Re: How to make a MFM HDD image?

Posted on 2016-07-23, 08:29

by

by carlostex

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you are really serious about this i think a MFM controller will work alongside an XT-IDE card. You can make a disk duplicate even in your XT machine instead of trying to make the MFM drive work on a modern system which might be a royal pain in the ass. You can also try a network card tat works on …

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Re: Combined/Consolidated Shipping Services?

Posted on 2016-07-15, 08:24

by

by carlostex

in Milliways

in Milliways

I just tried a simulation and the costs to ship for me are twice as expensive as GSP. Shipito is still the best option for me, despite they got a little more expensive in the past 2 years.

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Re: Fly to the Moon!

Posted on 2016-07-14, 21:58

by

by carlostex

in Milliways

in Milliways

Give it a few days and "Kangaboy" will somehow make up some lame argument about how the code was part of the whole fakery, just to make the whole program look believable. 🤣

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Re: FM OPL3 frequency differences

Posted on 2016-06-27, 10:52

by

by carlostex

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This thread concludes that Yamaha 71x cards with the YMF289 (OPL-L / OPL-SA3) have an excellent OPL3 chip on board but it operates at 438.3 to 439 HZ instead of 440Hz. The difference is 0.39% percent or 0.067 semitones between the two and this difference cannot be heard by an average or musically …

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Re: FM OPL3 frequency differences

Posted on 2016-06-26, 23:47

by

by carlostex

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

See? And also hear. :) Check the pedia's article by the link with more attention. I don't need. I use a mixer and i can compare my YMF-718 with a PAS 16 or any other YMF262 card in real time. It's very hard to distinguish which card is playing lower, due to the very small frequency difference. But …

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Re: FM OPL3 frequency differences

Posted on 2016-06-25, 20:32

by

by carlostex

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As the bad difference can be heard sometimes, it's evident negative factor. This thread has yet to receive a solid comparison to back the trashing of the YMF289. Where's the evidence? He has none. Where's the evidence? There is the example on pedia. See? Call it approximation or imitation by OPL3 …

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Re: FM OPL3 frequency differences

Posted on 2016-06-25, 16:21

by

by carlostex

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't even give a crap about 1Hz difference. It's barely noticeable if you play one sample after the other beacause you lose your point of reference. Best way is to use a mixer. I did it with my PAS 16 and YMF-718. It's obvious to me that the PAS 16 is slightly sharper than my YMF. Does it matter? …

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Re: Need Help Choosing Sound Card

Posted on 2016-06-25, 00:45

by

by carlostex

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes there is a slight difference in pitch. Sounds 1KHz lower minimum. Not a big issue IMO. I mean does anyone complain about "Still Loving You" by the Scorpions not using standard A=440Hz tuning? I'm probably gonna test this myself using an analog tuner. Maybe using the FM organ software i can try …

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Re: Brexit???

Posted on 2016-06-24, 23:32

by

by carlostex

in Milliways

in Milliways

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgKHSNqxa8

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Re: Why did I buy an XT clone and what am I going to do with it?

Posted on 2016-06-22, 20:40

by

by carlostex

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

SRQ wrote: It would be less of a pain if the HDD wasn't dead and the spare 5.25 I had didn't turn out to be bunk. I think so anyway, it's hard to tell if it's a problem with the computer or with it. XT era HDD's fail very often. The technology wasn't very reliable in those days.

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Re: Where can I get a Gravis Ultrasound ?

Posted on 2016-06-22, 13:43

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by carlostex

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Elia1995 wrote: carlostex wrote: Get a GUS and enjoy it! I have a boxed GUS MAX i probably will get rid of, but i wish to trade it for something else instead of selling. What are you looking for ? IBM Music Feature, AdLib Gold, boxed 1990 AdLib among other stuff that is not easy to find. But i'm …

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Re: Why did I buy an XT clone and what am I going to do with it?

Posted on 2016-06-22, 13:34

by

by carlostex

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

XT builds are fun and often can be challenging in a good way but it can very quickly become a money pit if you are not careful about the upgrades beyond that it is truly the real thing. Just don't look at those adlib prices /cringe My XT build was about the same cost as any other of my builds. The …

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Re: Where can I get a Gravis Ultrasound ?

Posted on 2016-06-22, 12:54

by

by carlostex

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A GUS will be awesome for games starting in 1993 and further. There might be some 1992 titles that support it in fact. If you combine it with a Sound Blaster Pro 2 or an YMF card you'll cover pretty much the entire DOS period, with excellent FM, PCM and good MIDI. Add an external Sound Canvas or MU …

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Re: Why did I buy an XT clone and what am I going to do with it?

Posted on 2016-06-22, 12:46

by

by carlostex

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

An XT clone can be pretty awesome. There's loads of neat games that are too speed sensitive to run on your Pentium II. I love my XT clone it was very fun building it and i still feel creative trying to expand it. If you do like messing with hardware you won't regret.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2016-06-21, 20:33

by

by carlostex

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Finally:

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Re: 586ITOX CPU support?

Posted on 2016-06-18, 09:20

by

by carlostex

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Contact Jan Steunebrink and ask him to patch the BIOS for K6-3+ support and 128gb hdd limit. IMO opinion this board is better for a pure DOS machine. You got 6 ISA slots at your disposal.

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Re: Multi-threaded SuperPi

Posted on 2016-06-16, 20:40

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by carlostex

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

People still benchmark in SuperPI? It was compiled for old x87 instructions, it doesn't even use MMX AFAIK. It's a completely irrelevant benchmark, unless you want to see how fast can modern CPU's run older instructions that aren't used in real life anymore...

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Re: Bought these games today

Posted on 2016-06-14, 21:21

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by carlostex

in Milliways

in Milliways

Awesome collection Carlos. Takes up some room I bet. I am restricting myself to a couple of bookcases for that reason. Cheers!! Oh they will take some room. Right now most of them are inside a wooden ark that my grandmother left to me. I also packed them individually in cellophane. I will be …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2016-06-14, 16:49

by

by carlostex

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just stole an Ad Lib 1990 for $28 BIN at eBay! I've been lucky today! You're lucky i'm not the kind of guy of buying stuff to sell for 10x more later. I had seen that ad and thought about getting it, but since i already have a 1987 and a 1990 bare cards i decided to leave it for someone else. Less …

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Re: Most useless/undesirable piece of vintage computer hardware

Posted on 2016-06-13, 21:59

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by carlostex

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

tincup wrote: Zip drives. Actually ZIP drives can be quite useful to move data around between old machines, 8088, 286, 386, 486, specially if you don't have them networked and still use hard drives instead of Compact Flash or SD cards.

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