Re: How to set Single mode DMA on ESS ES1868 drivers in Windows NT 3.51?

Posted on 2024-05-05, 11:01

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Is there any performance benefit in using single-mode DMA vs., presumably, multi-mode DMA? There is a performance draw-back in using single-mode DMA. The full name would be "single-cycle mode DMA". Single Mode DMA is the simplest mode of DMA, and using it for high-bandwidth applications is not …

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Re: Can an online library of classic video games ever be legal?

Posted on 2024-05-05, 10:27

by

by mkarcher

in Milliways

in Milliways

Hi, I'm no lawyer, but I think there be could be exceptions. For example, if the platform has a couple of physical copies (originals) of a game in their HQ. Then, users could play those copies online. Again, it's just an idea, a concept. Laws around the world are all different, also. You are not …

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Re: Help disassembling Win 3.x executable (NE)?

Posted on 2024-05-05, 10:20

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Yes, I'm asking to disassemble NE files, which are Win 3.x executables... IIRC we had a thread some months ago about different freeware IDA versions, and until which version some 16-bit loaders are included in the IDA freeware version. A key point of IDA is that NE support is not required once you …

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Re: 386 dram 0 wait state causes no boot, cache related?

Posted on 2024-05-05, 10:14

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I still have the 64k chips, i could try to put that back in and see if 0ws is stable with that. Also looks like the last post in that old thread said M5M5188BP was a compatible chip, but i don't see any on ebay currently in -15ns Any 16K x 4 fast CMOS SRAM chip in DIP22 should be compatible. This …

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Re: Secret of Monkey Island. AWE32 troubles with music

Posted on 2024-05-05, 09:18

by

by mkarcher

in DOS

in DOS

So I really an wondering what disabling PIII L1 cache is supposed to do, to assist my sound card's MT32 emulation. That's indeed surprising behaviour. I don't see a way L1 cache (even if you might have DMA coherency issues, which by itself is extremely uncommon except in mis-jumpered 486 systems) …

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Re: List of VLB IDE Controllers

Posted on 2024-05-05, 09:10

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have this card. https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/kentech-computer-hk-ltd-evlsio-v2-003-pdc20 Does the ide interface only work through vlb slot? Or is there a way to get it working in isa mode? This card is a "special" card in this regard. It has two IDE connectors, called IDE0 and IDE1. …

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Re: Creative AWE64 Non Maskable Interrupt error with MFBEN jumper installed?

Posted on 2024-05-05, 08:59

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The sound font loads fine from the output text of the util. But when I run the game with "monkey r", the error is displayed in large blueish text on a black display at the top. Am I doing something wrong? I am using QEMM fwiw. Oppinions are split about QEMM. My family had QEMM on all 386 or higher …

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Re: S3 ViRGE VLB project (or " Making a Concurrent for Creative 3D Blaster VLB" )

Posted on 2024-05-03, 09:30

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Sure, as it waited ~2 years, no hurry :) I'm interested in S3 with 2 or better 4 MB DRAM. Don't get your hopes up on the 765VL for 4MB. As the VLB uses a lot more pins than PCI, because address and data pins are separate, S3 ditched the /RAS pin for the second bank in favour of a pin for the VL …

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Re: Doom not starting from ramdisk without L2 chips

Posted on 2024-05-03, 08:59

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I suspect your RAM timings are too fast, and if you have L2 Cache installed, the cache mitigates some access patterns that can not be executed correctly. Furthermore, I experienced with some UMC 8881 based board, that disabling cache can actually make some RAM patterns execute faster, because the …

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Re: MS-DOS 4.00 is now open source

Posted on 2024-04-28, 17:55

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

And the source can't compile. Additional details here: https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5565411/ms-dos-4-0-source-code-fails-to-compile The two files mentioned to break the build, GETMSG.ASM and USA.INF do not have "random, unexplained corruption", but have obviously been mistreated while being …

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Re: Working XTA (IDE on XT) setup on GLaBIOS

Posted on 2024-04-28, 17:16

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That makes total sense. Do you know if IBM ever documented this formally? Sorry, I don't know of any formal documentation. Just as I don't know why the ISA bus pinout looks like someone accidentally swapped /DACK2 and IRQ2. There are a lot of weird things in the IBM PC/XT architecture. It doesn't …

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Re: Drivers/Questions about ESS488

Posted on 2024-04-27, 22:38

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Unfortunately, the only cd drive I have to test is an internal LG one from 2000. Interesting though that they look the same. A drive from 2000 with a 40-pin connector surely has an IDE interface as you already correctly identified. The connectors of drives using the old Mitsumi and Matsushita/ …

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Re: Working XTA (IDE on XT) setup on GLaBIOS

Posted on 2024-04-27, 22:28

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

When you are writing to a drive using DMA (floppy drive on any kind of computer, hard drive on XTs), you rely on the source memory being addressable by DMA. Possibly that's not the case for ISA ROMs on this mainboard. That's what people tried to work around using the "M" command by first copying …

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Re: 16-bit ISA EGA card?

Posted on 2024-04-27, 22:22

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Grzyb wrote on 2024-04-27, 14:55: OK, multisync monitors had switches like 3/8/16/64 colors: My EIZO 9050S also has an "auto" setting that does the 16/64 switch like the IBM 5154. If you don't use auto, you can choose 8/16 IBM/16 AT&T/64 manually, with the difference between 16 IBM and 16 AT&T …

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Re: Drivers/Questions about ESS488

Posted on 2024-04-27, 06:41

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Good to know! As for the cdrom port, could I just add an IDE cd-rom drive to it? Or would I have to stick it into the parallel port? No chance to get IDE drives running with that card. IDE drives use 16 data bits, and the card is an 8-bit card. As the CD-ROM port has 40 pins (like IDE), it might be …

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Re: MS-DOS 4.00 is now open source

Posted on 2024-04-27, 06:28

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Pretty cool. Looking forward to seeing 3.3 and 5.0 source also released someday. That will get us a really usable open source DOS. Maybe modern day assembly wizards can improve and optimize it. I suspect that Microsoft did not release the DOS versions that have the most commercial value on source, …

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Re: Working XTA (IDE on XT) setup on GLaBIOS

Posted on 2024-04-27, 06:25

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It is pretty weird though, displaying it works, yet writing to file doesn't. I admit I don't know too much about the workings of debug. When you are writing to a drive using DMA (floppy drive on any kind of computer, hard drive on XTs), you rely on the source memory being addressable by DMA. …

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Re: Pentium PRO?

Posted on 2024-04-26, 17:33

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Technically it is possible for a VLB device to appear as a PCI one, by listening PCI conf mechanism accesses and responding to them as if it was a PCI device. This idea is similar to how the 3c509 can be set into EISA mode and configured using the ECU by listening to the EISA configuration …

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Re: Drivers/Questions about ESS488

Posted on 2024-04-25, 21:17

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Sbdetect and hwinfo are helpful programs to have around, but they both give me A240 as the I/O port, different from what people here have been telling me. Any reason for this? Or just something to not worry about This means that you should shuffle the JP1 jumpers until they give you A220. A220 is …

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Re: Drivers/Questions about ESS488

Posted on 2024-04-24, 00:37

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Wow! Thanks for that! Should I redo the continuity without the jumpers? No need to do so. As I have enough experience with analyzing cards, I could easily deduce the effect of the jumpers. I just meant this as general hint if you want to practice to trace stuff this yourself, it's easier to …

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