Re: Piggybacking keyboard controller chips.

Posted on 2019-01-14, 22:28

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Piggybacking is likely going to destroy one of the chips sooner or later, you cannot connect two outputs together without harming both. Lifting VCC pins isn't gonna do any good either, then the chip will power itself up via ESD diodes on the signal pins and that will damage whatever drives those IO …

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Re: Piggybacking keyboard controller chips.

Posted on 2019-01-14, 17:26

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In this case it is an actual old AT keyboard connected to an AT port on a 486 Opti chipset board. The keyboard is "known good" as it is the one I use on a pretty much daily basis for my 486 DX4 100 build. I guess I'll just have to get a new soldering iron (my current one is a bit crap) and get on …

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Piggybacking keyboard controller chips.

Posted on 2019-01-14, 13:34

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I was wondering if anybody knows if it is possible to just piggyback a keyboard controller chip, for the sake of diagnostics. I have a board that doesn't receive any input from the keyboard port, but visual inspection doesn't show any damaged traces or anything indicating damage to the board. This …

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Re: Let's Upgrade: My Compaq Deskpro EN-SFF

Posted on 2019-01-11, 19:58

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That Turtle Beach Montego is based on Aureal Vortex isn't it? If so, then I'd probably go with that. The Terratec cards are very non-remarkable. Their best products are their Via Envy based semi-pro cards, but those are much more for music production than gaming. For gaming, I'd stay away from them. …

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Re: Project: First Person Shooter History

Posted on 2019-01-10, 19:10

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

The original Star Wars: Dark Forces should really be on there as well. When it came out in 1995, it was one of the few FPS games that was generally considered to actually be better than Doom. And System Shock from 1994 might be worth adding as well, but some people would argue that it's more RPG …

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Re: OPL3 standalone box/device with MIDI IN/OUT?

Posted on 2019-01-09, 08:04

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I honestly have to say that I don't understand the purpose of configuring an OPL synth as a GM device. Emulating "natural" instruments is what the OPL chip does worst. It can create wonderful synthesizer sounds, but trying to get it to make the sound of a french horn for example, is an exercise in …

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Re: Does this look like a good late 90’s setup?

Posted on 2019-01-07, 20:38

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

having the EAX from the SB Live is actually a significant advantage. EAX on headphones in Unreal is totally awesome. EAX is a bit too heavy for Pentium MMX, as pretty much any other 3D sound implementation (A3D 1.0 excluded). A3D 2.0 is especially horrible CPU hog. That might be absolutely correct. …

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Re: 0.5um AM486DX4 @ 150MHz?

Posted on 2019-01-06, 22:35

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I am happy to overclock modern stuff. It is replaceable. My daily driver, an i7 6700k, runs at 4.5GHz (conservative overclock) on custom watercooling loop. If anything fails, it is possible to get new parts over the counter. If a motherboard or cpu or other piece of hardware from 199x fails, it is …

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Re: 0.5um AM486DX4 @ 150MHz?

Posted on 2019-01-06, 22:11

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've read about people running the AMD 5x86-133 at 160 (presumably 4x40) reliably, but I've never tried it myself. I don't really feel like I want to risk such old hardware by overclocking it. If I need something faster, I'll build a Pentium system.

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Re: Does this look like a good late 90’s setup?

Posted on 2019-01-06, 15:22

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For DOS games the AWE64 is better, for Windows 9x games, having the EAX from the SB Live is actually a significant advantage. EAX on headphones in Unreal is totally awesome. 64MB is fine for anything that a Pentium MMX can run. Sounds like it should be a pretty nice system.

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Re: Dallas Real Time Clock. Replace RTC or add battery?

Posted on 2019-01-06, 13:03

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I found a Texas Instruments BQ3287AMT-SB2, which according to the datasheet is a drop-in replacement for the DS1287 series. They sold for $4.49 on eBay, and if the photo is genuine, it should be from 2017, which suggests many years of computing. I could get Maxim branded DS12887A+ here in Norway, …

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Re: Acer 1120SX

Posted on 2019-01-05, 21:14

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just booted the system up with a MS-DOS boot disk. Running Speedsys as we speak. Yes, the Dallas RTC appears to be dead. Entering the BIOS system setup menu shows every field with empty values. I've ordered a replacement. Fortunately, it appears as though it is socketed. This system just seems so …

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Acer 1120SX

Posted on 2019-01-05, 20:34

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Been taking a closer look at my new baby, and I have to say that it looks to be in immaculate condition. The insides of the PSU looked brand new, and it's fitted with a noise killer, which should make it really nice and quiet. The system is really well designed, and just waiting to be put to use. It …

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Re: Are all 512MB PC133 RAM DIMMS registered/ECC?

Posted on 2019-01-05, 17:02

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Banggood sells 512MB SDRAM they claim is non-ECC, non-registerred. They are labelled as ValueRAM with a serial number starting with KVR, which is what Kingston ValueRam usually has, but I believe it to be fake.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-01-05, 08:15

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bought myself a nice Acer 1120SX. The seller said it would start and show the bios screen, but he had no HD or boot floppies, so he didn't know it it was 100% working. I'll find out soon enough though. I've wanted a nice desktop model system for a while, and I've wanted a 386, so this should be a …

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Re: Dallas Real Time Clock. Replace RTC or add battery?

Posted on 2019-01-04, 22:59

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got my Acer 386 today, and from the looks of it, the Dallas chip is actually already mounted in a socket. That's almost too good to be true. From the looks of this system so far, it is really well built. I want to check the PSU before I try plugging it in to test it.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-01-04, 16:12

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bought myself a nice Acer 1120SX. The seller said it would start and show the bios screen, but he had no HD or boot floppies, so he didn't know it it was 100% working. I'll find out soon enough though. I've wanted a nice desktop model system for a while, and I've wanted a 386, so this should be a …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2019-01-03, 16:16

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I installed OS/2 Warp Connect on my 486. Trying out a Disc-on-module to see how it works, and I've not played around with OS/2 in years.

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Re: Odd old PCI VGA card; Cyber Rex 128VR... what is it?

Posted on 2019-01-03, 14:27

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Interesting. Anyone able to read this review? https://retrosoundcards.files.wordpress.com/2 … nster.jpg?w=830

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Re: Modern power supply with a retro pc.

Posted on 2018-12-31, 12:06

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The AGP port can provide up to 48W (depending on AGP version) to the graphics card as well, so not all of those 74W will come straight from the molex.

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