Re: Replacing a serial mouse... how?

Posted on 2024-05-16, 19:33

by

by acl

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have seen serial to PS/2 adapters. What requirements do they have for the PS/2 mouse? Do they work universally? Can you still buy new serial mice? I didn't see any. What is the thing to do/get? If you need one and can pay shipping from France I can give you one for free. Edit : a mouse. Not an …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2024-05-15, 08:25

by

by acl

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

DSC_9014.JPG Well it's hardware for retro hardware. A proper diagnostics card. Needless to say, more chips = better. 😉 DSC_8937.JPG The cheapest card (top) works fine in a PCI slot, but in an ISA slot, not so much. or at least cut the ISA part off. Consider it done. :D No idea about what the …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2024-05-10, 07:30

by

by acl

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Picked up a pair of GPUs, Got a nice looking MX440 PCI and a X850 XT untested. The X850 is one of the PCIe models so hopefully it fires up ok, still looking at a board to throw it at, a Socket 754 setup should fit it well enough. MX440 PCI 128Mb 128bit.jpg Going to put this MX440 into my Dual …

---

Re: Is the Pentium 4 underrated for retro computing?

Posted on 2024-05-09, 07:15

by

by acl

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sorry to be a bit sarcastic (and off topic) but... what about stopping using Windows ? Do you like ads in you start menu ? Unpatched exploited critical bugs for month ? "Telemetry" (which is really much like collecting your data). Integration of components you can'disable (assistant, ai...). I guess …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2024-05-07, 07:30

by

by acl

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I found a datasheet describing a more recent but similar card. (https://partners.trendcontrols.com/trendproducts/cd/pl/pdf/en-ta200241-uk0yr0608.pdf) Page 2 seems to explain that the card is indeed managed through serial and is only using the ISA bus for power. (this more recent card is PCI based) …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2024-05-06, 15:52

by

by acl

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yesterday i bought a lot of four cards. I hesitated a bit before buying. The price was not insane, but still high in my budget. A Britek - ViewTop 3D Vulcan B3D FXG2 (Voodoo 1 with 6MB) Interesting because it's a 6MB version but unlike some others cards it does not require a proprietary passthrough …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2024-05-06, 12:13

by

by acl

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Saw this card in a flea market. My brain just went "it's an ISA card, must buy". It looked like a serial port interface, and the fact that it has a Z80 CPU made it interesting. Paid 1€ for it Upon closer inspection... I don't know what it is. It only uses 7 contacts of the ISA slot (haven't yet …

---

Re: Is the Pentium 4 underrated for retro computing?

Posted on 2024-05-05, 01:50

by

by acl

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hardware that is 15+ years old can be considered retro. I agree. The fact that a system can or can't run DOS cannot be the unique criteria to call a thing retro or not. Most vogons users might have grew up in the 70/80's and have nostalgia for such systems. But the time window is shifting and …

---

Re: Exercises and Example Programs that teach the C Programming Language

Posted on 2024-05-05, 00:02

by

by acl

in Milliways

in Milliways

Any good book will do. I would recommend to learn how to use the GCC (or other) building and linking toolchain manually from the command line. That's great to understand the difference between compilation, linking and dynamic loading. To learn where are the headers, where are the system libs for …

---

Re: Bought these games today

Posted on 2024-04-30, 07:52

by

by acl

in Milliways

in Milliways

Thrift store finds from the past month or so: Nice ! All great games (except i never played the sims) I see Close Combat trilogy. I'm a very big fan of CC2. My father bought it in 98 and i played it extensively since then. There is also a fan made mod that completely changes the content into the …

---

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

Posted on 2024-04-27, 20:26

by

by acl

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today I broke my garden hose valve. To stop the water from flowing I had to turn another valve located inside a closet in the house. This closet is normally full of boxes but also (on the back, behind the mess) computer parts ! Since i was forced to remove everything to access the cutoff valve I …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2024-04-27, 20:19

by

by acl

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I picked up this case today, a cheap local find on eBay for a change. Nothing too exciting but obviously finding good condition beige cases is getting difficult now. No yellowing on this one and it's very solid and heavy with nice thick steal. No plans for it at the moment :) Cherry on the cake : a …

---

Re: Bought these games today

Posted on 2024-04-26, 15:20

by

by acl

in Milliways

in Milliways

When focussed on FPS, RTS, RPG and other games we can forget that in the game dev world there could be just as much skill and innovation in the kinds of games often seen as uncool or 'for kids' or whatever. in that sense when such a title turns up in a lot its not a waste, more like an oddity / …

---

Re: Bought these games today

Posted on 2024-04-26, 08:04

by

by acl

in Milliways

in Milliways

I bought some games in the last 6 month and I just batch cleaned them this evening. There is a StarCraft battle chest (unfortunately without the strategy books) Barbie Fashion designer (with the special fabric/paper to print doll clothes for real 😄) Warcraft 2 + expansion (no manuals) Conflict …

---

Re: Bought these games today

Posted on 2024-04-25, 22:20

by

by acl

in Milliways

in Milliways

I bought some games in the last 6 month and I just batch cleaned them this evening. IMG_20240426_000730.jpg There is a StarCraft battle chest (unfortunately without the strategy books) Barbie Fashion designer (with the special fabric/paper to print doll clothes for real 😄) Warcraft 2 + expansion (no …

---

Re: Are there regular users here with profession away from tech industry?

Posted on 2024-04-25, 09:45

by

by acl

in Milliways

in Milliways

Im computer programmer, but I work as construction worker here in spain because is better paid You were probably tired of those TPS reports as well. Hi! to be true, i need to google what "TPS report" is.. i did not understand very well yet, but i think never have any of this stuff here in spain or …

---

Re: Are there regular users here with profession away from tech industry?

Posted on 2024-04-24, 06:21

by

by acl

in Milliways

in Milliways

I learnt programming in books as a kid around 1999/2000. Even if I was really passionate about computers i was not "good at math" back then. The school counselor's advice for me was to become either a truck driver or to work as a landscape architect. My parents pushed me really hard to follow the …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2024-04-20, 06:56

by

by acl

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Media Vision Thunder and Lightning. A video and sound card in one. I couldn't find the ad that you mentioned, just a schematic of the card on VCFED and it matches your photo. Heavy Metal VGA ad https://books.google.ca/books?id=gasgHhfj-RAC&pg=PA570&dq=mediavision+thunder+and+lightning&hl=en&sa=X& …

---

Descent 3 (1999) source code released

Posted on 2024-04-18, 07:57

by

by acl

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

The Descent 3 source code was released this week. Some proprietary libs were removed, so there is some work required to get it to compile again but this could allow some new releases/mods for both retro and newer systems. https://hackaday.com/2024/04/17/source-code-to-the-1999-fps-game-descent-3- …

---

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

Posted on 2024-04-17, 16:02

by

by acl

in Milliways

in Milliways

TheChexWarrior wrote on 2024-03-21, 14:49: My new Fujicom curved screen. And Wise thin-pc with Windows 98 SE. Those combination are wonderful to my fillings!!!! Filename Screenshot from 2024-04-17 18-00-48.png File size 47.03 KiB Views 339 views Your light switch is incredible !

---