Re: Friendliest CPU family for mid-90s "final" DOS-era games?

Posted on 2017-10-22, 21:42

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

IMO the K6+ CPU's are the best all rounders Probably yes, but it's time consuming and expensive to source parts for those systems. A Via C3 system is an alternative if you want that extreme flexibility. Slot1 boards, slotkets and C3 CPU:s are still quite abundant and cheap. You'd have to read up …

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Re: Modem power supplies

Posted on 2017-10-22, 13:39

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The modem most certainly got an internal rectifier bridge/voltage regulator, my guess would be an LM7805 or something like that. A 9VDC power source will work fine too. Depending on the regulator, you might even be able to feed it with lower voltages, and lessen the heat dissipation. You can always …

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Re: List the CPUs you owned when they were new

Posted on 2017-10-16, 08:04

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by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My PC CPUs, not counting old family computers, etc. 1997 - Pentium II 233MHz - My first own PC, bought it with my military service payoff. 1998 - Celeron 300A@450 MHz - The PII 233 died. Got an Asus P2B and this instead, great upgrade! 2000 - Athlon 1.2GHz (T-bird) - Compiled a Linux kernel in 20 …

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Re: Connecting to the internet using a Wireless network card on Windows 98SE

Posted on 2017-10-15, 22:48

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Try WPA vs WPA2 AES vs tkip Make sure the settings match on both router and client. For older machines I found it simpler to use a wireless bridge that connects via ethernet to the NIC on the old computer Mm, doing the same thing. Specifically using a Nexx WT3020F with LEDE. So nice not having to …

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Re: Cleaning a CPU socket?

Posted on 2017-10-08, 05:27

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Would have popped the moving part off the socket, begun with blowing it with pressurized air to remove any dust etc (vacuuming is dangerous, the air flow in the hose might cause electrostatic charge), then keept the socket soaked with some specialized electronics cleaning spray for an hour or so ( …

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Re: Any point in picking up Slot 1 PII 400 machine for 50% DOS?

Posted on 2017-10-06, 07:18

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by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Looks like a Zida BX98-3D. It sure is! Good eye! I found a few listings of ebay ranged from $40 with CPU to 50 pounds without :lol:, but nobody seems to care too much for it. Anyway, I'm not into reselling and can't afford much physical hoarding, at least at the moment. I'll probably just gut this …

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Re: Dream rig of opportunity/ Help with Hardware identification required

Posted on 2017-10-01, 20:39

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

there's no reasons at all other than pure nostalgia ones to choose a P133 over a 233MMX, if you specifically want P133 speeds, just jumper the 233MMX to 110 MHz or something like that :) Quite the contrary, I would really want to get Pentium 233MMX - it is my dream CPU for real! But I'm worried it …

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Re: Dream rig of opportunity/ Help with Hardware identification required

Posted on 2017-10-01, 17:09

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thank you very much! I'll probably pick it up the next week. Also after some research the sound card definitely bears some resemblance with Sound Blaster 16, so it makes the setup even so slightly better. I also have found P233 MMX with decent board, but I would need to ship it from another city …

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Re: Dream rig of opportunity/ Help with Hardware identification required

Posted on 2017-09-30, 17:51

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Never cared much for period correctness, I'm more of a utilitarian, prioritizing performance and compatibility. Here are the four computers I keep, gives me good coverage from the mid 80's and onwards: Tualeron 1400, 512MB RAM, GF Ti4600, Voodoo2 (looking for another one for SLI), AWE32, …

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Re: Audio Mixers, what do you guys use?

Posted on 2017-09-26, 06:56

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by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Using a home made passive mixer. Fits the "small and cheap" description perfectly. You need a bunch of 3.5mm jacks, resistors, a piece of perfboard, some wire, solder, and an enclosure to put it all in. Everything can be ebayed for a few bucks. Here's a tutorial with circuit diagram, it can easily …

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Re: Trying to save a piece of history.. A voodoo 3 PCI card

Posted on 2017-09-15, 14:59

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Begin by posting sharp high resolution images of your card. Plenty of people with sharp eyes here, who might spot missing SMD components, corrosion, burned chips, bulging caps, etc, that you've missed

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Re: What to do with a P2B-S

Posted on 2017-09-15, 05:36

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

gdjacobs wrote: I need one just like it for my Ezra based time machine. Would also use it for that purpose, if it was compliant with the VRM 8.4 guidelines. Got a MS-6119, which also is a great board, but the P2B is something special.

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FlashFloppy, an open source firmware for Gotek drives

Posted on 2017-09-10, 15:56

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by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Stumbled upon this when googling around for an original firmware image to restore a Cortex flashed Gotek drive: https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy Primarily it seems to be a replacement for the Cortex Amiga floppy emulation firmware, but since the author has begun to add PC floppy support in the …

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Re: P4 Windows 98/DOS gaming project

Posted on 2017-09-08, 09:32

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I believe you. I do think that probably a 1GHz P-III with a Voodoo3 is going to be enough, and you may get it with ISA slots more easily. However, you do have a point for a first retro build, if one accepts the limitation, a P4 is reasonable. That's the question - what CPU are you going to be …

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Re: Best 9x drivers for G4 Ti4200?

Posted on 2017-09-07, 10:44

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by kaputnik

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

45.23 has been my driver of choice for GF4 cards more or less since it was released. It has never let me down 😀

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Re: Quadro4 750 XGL, artifacts

Posted on 2017-08-31, 19:42

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by kaputnik

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Its dead, just burry it or try some heating to the gpu, but this is still temporary solution. Will die again. About half of mine Quadro cards based on GF4 was dead. They dying same way like modern chips, it only take few more years.... Might try reflowing it and hope for the best, if no other …

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Re: Quadro4 750 XGL, artifacts

Posted on 2017-08-31, 17:57

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by kaputnik

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The Serpent Rider wrote: GPU overheat. You mean permanent damage from earlier overheating? It's definitely not overheating now.

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Quadro4 750 XGL, artifacts

Posted on 2017-08-31, 08:08

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by kaputnik

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Picked up a Quadro4 750 XGL a while ago, and finally got time to try it out. Seems to be something wrong with it. The font is garbled, even during POST, see attached image. Not a good sign. The Windows driver will work in 640x480, 16 colors, with some artifacts. If I try to raise the resolution or …

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

Posted on 2017-08-15, 13:50

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by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

WildW wrote: Today I beefed-up my Gateway system a little. […] Show full quote Today I beefed-up my Gateway system a little. Awww! Made my day too 😁

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Keyboard and KVM switch compatibility problems

Posted on 2017-08-14, 17:08

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by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Replaced the KVM switch for my retro rigs a few days ago, and ran into some problems getting the keyboard working. The "new" switch is an old Black Box Servswitch Jr. rev 1.2. Tried a few different keyboards now, and I can only get one of them working. The only thing I've found so far that the non- …

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