrontation, Hybrid & Nemesis - Dirz | 2025/02/06 11:06 | John |
Tech Stuff | 2025/02/04 13:37 | John |
Virtual Pinball / Arcade Cabinet | 2025/02/02 13:19 | John |
Virtual Pinball / Arcade Cabinet - Input | 2025/02/02 13:18 | John |
Virtual Pinball / Arcade Cabinet - Design & Construction | 2025/01/29 12:42 | John |
Sony Vaio PCG-F807K/F808K/F809K | 2025/01/28 17:11 | John |
Compaq Armada 1750 | 2025/01/26 11:03 | John |
Virtual Pinball / Arcade Cabinet - Parts List | 2025/01/22 19:02 | John |
Latest Posts
Pages which have been added most recently:
Sony Vaio PCG-Z505/Z600
I bought a pair of two old Sony Vaio laptops; a PCG-Z600RE and a PCG-Z600TEK in February 2025 as more candidates for a top-end DOS gaming laptop.
Actually, on delivery and closer examination, the PCG-Z600TEK turned out to be a PCG-Z600HEK - The difference being it had the better Pentium III 800MHz, rather than the 700MHz.
The PCG-Z600xxx models are the UK/European version of the PCG-ZR505, and hence not really mentioned much. There are a lot of variations of these machines.
Z505HE | Z505HS | Z505LE | Z505LS | Z600RE | Z600NE | Z600LE | Z600TE | Z600HE | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Processor | Intel Pentium III | Intel Pentium III | Intel Pentium III | Intel Pentium III | Intel Pentium III | Intel Pentium III | Intel Pentium III | Intel Pentium III | Intel Pentium III |
Processor Speed | 450MHz | 500MHz | 650MHz | 750MHz | 500MHz | 650MHz | 700MHz | 700MHz | 800MHz |
Graphics Type | NeoMagic | NeoMagic | ATI | ATI | NeoMagic | NeoMagic | ATI | ATI | ATI |
Graphics Model | MagicMedia 256AV | MagicMedia 256AV | Rage Mobility M1 | Rage Mobility M1 | MagicMedia 256AV | MagicGraph 256XL+ | Rage Mobility M1 | Rage Mobility M1 | Rage Mobility M1 |
Graphics Bus | AGP | AGP | AGP | AGP | AGP | AGP | AGP | AGP | AGP |
Graphics RAM | 2.5MB | 2.5MB | 8MB | 8MB | 2.5MB | 6MB | 8MB | 8MB | 8MB |
Screen Size | 12“ | 12” | 12“ | 12” | 12“ | 12” | 12“ | 12” | 12“ |
Screen Resolution | 1024×768 | 1024×768 | 1024×768 | 1024×768 | 1024×768 | 1024×768 | 1024×768 | 1024×768 | 1024×768 |
Audio Type | Yamaha | Yamaha | Yamaha | Yamaha | Yamaha | Yamaha | Yamaha | Yamaha | Yamaha |
Audio Model |
That is not all of them!
They share a common (slim) chassis, with a 12” 1024×768 screen, the same battery and no internal FDD/CD/DVD capability (they were modelled as an ultra portable). The main differences are the use of the NeoMagic graphics versus ATI Rage Mobility. The ATI option is much, much better with the typical smooth scaling of non-native screen modes to the LCD panel.
PCG-Z600RE
PCG-Z600TEK
Port Replicator
Compaq Armada 1750
I bought this old Armada 1750 laptop in January 2025 after having a big run of issues with the last purchase(s); a pair of Sony Vaio laptops.
Specs
- Intel Pentium II: 300, 333, 366, 400MHz
- ATI Rage LT 4MB (AGP) video
- 12“ TFT LCD @ 800×600
- 13” TFT LCD @ 1024×768
- 14“ TFT LCD @ 1024×768
- RAM PC66 SO-DIMM
- 64MB (onboard), expansion up to 192MB (unofficial support to 320MB with the right type of 256MB module)
- ESS ES1869 Audiodrive (ISA) sound
This particular example came with floppy module, CD-rom module, 128MB RAM (via a single 64MB upgrade) and the Pentium II 333 processor.
Sony Vaio PCG-F807K/F808K/F809K
I bought these two laptops; a PCG-F807K (sold as working) and a PCG-F809K (sold as non-working) in January 2025 as potential candidates for a top-end DOS gaming laptop, to compare with the Thinkpad 240, which whilst a great machine, is not quite perfect (mono sound, less-than-perfect scaling of low res games).
PCG-F809K
PCG-F807K
- Intel Pentium III Mobile
- 650MHz - F807K
- 750MHz - F808K
- 850MHz - F809K
- 256MB (maximum) PC100 SO-DIMM (2x slots)
- 64MB (standard) - F807K
- 128MB (standard) - F808K/F809K
- ATI Rage Mobility M1 8MB
- 14“ 1024×768 TFT screen - F807K
- 15” 1024×768 TFT screen - F808K
- 15“ 1400×1050 TFT screen - F809K
- Yamaha YMF-744 audio (OPL3, SB Pro 2.0, XG MIDI - Windows only)
- 2x PCMCIA / Cardbus
- Headphone out, Microphone in (no Line-in)
- Stereo speakers
- Onboard FDD + DVD
These models are also referred to as PCG-9326, PCG-9336 and PCG-9316.
Virtual Pinball / Arcade Cabinet - PC Hardware Testing
Back to Virtual Pinball / Arcade Cabinet Index
- HP T740 Thin client system
- AMD Ryzen V1756B
- 4 Core / 8 Thread
- 3.2GHz base / 3.6GHz turbo
- 512KB L1 cache
- 2MB L2 cache
- 2MB L3 cache
- 2x 8GB DDR4
- Nvidia T600 4GB (PCIe 3.0 8x)
- 128GB NVMe M.2 (OS)
- 2TB SATA M.2 (ROM and table data)
- Sweex 7.1 USB External sound card