Re: Internal OPL3 ISA 8 bits (PCXT)

Posted on 2020-02-04, 02:46

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Interesting project, why is 'fake soundblaster' desirable? I find it difficult to believe there is software that you would run on an XT class machine that supports Sound Blaster but not Adlib. Maybe homebrew software? "Homebrew".. :rolling_eyes: No offense, though from what I remember, back in the …

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Re: Is it possible to run MUNT (or other MT-32 emulation) in DOS/Windows 98? If so, how?

Posted on 2020-02-04, 02:24

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Hi! You could also use a Raspberry Pi 2 or compatible SBC - Emulating MT-32 on an RPi2 Some people here even spent some notable amount of time in creating an MT-32 daugherboard this way.. Edit: Just noticed that Joseph_Joestar already mentioned that before. 😀

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Re: Early 90s 386 build as close to period correct as possible.

Posted on 2020-02-04, 02:07

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

My dad bought a 386DX/33 with 4MB RAM, but upgraded it to 8MB shortly after, so that's perfectly reasonable for a 386DX, IMO. Definitely helpful if you use Windows. I second that. Anything from 8 to ~24MiB should be fine, I think (check if cache size is large enough). My papa did the same around ~' …

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Re: L2 cache and 386 performance

Posted on 2020-02-03, 16:14

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

No one really cared about CPU performance back then. 386 meant that you were supposed to have a 386 class CPU. Not any specific speed. just a 386. SX, DX. With cache or not. 16 MHz SX or 40 MHz DX. Often even this was a soft requirement to stop a bulk 8086 and 80286 users complaining about speed as …

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Re: VGA games with only 16 colors

Posted on 2020-02-03, 16:02

by

by Jo22

in DOS

in DOS

thx, but no games for my 286/8 :( You're welcome. The games that I mentioned before (Digger&Asteroid) use 640x480 and should work fine on a 286/8. Well, Digger should, at least. In fact, I ran that one on an ancient 286/8 (or was it 286/6 ?) motherboard with a dated LCC socket and 256KB memory. …

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Re: L2 cache and 386 performance

Posted on 2020-02-03, 12:45

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Since there is such big difference, it brings up another question. If you look at system requirements for old games and they mention 386, do they mean 386 with or without motherboard cache? That's an interesting question, indeed! :) I guess they do assume some small amount of cache to be present, …

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Re: Trying to find and use VXD drivers for mouse and soundblaster 16 on Windows 3.1.

Posted on 2020-02-02, 09:58

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Hello! :) I'm not exactly sure what problem your computer has got, but you'll find some drivers at http://vogonsdrivers.com/ . Normally, the mice drivers that come with Windows 3.1 are sufficient, but if your mouse is MS Mouse compatible, you could also use one of the original MS Mouse setup …

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Re: Control exclusive access to audio hardware under Windows 98?

Posted on 2020-02-02, 09:50

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I'm speaking under correction, but the issue might be related to kernel mixing also. Maybe exchanging the card's VXD sound driver with a WDM type or vice versa solves the issue. Or maybe not. Windows XP was much more reliable in this respect, IMHO. What I always had trouble with was the "full-duplex …

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Re: Voyager probes 40th anniversary

Posted on 2020-02-01, 11:53

by

by Jo22

in Milliways

in Milliways

Klingons ? A worm hole ?

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Re: Voyager probes 40th anniversary

Posted on 2020-02-01, 11:26

by

by Jo22

in Milliways

in Milliways

Quick update. Jan 30th, 2020 (news) - Voyager 2 did shut down after an error occured. https://www.technologyreview.com/f/615121/nasa-is-trying-to-save-voyager-2-after-a-power-glitch-shut-down-its-instruments/ Edit: Update. According to some German news site , the shut off likely occured during a …

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Re: Until what date is a pc with ISA bus needed?

Posted on 2020-01-31, 20:05

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

From what I remember, I played Descent I on a Pentium 75 machine. Gameplay was "okay" from what I remember. I also had got a PAS16 (and later, SB16 CT1740) installed. As for the ISA bus. My family's Pentium III (733MHz) had got one or two ISA slots, too. The PC was running Win98SE originally, so no …

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Re: Byte magazine 1975 to 1998

Posted on 2020-01-31, 19:56

by

by Jo22

in Milliways

in Milliways

H3nrik V! wrote on 2020-01-31, 19:30: I really need a tool to batch download .. wget, maybe ? I used that once in the past on Win NT's command line. It originated from some GNU tools/utiltiies for Win32 page. Not sure if it is suitable for this task, though.

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Re: Can't finde Phils Starter Pack for MS-DOS 6.22

Posted on 2020-01-31, 15:13

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

old_school_nick wrote on 2020-01-31, 14:51: and i still don't have the BenchPack 😒 Sorry to hear! 🙁 I've just downloaded it from philscomputerlab.com successfully. I thought about sending you a PM, but the file is too big for that (~12MB).

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Re: BLASTERBOARD : A new SB 2.0-compatible ISA sound card

Posted on 2020-01-30, 10:50

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I have my blasterboard assembled and working. It sounds great. I was hoping LABS could make progress with getting it working with the windows SB 2.0 drivers, so it could permanently replace the SB 2.0 card in my 286. I hope the same. Never really managed to get Windows 3.1 to use the SB 2.0 drivers …

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Re: Not for the faint hearted

Posted on 2020-01-29, 15:48

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I like the sound blaster clock.. Too bad there's no SB16 PnP available! 😆 Edit: FazzaGBR wrote on 2020-01-29, 15:47: I wonder what the clock speed of them is?...! YMMD! 🤣

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Re: games that are better on a Macintosh

Posted on 2020-01-28, 07:34

by

by Jo22

in Macintosh Emulation

in Macintosh Emulation

I'd like to see the dates each game was made for each platform. Other than that I could'nt care less. Macs were amazingly reliable back in the day. The 1990s-era clones weren't (sub-standard hardware), and the software could be really messed up if you installed a bunch of random shareware …

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Re: New ATX power supply standard will be 12v only

Posted on 2020-01-28, 07:06

by

by Jo22

in Milliways

in Milliways

That's a good question, I think. As far as I can remember, Intel made something different last time and called it BTX . It was not only related to PSUs, but also affected the whole physical design of PC motherboards and chassis. Unfortunately, it was not accepted by PC industry. Which saddens me a …

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Re: IBM 5150 vs Amiga 500

Posted on 2020-01-28, 06:50

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

^There's also the possibility of using a Stereo-on-1 device at the parallel port, as well. 😉 (Though I got what you meant to say. The GUS can store samples & perform mixing on its own, thus lowering CPU load.)

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Re: VGA games with only 16 colors

Posted on 2020-01-26, 17:31

by

by Jo22

in DOS

in DOS

Games with 640x480 16colors on 286? can't remember these... Pretty much all text adventures with graphics and simulations ran in 640x480@16c. Or higher. ;) - That excludes the popular, less demanding Point&Click Adventures from Sierra/LucasArts, of course. From what I remember, esp. Sierra On-Line …

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Re: A question about some of the jumpers on the Creative 8-bit SB2 card

Posted on 2020-01-24, 20:14

by

by Jo22

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Pins for function testing at the factory, maybe ? Uhm, I'm not exactly sure,sorry. :( I believe, the two jumpers on the right may connect the stereo output to the 3,5mm jack (SB2 has stereo output because of the Gameblaster part) though. Edit: Please don't cross the pins on the left for testing. The …

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