Re: HP Vectra ES/12 12Mhz 286

Posted on 2021-06-29, 08:27

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My guess is that it does have 1mb fitted, but your BIOS doesn't offer the ability to do anything with the 640-1024kb reserved region. In the first image you posted I think I see 4 rows of 3 DRAM chips under the PSU. My guess is that you have 8x 128kbyte chips and 4x parity chips for a total of …

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Re: HP Vectra ES/12 12Mhz 286

Posted on 2021-06-28, 17:03

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, if it only has 640kb of physical ram, yeah, that would certainly stop using the HMA! 😀

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Re: HP Vectra ES/12 12Mhz 286

Posted on 2021-06-28, 12:09

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ok, so you actually have 573kbytes free - which isn't brilliant, but not horrendous either. Ignore what the game tells you - we don't know how it is calculating that. So you can free up some more of that 640kbytes by adding himem.sys and loading DOS high, which is perfectly possible on a 286. Add to …

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Re: HP Vectra ES/12 12Mhz 286

Posted on 2021-06-28, 10:29

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You can use the output redirection of the DOS command prompt to send the text to a file: mem /c > file.txt ... that will result in file.txt containing the characters that would have been printed on-screen.

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Re: HP Vectra ES/12 12Mhz 286

Posted on 2021-06-28, 10:20

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Show the output of "mem /c" and post a copy of your config.sys and autoexec.bat files.

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Re: Most beautiful Dos-Games for a 486...what are your favorites?

Posted on 2021-06-28, 09:35

by

by megatron-uk

in DOS

in DOS

It looks like someone enjoyed using the 'gradient fill' tool in their bitmap paint program for all the flat shapes in that game!

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Re: Copam U-series 486

Posted on 2021-06-27, 19:59

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I use the Startech 3.5" bay adapters myself, but I always paint them to match my cases: Filename img20210613120948.jpg File size 29.76 KiB Views 292 views Filename img20210529180821 (1).jpg File size 36.56 KiB Views 292 views They're only available in black these days, so don't really match any ' …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2021-06-27, 19:53

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

OK, thanks. I'll check the readme. I did a bit more testing with the onboard IDE port on the Biostar board. As it turns out, it is detecting my 32 GB Sandisk card properly. The "P014" it reports for the size is truncated. I guess they only left space for 4 digits. "P014" = "32014" megabytes. I'm …

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Re: Copam U-series 486

Posted on 2021-06-25, 13:22

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

That's a really neat solution - I like the combined 2.5" drive and CF reader in the one bay 'module'. Well done!

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Re: Upgrade 386 matherboard with 386 socket and 386dx40 solder already

Posted on 2021-06-24, 06:47

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You won't be able to install an SX on the same board as a DX - they have different pinouts and data bus interfaces (16bit vs 32bit). You will have to find if that board has a jumper to disable the soldered-on DX CPU.

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Re: Would you be interested in an x86-based alternative to the Raspberry Pi, optimized for retro gaming?

Posted on 2021-06-22, 17:50

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Unless you implement a system which has a sound blaster compatible pcm mode and adlib register-compatible ports at the standard addresses that all games expect to write to (which, for all intents and purposes means hanging it off an ISA bus - even the best PCI implementations using DDMA are nowhere …

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Re: Help to identify 386 mobo and manual

Posted on 2021-06-22, 12:52

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Some boards have a jumper which needs to be moved in order to go from the onboard to external battery. Is there a jumper close by your external battery connector?

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Re: Would you be interested in an x86-based alternative to the Raspberry Pi, optimized for retro gaming?

Posted on 2021-06-22, 12:47

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You don't believe ISA support is needed (you mention that why would anyone need it when we have 7.1 channel AC97 audio). It is. Name one DOS game that literally can't be completed without sound. I've only come across one game that genuinely couldn't be completed without sound. It was Myst, and it …

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Re: Would you be interested in an x86-based alternative to the Raspberry Pi, optimized for retro gaming?

Posted on 2021-06-22, 12:14

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You keep saying the broadest possible range of games but you've already written off almost all of the DOS era. No I f**king haven't. STOP LYING ABOUT ME You don't believe ISA support is needed (you mention that why would anyone need it when we have 7.1 channel AC97 audio). It is. You don't think …

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Re: Would you be interested in an x86-based alternative to the Raspberry Pi, optimized for retro gaming?

Posted on 2021-06-22, 12:08

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Wrong. I said hardware that was optimized for retro gaming , meaning "hardware that emphasizes massively parallel floating-point performance because that's what 3D games depend on, and DOS/Win98 compatibility because that's what is compatible with the broadest possible range of games". Massively …

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Re: Would you be interested in an x86-based alternative to the Raspberry Pi, optimized for retro gaming?

Posted on 2021-06-22, 10:56

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A significant proportion of PC games from the 80s and 90s will not natively run as intended on a late Windows 98 machine. I see you have denied the prevalence and importance of this, earlier in the topic, but regardless it stands as an important truth which many here will support. I suspect you …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2021-06-22, 09:19

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

@megatron-uk Right on. BTW, what hw runs your Linux ? My main Linux desktop is the following: i7 4790S Asus B85M-E 32GB RAM Nvidia GTX1050 2x Intel 480GB SSD's in RAID 1 5x Seagate Exos 8TB HDD's in RAID 5 The GPU is mainly for video encoding (dvd's/blu-rays, as well as OBS captures). I'm running …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2021-06-22, 08:51

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

@megatron-uk This is great info. But also, we know that the rules of engagement change with old hardware and OSes. Any numbers you have with 2/3/4x86 components and something like DOS ? I have some of the cards listed in your chart and the perf is quite different when testing with old stuff. Yes, …

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Re: Vectra 4/66 cpu upgrade problems

Posted on 2021-06-22, 07:55

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ah, you may have misunderstood what Topbench does - it doesn't identify your system as such; it actually measures the performance of your system (cpu, fpu, ram, video) and compares it against entries in its internal database. What it shows on-screen is the closest matching system to your current …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2021-06-22, 07:46

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Is this any help? flashmemorybenchmarks.png https://www.target-earth.net/wiki/doku.php?id=blog:blog_flash_memory_benchmarks A few months ago I went through all of the CF and SD cards in my "box of flash memory" and benchmarked them using the Linux 'disks' tool. The Sandisk 'Extreme' branded ones all …

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