Re: MR-BIOS for C&T PEAK/DM

Posted on 2024-11-29, 14:56

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

RAM Doubler works! Before RAM Doubler, I could only open MS Word/Excel/PowerPoint and Corel Word Perfect 6 before Insufficient Memory errors appeared, now I can open this mass of programmes: That's great. Some of those memory enhancer utils were frauds and gave the entire market sector a bad name, …

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Re: MR-BIOS for C&T PEAK/DM

Posted on 2024-11-28, 14:52

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Then I start opening programmes, like WordPerfect 6, MS Word 4.3, MS Excel 4.3, MS PowerPoint 4.3 <------------ I cannot open any more apps. I get out of memory error. So I check Help---> About Program Manager Memory: 22,254 KB Free System Resources: 8% Free System specs: SXL2-80, 256K, 32 MB RAM. …

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Re: How about a MR-BIOS ROM file repository?

Posted on 2024-11-26, 04:32

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Does anyone know the HDD size limit on these late MR BIOS BIOSes? :) MR BIOSes don't have the "good old" 504MB limit issue. Maybe also no 30GB issue. In practice, with MR BIOS, you don't worry about this any more. :) Well, if you have version 1.6 and later, yes. It’s all good. If you have version …

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

Posted on 2024-11-24, 01:28

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I played with the Tans 2.1 enhanced BIOS. http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=2 … menustate=71,70 The good: doesn’t require a Tans chip, supports LBA28 The bad: doesn’t seem to improve performance at all, even with a Tans VLB controller

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Re: How to Fix a Rom Checksum Error?

Posted on 2024-11-21, 16:58

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

jakethompson1 wrote on 2024-11-20, 02:06: It's 16K, not 8K, and as a 16K option ROM the checksum is correct How were you able to tell that it was a 16K option rom?

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Re: How to load DOS device drivers from the command line?

Posted on 2024-11-21, 15:55

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

OK, I'll check them out with MS DOS 6.22 How did this work out for you? Did you have better luck with any one tool over the other? I asked chat ChatGPT to give me a comparison and it was surprisingly verbose. This was the closing summary: Recommendation Use DevLoad if you prioritize driver …

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Re: help identifying an "Super I/O" VESA Bus Card?

Posted on 2024-11-21, 01:07

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The rom works in the card when on a 16KB chip https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=2059 Filename Photo Nov 20 2024, 7 53 19 PM.jpg File size 62.57 KiB Views 76 views File license Public domain

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Re: How to Fix a Rom Checksum Error?

Posted on 2024-11-21, 00:49

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

jakethompson1 wrote on 2024-11-20, 02:06: It's 16K, not 8K, and as a 16K option ROM the checksum is correct Burning the image to an M27128A made it work correctly, thanks!

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Re: Suicidal behaviour: Going into Windows 11

Posted on 2024-11-20, 20:20

by

by douglar

in Milliways

in Milliways

Windows 8 had some dramatic improvements to the speed of file copying activities. I upgraded from Vista Ultimate to Windows 8 pretty much exclusively for that, and it was a very big quality of life improvement! Ok, I agree that the file transfers got more robust if you were using the GUI to move …

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Re: Suicidal behaviour: Going into Windows 11

Posted on 2024-11-20, 18:38

by

by douglar

in Milliways

in Milliways

Windows 11 is such a clunker. How the heck will Win12 look/run at this point? At least with Win8, they tried to make it perform better. Whoah! Not sure how those clunky Win8 "universal apps" improved performance. And I still have PTDS from trying to work the Server 2012 GUI from a touch pad over …

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Re: help identifying an "Super I/O" VESA Bus Card?

Posted on 2024-11-20, 17:00

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That is also an UMC logo, It has been identified as 82C871F now. I found a Rev 0.4 of the board. Now I'm trying to find a working ROM for the board. I see one on ebay but the price is too high. I suspect that it could be an early Abit / Silicon Star product because the layout and naming look …

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How to Fix a Rom Checksum Error?

Posted on 2024-11-20, 01:53

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm trying to validate some old VLB IDE roms that are on the Vogondrivers website I'm looking at this one: https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=2059 The file is 32KB, but only has info in the first 8KB The motherboard BIOS doesn't acknowledge any option rom when I put it on an ST …

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Re: 7 PCs to cover 1985-2010

Posted on 2024-11-20, 01:00

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well I do feel some nostalgia for the 286 hardware, as that was my first PC. But it turns out that the main games I played on that PC do actually work on my Pentium MMX machine. But, yes, my KVM only supporting PS/2 does limit me in how far back I can go. Oh! In that case, is the answer a PS/2 …

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Re: List of VLB IDE Controllers

Posted on 2024-11-19, 13:31

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Which VLB card drivers can support hard drives larger than 420mb in Win3x ? Which VLB cards work best in Win95 ? For VLB IDE controllers, I'd recommend two options-- Get one of the early ones that allow you to adjust the drive timings with jumpers so you can stick with generic drivers like the …

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Re: 7 PCs to cover 1985-2010

Posted on 2024-11-19, 13:12

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A 286 or even a 8088 may not be strictly essential using tricks to slow down a mmx, but if you want to delve into the huge amount of software from the 80s, I find it more comfortable and genuine to use a 286 that cover almost all dos games from 1981 until 1991 (en even in this case is needed to …

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Re: List of VLB IDE Controllers

Posted on 2024-11-18, 14:27

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So I have a card with the UM82C871F chipset where I can jumper the timings. I can set the "act time" (Active Time) between 3 and 18 cycles. I can set the "rec time" (Recovery Time) between 4 and 19 cycles. Are these the standard ATA timings ? PIO Cycle Active Recovery Mode Time(ns) Time(ns) Time(ns) …

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Re: I recently found this hardware, AKA the Dumpster find thread.

Posted on 2024-11-16, 03:17

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

jtchip wrote on 2024-11-16, 01:41: The case looks like an SG05, which accepts SFX PSUs, basically slightly smaller all round compared to ATX. Thanks JT. That smells right (Unlike the current power supply that smells like an ash tray and doesn't do nothing)

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Re: I recently found this hardware, AKA the Dumpster find thread.

Posted on 2024-11-15, 18:59

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I found an ASUS M2A-VM w/ Athon X2 3800 in a cool low profile minuet case, 1GB RAM 100GB HD. Photo Nov 15 2024, 1 48 52 PM.jpg And I also found MITX Intel BLKDH61DLB3 w/ an I3-2120t & 8GB ram in this cool silverstone case: Photo Nov 15 2024, 1 49 05 PM.jpg Unfortunately the powersupply seems to be …

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Re: Ideas for a DOS machine?

Posted on 2024-10-29, 13:00

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Okay, so... how do I find a decent CF card if I'm going to go CF? Amazon seems full of knock-off Sandisks... I checked my drawer, I have an 8 meg CF, a 32 meg CF, one or two 256s, and one 512. The youngest is probably close to 20 years old; the oldest is 25. So other than maybe the 512, nothing I …

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Re: 7 PCs to cover 1985-2010

Posted on 2024-10-28, 13:25

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not sure I fancy that. Serial mice will more than likely be ball mice rather the optical. I hate those type of mice. Just so inaccurate and unrealiable. Oohh mice. I'll talk about mice. With early mouse designs (<= 1995) the rollers were 3-4mm made of white low adhesion plastic. They had a high …

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