Re: My 15 Retro PC KVM Setup aka the "RetroRacks Project"

Posted on 2025-03-28, 12:38

by

by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

After getting a bit more into MCU programming again to solve some USB HID emulation issues with the KVM switches, I thought it would be nice to have a conversion of joystick/joypad inputs to keyboard and/or mouse events (and maybe also the other way round) for games which only support keyboard and …

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Re: 8086 Mainboard with (Baby) AT Form Factor

Posted on 2025-03-08, 16:27

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by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Looks like a Juko NEST N3 has been sold in February on eBay. These search agents are working great... not.

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Re: New project : MixerBay - audio mixer for the 3.5" drive bay

Posted on 2025-02-03, 13:07

by

by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Nice project! Bracket prototype ready, it seems to fit. Comments? photo_2025-01-30_21-35-38.jpg photo_2025-01-30_21-35-38 (2).jpg Hmm, what about connecting the bay to the bracket with a more reliable connector? Maybe Dupont, which would work with standard CD-ROM drive audio cables, or a single …

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Re: ZuluIDE: A proper IDE device emulator for retro PCs

Posted on 2025-01-30, 14:40

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by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nice, this project looks very promising! However, it still lacks some features which are essential for my use case: Support for mounting network based images from a server (simple workaround: USB storage instead of SD card to mount images via a Raspi connected to the network, emulating USB mass …

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Re: ZuluIDE: A proper IDE device emulator for retro PCs

Posted on 2025-01-20, 18:46

by

by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nice, this project looks very promising! However, it still lacks some features which are essential for my use case: Support for mounting network based images from a server (simple workaround: USB storage instead of SD card to mount images via a Raspi connected to the network, emulating USB mass …

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Re: 8086 Mainboard with (Baby) AT Form Factor

Posted on 2024-12-20, 19:09

by

by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thank you for your suggestions! I will include this in my search. Yeah, the Juko ST and especially all the other Turbo XT boards are quite common, you can find a new offer about every week, but they are no "real" 8086 boards in my sense unfortunately.

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Re: 8086 Mainboard with (Baby) AT Form Factor

Posted on 2024-12-17, 09:16

by

by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Grzyb wrote on 2024-06-07, 14:14: Juko NEST N3 supports both 8086 and V30. Unfortunately this nice piece of hardware did not show up wherever I was searching for it for half a year know. If anyone had a tip for me where to look for it, that would be great!

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Re: Gotek like Optical Driver Emulator - Is it possible?

Posted on 2024-12-09, 09:46

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by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

These are great news! And you even added a serial console! Together with S/PDIF this thing now has every killer feature I need (except ethernet, but I can work around this). Expect me to buy a good handful of those. Do you offer frequency discount for > 10 items? Yes, I'd be open to a large order …

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Re: Gotek like Optical Driver Emulator - Is it possible?

Posted on 2024-12-09, 08:10

by

by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Really what's going on is I started a redesign during the chip shortage to try and work around that (and reduce the cost), but it came and went and chips are somewhat more available so now I'm just trying to finish off the redesign anyway, with a bunch of time away for family/work/etc. Basically …

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Re: My 15 Retro PC KVM Setup aka the "RetroRacks Project"

Posted on 2024-12-03, 09:25

by

by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This project looks amazing. I am curious though. How are you doing the optical drives? Those cases don't look like they support optical. Are the drives hidden somehow? You're right, the drive bays of the cases are hidden behind their doors. The cases all have two doors with dust filters which can …

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Re: post up pics of your "computing area"

Posted on 2024-11-30, 17:29

by

by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Updated. More cleaned and less and orginized. It would seem that you need a wider desk! I know the struggle for space well. My office is tiny, and I am trying to fit 15 or so working PCs in it... I am also setting up 15 PCs in my small room, but using 19" racks/cabinets as an approach: https://www. …

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Re: post up pics of your "computing area"

Posted on 2024-11-18, 05:45

by

by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I might have some laying around in my collection, send me a DM to remind me looking for it if you're interested. Thankyou for the offer! Shipping to AU would be a deal breaker for me I’m afraid. Well, a quick look showed that rates from Germany via DHL start at 18,49 €, that's definetely more than …

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Re: post up pics of your "computing area"

Posted on 2024-11-17, 00:12

by

by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

This is a new part of my "computing area", sort of adjacent I suppose. I put up some storage racking recently so I can finally put all of my builds in one place, along with some spares. It's good because organised, but bad because this is getting out of hand 😅 Very nice! You've made me realise that …

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Re: HIDman - USB to PS/2 converter (Open Source)

Posted on 2024-09-24, 13:24

by

by KVM Nerd

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

I didn't follow the whole discussion, but why should someone chain USB to PS/2 to USB?

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Re: My 15 Retro PC KVM Setup aka the "RetroRacks Project"

Posted on 2024-09-09, 20:04

by

by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've just uploaded an updated image of the simplified signal flow. Note that the features of the desk and living room consoles match now. I dropped the analog surround sound path and added a digitized path instead. This gives me more control over the ADC process (levels, sample rate etc.), which is …

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Re: My 15 Retro PC KVM Setup aka the "RetroRacks Project"

Posted on 2024-08-30, 18:37

by

by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Good point, and thank you for all the links! While I absolutely embrace projects like the ones you've mentioned, there are various reasons why I want to stick to an original 8086 + Mainboard of its time: Maybe you can now understand why I decided this way. Good points. Hopefully you already have a …

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Re: AWE32 Windows 3.1

Posted on 2024-08-30, 13:38

by

by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Have you got some version info to look for? I might have two different sets of driver/software floppy disks iirc, but no idea which version it needs to be to support SF2. I also don't know if the driver disks are localized.

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Re: My 15 Retro PC KVM Setup aka the "RetroRacks Project"

Posted on 2024-08-30, 08:03

by

by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Why AT? There's modern 8088 on ATX mainboard/backplane boards like EMM8088, NuXT, Xi 8088/Micro 8088. Good point, and thank you for all the links! While I absolutely embrace projects like the ones you've mentioned, there are various reasons why I want to stick to an original 8086 + Mainboard of its …

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Re: My 15 Retro PC KVM Setup aka the "RetroRacks Project"

Posted on 2024-08-29, 19:41

by

by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Now that 4K Retro Scalers are becoming available, I integrated one into the planning and updated some other minor plannings.

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Re: My 15 Retro PC KVM Setup aka the "RetroRacks Project"

Posted on 2024-06-09, 19:48

by

by KVM Nerd

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I actually managed it to upload an up-to-date pic of the two (new) 42U cabinets. The yellowed AT cases have been replaced by rackable ATX cases, because they integrate much better. I am also looking for an AT form factor 8086 mainboard to get rid of the non-rackable Victor VPC II beauty. Sorry for …

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