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Author Topic: Firefly eBay find  (Read 3338 times)

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Megatouchmike

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Firefly eBay find
« on: June 16, 2022, 07:30:55 pm »
Found a unicorn on eBay. 3 unicorns rather

3 fireflys as-is.  All came with wiped hard drives. Some scratched touchscreens. Monitor mounts broken. Possibly a bad touchscreen controller. Maybe a bad battery or 2.

Me and Mahkeymike are taking a stab at repairing these bad boys

Will post progress pics as we go. 1 is already looking promising

Get hyped

Megatouchmike

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #1 on: June 16, 2022, 07:31:26 pm »
Pic of lot. Imaging hard drive with system rescue CD on thumb drive
« Last Edit: June 16, 2022, 11:24:39 pm by Megatouchmike »

Megatouchmike

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #2 on: June 16, 2022, 07:32:36 pm »
One up and running! This was the easiest fix. Onto the really broken ones ..

mahkeymike

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #3 on: June 17, 2022, 12:57:05 pm »
Its a shame how people damage these machines not knowing how to take them apart to do a simple repair like a new cmos battery or a hard drive. From what you said about the hard drives being wiped as a standard procedure for companies to do before reselling, its possible they are the ones that probably busted the monitor mounts. :angry:

mahkeymike

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #4 on: June 23, 2022, 07:42:41 pm »
Want to thank Mike for the early B-day present!
So heres where i am at so far.....
All the mounting posts for the monitor/TS were completely busted off. Luckily the Bezel is made out of ABS plastic. This makes chemical welding easily possible with just a sheet of ABS plastic, Q-tips, Acetone, and a whole lot of patience and precautions (acetone will melt a Firefly) lol.

mahkeymike

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #5 on: June 23, 2022, 07:44:01 pm »
More

Megatouchmike

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #6 on: June 23, 2022, 10:47:21 pm »
Next step is getting ion 2014 running on these

mahkeymike

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #7 on: June 24, 2022, 03:59:12 pm »
Next step is getting ion 2014 running on these

Working on it. >:D

Megatouchmike

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #8 on: June 25, 2022, 12:52:44 pm »
boom

mahkeymike

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #9 on: June 25, 2022, 09:36:37 pm »
goes the dynamite....

Spank

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #10 on: June 26, 2022, 07:48:51 am »
Verry nice.

game_nerd

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #11 on: July 02, 2022, 12:43:13 am »
really cool, I've never seen or heard of a megatouch firefly.
Where were they sold? I'm guessing restaurants or the like?

Cool find and repair, regardless.

Megatouchmike

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #12 on: July 02, 2022, 07:16:59 am »
Yes they were sold to restaurants. Meant to take with you to your table. Neat little machines, only very few were made

MasterOfNone

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #13 on: July 07, 2022, 12:16:19 am »
Beautiful work guys. Congrats.
The only Firefly I've seen that didn't have broken screen mounts was NOS. For the others, I'm a marine epoxy guy (plus a bit of "shoe-goo"), which'll hold forever, but yours are more elegant..., and nice for us kooks who care about how it looks on the inside too. Great job.
I play enough of 2014 on other machines, so I'm happy with an original 2010 Firefly, but it's still super that you got 14 running as an option.

These machines are cute as hell for us collectors, but otherwise, maybe they're more evidence for why Merit went out of business. Seriously, how long could this fragile little handheld realistically survive being pounded, carried and passed around by kids and drunks? Maybe if the whole thing was made out of rubber, including the touchscreen? lol

As mahkey knows, I'm still in need of hardcore chip-level motherboard t-shooting and repair for a heat-damaged Firefly (Portwell ATOM N270 with some pretty unique elements), but I'm doubting there's anyone on earth willing or able. It's in nice shape otherwise though. Maybe someday...

Megatouchmike

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #14 on: July 08, 2022, 07:04:02 am »
I'm still in need of hardcore chip-level motherboard t-shooting and repair for a heat-damaged Firefly (Portwell ATOM N270 with some pretty unique elements), but I'm doubting there's anyone on earth willing or able. It's in nice shape otherwise though. Maybe someday...

Might not have to worry about this once i release my new kernel that will let the games run on a much wider range of hardware....stick PCs....mini PCs....all in ones.... More to come

mahkeymike

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #15 on: July 08, 2022, 08:43:30 pm »
I'm still in need of hardcore chip-level motherboard t-shooting and repair for a heat-damaged Firefly (Portwell ATOM N270 with some pretty unique elements), but I'm doubting there's anyone on earth willing or able. It's in nice shape otherwise though. Maybe someday...

Might not have to worry about this once i release my new kernel that will let the games run on a much wider range of hardware....stick PCs....mini PCs....all in ones.... More to come

Stick PC's would be great, but we need to figure out the docking station interface and how it charges the Lithium-Ion Battery. Other then that, i dont see any other hardware compatibility issue.

arcadezz

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #16 on: August 07, 2022, 03:27:44 pm »
I'm still in need of hardcore chip-level motherboard t-shooting and repair for a heat-damaged Firefly (Portwell ATOM N270 with some pretty unique elements), but I'm doubting there's anyone on earth willing or able. It's in nice shape otherwise though. Maybe someday...

Might not have to worry about this once i release my new kernel that will let the games run on a much wider range of hardware....stick PCs....mini PCs....all in ones.... More to come

Hello, Any idea when this new kernel will be available/released? Thanks.

mahkeymike

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #17 on: August 07, 2022, 07:51:19 pm »
I'm still in need of hardcore chip-level motherboard t-shooting and repair for a heat-damaged Firefly (Portwell ATOM N270 with some pretty unique elements), but I'm doubting there's anyone on earth willing or able. It's in nice shape otherwise though. Maybe someday...

Might not have to worry about this once i release my new kernel that will let the games run on a much wider range of hardware....stick PCs....mini PCs....all in ones.... More to come

Hello, Any idea when this new kernel will be available/released? Thanks.

For obvious reasons, it will most likely be locked down to firefly hardware. Meaning it will only work with a Firefly touchscreen, docking station, and firefly ioboard/key.

Megatouchmike

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Re: Firefly eBay find
« Reply #18 on: August 07, 2022, 10:25:22 pm »
I'm still in need of hardcore chip-level motherboard t-shooting and repair for a heat-damaged Firefly (Portwell ATOM N270 with some pretty unique elements), but I'm doubting there's anyone on earth willing or able. It's in nice shape otherwise though. Maybe someday...

Might not have to worry about this once i release my new kernel that will let the games run on a much wider range of hardware....stick PCs....mini PCs....all in ones.... More to come

Hello, Any idea when this new kernel will be available/released? Thanks.

We're going to have to keep it locked down in some way. There's a guy that flagrantly sells PCs with cracked megatouch software. They look like the emachines Walmart used to sell in like the mid 00's lol

Anyway what I'm saying is we don't want the image getting in the wrong hands

I've got an ion Evo in the shop right now with a bad mobo and touchscreen. Hoping to have the new kernel running on it some time this week. Will get some pics up if I get it going
« Last Edit: August 07, 2022, 10:34:14 pm by Megatouchmike »