Re: What is this pin header for?

Posted on 2012-10-23, 08:04

by

by DonutKing

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's a VESA feature connector. You can use it to connect things like video capture cards, or DVD decoders. For example, there were certain models of the ReelMagic MPEG decoder that used this connector.

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Re: DOOM 3 - BFG Edition :: DOOM II - No Rest for the Living

Posted on 2012-10-23, 01:01

by

by DonutKing

in Milliways

in Milliways

Morrowind was the last good thing Bethesda have done. Oblivion was a retrograde step from Morrowind with a terribly streamlined/simplified design. Skyrim was better but still feels shallow compared to Morrowind. It's all part of the commoditization of gaming where games are designed by committee to …

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Re: Cause For Concern

Posted on 2012-10-21, 21:53

by

by DonutKing

in Milliways

in Milliways

badmofo wrote: It'd be kinda like jaywalking - impossible to police. A mate of mine got fined by the police for jaywalking, in the middle of the CBD. It was $88 He wasn't going to pay it and then he got a notice in the mail threatening to cancel his licence if he didn't pay the fine plus interest

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Re: Is 440BX the best chipset for Mid 90s to early 2000s gaming?

Posted on 2012-10-20, 20:27

by

by DonutKing

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Can the BX chipset handle 133mhz fsb reliably without screwing up the timings of the AGP and PCI slots? A Tualeron would probably be a better bet since it is only 100mhz FSB. Many 440BX boards with 133MHz FSB seem to only have a 2/3 divider for AGP even if they hav a 1/3 divider for PCI. So at …

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Re: to 486 or not to 486

Posted on 2012-10-13, 00:10

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by DonutKing

in Milliways

in Milliways

And you can still get new Dallas 12887 clock chips off ebay. I bought some with a 2010 datecode and they work perfectly in my 486 boards.

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Re: What's the attraction of legacy hardware?

Posted on 2012-10-12, 04:03

by

by DonutKing

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I scored an LAPC-I, RAP-10, SB 2.0, SB Pro and a couple of SB16's in a lot for about $210 from USA. I've no idea why it was so cheap...

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Re: AWE64 squealing, screeching, nails running down a chalkboard, static, hissing

Posted on 2012-10-09, 21:15

by

by DonutKing

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

That's a contentious issue and one that's been discussed many times on these forums. Check the 'sound cards from best to worst' thread for more info

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Re: AWE64 squealing, screeching, nails running down a chalkboard, static, hissing

Posted on 2012-10-08, 23:26

by

by DonutKing

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

well that's a matter of opinion :P but to put it simply, SB16 would use FM synthesis, while AWE synthesis is sample based. Your AWE supports FM synthesis as well, if you pick SB16 in the game setup it should work and the music should sound noticably different. I personally prefer a Yamaha General …

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Re: AWE64 squealing, screeching, nails running down a chalkboard, static, hissing

Posted on 2012-10-08, 20:08

by

by DonutKing

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

What leileilol is referring to about the OPL timbres is that in ROTT 1.3 they changed the way sound works for adlib/sound blaster music. Most people prefer the sound of 1.2 but if you're using the Awe32 option in the setup, I don't think it would be any different as that's not OPL. To be honest I've …

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Re: AWE64 problems

Posted on 2012-10-08, 02:18

by

by DonutKing

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

wow got shovel? 😜 Swapped the motherboard and everything worked perfectly. I sold this motherboard on ebay since I couldn't get it going. How would I change the location of the DMA buffer? EMM386 lets you set the DMA buffer size but not the location.

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Re: Are these leaking capacitors?

Posted on 2012-10-07, 06:57

by

by DonutKing

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah that looks like glue to me as well. My LAPC-I stopped playing anything out one channel and the other went really muffled. Although every electrolytic capacitor on the board looked fine, I replaced all of them (something like 18 caps all up IIRC) and it came good.

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Re: My 3DMark01 Mega Thread

Posted on 2012-10-05, 13:47

by

by DonutKing

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Here's the system I was using in 2003. Athlon XP 1800+ 512MB DDR Either an ECS K7S5A or an Asus A7V-333 (can't remember which one it was at the time this screenshot was taken) GF4 Ti4200 128MB Win 2000

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Re: Help needed to identify this old card

Posted on 2012-09-30, 13:11

by

by DonutKing

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think its a Sound Blaster clone of some sort, its too complex to be merely an adlib clone, and I see IRQ jumpers down near the ISA connector. I think the D-Sub connector is possibly a MIDI port. I really don't think its a video or capture card of any description. On ISA video cards you usually see …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2012-09-29, 03:54

by

by DonutKing

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Picked up these goodies: http://i.imgur.com/ANHVz.jpg 486 upgrade for 386 motherboards. Seems to be a TI 486SX2/66 grafted onto a 386 socket. It came with a bonus: a double-sigma 386-20 :) http://i.imgur.com/wwk8z.jpg also picked up a Boxed Adlib! http://i.imgur.com/LNczb.jpg http://i.imgur.com/ …

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Re: Baby AT Socket 370, and where are all the Pentium IIs?

Posted on 2012-09-24, 03:35

by

by DonutKing

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nah that's a different case... the one I'm talking about above, I traded about a decade ago. Redhatter gave me the one that you have now. I had grand plans for it which never came to fruition. Glad to hear it lives on 😀

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Re: Baby AT Socket 370, and where are all the Pentium IIs?

Posted on 2012-09-24, 02:51

by

by DonutKing

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I came into possession of a huge full tower case about a decade ago, solid steel construction, about a meter high. And it had a Socket 370 baby AT motherboard with a Celeron 733 in it. I ended up trading it to someone else I think. But for the brief time I had it, it seemed pretty nifty. As for …

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Re: Building a 286 system

Posted on 2012-09-16, 23:31

by

by DonutKing

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here's my 286 build thread, but I went for EGA rather than VGA. http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=29489 There's no reason why you couldn't use a VGA card, but I agree that the ET4000 will never reach its full potential in a 286. If you can get one cheap though, don't let that stop you putting …

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Re: Virge GX + Voodoo 2 vs. Voodoo Rush

Posted on 2012-09-15, 10:01

by

by DonutKing

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

I agree, go with the S3 + Voodoo 2. The Rush is actually based off the Voodoo 1, and was noticeably slower than a single, separate Voodoo 1 card. So a Voodoo 2 would be significantly faster. I had a Voodoo Rush with a Macronix 2D chipset and although I never really had any incompatibilities, its was …

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Re: I need to vent for a bit: Hard drives HATE me

Posted on 2012-09-09, 22:34

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by DonutKing

in Milliways

in Milliways

In all my years of computing, I've personally only ever had one hard drive die. It was a Seagate 200GB and it was being used in an external caddy as a backup drive anyway so no great loss. However I managed to find an identical logic board for the drive on hdd-parts.com and after swapping the boards …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2012-09-09, 01:10

by

by DonutKing

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That clock card looks like a Y2K compliance card. It's meant to replace the motherboard's RTC with one that is Y2K compliant. Alternatively, if you have an old machine with no battery backed clock you could use this card to add this feature. Many old PC's in the 80's had no battery backed clock and …

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