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Re: Using Modems for Multiplayer Gaming

Posted on 2024-12-09, 03:34

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Age of Empires had a ton of R&D spend on it to play well over modem https://www.gamedeveloper.com/programming/1500-archers-on-a-28-8-network-programming-in-age-of-empires-and-beyond Perhaps they did spend alot of time. But the techniques they are talking about weren't discovered by them. They were …

Re: Moments in computing history when you felt that the future had arrived

Posted on 2024-12-07, 18:44

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The constraint being prices on hardware! e.g. my family bought a 486 with 4MB of RAM in Jan. 1995. Upgraded to 8MB to be able to properly use Office 4.2 in April or so - cost, $250CAD. Upgraded to 95 on Aug. 24, it ran fine enough with the 8 megs of RAM. Eventually upgraded that machine again to 20 …

Re: Moments in computing history when you felt that the future had arrived

Posted on 2024-12-07, 15:42

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

People complain about 9x, but the reality of the constraints of the time largely dictated it had to exist in roughly that form. The constraint being that 9x was bundled with every retail machine? It existed because Microsoft marketed it for everyone. It wasn't a constraint, Microsoft wanted it that …

Re: Moments in computing history when you felt that the future had arrived

Posted on 2024-12-06, 17:48

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What real operating systems could run on home/school-priced hardware in the 1990s? And run the software library home/school users wanted to run? Effectively none - the options were classic Mac OS (great GUI, dreadful memory management, dreadful stability), Windows 95/98 (passable memory management, …

Re: Arm desktop pc, any future\hope?

Posted on 2024-11-22, 17:46

in Milliways

in Milliways

Given the news I'd guess the closest what one could eventually try is do another attempt of a nettop, similar to netbook and tablet computing, running windows, yet again. Desktop x86 is tied into business and workstations and servers, and that aint going away. Though consumer desktop is being …

Re: Cleaning 3.5inch floppy disks

Posted on 2024-11-22, 14:32

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Jo22 wrote on 2024-11-21, 14:55: Oh well, can this be done, at all? 🙁 The only people I hear do it are data recovery people. Very few spend the time and have done data recovery successfully. And expect that the disk is essentially "destroyed" after it is attempted and need to clean your drive heads …

Re: PS/2 Model M only works on second boot on one PC

Posted on 2024-11-21, 21:32

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Alredy ordered the USB adapter, but I won't trust anymore the PS/2 connector on any modern motherboard. They dropped altogheter in more recent models. That seems a bit much. I use original model M keyboards on current machines with PS/2 just fine. Whether they drop the plug or not due to lack of …

Re: PS/2 Model M only works on second boot on one PC

Posted on 2024-11-21, 15:40

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've seen boot instability with cold boot with the model M, but the problem can easily be resolved by pushing reset, on a year 2000 motherboard. The keyboard works fine on other machines. My only suggestion here is that the model M draws more current than later PS/2 or USB era keyboards. I think …

Re: Cleaning 3.5inch floppy disks

Posted on 2024-11-21, 14:52

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Disks exposed to the weather like that and attempted to be cleaned should be considered single use if you were trying to recover the files. Since you don't care about the files I would not use those disks in any drive. It's not worth the hassle and potential damage. If you want to make floppies, …

Re: Slot 1 motherboard died just as my project was coming to completion

Posted on 2024-11-04, 17:22

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's not clear that you have a short due to a capacitor to me. If you are truly getting post codes, then that means part of your board is working. That means a short is unlikely, because normally a short across a cap would trip the protection on the power supply. A burning smell can be many things. …

Re: How to run DOS 6.22 and Windows 98SE from one Hard Drive

Posted on 2024-10-27, 14:47

in DOS

in DOS

It's simpler to have DOS and Windows on the same partition and use the boot menu there. You can install DOS first, and get all the old utilities from 6.22 that way. Or you can install 9x directly and then copy the utilities from the CD. (I haven't exactly used 98 for DOS upgrade or remember what …

Re: Can I skip Smartdrive?

Posted on 2024-10-22, 17:02

in DOS

in DOS

If you're planning to play a Build engine game in pure DOS on FAT32 partitions, then it's a must. I use DOS 6.22 with Fat 16. I just want to mention, that in the DOS 6.22 days, I really never saw a need for Smartdrv. Speeding up copying in single tasking wasn't all that important, which is what I …

Re: The current aurora has me wondering: Are vintage computers more or less susceptible to solar flares/EMP than newer

Posted on 2024-10-11, 03:44

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Random particles of radiation? I guess there was a small bit of advantage in old really low tech digital electronics. But this isn't really an issue unless you are at the site of a nuclear meltdown, or in space. But even in space, we can design to protect against this happening, so new tech is …

Re: Microsoft DirectVideo?

Posted on 2024-10-05, 19:56

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

So it's basically a middle layer driver re-architecting, pretty much transparent to us, and usable when you had Win95 and DirectX, and got the graphics vendor update their drivers. The way Alex St John speaks about really speaks to me as it's more than just replacing VFW, that ActiveMovie/DirectShow …

Re: Microsoft DirectVideo?

Posted on 2024-10-03, 04:23

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I kind of feel like this DirectVideo was a working name for what ended up called DirectShow formally when ActiveMovie was rolled into DirectX after it grew in scope of multiple codecs. Notice here https://news.microsoft.com/1996/03/05/microsoft-announces-activemovie/#sm.000zu2lv414cme1ww291my6tvzk8f …

Re: Graphics card thermal pads questions.

Posted on 2024-09-28, 14:29

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

As with any repair or manufacturing trade, there is going to be waste or leftover. I don't see why not just buy sheets when you need it and going to do it, and store the leftover. You don't just stock up on everything unless you'll need it frequently. Buying specially sized pads are likely going to …

Re: 360K 5.25" Drive Won't Work in Gateway 2000 4DX2 66V

Posted on 2024-09-25, 21:53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

OK. There you got a copy of the manual, so please review it. And I see jumpers in the picture you took, a from too far to be sure what was done. But looks like you may have the drive jumpered DS0, which would be incorrect. Also, please confirm the controller cable you are using is correct one.

Re: 360K 5.25" Drive Won't Work in Gateway 2000 4DX2 66V

Posted on 2024-09-25, 20:06

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

See the first section "cable and termination" of the following link on the usual requirements to install floppy drives: https://minuszerodegrees.net/5150/floppy_diskette/5150_floppy_drive_support.htm Particularly, you need the correct cable and drive select. Termination can also be a factor. Jumpers …

Re: Simcity 2000 minimum system requirements

Posted on 2024-09-24, 21:06

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Frankly this rerelease isn't much different than rereleases today. If you look at the system requirements for a DOS game on steam for example, it will say something like 1ghz and 256mb of ram and directx compatible hardware. That's because that's what they expect you to run now, because you are …

Re: Simcity 2000 minimum system requirements

Posted on 2024-09-24, 19:33

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Frankly this rerelease isn't much different than rereleases today. If you look at the system requirements for a DOS game on steam for example, it will say something like 1ghz and 256mb of ram and directx compatible hardware. That's because that's what they expect you to run now, because you are …

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