Re: When did you purchase your first 386 / 486 Computer? Availability vs the early 90's affordability norm.

Posted on 2021-01-02, 22:56

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by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Our first family PC was a 486DX2/66 local bus system in late 1994. Approximate cost was $2000 fully outfitted. My parents added a second 812MB hard disk and upgraded to Windows 95 a few years later, then in 1998 added a 4.3GB hard disk and 32MB of RAM to hold all of my downloads and allow the latest …

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Re: Early Covox uses:

Posted on 2020-12-26, 21:45

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by radiounix

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

The machine in question is a Tandy 1400LT. It’s a pretty standard clone with a Phoenix BIOS and an off the shelf Yamaha CGA controller. Tandy reserved their proprietary video system and square wave generator for their cheap 1000-series family computers, whereas their professional machines were …

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Early Covox uses:

Posted on 2020-12-26, 19:05

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by radiounix

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

So, looks like the Covox Speech Thing came out in 1986. Am I right to guess that it was originally intended as an audio output device for speech synthesis, especially as an adaptive device for blind users? Because PCM audio wasn’t yet much of a thing on computers. Has anyone seen any of the original …

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Re: Recomended OS, software and games for a late 286?

Posted on 2020-12-26, 17:48

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by radiounix

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

A 386sx was a pretty decent system in 1990, pretty fast really compared to the XTs and Apple IIs people would be coming from. They might have quickly become obsolete in Windows workloads as software grew more complex, but even a 2MB one could run more than one Windows program in a reasonable fashion …

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Re: Advice about retro speakers

Posted on 2020-12-24, 03:21

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by radiounix

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

This has probably already been mentioned, but I'm going to put in a word for the beige Altec Lansing speakers of the 90s. They're what most people wanted, were the typical upgrade option shipped with an expensive Pentium multimedia wunderkind. I wouldn't suggest listening to music or movies on them, …

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Re: Recomended OS, software and games for a late 286?

Posted on 2020-12-24, 02:54

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by radiounix

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

286s get little love, but these late 286s are very important in my opinion There are lots of things that were very important at one time but have since been superseded and are no longer especially useful. And its a line of computers that I grew up with so its much nostalgia involved. If there's …

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Re: Power Supply Capacitor Kit?

Posted on 2020-12-24, 02:13

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by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Mouser and DigiKey are both reliable. When you select your replacements, check the size and leg spacing, to make sure they will fit, as there can be some variance Thanks very much for the advice and info! Agree ! Some of the older 8mm or 10mm width bigger caps are hard to find, you need to look …

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

Posted on 2020-12-24, 02:03

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by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I spent much of my evening fighting with a Kodak Diconix 180si travel inkjet hooked up to my Tandy 8088 laptop. Cute little printer, but it only really works right with bitmap output in Windows 3.1 unless you're okay with output that doesn't fill the page. And that's not okay for a Christmas Banner …

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Re: Recomended OS, software and games for a late 286?

Posted on 2020-12-23, 15:19

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

286s get little love, but these late 286s are very important in my opinion because they represent a massive evolution where popular home PCs sold at discount stores went from 8088 CPUs and CGA graphics early 80s technology to VGA and fully 16-bit CPUs with the power needed to move around sprites and …

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Re: Merry Christmas everyone and have you ever lost something in your computer stash ?

Posted on 2020-12-23, 15:02

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by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I make sure to sell systems and hardware when bored with them, even rehome connectors and cables, when I lose interest in a generation. Constant hoard pruning such that it never becomes a hoard. And yes, this does mean I have regrets and have “damn, so now I do need a ***** cable?” moments. In the …

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Alter ego - running on an 8088 laptop

Posted on 2020-12-21, 17:33

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by radiounix

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Has anyone actually gotten Alter Ego to run on an 8088 with CGA graphics? Hangs for me as soon as I launch the executable. Either one. I’ve only seen the one version floating around, I think the PC release may have been fairly rare. I couldn’t find a PC-specific manual, might I be missing something? …

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Re: Recomended OS, software and games for a late 286?

Posted on 2020-12-21, 17:09

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Looks like everyone has given reasonable advice. Period correct for that machine would be a copy of DOS 5.0, and with 4MB of RAM it should run Windows 3.1 adequately as long as the software is simple like Word 2.0 or Windows Entertainment pack. Later things need protected mode and/or fast 386 level …

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Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga

Posted on 2020-12-15, 14:52

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ultraportables are nothing new, they weren't new in the 486 era. You could get an 8086 Nec Ultralite or Zenith Minisport, and by the early 90s the Quaderno and Omnibook lines were out. Plus the handbook, though that WAS chunky. Well, they are all products of the times. There are only so much you …

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Re: Capacitor Replacement Question

Posted on 2020-12-15, 14:24

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by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Anybody with a little pride in their work would consider a full recap when bad brands and faulty caps are involved. ... and the time, money, experience, and tools... right? :) Right. We don't start repairing a PSU or a gas stove without the proper tools and knowledge either. ;) Sure, but given a …

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Re: DOS anti-virus recommendation

Posted on 2020-12-13, 23:30

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by radiounix

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Will modern antivirus software be able to detect old DOS era viruses? Yes! I downloaded an archive of live DOS viruses and Windows Defender went ape when I ran a manual scan. I don't know if it caught most or all, this was a huge library of them, but it certainly was aware of DOS viruses and wasn't …

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Re: Capacitor Replacement Question

Posted on 2020-12-13, 23:16

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It depends. The capacitor hipster brigade will tell you to shotgun it of all capacitors and replace them with polymer models or at least the lowest ESR ones you can find. There's a lot of people who do feel that way in our retro PC community. My attitude is to use some logic and selectivity. One …

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Re: WebOne - proxy for old browsers to make them Web 2.0-capable

Posted on 2020-12-06, 22:06

by

by radiounix

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

I just wanted to thank you for making this. I agree it works pretty well, I was using it with Windows 3.1 and Netscape a while back; soon I hope to be using it with a Raspberry Pi Zero W.

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Re: Found my old Matsonic and PC chips motherboards, are they worth the trouble?

Posted on 2020-12-06, 22:00

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What you read is correct, Matsonic, Amptron .etc were made by PC Chips, and the quality is dubious. However, many of them are still quite popular in this community and people definitely do make builds with them. Part of their bad reputation is probably from the fact that since they were the cheapest …

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Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga

Posted on 2020-12-06, 02:43

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ultraportables are nothing new, they weren't new in the 486 era. You could get an 8086 Nec Ultralite or Zenith Minisport, and by the early 90s the Quaderno and Omnibook lines were out. Plus the handbook, though that WAS chunky.

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Re: DOS anti-virus recommendation

Posted on 2020-12-05, 21:09

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Okay. I guess I came to the same opinion as everyone else. I'm sure MacAfee had something like this in the early 90s, but I imagine it might use an unreasonable amount of conventional memory and impair system responsivity. And obviously, given such an AV would be around 30 years old it would have …

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