Re: At power switch wiring

Posted on 2021-02-14, 10:16

by

by digistorm

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In the 'off' position, no leg should be connected to any other leg. In the 'on' position, one leg should be connected to one other leg. So there should be two pairs of legs that are connected in the 'on' position. The way you should connect the switch is that you connect the incoming mains voltage …

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Re: At power switch wiring

Posted on 2021-02-14, 09:52

by

by digistorm

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It is possible that the contacts are fused together, or that the contacts have been burnt away. It would be best to use a multimeter to measure which contacts are connected when you pull the switch, before you hook it up to mains. Then you can also verify that is it still working.

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 & AWE: From best to worst

Posted on 2021-02-12, 11:58

by

by digistorm

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

It's interesting that the CT1740 exhibits the same behavior in Doom. Does it also distort in other games? No, not as far as I remember. But to be honest, clipping in the sound engine is to be expected. You can have up to 8 simultaneous sound effects in Doom, and they have to account for distant …

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 & AWE: From best to worst

Posted on 2021-02-12, 10:02

by

by digistorm

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Interesting… it was not my experience with the CT4520. I had the time today to do a little check, and indeed I do not have what is described as the Vibra distortion bug, where the audio is distorted regardless of mixer settings because the DAC itself somehow distorts when the digital signal is too …

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 & AWE: From best to worst

Posted on 2021-02-12, 08:39

by

by digistorm

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

List updated to v8 to include AWE64 and AWE64 Gold, included workaround for slowdown/pauses bug, fixed typos, title updated Since you are now including the AWE64 cards, I can confirm that the CT4520 suffers from the Vibra distortion bug . Note that this model is different from other AWE64 cards, …

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Re: Need Help on Choosing Roland SC-55

Posted on 2021-02-03, 08:27

by

by digistorm

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Are you sure about that? Last time I read about it, I seem to remember it used a proprietary format and some of the instruments use the gameboy classic chip instruments. Though I am sure it would have been engineered on a midi platform and just used an export function that converts the sc-88 based …

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Re: PCI Riser Card capacitors - required on all thin clients?

Posted on 2021-01-30, 18:38

by

by digistorm

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

You are not measuring from input to output with your voltmeter? Because of course if you measure from +12v input to -12v output the total difference will be 24v…

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Re: Reasons to keep a late 2012 iMac?

Posted on 2021-01-30, 08:27

by

by digistorm

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It can probably boot from USB. Hold down the alt key while turning it on or rebooting to get into the boot menu. At least it works with macOS installs.

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Re: Dosbox without scaling?

Posted on 2021-01-27, 07:52

by

by digistorm

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

With the 200 lines video modes you have to double the scan lines when you setup that video mode. Otherwise you get a 15 kHz horizontal frequency and that is too low. The original VGA always scan doubled those low resolutions to keep the horizontal refresh high enough (and it looks sharper). So a …

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Re: Retro confessions. What are yours?

Posted on 2021-01-26, 07:01

by

by digistorm

in Milliways

in Milliways

Maybe people should also be more specific. As they might not like General MIDI. Has nothing to do with programming or music production. Producers would never rely on General MIDI for their musical instruments. It has more to do with mass market low cost music for games and toys. I think some people …

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Re: PC Player Benchmark question (pcpbench)

Posted on 2021-01-13, 09:22

by

by digistorm

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Maybe has an internal timer / counter that overflows because the test takes so long? 😉

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Re: CRT resolution stuck in text mode

Posted on 2021-01-05, 09:42

by

by digistorm

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Also, stop checking the OSD of your CRT. The OSD of a VGA monitor has no clue of the actual resolution that your computer is using. It makes a guess based on the synchronization signals but usually it throws all 400 line modes on one heap. That includes 320x200, 320x400, 640x400 and 80x25 and 80x50 …

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Re: When did you purchase your first 386 / 486 Computer? Availability vs the early 90's affordability norm.

Posted on 2021-01-03, 09:22

by

by digistorm

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Our family had a Tulip 386sx/16 with math copro in the 90s that my dad got from his boss to be able to do Autocad stuff at home. I have no idea what that one cost, but I was able to buy myself a budget 486 (486dx2/66 with 4 MB RAM, 540 MB hdd and VLB I/O and VGA (1 MB) in 1995 for about 2000 Dutch …

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Re: VGA Capture Thread

Posted on 2020-12-27, 15:12

by

by digistorm

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I like a bit of blur better, it more closely resembles the real budget CRT that I have (and I had with my 486). They never were sharp, also not in Windows if you went above 60 Hz to prevent headaches. Only when I got a good weekend job I could afford a proper CRT and after that I went with LCD and …

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Re: Why won't the ONT renew the IPs on the network?

Posted on 2020-12-24, 08:53

by

by digistorm

in Milliways

in Milliways

Or with a place where most users are temporary users, like restaurants, stores with indoor WiFi, campings, hotels etc. Also, without a lease, a client would never ask for a new IP again so *if* you would want to assign an IP to a different device it would be impossible because anytime you switch the …

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Re: Orpheus Soundcard: a new DOS soundcard with SPDIF/OPL3/MPU support

Posted on 2020-12-04, 06:04

by

by digistorm

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Talking about MOD players… open cubic player supports WSS natively, so that would make the Orpheus even more interesting.

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Re: what cool retro thing would mean little to you?

Posted on 2020-12-02, 08:57

by

by digistorm

in Milliways

in Milliways

Yeah, a GUS is only interesting if without it you have no music. That is only true if you are one of the few that was crazy enough in his youth to travel all over the place to attend demo parties. Like yours truly. To relive those memories, a GUS is almost essential because productions from that era …

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Re: ATX PSU with -5v

Posted on 2020-11-27, 14:17

by

by digistorm

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah, well, you weren’t supposed to use MIDI anyway, the driver support was more meant as backward compatibility. You were supposed to upload your own sound effects to the RAM of the card. But in the end, MIDI was so well and firmly established that the whole idea of a Paula chip on steroids was a …

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Re: Using AWE control panel to load soundfonts for DOS games in Windows 3.11

Posted on 2020-11-27, 08:23

by

by digistorm

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I just checked in Win 3.11, but Windows 3.11 doesn't seem to provide General MIDI services to DOS, and even games that support AWE32 natively just use the ROM it seems to my ears.

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Re: SD Card to IDE Adaptor issues with FIC Slot 1 motherboard.

Posted on 2020-11-24, 15:02

by

by digistorm

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What you say might be plausible. I have an IBM disk with a 2 GB jumper that limits it to 1024 cylinders. But that is still 1 cylinder too much for the BIOS of my 486. Very sneaky bug 😉

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