Re: Is this even surprising any more? Gaming industry vs. gamers' convenience

Posted on 2018-11-13, 14:18

by

by Cobra42898

in Milliways

in Milliways

After waking up one day and finding that not only could I not download new Wii apps, but my existing ones self deleted, I'll not be buying any game I don't have a full physical copy of. If I purchase something I expect it's mine, in perpetuity. If they want to remove it from me I expect my money …

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Re: Old hardware giveaway thread.

Posted on 2018-11-12, 03:43

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

An eagle.

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Re: Tandy 1000SL problem

Posted on 2018-11-08, 07:11

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Tandys use a weird mapped video memory that is 'borrowed' a bit as I recall. Some noticed it causes the machine to display a 'wrong' amount of memory depending on what's installed and what the setup was, iirc. I'd expect the 1000sl to work with EGA or CGA better than VGA. Tandys graphics are roughly …

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Re: The Story of Why Everyone Uses Onboard Sound Today

Posted on 2018-11-01, 13:11

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

At what point did the signal to noise ratio, etc. improve to the point where a normal listener with, say 320kb mp3s and decent average computer speakers, would not find it worth it to add in a secondary sound card? Pentium 4 era? Pentium D? Core2 duo? i3-xxxx?

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Re: Tandy 1000SL problem

Posted on 2018-10-31, 14:18

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just putting this here in case you're not aware of it; it's the best Tandy site I've found in my travels. http://www.oldskool.org/guides/tvdog/1kfaq.html

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Re: Tandy 1000SL problem

Posted on 2018-10-31, 12:42

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'd try to eliminate the possibilities. If unplugging the drives makes no change, I'd check to see if it has a coin type battery somewhere. If that failed, I'd see if it had one the Dallas rtc chips, and unplug that. Beyond that, the ram chips are about it for replaceables. I know they came with …

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Re: Tandy 1000SL problem

Posted on 2018-10-30, 14:30

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are you getting any beep codes ? Is the "640k installed" kind of message appearing before this? Try unplugging the disk drives. If no drives are detected, it should default to booting into the DeskMate ROM.

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Re: Torn between 3 systems: Please help me choose!

Posted on 2018-10-26, 15:58

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Do you have a KVM? If you're in the same boat as me, you have multiple systems, and you like them all, but switching kb/mouse/monitor each time is a pain, and having 3-4 of each is severely cluttered. I think when you can press a switch and just power on each system, it makes the choices easier. I'd …

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Typical Craigslist rant

Posted on 2018-10-22, 17:30

by

by Cobra42898

in Milliways

in Milliways

Like many of you, I occasionally browse Craigslist from time to time. Some sellers tend to repost every 2-3 days or so. There's one I've been watching, where it states " Want to sell the whole lot but would consider selling piece by piece starting at $10.00/. " Since it hadn't sold in all that time, …

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Re: What to look out for buying eBay RAM chips

Posted on 2018-10-19, 14:12

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Odd you mentioned buying in lots - I recently did that and bought a lot of 5 120gb hdds for my collection. Big enough to not run out of space, but not so big win9x throws a fit. Saves on shipping too.

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What to look out for buying eBay RAM chips

Posted on 2018-10-19, 02:52

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've been considering upgrading the RAM in some of my machines, in this case 72 pin simms, but I suppose the topic is the same for most computers. What to look for? I mean, obviously with Simms it's to be bought in matching pairs, but beyond that, what brands are good? What ones are Chinese junk? …

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Re: Hen's teeth and unicorns

Posted on 2018-10-19, 01:11

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'd like two computers I used to see on a regular basis... An Epson 486 mini tower PC, and a genuine Tandy 386 PC.

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Re: '98

Posted on 2018-10-19, 01:08

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I wonder how the lower end cards like rage pro turbo and i740 would perform on a P1 platform shootout, since they appear basically maxed out on all the p2s. Ditto the other way, some of the cards don't seem maxed out with the faster processors either.

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Nascar 1/Nascar 2 - best PC to use?

Posted on 2018-10-18, 14:25

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I remember playing these games when they first came out, on a 486dx2-66. Kinda forgot about them until I found the CDs recently. This of course leads to deciding what hardware to use it on. These are apparently heavy on the CPU moreso than a lot of games, so what does it take to run them on (with …

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Re: Were large flatbed scanners more common in the 90s?

Posted on 2018-10-16, 14:22

by

by Cobra42898

in Milliways

in Milliways

I have two, one a Canon with a parallel port (and a pass through to the printer), and a visioneer with a USB connection. The Canon oddly enough is really slim and small, but I'd imagine the USB one is probably much faster. The Canon I think cost like $50? Back in the day. The other was a hand me …

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200mhz mmx P1 Sony Vaio BIOS hanging up

Posted on 2018-10-12, 15:56

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've got a Sony Vaio PCV-120, with a 200mhz MMX Pentium CPU. Iirc, the chipset is based on the 430HX. When using certain bios functions, the left/right arrows are supposed to change the line functions from enabled to disabled, etc. Some functions though, cause the entire system to hang up, and the …

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Equivalency between Celeron/p4

Posted on 2018-10-11, 12:22

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've got a system with a genuine Intel (d865gbf iirc) motherboard, 1gb ram, and a Celeron 2.6ghz processor. Someone upgraded and I inherited it. I seem to recall the celerons were roughly equivalent, but crippled with smaller cache. Front speed bus was slower too I think. How slow does this make it …

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

Posted on 2018-10-03, 16:09

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Going through the damp dark basement phenomenon myself. Drylok is worth it's weight in gold on basement cinder block walls. The before and after is noticeable. We even noticed we're emptying the dehumidifier less now. That's good for the PCs!

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Re: Where my memory is going ? Low conventional memory

Posted on 2018-09-26, 14:22

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

256k video memory? Is that memory "borrowed" from the regular ram?

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

Posted on 2018-09-20, 14:53

by

by Cobra42898

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Lol well taken. All I know is I'd rather be around an inactive nuclear weapon than an active one. Whoever made two opposite sounding things mean the same thing should be flogged.

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