Dainiaus webaz – elektronika ir ne tik !

Decided to write this post in English, this happens from time to time, just to keep my English used, not forgotten :). Ok, lets go. Got the second pile of old PC’s, most of them AT standard, some „white” AT PC’s and a box of boards. As the first pile is almost finished, only 2 PC’s left there, I will have some goood time restoring PC’s from second pile. It should be even more interesting, as PC’s in the first pile were from, roughly, Windows XP time and those in the second pile are from DOS to Windows 95 times.

Some, maybe most of the PCs will be scrapped (or given away) due to missing parts and/or damage and because I don’t have a place to keep them all, but several of them will be fully restored and will find a place in retro hardware corner. I took a quick peek on what’s in the pile, mostly to check what is missing. Luckily, almost all processors are still there, but almost all RAM is missing, also VRM modules are missing. That’s going to be a nice time creating and manufacturing the VRM’s where they are missing (I think they should be installed in 4 PC’s, but only one PC still have the original VRM).

So the first thing I will need – old RAM. Still not sure what type (probably EDO or something), nor sure about the required specs, but started to look for the RAM. To have the original old RAM, bet place to look is eBay. Indeed, there are plenty of RAM of any type, but from far far away, like USA. Some in Europe, but I took a chance in other place – www.allegro.pl. That is a Polish eBay, with lots of stuff, but the best thing – Poland is our neighboring country, so its close and convenient. Pity, but in Lithuania I did not found anyone who would be selling or giving away old RAM. The allegro system is a but funny, it accepts only Polish phone numbers, so sometimes its hard to make an order. And the funny thing is that if you forget a password or want to validate the login allegro can send an SMS and what a surprise – here they accept and send SMS to Lithuanian number (could work to other countries numbers, can’t test). Allegro has very convenient shipping method over the Poland by InPost post boxes:

Something similar exists in whole Europe and, probably, most countries, so I am not explaining a lot, just to say – seller send the parcel and it ends up in one of those boxes, you just have to go and pick it up. So, when purchasing something from Allegro, I just go through the wizard and there is a selection of shipping method by InPost, at the next step I have to enter the phone number, because InPost will send SMS updates and door unlock codes and here comes trouble – it ONLY ACCEPTS POLISH PHONE NUMBERS. So, basically this would block the purchasing, because payment process in the next step in the wizard. And I already won the bidding, so have to pay :D. But cant, because shipping step is not completed :D. Trouble trouble :D. Normally I just write to the seller, with the idea that „sorry, I’d like to have shipping by InPost, but they accept only Polish phone numbers and I don’t have one – would you tell your, so you would get the text message and forward it to me via SMS or internal Allegro chat?”. This way I would have a trustworthy source of the information also I don’t think seller would be travelling some hundreds kilometers (yes, Poland in big), just to pickup the goods he sent, so I consider it pretty safe :D. But this time it didn’t wen so smooth – I won two biddings from the same seller, both included several RAM sticks, but the seller did not gave the Polish phone number and my all idea just went to trash bin. And its not just a number sharing – I feel committed to pay as fast as possible, Allegro also has some ranking system, seller also wants to have the money ASAP and I can’t pay, because first I have to finalize with shipping step in the wizard. And cant do it, because no Polish phone number :D. Got stuck for some time thinking what to do. Well, I can understand the seller, probably disclosing the phone number can (?) lead to some unfair usage of it by other party, but I have no idea what can be done having the phone number, which could financially or somehow physically damage the person who gave the number. My opinion, worst case scenario – someone would start calling at 2 o’clock in the morning. Never the less, seller refused to give the phone number and I am glad I am smart and found a solution – gooled for any random Polish number and used it :). Ok, its not very convenient and you might say – how about the door unlock codes, which you have to receive by SMS ? You’re right 🙂 and here’s the workaround – Allegro also sends the same information to email 🙂 so I still have a way to receive the code. So the only bad thing – SMS will be received by some person who’s phone number I used, some company in Warsaw, sorry for the trouble caused. But finally I could pay and here they are:

And what a coincidence – saved this post and tried to log in to my Allegro account and first thing this view appeared:

YYyyyeeeee !!! At last I wouldn’t have any troubles with Allegro. I hope 😀

So finally all the troubles are gone and – dziękuję ci Karol !

Posted in: Retro PC HW by Dainius /