Re: Motherboard doesn't start

Posted on 2020-09-22, 16:05

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have that board! It never worked right! that said, just use some side-cuts to clip that tantalum. The board should post without it. My board is SUPER picky about memory. I'd suggest you keep trying with smaller simms. Tried 4x4MB of FPM RAM that I use on my 486 boards — didn't help. It still just …

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Motherboard doesn't start

Posted on 2020-09-21, 20:57

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi, all! Got myself this Supermicro P54VL-PCI motherboard https://i.imgur.com/68abwlpm.jpg It's a VLB Socket 5 board that I'd really like to use, but unfortunately it doesn't start. The best I could get is one long repeating beep and the POST card indicating some RAM issues. The board came to me …

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Re: Your 'formula' for system specs and operating system matching

Posted on 2020-09-10, 13:51

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by jheronimus

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Definitely "overspec" for me: 386 — plain DOS with Norton Commander 486 to Pentium 133 — Windows 3.11 Pentium 166 to Pentium II 450 — Windows 95 Pentium II to Pentium III — Windows 98 (I don't build anything newer than that)

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Re: Will s478, s939, s775 or AM2 systems ever get as expensive as pre-socket 7 systems?

Posted on 2020-09-08, 11:13

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nostalgia is the main driving force. I would assume the majority of us got back into reto machines in mid/late 30's? But our fondest memories are with the PC closer to our teens, lets round of to 10 years of age. That would place the next wave of people wanting to recreate their childhood PC from …

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Re: Windows 95 OSR2.5 vs Windows 98 SE for a 486 build with 32MB of ram

Posted on 2020-09-02, 13:29

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by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Usually I only put WfWG 3.11 on anything slower than a Pentium 166 — but that's because I only play games on my rigs. I don't think there are many Win9x games I would play on a 486 or a Pentium 60-83, so the sole purpose of Windows for me is to use Total Commander (for FTP transfers) and WinImage — …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-08-17, 17:43

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by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's been a bit of a hoarding spree for me lately... So far loving it :) First, a Chaintech 5RSA2 motherboard — microATX Super Socket 7 using Ali Aladdin V chipset with 2 ISA slots: https://i.imgur.com/lJhdpQLm.jpg Thing is, I'd like to make a rig for LAN parties — something I could take with me on …

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Re: Value in IBM AT vs a 386 for retro gaming?

Posted on 2020-08-17, 13:18

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by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My dream scenario would be to have to be an IBM 5170 upgraded with a full-sized AT 386 or 486 motherboard... if only there were a VGA monitor in the "classic" IBM PC series. There is IBM 5175, but it's not exactly VGA. Maybe it would be possible to find a similarly designed VGA screen from Amdek or …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-08-12, 14:56

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

#9 Imagine 128. This was my dream card back in 1995. https://dependency-injection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/DSC_7854.jpeg Something about your photos makes them instantly recognisable. I don't know if it's the lightning or the love for cards with green PCB and yellow tantalum capacitors. :)

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-08-12, 14:55

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I sent a low offer for this on ebay and accepted a counter offer of not much more. Quite a mystery box... Cannot find much/anything about it and this was the only pic provided.. I usually see 286 builds in cases like this. The floppy drive cage position makes this a very comfortable layout for …

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Re: Posts photos of your most unique build.

Posted on 2020-08-12, 10:28

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-08-12, 09:25: My Ultimate Pure DOS gaming computer. Pentium MMX 233 with Sound Blaster AWE64. […] Show full quote My Ultimate Pure DOS gaming computer. Pentium MMX 233 with Sound Blaster AWE64. DOS Cadillac gaming computer. Cowboy Coffee build. Pentium 133 DOS gamer dream …

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Re: things you don't do with a retro PC

Posted on 2020-08-12, 10:25

by

by jheronimus

in Milliways

in Milliways

1) overclocking/modding hardware 2) sleeper builds 3) builds following a certain colour scheme (all red PCBs, for example), or having chips from one vendor (all UMC or all AMD) 4) brand name builds (I strictly get standard AT/ATX cases)

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Re: WinNT 4/Win9x drivers for Evans & Sutherland Freedom card?

Posted on 2020-08-10, 10:55

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Well, you definitely have a point 😀 Sent them a ticket. Would have emailed John Carmack — he seemed to have had an Evans & Sutherland card in his Dolch PAC machine in 1998, and logically it should have been a Freedom, but others have already tried, and he doesn't even remember the model of the card …

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WinNT 4/Win9x drivers for Evans & Sutherland Freedom card?

Posted on 2020-08-09, 13:47

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I've recently got myself a '95 workstation OpenGL acceleration card that's using an Evans & Sutherland Freedom chip. It came with the drivers for WinNT 3.51, but I'm trying to find drivers for WinNT 4 or Win9x if they exist at all. So far I've tried Archive.org and Google Groups, but came up with …

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Re: Windows 3.1 / 9x games that require Quicktime

Posted on 2020-08-05, 13:37

by

by jheronimus

in Deep Thought

in Deep Thought

X-Files used QT version 3, Bad Mojo used QT version 2.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-08-05, 12:12

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Soooo, a friend of mine got me this on a flea market: https://i.imgur.com/hj7C3i6h.jpg?1 Looks like it's a Evans & Sutherland 3D acceleration card with the "Freedom" chip. "Park City" might be the model name of the actual card, but so far I haven't been able to confirm this. https://i.imgur.com/ …

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Re: Best isa gpu?

Posted on 2020-07-30, 11:17

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What do you mean by "secondary"? Do you plan on using two VGA videocards to drive two screens? I'm not sure it's that easy. From what I understand, each videocard has its own VGA BIOS and they are likely to conflict. If anything, only one of them will get initialised. There are cards that can be …

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Re: The typical Vogons user build.

Posted on 2020-07-27, 10:30

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Warlord wrote on 2020-07-27, 05:03: 3com 10/100 NIC ( I have a dozen of these) This is the best card. Once you tick all the boxes for offload. Where do you need to tick all the boxes, exactly? Guess you learn something new every day.

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Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread

Posted on 2020-07-24, 15:58

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I need some answerws s3bright? sgram? I just played duke, hexen and quake in 1997 :P AFAIK, AGP S3 cards like the one probably used in your IBM might have issues with brightness levels (affects the blacks). There is a fix — you can reflash the BIOS or use a tool to turn the fix on/off. I've never …

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Re: Two Win95 installations on one! partition

Posted on 2020-07-24, 15:41

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

This would be so much easier. I think OP wants to share applications between the two installations, but since Win32 apps put so much configuration into the Registry, there's no sane way to install an app into one Win95 installation and expect the other installation to be able to use it. Also, Win95 …

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Re: Two Win95 installations on one! partition

Posted on 2020-07-24, 14:39

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Maybe just pick a solution to easily swap hard drives? I can think of two options off the top of my head: 1) get two identical mobile racks, put a separate hard drive in each caddy, install one drive bay into your computer. Those racks can still be found really cheap for maybe a couple of bucks 2) …

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