Re: Can't get the XT-IDE to work with IDE2SD adapters

Posted on 2023-08-13, 17:17

by

by wierd_w

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The issue you are having is almost certainly related to the id byte that defines the partition in the partition table. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_type There are many id bytes allowed for a fat16 volume. Gparted creates the lba fat16 byte id. (08h) dos might really want to use chs type ( …

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Re: Ended up with a hord of PCI / ISA cards, some I've never used before

Posted on 2023-08-13, 16:59

by

by wierd_w

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

An electrically identical parallel sram of the same speed will work fine. Look up the spec sheet for the existing srams, then use mouser or digikey's search tools to filter for that kind of package. In this case, it's a 20 pin dip package. I cant tell if that is 10ns or 70ns for the speed. Image is …

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Re: Can't get the XT-IDE to work with IDE2SD adapters

Posted on 2023-08-13, 16:50

by

by wierd_w

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You should not use gparted to create the dos partition. It will default to using lba type partition, and not chs type partition. (You CAN manually change the partition type after creating it with gparted using linux fdisk, and looking the partition type byte id in the table and settingnit yourself, …

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Re: Ended up with a hord of PCI / ISA cards, some I've never used before

Posted on 2023-08-13, 16:39

by

by wierd_w

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The low volume order will kill you, concerning such low density parallel srams. Pricing will have a proportional relationship with newness and reliability, such that newly made srams from a reputable vendor, like mouser or digikey, will be quite good quality and more expensive, where 'likely …

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Re: Ended up with a hord of PCI / ISA cards, some I've never used before

Posted on 2023-08-13, 16:16

by

by wierd_w

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Duke3d is the kind of '3d game' that the trident could do just fine (with sdd and more sram present). Unreal, or similar games (like starsiege tribes), not so much.

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Re: Ended up with a hord of PCI / ISA cards, some I've never used before

Posted on 2023-08-13, 15:51

by

by wierd_w

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Scitech display doctor is a software based 'universal vesa bios extender' It also happens to be freeware now, and available here, in the vogon's driver repository. http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=346 Trident cards DO have primitive 2D accelleration inside them, and scitech display …

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Re: Ended up with a hord of PCI / ISA cards, some I've never used before

Posted on 2023-08-13, 10:26

by

by wierd_w

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

From what I've read now, the Trident 8900 might not be the ideal card to install in a 486 system, it might not be able to handle Doom, Duke, e.g games from the latter half of the 90's. Would that be a fair assessment? Yes and no. I used a trident 1mb card for a very good portion of the 90s on a 486 …

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Re: Can't get the XT-IDE to work with IDE2SD adapters

Posted on 2023-08-13, 07:13

by

by wierd_w

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Concerning 'sintechi' cf / sdcard adapters, i have found that they 'can' do older forms of 'dma', just not ultradma. Multiword dma modes 1 and 2 do work, but ultradma modes 1 and 2 do not. Further reading: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WDMA_(computer) 48bit lba is indeed broken, and just fails …

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Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2023-08-09, 18:22

by

by wierd_w

in Milliways

in Milliways

Eye of the beholder part 1

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Re: Packard bell sound card not exist sf2 files

Posted on 2023-08-09, 18:02

by

by wierd_w

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

.sf2 is a standardized soundfont file format. What exactly are you looking for? A general midi .sf2 soundfont, like for an sbawe32 / 64?

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Re: Aztech Sound Galaxy NX IDE/CD-ROM Interface

Posted on 2023-08-09, 17:51

by

by wierd_w

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

It's probably the Panasonic/Mitsumi interface, rather than IDE, like found on this card. https://i.postimg.cc/kGX7P8Fg/cdrom-isa.jpg There WERE 8bit ide interfaces, but few drives support them, since ide is 16 bits wide, as a spec. Some compact flash drives support the 8bit mode though. If it really …

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Re: Rendering 16-bit color in 32-bit color

Posted on 2023-08-09, 06:20

by

by wierd_w

in Windows

in Windows

I mean that the old engine uses DX7 (maybe even dx5? -lgntforce switch on the installer will force install on nt4, and it tops out at dx5) api interfaces, and NewDark uses DX9 interfaces. It does 32bit color modes, yes, but the 3D performance is way better too.

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Re: Rendering 16-bit color in 32-bit color

Posted on 2023-08-09, 04:30

by

by wierd_w

in Windows

in Windows

The NewDark engine does more than 32bit color for those game. However, you might be able to force it with dgvoodoo2. It does directx wrapping also.

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Re: Need help with floppy drive not working and/or alternatives. Also USB Support?

Posted on 2023-08-01, 21:01

by

by wierd_w

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Copy the USB Mass storage INF for win98 on, if you have USB. https://www.philscomputerlab.com/windows-98-u … age-driver.html Alternatively, if you currently have NO means of getting data in or out-- A null modem cable and CTTY is the most barebones and retro way imaginable.

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Re: Freeing memory in DOS (Win 98) (Specifically Betrayal at Krondor)

Posted on 2023-08-01, 20:46

by

by wierd_w

in DOS

in DOS

This is win98, so... Suitable USB wifi dongle* + the trial version of odyssey client. + + Sorry, not providing links. Funk software's library is still copyrighted and still buyable . However, the trial version can still be found, and will work for 30 days. Universal WiFi chip manager, with WPA2 …

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Re: Freeing memory in DOS (Win 98) (Specifically Betrayal at Krondor)

Posted on 2023-08-01, 12:28

by

by wierd_w

in DOS

in DOS

If you do that, windows wont start. 😜 It will throw an error about not being able to enter protected mode due to conventional memory backfill.

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Re: Freeing memory in DOS (Win 98) (Specifically Betrayal at Krondor)

Posted on 2023-08-01, 12:07

by

by wierd_w

in DOS

in DOS

Yup. I personally like to see what the adapter rom region looks like before trying to prod in there, which is why I suggested a quick one-over with MSD without any managers or drivers loaded. There might be some useless PXE bios just taking up space in there that an explicit include could unmap and …

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Re: Freeing memory in DOS (Win 98) (Specifically Betrayal at Krondor)

Posted on 2023-08-01, 07:58

by

by wierd_w

in DOS

in DOS

You might still be able to get a smidge more, but glad that helped your issue. Surprised win98 allowed the old dos6 version...

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Re: Freeing memory in DOS (Win 98) (Specifically Betrayal at Krondor)

Posted on 2023-08-01, 07:51

by

by wierd_w

in DOS

in DOS

Kitty Trouble wrote on 2023-08-01, 07:42: Windows 98 ver 4.10.1998 That is Windows 98 OEM. It's useful to know that, or communicate that when getting support. I will see if MS released updated himem.sys for that OS.

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Re: Freeing memory in DOS (Win 98) (Specifically Betrayal at Krondor)

Posted on 2023-08-01, 07:40

by

by wierd_w

in DOS

in DOS

UMBPCI is a Free Software package that uses the PCI chipset to map some RAM into unused portions of the adapter rom region, so they can be used as UMBs. It loads before himem.sys or emm386.exe. https://www.uwe-sieber.de/umbpci_e.html Hiram.exe is a small xms stub handler that enables these blocks so …

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