Now that I am getting settled into my new home, it seems some old projects are coming back to life. I was arranging things in the basement today when I came across an old computer power supply casing that I had modified (by ripping out its dead guts) to house a separate, much smaller power supply inside, plus a '386 embedded PC computer board and a tiny hard drive from an old laptop. It was a project that I never completed, because the replacement power supply was supposedly bad.

But I had coincidentally also discovered the questionable power supply in a box just minutes earlier. So, one thing led to another, and I decided to try putting the thing together to see if the power supply was actually dead or not. Some power supplies don't work (properly, anyway) unless they have a load connected to them, and I think, originally, I was too afraid of blowing up my tiny computer and subsequently never connected it to the power supply and tried firing it up, and abandoned the project for dead.

But today was different. This is a new year (that, IMO, is going to be great), so I mounted the power supply inside the housing and applied power. The cooling fan from the original power supply was still mounted inside the housing, so I connected it to what I thought was where a cooling fan was supposed to connect on the tiny power supply, but nothing happened when I turned on the power. After some troubleshooting, I determined that the connection was meant for a power fail signal (wrong voltage and power to drive a fan), so after modifying a connector to the main power output pins, I had the fan wired to the proper 12V output.

But still no luck. The fan would not turn.

So then I decided to get out the embedded PC board and hook everything up and turn it on to see what would happen. I just had a feeling that it was all going to work once everything was in place. I wasn't all that concerned about blowing up my tiny computer, since I figured I might never find the time again to mess with it, anyway, so I felt there was nothing to lose (except a box on the shelf so I'd have more room for storage). I got everything wired up, plugged it in, and flipped the switch.

Nothing.

I was disappointed. But then, after a few seconds, suddenly a red LED came on! And the fan started running! A couple more seconds passed and the tiny computer beeped at me - twice! IT WAS ALIVE!!!

I knew it needed something (because of the double beep), but because I did not have a monitor or keyboard attached, I didn't know what it thought was wrong (other than no keyboard or monitor being attached). But that didn't matter to me so much as the fact that it was actually, and finally, running!

I have a blog entry way back in June 2004 where I wrote about some of the troubles that I had with this particular project. But it didn't start there! It actually began on the day that I created the Computer Circus blog!

That first entry details an event whereby the power went out in my apartment due to a power supply giving up the ghost inside one of my computers. It was that power supply that I gutted to use as the housing for this project, which was to build a complete, fully-contained computer (DOS-based, 50MHz '386 embedded computer) inside the shell of an old, dead computer power supply.



Although that was the original initiation point that led to this project, this particular project officially began about a week later. I blogged about it after I made the initial determination that the attempt failed.



So, after nearly five years, an event that contributed to the inspiration that led to the creation of this blog has found closure by beginning a new life. Here is the completed project in the clutches of my hand.



Once I knew it was working, I mounted the keyboard connector to the housing (in the hole where the output power wires from the original power supply used to be). And I installed the video connector, a COM port connector, and plugged in the hard drive. I dug out an old keyboard, hooked up a monitor, plugged in the computer and turned it on. I got a prompt to enter the BIOS, and thus I was on my way to configuring a new toy to play with.



Here's to one accomplishment, already, in 2009! Woo hoo! And it wasn't even on my list.