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

Posted on 2020-10-27, 03:49

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Currently making a QuickBasic file of the codes from the booklet for Armour-Geddon (MS-DOS game) and it's coming along pretty well. Had to remove the $ after the letter for input and the if then statements since it complains about it, but it works. Got 1 page of the 8 done so far and it's a long …

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Re: Bought these games today

Posted on 2020-10-24, 02:46

by

by bjwil1991

in Milliways

in Milliways

NHL 2001 and King's Quest Mask of Eternity for $0.49/ea. Filename IMG_20201023_214657599~2.jpg File size 897.27 KiB Views 122 views Both have a bit of small, hardly noticeable scratches, but in pretty good shape. Might or will get these resurfaced to make them look new and make ISO files of these …

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Re: Hello, World! :D - Robert B's PC builds - oogle away freely :)

Posted on 2020-10-24, 01:52

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Last old CD-ROM I bought and repaired is a Creative Labs CR-563-B Double-Speed drive that had a laser head motor issue. Oiled it and put some white lithium grease on the rails and tracks, put it back together, and it started to work, except the grinding noise when it's moving back and forth, which …

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Re: Bought these games today

Posted on 2020-10-05, 21:56

by

by bjwil1991

in Milliways

in Milliways

Bought this game over the weekend.

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

Posted on 2020-09-30, 04:32

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've had luck with 5.25" floppy drives in a matter of speaking. Had to lubricate everything so that the drives would operate quietly and efficiently. Had 1 diskette go bad on me and the other one just had a data read error, but I was lucky to have backups of the files to be safe.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-09-30, 04:28

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bit the bullet and finally got me one of these beauties: https://i.imgur.com/1fj5gwrl.jpg Sellers pics didn't even come close to showing the condition its in. Not a speck of dust or fingerprint on it! The only thing dating it is that one of the stickers on the back is slightly yellowed. All the …

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

Posted on 2020-09-28, 02:25

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For free? Dude, you are the luckiest guy in the world. Wish I could find free computers. Haven't gotten a free one since 2015.

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Re: Hello, World! :D - Robert B's PC builds - oogle away freely :)

Posted on 2020-09-28, 02:22

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

It's possible the card has a bad solder spot on the BGA chip. I have a 9600 that has gotten bent and my system would beep for video card not detected.

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Re: IBM ThinkPad 380D Adventures

Posted on 2020-09-27, 00:57

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

TFT has the sun icon for brightness control and DSTN has the Yin-Yang (or half circle filled/1st quarter moon) icon for contrast. DSTN is crappy as it has a whole lot of shadows. TFT is better for DOS games and OSes that scroll constantly.

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Re: Tandy 3 Voice Sound - SN76489 ISA Soundcard Project

Posted on 2020-09-26, 05:16

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Looks pretty good to me.

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Re: PC Chips M912 ver:1.7 green pcb black isa [ UPDATE IMPORTANT!]

Posted on 2020-09-26, 05:15

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you have 64MB RAM, yes. Less than that, 256KB is sufficient.

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Re: PC Chips M912 ver:1.7 green pcb black isa [ UPDATE IMPORTANT!]

Posted on 2020-09-25, 03:55

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

And cache between 512KB and 1MB uses either all 32 pins (Bank 0, Bank 1, and TAG) or mostly 32 pins (Bank 0 and Bank 1) and only 1 uses 28 pins (TAG).

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-09-23, 23:44

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got an ADZ 133MHz 5x86 myself with the Aries VRM. It's a wonder piece of history.

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

Posted on 2020-09-22, 21:07

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Attempting to get an XT-IDE Universal BIOS chip to work on my Promise EIDE Pro ISA card and nothing. Reason for switching the BIOS is because the Promise EIDE BIOS takes a chunk of conventional RAM and once it's low, certain games never work.

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Promise EIDE Pro + XT-IDE Universal BIOS = no boot

Posted on 2020-09-22, 20:47

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I decided to check and see if I can use the XT-IDE Universal BIOS on my Promise EIDE Pro super I/O controller card for my 386DX/486DLC machine in place of the Promise EIDE BIOS to see what would happen and I notice the following: the XT-IDE Universal BIOS isn't working at all, but the chip(s) is/are …

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

Posted on 2020-09-22, 16:09

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Swapped the floppy drive in my 386DX/486DLC and the system needs new AA batteries for the CMOS/RTC. Also attempted to use the XT-IDE Universal BIOS on the Promise EIDE Pro Super I/O controller card, but I need to set the BIOS address to the specific address space the card is set to (c8000h).

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

Posted on 2020-09-21, 04:15

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Dusted, cleaned, and lubricated a Sony MPF920 3.5" floppy drive from September of 2004 (about 16 years old today) so that I can place that in my 386DX/486DLC machine sometime this week in place of the other one as it's having a bit of motor craziness. I'd do that right now, but I have work in the …

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

Posted on 2020-09-20, 18:31

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That is one awesome docking station protective stand for the laptop.

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Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread

Posted on 2020-09-20, 18:08

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Beautiful setup. I really need to find one of those I/O bracket for an AT motherboard so I can put my Socket 7 board in there.

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Re: I recently found this hardware, AKA the Dumpster find thread.

Posted on 2020-09-16, 02:22

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Video RAM issues cause that. I believe capacitors don't do that unless the voltage, capacitance, tolerance, and temperature + lifespan aren't too low.

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