Re: Volo's Gamepad to PS/2 Adapter. Device discussion (official thread) (22.02.2021 Wire Trouble)

Posted on Yesterday, 23:34

by

by aha2940

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I made that mistake when making myself a PS/2 to USB converter for my mouse. I accidentally inverted GND and +5V. The mouse got fried instantly. It was a nice old Microsoft optical mouse. Dang.

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Re: I give up. And usually i'm a though one.

Posted on 2021-02-22, 03:15

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by aha2940

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Separate flash ROM? So do you mean that the bios rom on my board is inside a removable chip? Take a look at your motherboard, and you may find a socketed chip (maybe marked AMIBIOS). If so, that's the chip where your BIOS resides. Likely it is an EEPROM, that can be replaced by an equivalent EPROM …

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Re: I give up. And usually i'm a though one.

Posted on 2021-02-21, 14:52

by

by aha2940

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The 520ND is basically the same mainboard with the same chipset and the same super-IO, but provides two additional slots for SD-RAM sticks (which the VX chipset is capable of addressing). It comes with an AWARD BIOS while the 520N has AMI BIOS instead. I would give it a try and flash the patched ( …

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Re: How to upgrade your (really) old computer to SSD

Posted on 2021-02-06, 17:20

by

by aha2940

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I went the CF-card route on my 486 laptop (512MB CF card) and a pentium MMX laptop (4GB CF IIRC). Both work wonderfully.

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Re: Can't install XP (Dell Vostro 200)

Posted on 2021-02-03, 15:49

by

by aha2940

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If nothing else works, these guys claim to have the original XP restore discs for your machine: https://restorecd4u.com/home/923-dell-vostro- … of-4-xpp32.html I have no idea if they are reliable or maybe some scam, though.

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Re: Can't install XP (Dell Vostro 200)

Posted on 2021-02-03, 04:19

by

by aha2940

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'd try to boot another OS (linux comes to mind) to rule out hardware issues. I'd also try connecting the mouse and keyboard to the ports that are just under the ethernet port. I have a Dell Inspiron 531 (also from 2007, also without PS/2 ports) and for whatever reason, keyboard and mouse prefer to …

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Re: Is worth upgrading to an SSD for Retro PC Builds

Posted on 2021-02-03, 03:51

by

by aha2940

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you do not care about keeping the hardware 100% period-correct, then it is worth upgrading to an SSD. They are faster, silent, more energy efficient and more reliable than a 10-15 year old HDD. Your experience may change slightly, though since your OS will boot faster and apps will likely also …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-02-03, 03:33

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by aha2940

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I got a Biostar P4M890-M7 SE, Intel Core2Duo E4600 and 2GB DDR2 Memory for my Win98/Linux build to go with the ASUS X850Pro PCIe I got a few days ago. Biostar P4M890-M7 SE 01.jpg ASUS Extreme AX850Pro.jpg Trying to decide on a Linux distro to install on this.. The linux distro to use on a PC like …

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Re: Can't install XP (Dell Vostro 200)

Posted on 2021-02-03, 03:04

by

by aha2940

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'd try to boot another OS (linux comes to mind) to rule out hardware issues. I'd also try connecting the mouse and keyboard to the ports that are just under the ethernet port. I have a Dell Inspiron 531 (also from 2007, also without PS/2 ports) and for whatever reason, keyboard and mouse prefer to …

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

Posted on 2021-02-02, 13:29

by

by aha2940

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today I burned a dual-layer DVD, using Nero Burning ROM, on a 15-year old IDE DVD writer. Surprisingly, it burned without any errors, even if the burning+verifying process took more than an hour. I'm glad this burner still works fine. That's impressive. I had to swap out a SATA DVD burner recently …

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

Posted on 2021-02-02, 02:34

by

by aha2940

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today I burned a dual-layer DVD, using Nero Burning ROM, on a 15-year old IDE DVD writer. Surprisingly, it burned without any errors, even if the burning+verifying process took more than an hour. I'm glad this burner still works fine.

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Re: Volo's Gamepad to PS/2 Adapter. Device discussion (official thread) (16.01.2021 PRODUCTION PROTOTYPE READY)

Posted on 2021-01-23, 13:59

by

by aha2940

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This looks great Volo, very nice design. Now my question: is there any port where I can get the required 5V for the adapter when using it on a 486 laptop? The laptop has single serial port, single parallel port, VGA , PCMCIA and PS/2 ports, nothing else.I know the PS/2 port supplies +5V, but since …

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Re: Unreal graphics glitching (black rectangles) with OpenGL and S3TC textures

Posted on 2021-01-20, 05:17

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by aha2940

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

What's your video card?

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Re: Volo's Gamepad to PS/2 Adapter. Device discussion (official thread) (16.01.2021 PRODUCTION PROTOTYPE READY)

Posted on 2021-01-17, 04:21

by

by aha2940

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This looks great Volo, very nice design. Now my question: is there any port where I can get the required 5V for the adapter when using it on a 486 laptop? The laptop has single serial port, single parallel port, VGA , PCMCIA and PS/2 ports, nothing else.I know the PS/2 port supplies +5V, but since …

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Re: Is original DOS quake speed-sensitive?

Posted on 2021-01-15, 14:58

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by aha2940

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

the resolution limit is due to DOS quake only allocating 8mb when run under windows, i think. there's the -winmem argument to fix that but why not just use winquake in the first place? or just run it under real DOS. WinQuake looks like a nice option. Will try it, since I've never used it. Running …

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Re: nVidia TNT2 / GeForce 2 strange colors issue (mainly seen in Need for Speed 2 SE - NFS2SE )

Posted on 2021-01-15, 04:04

by

by aha2940

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

you can do the 98se2me thingy, if you can't live without the GUI improvements. But besides those i don't se how ME is any better than 98se since it can't run any newer programs, plus you already know 98se can have the USB patched among other things. I do like the WinME GUI, because it looks (and …

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Re: Voodoo 1 card does not work with carmageddon in ms dos 6.22

Posted on 2021-01-15, 03:56

by

by aha2940

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Saying that something "does not work" is not helpful. If you post the exact error you get, or what happens when you try to run the game using the voodoo 1 card, then you may get more replies.

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Re: Is original DOS quake speed-sensitive?

Posted on 2021-01-15, 00:19

by

by aha2940

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Press the tilde key (~) to open the console and check your game version. If it's currently 1.01 then patch it to version 1.06 . After that, apply patch 1.08 which is the final DOS release. Next, edit config.cfg and add this line (or modify the existing one if it's already there). It's not a typo, …

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Is original DOS quake speed-sensitive?

Posted on 2021-01-14, 02:34

by

by aha2940

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Hello everyone, I'm trying to run original DOS Quake 1.08 under Windows 98 SE on my Pentium 4 2.4GHz, 512MB RAM machine. It runs, however it seems to run too fast if I run it at any resolution below 800x600, and at that resolution it seems the video card (nvidia GeForce 2 MX400) can't really cope …

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Re: nVidia TNT2 / GeForce 2 strange colors issue (mainly seen in Need for Speed 2 SE - NFS2SE )

Posted on 2021-01-14, 02:25

by

by aha2940

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Finally, reinstalled Windows 98SE (instead of ME) and of course the issue got solved. Damn Windows ME, I guess it is as crappy as i had thought all these years (had never used it back in the day).

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