Re: Foreshadowing the value of P4 hardware

Posted on 2015-05-05, 12:15

by

by GXL750

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

^Don't recycle unless not working. After all, at least here in the states, in the early 2000s you could go into just about any Goodwill with $10 and walk out with a fully functioning 486 system. Back then, you could even find vintage Macintosh systems spaning from the 80s to early 90s for the $5 to …

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Re: Any Thinkpad fans identify this model?

Posted on 2015-04-26, 01:49

by

by GXL750

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you buy the thing, just know there were two different keyboards these things used and they used different keycaps so if you just find some keycaps off ebay, your chance of sucess are 50/50; might as well just buy a fresh keyboard since it won't set you back substatially. Also, while it'd seem the …

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Re: post up pics of your "computing area"

Posted on 2015-04-19, 01:09

by

by GXL750

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Here's my decade-impaired setup. On the left is a circa 2001 ThinkPad T21 with a 1ghz Pentium III (originally had an 800mhz part), 256mb memory, 20gb hard drive, WinXP Home with registry hack to allow for POSReady 2009 updates. To the right is my daily driver: a circa 2007 ThinkPad R60 with a 2ghz …

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Re: My new - Compaq DeskPro 386s/20

Posted on 2015-04-14, 07:15

by

by GXL750

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

The CPU card in the 486 systems usually has 4mb on it. The system is odd in that there really isn't a central logic board. There's a board with CPU and a small amount of RAM, a (missing in your case; it was an optional extra for these things) memory expansion board which has a handful of 72-pin FPM …

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Re: Vogons IRC?

Posted on 2015-04-11, 05:43

by

by GXL750

in Milliways

in Milliways

An IRC would make sense... We all spend so much time playing around with vintage hardware and IRC is a medium with which we could communicate even on an 8086 era system. We could use the very builds we show off to each other to speak with each other.

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Re: What is your favorite vintage Video Card?

Posted on 2015-04-11, 05:39

by

by GXL750

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Matrox Millenium; the 1996 revision.

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Re: My new - Compaq DeskPro 386s/20

Posted on 2015-04-11, 05:35

by

by GXL750

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

That appears to be one of the newer 386 systems they made... While I can't find anything on the internet, I'm pretty sure the memory expansion board for that thing is the same as in a 486-based Deskpro /M which takes 72-pin SIMMs. The video card, backplane and case are the same as in the 486 …

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Re: Compaq Armada 110 - the old one

Posted on 2015-04-11, 05:23

by

by GXL750

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

SimCity 3000, Rollercoaster Tycoon and original Half Life should run well on that. Also eDuke32 should run okay without the high res pack. It'd be a good machine for a feel for the early to mid XP era. I have a ThinkPad T22 with a Savage IX and Pentium III 1ghz and those games run well. It's too new …

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Re: The Death Throes of Radio Shack

Posted on 2015-04-08, 02:40

by

by GXL750

in Milliways

in Milliways

I can picture the RadioShack name being redone in the Sprint font and the red circle R being replaced with that swooshy thing and RadioShack being used for a specific format of Sprint customer service center that also has a section dedicated to cheap laptops and tablets. Similar to some of the …

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Re: Junky Vectra VL600

Posted on 2013-02-12, 04:40

by

by GXL750

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

The OEM model used slower chips than the retail model and also, crappier DAC which will affect users who are still using monitors with the VGA connector.

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Re: Junky Vectra VL600

Posted on 2013-02-12, 04:30

by

by GXL750

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

It's new enough to be 600mhz but the video card has SGRAM chips. Is it a Voodoo?

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Re: Matrox G400 advice

Posted on 2013-02-12, 04:19

by

by GXL750

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The DVD functionality is minimal and will work with most CPUs you could have bought off the shelf in 1999 but is still anemic. The 3D acceleration was okay but you would have been better off with a TNT2. The shining point was dual head (not very common in 1999) and the DAC which provided a very nice …

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Re: Installing windows on laptop without CD, floppy or USB boot

Posted on 2013-02-12, 04:06

by

by GXL750

in Milliways

in Milliways

If it's Win95 or 98, then it doesn't matter the chipset of the install machine; it will still boot. Just use an adapter or other computer to do initial install then also copy all the .cab files to a folder then place drive back in the machine and you'll be set.

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Re: Pentium Restoration Project

Posted on 2013-02-12, 04:01

by

by GXL750

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Very nice. I like the case a lot and funny enough, it actually looks proper with that metal IBM logo. You have a Voodoo to accelerate 3D games but for 2D and pseudo-3D, I think that 1mb Trident card might be anemic. Also, Trident cards had a tendency to use crappy DACs. You should replace it with a …

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Re: Don't Buy This Board

Posted on 2013-02-04, 08:24

by

by GXL750

in Milliways

in Milliways

Sorry mate; I didn't see your remark about listing being corrected. With that in mind, the board still looks like something I would enjoy building a retro rig around.

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Re: Don't Buy This Board

Posted on 2013-02-03, 21:55

by

by GXL750

in Milliways

in Milliways

With due respect given, it's listed as a Socket 7 board with a Pentium chip and the high res photos clearly reveal the socket 7 label. This thing shouldn't even appear in a search for 5x86 or 486.

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Re: Software to create a webpage for illiterates

Posted on 2013-01-20, 03:04

by

by GXL750

in Milliways

in Milliways

Back in the early 2000s I would use Dreamweaver. It was pretty easy to use and had plenty of nice features.

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Re: Computer-use pet peeves

Posted on 2013-01-18, 19:14

by

by GXL750

in Milliways

in Milliways

Why hasn't the VGA port died yet, why are there so many different display connectors and why does my phone have better pixel density than most new laptops?

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Re: When is an upgrade not an upgrade?

Posted on 2013-01-18, 19:10

by

by GXL750

in Milliways

in Milliways

An upgrade is when a noticeable benefit is seen from the replacement of parts or full computer.

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Re: HP Vectra XU 90C

Posted on 2013-01-14, 06:01

by

by GXL750

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

DOS performance on ore-Millenium cards is abysmal so you would be better with pretty much anything else if you want to play games. Windows performance, however is decent and in Matrox tradition, the card is bound to have a good DAC and thus, good analog output quality. The machine reminds me of …

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