Re: How-to / info: NEC Powermate 386 BIOS setup utility

Posted on 2024-02-01, 10:21

by

by 386_junkie

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Disclaimer: This information is based on my experience setting up an NEC Powermate 386/33i. It probably also works with other Powermate 386 systems, but anything you do is at your own risk and I take no responsibility for any damage you cause following any of the information in this post. You're …

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Re: ARK Logic ARK1000VL VLB video card

Posted on 2023-12-23, 15:22

by

by 386_junkie

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Brilliant, thank you! Finding that many of the ftp's and driver hosting sites are now going down unfortunately.

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Re: ARK Logic ARK1000VL VLB video card

Posted on 2023-12-21, 22:14

by

by 386_junkie

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hmmm ftp://retronn.de/driver/ARK/ARK1000.VLB/ Not sure what these drivers are. Can get them to work/install under Win 3.1 - maybe for NT. I tried installing ARK2000 drivers and they install OK. Even look right, but there are glitches. Finally found the drivers that work: http://driverzone.com/ …

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Re: Video BIOS wanted, STB Powergraph 64 Video VLB

Posted on 2023-04-21, 12:49

by

by 386_junkie

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I can dump the Powergraph64 Bios... I believe it is only version 1.2 though if thats ok?

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Re: S3 Vision 968 VLB replica

Posted on 2023-04-21, 12:46

by

by 386_junkie

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I am one person who has the STB card. How zoomed in do you want the pics? I can also take some backlit pics if that would help with seeing the traces inside the board. I'll put the pictures on my Google Drive so you can get the full resolution pictures instead of the crap compressed pictures. Hey! …

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Re: Hey everyone... i'm back!... and with a general motherboard problem

Posted on 2023-04-05, 22:38

by

by 386_junkie

in Milliways

in Milliways

Hi Kixs, Good to see you and thanks for the post. When you say tantalums... could it also be the really small SMD Capacitors? or the yellow domes? Initially I couldn't get the board to boot with a whole bunch of 72-pin simm RAM until I managed to find one single stick that worked... only one stick! …

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Hey everyone... i'm back!... and with a general motherboard problem

Posted on 2023-04-05, 15:52

by

by 386_junkie

in Milliways

in Milliways

Hey all, I've been away from the community for a while... and its good to be back. In the time away I've navigated various life/personal things and I'm about ready to progress some long standing projects that are still there waiting to be finished... it will happen... honest! Anyhoo... this brings …

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Re: Caution / Beware - of ebay listing... not as advertised!

Posted on 2022-05-17, 16:38

by

by 386_junkie

in Milliways

in Milliways

you got a picture of the actual chip being sold? Yes, it is in the listing. They uploaded more pictures to add to the first couple. Same "Jaton" pcb... but no VRM. It is a 5 volt cpu i.e. not blue lightning. Though if a chip swap was done... i.e. from a proper blue lightning source de-soldered to …

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Re: Caution / Beware - of ebay listing... not as advertised!

Posted on 2022-05-17, 08:25

by

by 386_junkie

in Milliways

in Milliways

there's clearly a VRM on the bottom there? if that's actually the one they're selling, seeing as it's not an actual photo, which is what makes this highly suspicious in the first place, how hard can it be to just put up a photo of it? No. On the chip that is being sold, only 4 small SMD resistors …

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Caution / Beware - of ebay listing... not as advertised!

Posted on 2022-05-16, 19:03

by

by 386_junkie

in Milliways

in Milliways

Been coming and going over the last while though have not posted anything. I wanted to now just to make everyone aware and not to bid on the following as either the seller knows or doesn't... the chip is not real or as advertised. All Blue Lightnings are 3.3 volt chipsets, stepped down by an onboard …

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# Transistors in the DRx2 & Ti-486SXL ?

Posted on 2020-10-23, 19:25

by

by 386_junkie

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bit of a random question I know, though I have been ranking from lowest to highest the number of transistors each of CPU's have in and around the 386 era. The regular old DLC's that were done in collaboration with Cyrix had only 600,000, and were with 1Kb cache. The next step up was IBM's blue …

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Re: EISA Graphics / Video Cards

Posted on 2020-10-21, 20:15

by

by 386_junkie

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

A new addition to the family; - Just found the exact same board in my stash. The manual lists !MER2151.cfg as the matching cfg-file This is great to see... I think it will have an S3-924 graphics chip under the sticker. Not sure I have drivers for my card... would you be able to upload the contents …

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Re: EISA Graphics / Video Cards

Posted on 2020-10-21, 20:13

by

by 386_junkie

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Latest purchase - A Compaq QVision 1280/E https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=848430#p848430 Had a PM requesting some box / contents pics, so... QV1280E Box.zip QV1280E Pkg.zip QV1280E Card.zip Thank you for sharing. It's great to see what the OEM packaging looked like... especially with the old …

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Re: IBM Blue Lightning desolder

Posted on 2020-10-03, 22:09

by

by 386_junkie

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Personally, I would not attempt it. The Alaris Cougar motherboard is actually a good fit, there are few 386 chipsets out there that will be able to match or even beat Opti both on compatibility and performance. Even if you could remove the CPU and transfer it to another motherboard as a module... …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-09-30, 22:32

by

by 386_junkie

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Dat SPEA Graphiti FGA 1/HE TIGA+VGA card :D Do you have the original disks that came with it ? I found one in the wild a year ago, but couldn't get it to work. Drivers are very hard to come by for these :( unfortunately not, but I assume the drivers for the 34010 and 34020 are the same? see this …

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Re: How about a MR-BIOS ROM file repository?

Posted on 2020-09-22, 18:27

by

by 386_junkie

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I have a about 6 or 7 motherboards (386) with MR BIOS ROM's... have been meaning to dump / back them up. I recall there may be a way to do it in DOS without requiring a EPROM programmer, it that right?

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Re: Duke Nukem 3D on a i80386

Posted on 2020-07-05, 11:36

by

by 386_junkie

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It is on retronn.de: ftp://retronn.de/dos/games/Duke3D/for386_1.4/ You very likely can't overclock a 386 to the region where Duke3D is well playable. I suppose this is subjective and dependent on a number of factors i.e. the video bus and speed i.e. ISA @ 8Mhz / VLB @ 40Mhz, and whoever is playing …

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Re: Duke Nukem 3D on a i80386

Posted on 2020-07-05, 11:28

by

by 386_junkie

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Recently found out that that Duke 3D was also released on the Megadrive, only in Brazil apparently as the Megadrive had a good continued run out there while everywhere else was becoming obsolete. Though as always, it's great seeing 386's pushed... and in this case running Duke 3D at 5fps!

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Re: Rotator board for 386 upgrades w/PGA-132

Posted on 2020-07-05, 10:21

by

by 386_junkie

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nothing goes in between, it would just be a socket extension i.e. a dumb device. The only soldering would be for the sockets male and female. Female socket can be bought online... though the male (pins) would be made with wire i.e. poking lengths through a drilled hole, solder in place and then …

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Re: Rotator board for 386 upgrades w/PGA-132

Posted on 2020-07-05, 08:45

by

by 386_junkie

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Could be a decent DIY project... there is no additional processing or signal manipulation - just a straight pin-to-pin device, sockets are easy to find online... time really being the only critical factor.

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