Re: Perfect ISA soundcard, in theory

Posted on 2013-08-28, 16:34

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Hi Gerwin, What is the sound quality like on the Acer Magic S23 card? I've got the Turtle Beach Tropez 32 which has the same Crystal CS4232 chipset and Yamaha YMF-262 OPL chip. It's by far the quietest and clearest sounding soundcard in my collection, so I was just wandering if the Acer Magic S23 …

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Re: Aztech Waverider Pro 32-3D

Posted on 2013-08-25, 20:30

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Have you set the volume on all the inputs you're not using, eg mic, line in, aux, etc to zero?

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Re: Fastest PC with ISA slot

Posted on 2013-05-23, 18:02

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I had a Ricoh i845 chipset mobo with a 3.06GHz Northwood processor that had an ISA slot on it. I say had because I used it's PSU in another PC that I had to get some data off and put in a different PSU in it a few weeks later. The PSU was stuffed and it trashed my mobo! AAAAARGH!! Had that cold …

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Re: I'm quite confused by XTIDE

Posted on 2013-05-06, 07:24

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

@ sirlemonhead I've FINALLY received the EPROMs, I've programmed a V1 and V2 ROM for you. I've really been battling with the V2 ROM though, my 286 bridgeboard just will not initialise the ROM. It works on one of my 440BX boards, so I know the ROM is definitely working. I've double, triple checked …

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Re: I'm quite confused by XTIDE

Posted on 2013-03-10, 15:23

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yup, I have PayPal, I'll give you the details once I've received the EPROMS and programmed and tested them for you. Our customs department is useless here, it'll take a couple of days for something to arrive and then it'll sit at customs for 2-3 weeks before they release it. I ordered the EPROMS on …

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Re: I'm quite confused by XTIDE

Posted on 2013-03-10, 09:51

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sure, no problem, I'll definitely send you the EPROMS once I receive them. :happy: The XTIDE bios is an amazing piece of software. It auto-detects hard drives on primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary interfaces. It allows you to boot from any interface as well as having a boot menu if you have …

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Re: I'm quite confused by XTIDE

Posted on 2013-03-09, 15:50

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It must be a 3C509 as Old Thrashbarg mentioned above. This is exactly the card I'm using for my V1.1.5 XTIDE bios that I'm using with my A2286 bridgeboard in my Amiga 2000. I'm using the XTIDE bios to boot DOS 6.22 off a 4GB CF card that I've got connected to the secondary IDE port on my SB16. I've …

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Re: I'm quite confused by XTIDE

Posted on 2013-03-08, 08:57

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's easier and better to use the right size EPROM depending on the size of the file. The XTIDE V1.1.5 bios is 8K in size, so use a 27C64 for that. Some of the files in the V2.0 bios are 12K in size, so you'll need a 27C128 for those files. If you're going to use EPROMs bigger than the file size, …

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Re: XTIDE BIOS

Posted on 2013-03-03, 21:42

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Should be fine, just make sure you select 8KB ROM if you're using a 27C64 in the 3COM setup program for the card. I haven't tried a PCI card yet for the XTIDE Bios, but I have done it a few times with ISA network cards and it works well. The V2.xx of XTIDE Bios supports up to 120GB HDD, while V1.5 …

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Re: When is hardware "retro"? Your personal rules

Posted on 2013-03-01, 16:06

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm with PowerPie5000 on this one. You can still run Vista/Win7 on just about any P4 system reasonably OK. The i845 chipset can handle 2GB memory which is sufficient for Win7. The 440BX chipset has a max of 1GB, but I've never been able to run more than 768MB on a 440BX without stability issues. …

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Re: Old fart topic: What was your hardware specs in 1992?

Posted on 2013-02-28, 16:19

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I had an Atari 520STE with 2MB ram and a 2nd floppy drive. Ah, memories of constantly swapping floppies for the bigger games. My dad had an 8MHz XT at the time, 640K memory, 20MB HDD, amber Hercules monitor. The Sierra quests actually looked not too bad on that system if you used the Hercules …

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Re: random bright dots

Posted on 2013-02-08, 17:03

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bad memory locations on the video ram? Yup, I'm guessing that too. Perhaps if your motherboard bios allows it, set your AGP speed to 1x and see if it makes a difference (I doubt it though).

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Re: Video Card Solder Failure

Posted on 2013-02-08, 16:26

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by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's far more likely from a particular manufacturer rather than a model of card that there might be poor soldering. I can't tell you which manufaturer had a poor soldering facility unfortunately. The other issue that could affect cards is those with poor cooling. When the card heats up, the solder …

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Hanging notes bug on cards other than Creative

Posted on 2013-01-23, 19:53

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I know the hanging notes topic has been flogged to death, and then some, but all the posts I've read on this topic seem to be about the Creative cards in particular. Has anyone come across the hanging notes bug on any other cards, ESS, Opti, Yamaha etc? I find this really funny seeing as it was …

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Re: Aztech Sound Galaxy Pro II

Posted on 2013-01-19, 08:35

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Excellent! I've bought it and I'll report back with my findings when I receive it. It seems that they've had multiple names for the same card, the FCC ID on your card and the one I've just bought is identical. The dust is cool, adds to it's "Retroness" 😁

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Re: Aztech Sound Galaxy Pro II

Posted on 2013-01-18, 08:03

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks for the reply! I have that exact card, I bought it about 6 months ago, it's great. The Audician has the YMF-718 but there were a couple of games that didn't work 100% with it. Populous II comes to mind. It would play the sound effects in the intro, but not the FM music. On some games, the …

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Aztech Sound Galaxy Pro II

Posted on 2013-01-17, 19:11

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi Everyone, I was wandering if anyone has this particular card and if it's any good? http://www.amoretro.de/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/aztech_sound_galaxy_16_II_opl3_azt2316r.jpg I've really been trying hard to find any info on it pertaining to DOS games, sound quality and does the MPU-401 need a …

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Re: Large IDE drives on 286/AT/ISA class machines

Posted on 2012-02-05, 22:37

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got hold of a couple Transcend 8GB 133X CF cards this weekend, same as yours. Also having the same issues with a few utilities, Norton Sysinfo does not recognise the CF card when I want to benchmark it. Norton does however see the partitions, report back the correct size of the partitions etc. …

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Re: Large IDE drives on 286/AT/ISA class machines

Posted on 2012-01-29, 16:25

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yup, I did and thanks again, it was quite a struggle getting it working, but now it's 100% I haven't tried with a CF card yet, I have a Transcend 4GB CF card in my Amiga 1200 which works great, but I don't want to format it on the A2286 and lose my data. I'll buy a 8GB CF card tomorrow and try it …

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Re: Large IDE drives on 286/AT/ISA class machines

Posted on 2012-01-29, 09:32

by

by orcish75

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi Megatron, Thanks for the post, you inspired me to go and investigate the XTIDE project to get a decent hard drive running on my A2286 bridgeboard on my Amiga 2000. This is by far the best way to get old 286/386 class machines a hard drive greater than 528MB running on them (without spending a …

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