Re: 8088 from a bunch of random parts - nothing but a blinking cursor. What's wrong?

Posted on 2018-06-02, 09:13

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's a tricky situation. The controller's firmware prevents booting, so you can't fix things. :( Questions to the PC/XT people: Would it be possible to remove the ROM chip of that controller and re-insert it after post ? If so, would the low-level routine still be accessible and functional, even …

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Re: Diamond 3dfx Voodoo 1 problem!

Posted on 2018-06-01, 21:53

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You're measuring in circuit (therefore in parallel) [..] Yup. - Also thanks for the explanation. :) Can we assume that the caps could *roughly* have a capacity of 4,7µF each (closest standard value), if two of them in parallel have ~7 to 8 uF´ ? (That's what the LC meter says. It sometimes jumps to …

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Re: Diamond 3dfx Voodoo 1 problem!

Posted on 2018-06-01, 20:47

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

@Jo22 , thank you! will be looking out for your measurements, in any case I'm ordering those smd SSTV2 mentioned. Okay, you're welcome. :) The measurements are as following: C59... 7,605 µF C61... 7,470 µF C62... 7,407 µF C63... 7,341 µF C64... 7,450 µF R14... 4,63 kilo ohms But please keep in mind …

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Re: Is Win NT 3.51 any good for gaming?

Posted on 2018-06-01, 20:28

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

"Is Win NT 3.51 any good for gaming?" Not sure about that, but a few of the older Japanese games did mention NT4 (and Win95) sometimes. As an actual game that mentiions NT3.51, HoldOver ( review ) comes to my mind.. . NT 4 integrated GDI into the kernel which heavily undermined the benefits of the …

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Re: A beast of a computer - Compaq Deskpro 84'

Posted on 2018-05-31, 08:51

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I agree, too. Upgrading to HD drives makes little sense anymore, since 1.2 and 1.44 media are about as dead now. Unless you've got plenty of old disks already, of course. Or if you do the upgrade as a personal challenge. That's why I opted to install a Gotek drive (w/ Flashfloppy) in my XT clone …

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Re: USB to serial mouse adapter - Raspberry Pi

Posted on 2018-05-31, 08:31

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There is also code and schematics to make a PS/2 to serial adapter using an arduino board. https://youtu.be/R_H84iGJeDo https://github.com/Lameguy64/ps2serial Thanks a lot for sharing that link! The schematic is interesting.. :) Is it really using a LM7805 as a level converter ? - I've never seen …

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Re: DOS with new hardware

Posted on 2018-05-29, 22:28

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

^Text mode could actually work in that resolution, since DOS relies on BIOS for output. It would be then up to the BIOS and a character generator to drive the display. Imagine, if the normal 80x25 text mode is jkept, the ASCII (say CP437) characters could be much more detailed.. Instead beeing …

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Re: Why not recreate the "perfect" 8-bit Sound Blaster clone as a project?

Posted on 2018-05-28, 23:55

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Ah, I see. Not sure then, sorry. No idea as to why someone would have had a reason to write such a tool in the first place, either. On the other hand -now that I think of it-, *maybe* some of the writers of MOD players or game engines would have had cared about these technical details in the past.

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Re: Diamond 3dfx Voodoo 1 problem!

Posted on 2018-05-28, 23:49

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi, I've got a diamond monster 3d, too. I'll try to measure these parts, as soon as I've got a bit of free time. I'll post back in a few days. If someone else can help, too, it would be cool! 😎

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Re: Why not recreate the "perfect" 8-bit Sound Blaster clone as a project?

Posted on 2018-05-28, 11:38

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

newold86 wrote: Does anyone know a good SB test program, that can test DSP part accordingly to specific DSP version ? Not really, but NSSI and Dr. Hardware do a bit of DSP detection.. That's all I know, sorry. 🙁

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Re: DOS with new hardware

Posted on 2018-05-27, 11:57

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Best I could think of would be a Voodoo graphics wrapper running on pure DOS. - 3dfx-enabled DOS games did also use some sort of runtime, didn't they ?

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amateur radio to the moon

Posted on 2018-05-27, 10:23

by

by Jo22

in Milliways

in Milliways

Hi everyone, Not sure if there are any hams here, but I've just heard the news..: http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/organizations/china-national-space-administration/long-march-4c-sends-change-4-relay-satellite-toward-moon/ https://amsat-uk.org/2018/04/03/dslwp-lunar-amateur-radio-satellites/ …

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Re: Adlib Revival Kit

Posted on 2018-05-25, 05:04

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Normally extra inputs mean need for mixer and that adds complication and potential quality issues. The 1st thing I do on a Sound blaster card is to turn the pc speaker volume all the way down and it does make a difference to the noise even if not connected. I agree on that. :) Though the PC speaker …

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Re: Windows 3.11 Long File name patch ?

Posted on 2018-05-24, 13:00

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Well said. (PS: I recall seeing a fake LFN driver for Win 3.1 years ago. It stored aliases of 8.1 files in a text file, I belive. Forgot how it was called, though.)

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Re: WinXP on most modern motherboard

Posted on 2018-05-23, 13:28

by

by Jo22

in Windows

in Windows

My most modern mainboard for XP was based around an AMD E-350 APU, I think. It was from Asus or Asrock. Sorry, I don't remember the exact model anymore. 😊

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Re: Adlib Revival Kit

Posted on 2018-05-23, 11:15

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I agree, a low pass is a nice idea for a possible speaker support, since an old PC's speaker's membrane has its limits, too. It's frequency range is more limited from what we're used to when we're listening with quality headphones or a Hi-FI system. I'd use a passice filter, though, so it won't …

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Re: Hercules graphics on VGA monitors (mod)

Posted on 2018-05-23, 07:02

by

by Jo22

in Milliways

in Milliways

Thanks! The credits go to Peter, who described this mod on his website. It was fun, though, redoing what he did. :D The modification can be undone easily, by the way. It's just a crystal swap. ;) In theory, someone could use a tiny relay with two crystals wired to it (+ a diode across the relay's …

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Re: Contiguous Extended Memory

Posted on 2018-05-22, 23:51

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That MEM outputs looks fine to me. [..] That line saying "0 bytes available contiguous extended memory" seems to be normal. I belive you're right. The zero amount of memory could be related to the old INT15h interface. If I tell Himem.sys to reserve 1024KiB of Extendend Memory (not XMS) it will …

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Re: Unknown Quadram VGA+TTL monitor, is there any info about TTL mode?

Posted on 2018-05-22, 21:02

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Interesting monitor! 😀 I'm curious, was it made for CGA/EGA (any hints somewhere ?) or was it a generic analogue/TTL RGB monitor ? Other computers such as the Sharp MZ 800 or Commodore 128 also had RGB out. I don't know about the former, but the 128 uses RGBI, as far as I know.

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Re: ISA RAM card, my easter project

Posted on 2018-05-22, 20:54

by

by Jo22

in Milliways

in Milliways

Update. Sorry to keep you waiting, I was busy working on the MDA hack in the other thread. 😅 Just want you to know this project is still alive. I'll continue in a few days.

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