Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on Yesterday, 22:06

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I picked up one of the PCChips "BookPC" systems very cheaply "untested" on eBay. It was absolutely filthy, but turns out that while the PSU is dead, the motherboard only needed a new coin cell and contact cleaner on the DIMM slot. With a normal PSU lashed up to the proprietary pin-out it boots …

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Re: Tiny Vortex86-based DOS gaming PC - weeCee

Posted on 2024-05-15, 08:18

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I've been wavering about getting either one of these or a TinyLlama for ages. Yesterday I got as far as submitting a quote request for with PCBWay (with assembly of the SMD passives etc) using the community files. I also got a quote for the SOM module from the UK supplier recommended earlier in the …

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Re: NEC Powermate Socket A Athlon XP Low Profile PC

Posted on 2024-05-14, 21:19

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

You likely have this board because at that time PB equals NEC. It’s currently missing photos and bios dumps which you could contribute. Having P4 PSU connector on 462 is very nice however it’s too crammed inside so don’t go overboard with higher clocked Athlons. Aside from LP versions of 9250, …

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Re: Worst fastest early 3D cards

Posted on 2024-04-23, 10:01

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Has anyone ever compared the S3 Savage cards with the VIA integrated versions? Or the early VIA integrated Trident CyberBlade with the card version? VIA integrated chipsets seem a confusing mess of which have which graphics cores. I've definitely got one in a DigiPOS system that gets reported as a …

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Re: Blown SMD components on Motherboard - any tips?

Posted on 2024-04-21, 22:36

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Eventually got back to this, and I can confirm just soldering on the ISA slot did work! IMG_20240421_232004.jpg I also added a scavenged 10uf capacitor (from an old PCI modem) in the empty hole next to the slot. The only testing I've done so far is initialising a Yamaha YMF719 soundcard using …

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

Posted on 2024-04-20, 10:23

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Try using it with a cable select punched IDE cable. Tried the adapter with two different cable select type 80 wire cables (the original one was 80 wire but only one drive connector) but still no luck with the mSATA adapters booting or being accessible (but still being recognised by BIOS OK). Again …

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Re: Creative Audigy 1 - DOS Games within Win98 - Spluttering\Clicking after Digital Audio?

Posted on 2024-04-20, 10:20

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Several hours later ... it seemed like swapping to the SB4760 Live! card, with the drivers from the original install disc image for that version, was the only way to get all of the DOS games I want to play nicely under Win98. This seems like a good balance for me for this PC - targeting late DOS …

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Re: Creative Audigy 1 - DOS Games within Win98 - Spluttering\Clicking after Digital Audio?

Posted on 2024-04-19, 23:24

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

As for downgrading the Audigy 1 Windows drivers, that probably wouldn't make much difference, but it doesn't hurt to try. Using a SBLive with older DOS drivers would likely be more effective. Several hours later ... it seemed like swapping to the SB4760 Live! card, with the drivers from the …

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Re: NEC Powermate Socket A Athlon XP Low Profile PC

Posted on 2024-04-19, 08:50

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

A few updates on this - thinking more about the motherboard, the ASRock spare I have has the ATX power header right in the middle of the board rather than at the front edge, which might make routing the power cable in across/around the DIMMs, but under the optical drive, quite tricky! Also the NEC …

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

Posted on 2024-04-19, 08:20

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Has anyone had much luck with this style of flat PCB based 2.5" to 3.5" adapter? 2_5_3_5_Adapter.jpg I've got mSATA drives in most of my retro machines using the JMicron based 2.5" IDE adapters - either the ones with a caddy or the smaller bare PCB ones. But the common adapters for connecting 2.5" …

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Re: Creative Audigy 1 - DOS Games within Win98 - Spluttering\Clicking after Digital Audio?

Posted on 2024-04-18, 23:00

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I don't think it would make much difference on Audigy cards, since they need newer drivers by default. But using older drivers on SBLive cards could possibly have some impact. There's a downside to that as well, since older SBLive drivers sometimes exhibit slowdown and stuttering when playing FM …

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Creative Audigy 1 - DOS Games within Win98 - Spluttering\Clicking after Digital Audio?

Posted on 2024-04-18, 12:03

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I have an Audigy 1 (SB0090) in my main Win98 PC (Sempron 3300+, VIA K8M800 chipset, 512Mb, GeForce 4 Ti) with drivers set up using the instructions here: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=71449 It generally works fine, but in one or two late DOS games run under Windows I get a weird spluttering …

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NEC Powermate Socket A Athlon XP Low Profile PC

Posted on 2024-04-17, 22:04

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Not that I really needed yet another Windows 98/XP era PC, but I saw this little NEC slimline PC pop up on eBay, and couldn't really resist it. I was drawn to the combination of really compact size with beige and also both full size floppy and optical drives - which doesn't seem a common combination …

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Re: Nostalgia for old Graphics Programs?

Posted on 2024-02-27, 09:57

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Fascinating to learn about all these apps! I remember Corel Draw being on school computers, and often getting old versions free on magazine cover discs, but never really being able to get my head around the node drawing tools at the time! But somehow that rainbow hot air balloon always appealed to …

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Nostalgia for old Graphics Programs?

Posted on 2024-02-20, 17:18

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

As well as games, there are some graphics programs I remember nostalgically from school and childhood. LGR's videos on MS Paint and the Print Shop Pro banner printing etc hit hard! And for some reason the Win3.1 version of MS Word with the fountain pen splash screen always lodges in my memory. I've …

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Re: Smallest Legacy Win98 / DOS Gaming PC? - Kiosk PC KPC B72 - Slim Celeron M

Posted on 2024-02-17, 21:27

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

How many fps you can squeeze from Quake 3 Arena on 640x480 Normal settings? I never really got into FPS games - I remember buying Quake III when it came out because of the hype, but never really actually got into it. So it was a bit of a struggle to work out how to run the time demo ... everything …

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Smallest Legacy Win98 / DOS Gaming PC? - Kiosk PC KPC B72 - Slim Celeron M

Posted on 2024-02-17, 13:13

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I keep falling further down the rabbit hole of trying to fnd the smallest SFF systems that will run Win98 and DOS, and this is the latest thing I've found - a "Kiosk PC KP3 - B72" - found in a search looking around for badly described PCs. The tiny size really appealed to me - basically the same …

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"Windows95man" - Finland Eurovision Song Contest entry 2024

Posted on 2024-02-11, 10:58

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by justin1985

in Milliways

in Milliways

Well this is ... Quite something Windows95man - No Rules! Finland Eurovision 2024 Retro computers hit the mainstream? 😉

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Re: Blown SMD components on Motherboard - any tips?

Posted on 2024-02-10, 19:58

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It was a struggle but I managed to find some hopefully suitable components from RS, and soldered them between the PCI slots with minimal damage ... IMG_20240210_194014.jpg The inductor is 1uH and rated at 1.2A which seemed to be the best I could find in a 1206 package (and in less than full reel …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2024-02-05, 12:38

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by justin1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Another random eBay SFF purchase arrived - a "Kiosk PC KP3 - B72" - which I found in a search looking around for badly described PCs. The tiny size really appealed to me - basically the same size as two normal 5.25" drives side by side! IMG20240205114438.jpg This model is the Celeron M 1.5Ghz, and …

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