Re: Windows 11 CPU requirement removed?

Posted on 8 minutes ago

by

by BitWrangler

in Windows

in Windows

Good to know there are gonna be options when 10 is no longer getting security updates, on modest systems. Is there a way to obtain specific releases at the moment, or should I download and save this known to work era release for future? 3rd gen pentium though, heh good thing you linked it because I …

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Re: When buying a 486 motherboard back in the day. What accessories came with it?

Posted on Today, 13:50

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Some did, but back then they were the exception, not the rule. It wasn't until 1994 or so that it became commonplace. Agreed, AFAIR, my own first 486 had serial and parallel ports on the VESA "super I/O board" which also had the IDE controller ... 286's were made well into the 90's. By that time …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on Today, 13:37

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think it was late 80s that the more familiar AT PSU format started appearing, along with minitowers and the compact desktop cases. Those big 5170-ish types hung around just into the 90s, in larger format desktops still and the prev mentioned full AT full towers. I have an early 486 built for CAD …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on Today, 04:13

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

"Buck or two plus" has been having some classic style ball friendly pads in Canada

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Re: Bought these games today

Posted on Today, 03:06

by

by BitWrangler

in Milliways

in Milliways

Got these today, think they're all bundle versions, as you might guess from the Powercolor logo on the TR AOD case. Says 9600/9800 required, not sure how super strict that will be.

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

Posted on Today, 02:50

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Some years ago, my boss at work threw away a little 8" LCD tv from Maplins, which I kept. It could take VGA but looked terrible doing it with awkward scaling, but it had a 640 x 480 LCD in it, so I threw away the TV and kept the LCD. Some months ago I made this PCB for the 44-pin LCD connector that …

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

Posted on Yesterday, 22:15

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

IIRC multi pentium boards could be fussy about exact S spec and having a matching pair of same.

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Re: When buying a 486 motherboard back in the day. What accessories came with it?

Posted on Yesterday, 22:12

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

But Intel CPUs usually sold for a Premium price. AMD and Cyrix CPU were sold at discount prices. Though by 96, they were giving Intel SX33 away free with motherboard and DX33 were $5 extra, I think the DX2 held up $5 above an AMD or Cyrix one still though. It was only the DX4 that held a price …

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Re: When buying a 486 motherboard back in the day. What accessories came with it?

Posted on Yesterday, 14:31

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Think I only ever had 2 NIB back in the day, no onboard i/o so just board in pink bubblewrap bag, layer of foam in bottom of box, and manual. The "shovelware" thing of trial AV or other utils wasn't really a thing until 96ish. Other boards sold at fairs I saw come from OEM master cases, just board …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on Yesterday, 13:18

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bought this fun little oddity off Facebook Marketplace, it's one of these super compact Socket 7 PCs you see on YouTube sometimes. Somehow it has a K6-III in it? PXL_20230607_222404506.jpg PXL_20230607_222419595.jpg PXL_20230607_222733557.jpg PXL_20230607_222928147.jpg Wild and cute. It's like a …

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Re: How much should I actually be paying for a first generation Sound Blaster?

Posted on 2023-06-07, 14:55

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Does running a Sound Blaster in a 5150 even make sense? We're talking about a 1989 sound card in a 1981 computer. I guess if one is experimenting with mixing and matching different generations of computer hardware, I can kind of get it. But I honestly don't really get it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The original PC …

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Re: Windows 95 - memory leaks? Memory issues

Posted on 2023-06-07, 03:41

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

The second thing is probably driver or software memory leaks. Like I mentioned earlier, in 2002 (or '03 don't remember) I had 486 66 MHz with 36MB of ram and it fast crazy fast given the slow CPU. For me the next logical step is going to be IE removal and trying vcache tweaks. My original …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-06-06, 23:04

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yah, that's what has been said, it WAS liquid metal type stuff, phase change, but it's pumping itself out over time and leaving it dry.

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Re: What 486 mainboard is this?

Posted on 2023-06-06, 17:57

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You might find something of use here... https://www.praxis8.com/ambra/default.htm Ambra fell down the cracks a bit with IBM support, it was treated as 3rd party support, and IBM didn't really have support "on the web" until after they were discontinued, then by the time most things like the PC-BBS …

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Re: Fast Pentium MMX compared to a Pentium II

Posted on 2023-06-06, 14:41

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

i think no one should be surprised that p6 outperforms p5 by a lot in unreal/UT, even the readme for those games mentions this. however if you go pre-1998 there also exist games that see no benefit or even run slower clock-for-clock on p6, making those much more expensive and power hungry klamaths …

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Re: Need help getting ATI Radeon Xpress 200 working with Windows 98

Posted on 2023-06-06, 14:31

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

If any OEM massaged xpress 200 drivers to work on 98, I think it would have been Compaq, as they held over 98 support for a few years for the business customers that clung onto 98 based systems and software rather than XP. So to do that, it goes, ID earliest compaq with radeon xpress, ID the softpaq …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-06-06, 13:33

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I was also bidding for Geforce mx 440 but I will stop pursuing that action. For the core system I will get next Monday the mx 440 seems to bit too powerful. If you just want a 440 to screw around with and compare, there's Quadro 200 NVS cards with the same GPU chip that go real cheap all the time.

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

Posted on 2023-06-06, 13:23

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You probably did not reflow it smoothly enough. With an uneven solder surface on any voltage rail of the edge connector it would have created a loose connection between the card and the slot, which would in turn create a point of near infinite resistance between the card and the voltage source. ? …

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Re: Worth trying to sell? - Pentium MMX

Posted on 2023-06-06, 02:02

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I am well sated with that class of system, so it would have to be exceptionally cheap to tempt me, I feel like $100 is probably the low end though, "as found" kind of deals, whereas cleaned up and tested is more like $250ish.

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

Posted on 2023-06-06, 01:58

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bummer.... any of those small SMD electrolytics near it that could have cooked to a short? I had a try at burning something on the graphics side myself today. Acer SFF box, again forgot the rule of "If you didn't build it yourself go through it with a fine tooth comb before you power it up." ... …

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