Just Bought an XVI - Questions

[Laevateinn]

Hi everyone. I am the excited new owner of an XVI. While I'm waiting for it to arrive, I have a few questions to head off some confusion I might have.

The system I am getting comes with an XSIMMVI module with 4MB SIMM. Is this enough or should I buy a 6 or 8MB card to plug into it?

I will have a keyboard and mouse. I also bought a Sanwa AD-D15NE. Can I just connect a VGA cable from this to my XRGB-3 and expect it to work on my TV?

I am planning on buying a SCSI to SD adapter. Do I need one of these, http://page8.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/h197993492#enlargeimg, or something similar? When I install a SCSI drive in this, will it automatically boot into the SCSI drive or do I need to configure it with a Human disk first? Also, I use Linux. Are the disk images pure images I can copy onto the drive with dd or do I need a special utility to copy it?

The system I bought does not power on. From your experience, is it better to fix and recap the power supply that's already there or to just mod it so that it works with a modern ATX supply? Speaking of capacitors, is there a list of which caps need to be replaced in an XVI so I can buy them now?
ありがとう

[BlueBMW]

First off, congrats!  The XVI is an excellent machine.  Probably the best model you can have as far as x68000s go.

A 4mb simm set up right will give you 6mb total which should be enough for most games even when using 2HDboot off of a hard drive.  That said, if you can find a compatible 8mb SIMM there is no reason to not bump it up.  Though I think the xsimmVI is limited to 6mb so an 8mb simm will only get you 6mb added so 8mb total in the system.  Bottom line, you can never have too much ram.  Later you could always add a 4mb IO slot ram board to the mix to get you to 12mb.

I've not used the XRGB3 so I dont know for sure.  I use an XPC4 or an NEC XM29 with my machine.  If the XRGB3 can accept 15k and 31k signals over VGA then I'd guess it would work.

I am assuming here you have  full size XVI with the 5.25" floppy drives and not a compact unit.  The next answers depends greatly on which model you have.

Full size XVI:
You can make a SCSI cable and modify the power supply plug to internally install something like a SCSI to SD or Aztec Monster board (SCSI to CF)  This would be the most convenient since it would be internal and not require an external enclosure.  The trick is that you'll have to make a scsi cable if you system doesnt have one already in it.  If its an XVI HD model then it should normally have the cable (and maybe a hard drive) installed already.  If its just an XVI then it probably just has a small cable from the base board up to the rear SCSI connector board.  There is a guide on the wiki here that shows how to build the cable.

Compact XVI:
Then yes you might want one of those adapters because it will allow you to use much more common cables and enclosures for an external drive.

Typically you shouldn't need to change any settings to boot directly from SCSI.  Normally by default these systems will boot from SCSI first before looking for floppy disks.  If not, then you may have to use a human68k system disk to change the switch (bios) settings to seek hard drive first)

Regarding power supply....

Full Size XVI:
My personal opinion, dont bother rebuilding it.  I have and inevitably they die again.  Eventually I get tired of throwing components at them.  I'd recommend using a PICO psu 120 watt with an external brick (at least 100 watts)  Itll take some modifying but I've always had great results using PICO psus.

Compact XVI:
Just recap and clean the PSU and you should be good.  They die but usually a cap replacement fixes these power supplies.  Sometimes the fans fail on them too.  Worst case, PICO psu again.

Cap lists:
There are some threads somewhere here that have cap lists for both the full size and the compact.  If its a full size machine I'd honestly leave the caps alone until you have problems.  They dont seem to have the leaking / damaging problems like the compacts do.  If its a compact, replace all the mainboard caps asap.  They leak and cause problems.  There should be a chart in a thread here titled something like "x68000 compact repair information"

If you have a full size machine I would recommend recapping and cleaning / relubing your floppy drives though.  If you intend to use a CF or SD based hard drive though you may not really need to bother.

[Laevateinn]

Thanks for the thorough reply. My XVI (not compact) arrived today and is sitting at home waiting for me to open it up.

I've only used my XRGB3 for my Dreamcast which only outputs VGA at 31 kHz. I believe people with fancier VGA cables than me have had success with a 15 KHz input source but I'll report back whether it works or not once I get the thing powered on.

I'm pretty sure my model doesn't have a hard drive cable already since the listing didn't mention it. I'll be happy to be wrong though. It did come with everything else.

Thanks for the recommendation on a PICO PSU. I recently replaced all the caps in an arcade monitor and am getting tired of using the soldering iron so much so this seems like a great alternative.

I'm planning on primarily using CF but there's something awesome about 5 1/4 inch floppies so I'm planning on getting some of those as well. I've already purchased Ys and plan on getting some more. Thanks for the heads up about floppy drives. I hadn't thought about their being electrolytic caps in there.

Hopefully I can have this thing up and running by the weekend.

[famiac]

I could build you a hard drive cable. If you need one let me know.

[Laevateinn]

I got everything open. That was a lot more difficult than I expected!

I'm still waiting for the power supply to arrive. It looks like I have a cable going to my external SCSI slot. I have a SCSI cable. Is there any reason why I might want an internal one? Wouldn't it be better to have it external so that I can have access to the flash card?

[famiac]

You can file transfer with a null modem cable once you have your hard drive installed. An external setup can be cumbersome and generally looks messy. If it works better for you, then i don't blame you.

[Opethian]

XRGB3 has issues with resolution changes. You might have to reboot the whole appliance sometimes to get picture back or wait it out. XPC is preferred. Also  I don't think the XRGB3 can process 24khz at all.