Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on Today, 17:59

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Hmm interesting, might be fun to tinker with if I ever get one of them cool Orange Mono CRTs, not sure how it would go on a 386 since I dont own anything slower. I tested one in a P3. So long as the ISA bus isn't running at crazy speeds you should be good. MDA text is really, really nice, …

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Re: How to configure Soundblaster with Yamaha XG50 and MT32?

Posted on Today, 14:00

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

The Sound Blaster 16 only has one (buggy) MPU-401 UART interface, so it can only do one MIDI output at a time. That output is however routed to both the wavetable header and to the external MIDI port. Both will receive the same MIDI input from the card at the same time. The challenge is that the …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on Today, 13:29

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not bought "Yet" but this card is in a lot im looking at, best I can figure its some kind of CRT controller card due to the SY6845E CRT IC, does anyone here have some clue what its actually for ? Unkown STB.jpg Best bet: STB Mono Plus, an MDA and (maybe) Hercules card. It has the standard MDA/ …

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Re: DOS 7.1 PCI NIC packet driver issues (no packets received)

Posted on Today, 12:05

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Also don't suspect IRQ sharing or even the number as such - using similar means I force the card to a different IRQ (10 vs 11) and no change. Btw, while digging for more versions I found this: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=92487 The 3C90XPD.COM packet driver from that package loaded …

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Re: Intel wants to drop 16/32bit. A possible opportunity...?

Posted on Today, 11:42

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Most of you are probably already aware that intel wants to drop the legacy 16/32bit modes from future CPUs. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/envisioning-future-simplified-architecture.html I think this could mark a rare opportunity, if a community like Vogons …

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Re: Filco keyboards appreciation post

Posted on Today, 09:11

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Oh dear, I'm very far down this particular rabbit hole. Currently I'm typing on a Focus SK-5001, with white Alps SKCM switches. It's big (battlecruiser-ish layout with extra F-keys on the left, 8 arrow keys and a fully functional calculator built into the num pad, although for me it only works when …

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Re: DOS 7.1 PCI NIC packet driver issues (no packets received)

Posted on Today, 07:59

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Have you tested this PC on Windows ( possibly 95)? I got similar but different problem and in mine issue problem persist on Windows https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=100378 No, no Windows on the system (I intend to install Windows for Workgroups 3.11 at some point, but the installer …

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DOS 7.1 PCI NIC packet driver issues (no packets received)

Posted on 2024-05-02, 22:01

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Specs: P3-650 Tekram PB640-A4X (i440BX) S3 Virge GX2 AGP Orchid Voodoo 1 Aztech AZT2320 SBRpro2+MPU401 AWE64 Gold GUS 64MB RAM 16GB DiskOnModule ATAPI DVD ROM ATAPI ZIP OS: DOS 7.1 And I'm trying to get network connectivity working. I need to use a PCI NIC as all ISA slots are in use for sound cards …

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Re: 1997 period correct retro PC build

Posted on 2024-05-02, 09:31

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

> OP should clarify use cases. 1. Aesthetics and immense satisfaction turning it on 2. Key games of the era, Quake 2, Unreal, Age of Empires and so on. So Windows 95 only, no DOS? 3. Tinkering with HW and SW. I made perfect boot floppy, DEVICEHIGH and oakcdrom :) That does sound like DOS. Just got …

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Re: 1997 period correct retro PC build

Posted on 2024-05-02, 08:22

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Riva128 has horrible Image quality, the Millennium II is superior in that regards. Image quality depends on the cards not the chip. "Riva128" isn't a card but a chip. Some cards with the Riva128 had awful image quality, some (Diamond Viper 330 springs to mind) had excellent quality. So it …

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Re: Recommended PCI sound cards for Win98?

Posted on 2024-05-02, 08:07

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

There's no hard limit to how many cards you can have in a system. If you enjoy A3D and EAX, the Audigy2+Vortex2 would be the obvious combi. However you say 'SB emulation' which sounds like you also want to have DOS compatibility. That might change recommendations (the Santa Cruz has good DOS support …

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Re: Pentium 60/66 are DOS Only?

Posted on 2024-05-01, 09:15

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

the focus of discussion of this post is not on whether it is possible to install win95/win98 or xp on a Pentium60 (which I will certainly try to do out of curiosity) but whether in your opinion it is a machine that expresses its potential at 90% in the field of pure dos No, as pure DOS runs fine on …

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Re: Pentium 60/66 are DOS Only?

Posted on 2024-05-01, 07:55

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

the focus of discussion of this post is not on whether it is possible to install win95/win98 or xp on a Pentium60 (which I will certainly try to do out of curiosity) but whether in your opinion it is a machine that expresses its potential at 90% in the field of pure dos No, as pure DOS runs fine on …

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Re: Pentium 60/66 are DOS Only?

Posted on 2024-04-30, 21:54

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I know that I can easily install Windows95 on it, but my question was that considering the performance they were CPUs that mainly targeted MS-DOS 6.22 and therefore would you recommend installing a maximum of 16MB of RAM? They targeted DOS and Windows 3.1 for the simple reason that when the Pentium …

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Re: Choosing a GPU for a P4 build?

Posted on 2024-04-30, 13:31

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Overkill for 2003, but OP's talking of running XP SP3, and those SPs seriously bloated the OS. I'd say 2GB is absolute minimum for a decent experience on XP SP3, and even there I'd prefer more. Better alternative: don't install the SPs, particularly not SP2 and 3. Not really. I think modern …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2024-04-29, 15:49

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] From what I understand, DOS does actually put a lot of stress on the CPU (e.g. running at 100%) since it doesn't have any power management capabilities to put the CPU in idle. So DOS power consumption would be higher than idle. However, the highlighted processor in those charts is the Pentium …

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Re: Choosing a GPU for a P4 build?

Posted on 2024-04-29, 14:09

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If it's a 2003-ish build, I'd go with the Radeon 9500 PRO. Also, the 2GB ram is way overkill for 2003. It won't hurt having it with WinXP or 2k, but back then it was rare to go above 1GB. Overkill for 2003, but OP's talking of running XP SP3, and those SPs seriously bloated the OS. I'd say 2GB is …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2024-04-29, 14:04

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] To do this properly we'd need to first establish a baseline energy consumption / cost. From that we could then determine the incremental increase of a P4 system. A 486 system probably uses about 30W, although YMMV depending on how many drives etc it has running. Going by these figures , a …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2024-04-29, 12:37

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

How 'retro' are we talking about here? :D Carpentry, with no power tools. Rebuilding an already very reinforced fence that got snapped right in half during the last hurricane. Hammer, chisel and pencil to make mortise and tenon joints in 4x4"s. If that sort of stuff counts, I was moving 9 …

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Re: Pentium PRO?

Posted on 2024-04-26, 20:58

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

rmay635703 wrote on 2024-04-26, 20:30: [...] The “mistakes “ Intel made [...] The discussion you are quoting me from was specifically about the lack of MMX support in PPro being called a mistake, not any of the other things you are referring to.

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