Re: Problems with DOMs

Posted on 2017-01-13, 19:53

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I can't find that one. I found some mention of it on a few "driver update" sites that only try and make me download their "driver fixer" utilities instead. Here: http://www.filewatcher.com/b/ftp/ftp.aopen.com/pub/bios/vi15g-0.html vi15gr23.exe is a self-extracting file with the 64K .rom inside. If …

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Re: Graphics card choice for 486 DX4-100 system

Posted on 2017-01-13, 18:36

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Go with the PCI S3. The improvement of PCI over ISA alone is going to be more significant than any other thing in this case. The DRAM vs VRAM thing doesn't really matter too much. Besides, if I remember correctly DRAM performs slightly better than VRAM in DOS (while the opposite holds true for …

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Re: Problems with DOMs

Posted on 2017-01-13, 14:45

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Have you tried upgrading the BIOS? There's a version (2.3) from 1995. I haven't tried it myself, but it may solve your issue.

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Re: Small ATX Case

Posted on 2017-01-09, 17:06

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Using CM Elite 361 for my ATX retro rigs. I'd say it's as small as it gets if you want ATX and full size GPUs. The PSU placement is somewhat peculiar, assuming they had to do that to squeeze everything in, but that's really the only thing you'll have to consider if you can live with or not. Oh, and …

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Re: Old disk vs ssd

Posted on 2017-01-09, 16:58

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I prefer using period-correct hard drives when possible, but for a DOS-based system I'm not willing to pay for a used HDD from that era that may go kaput at any moment, especially when I don't know the past history of the drive and how much "abuse" it has suffered from its previous owner(s). So in …

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Re: What do you NOT have enough of?

Posted on 2017-01-07, 19:55

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by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

Unlimited money would ruin the hobby, you just pay people to find you everything. Finding a great deal can really make your day and hunting for a rarity is more fun then just shelling out cash. Yeah, "it's not the kill but the thrill of the chase!" :-D What I need the most right now is space. Not …

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Re: The forgotten companies of computing

Posted on 2017-01-05, 19:16

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

DataExpert: Main Website (Internet Archive) http://web.archive.org/web/199702010801 ... rt.com.tw/ for the earliest archived instance http://web.archive.org/web/200207191048 ... rt.com.tw/ for the latest archived instance. I have no clue if they died after 2002, it's entirely possible, but I have …

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Re: Happy New Year 2017 !!!

Posted on 2017-01-01, 05:32

by

by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

Happy new year! May 2017 bring us all lots of obsolete hardware to tinker with!

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Re: ASUS VL/I-486SV2GX4 - no post :(

Posted on 2016-12-31, 05:45

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Small update: There seems to be something wrong with BIOS chip. It was erased and all the registers have "0" value. I was not able, however, to successfully burn the image on the chip. The chip seems faulty. I found an old 386 AMI bios chip (working) and will try to burn the BIOS on it tomorrow ( …

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Re: Driver for Labway A151-A00 with Yamaha YMF719 chip

Posted on 2016-12-28, 17:10

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah, I believe I used the same YMF724 driver package from vogonsdrivers. That DOS utility does not only add the "SET BLASTER" line to AUTOEXEC.BAT, it should also configure the PnP values for the card settings. For running DOS games, that should be all you need to get it working without any …

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Re: Driver for Labway A151-A00 with Yamaha YMF719 chip

Posted on 2016-12-27, 23:37

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have one of those cards, I have it on a 486 and I really like the sound for DOS games. I don't know about Windows drivers, but for DOS all I needed was a Yamaha utility called SETUPSA.EXE that allowed me to configure the address, interrupt and DMA among other things. I think it was bundled with a …

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Re: Carrie Fisher dead

Posted on 2016-12-27, 23:29

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by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

Really sad. Not long ago, I read the "Making of Star Wars" books by J.W. Rinzler (highly recommended to any Star Wars fan). They contain many interviews and photos from the years when the films were made, and one of the things I found most interesting is how seriously Fisher took her role. She …

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Re: Deyellowing Plastic

Posted on 2016-12-27, 21:57

by

by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

Has anyone tried this "retr0bright" stuff? From what I've heard, what really matters in the de-yellowing process is the peroxide + UV light combination. retr0bright adds something called OxyClean on top of it, but I don't think it makes much of a difference. The important thing is to be able to …

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Re: What was your worst screw-up with retro tech?

Posted on 2016-12-26, 16:03

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm usually careful, however not long ago I got a FIC VT-501 socket 7 motherboard for USD 2 at a garage sale. It had a Pentium-133, 32 MB of RAM and was working perfectly. Only, the fan attached to the heatsink was rattling horribly, so I decided to replace it and picked up a socket 7 cooler from my …

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Re: ASUS VL/I-486SV2GX4 - no post :(

Posted on 2016-12-23, 22:26

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't own one of these boards, but going by the manual I'd say that if you're trying to boot with an intel DX or DX2 the settings you should use are: JP16: 1-2 & 5-6 short JP17: 1-2 & 5-6 short JP18: 1-2 & 5-6 short JP19: 1-2 short JP20: open JP21: open JP22: 1-2 short I know that setting says "3x …

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Re: Soundblaster Live CT4780

Posted on 2016-12-23, 04:55

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a SB0220 (non-crippled SB Live! 5.1 Digital). That connector is in fact a front panel audio header for Dell PCs, but it can be mapped to an Intel HD Audio front panel connector. I made a custom connector myself based on some info I found on the Internet about a guy who built one of these for …

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Re: connecting psu wires to at power switch

Posted on 2016-12-22, 22:47

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Glad it's working. When connecting the power supply to the button, as long as you get live to live and neutral to neutral connections when pushing the button then it's OK (you can test this with a multimeter before plugging the PSU to the wall outlet). Your assumption of matching colors is safe …

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Re: Trident TGUI9440 memory upgrades

Posted on 2016-12-19, 03:26

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Maybe you have to set the three jumpers near the 26 pin header to a specific configuration? It's the only thing I can think of. Provided that those ZIP chips are not dead, I see no reason why they wouldn't work... very strange indeed.

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Re: Fellow members, tell a random fact about your country.

Posted on 2016-12-12, 05:23

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by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

My country hosted (and won) the first FIFA World Cup in 1930.

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Re: Do you prefer "Objectively fast" over "Properly dated"?

Posted on 2016-12-05, 16:02

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Personally I have never experienced serious performance or lifespan issues when using CF cards as replacement for hard drives for DOS based systems. I can understand the limited erase/write cycles could be a problem on an OS which uses a swap file or is continuously writing files, but for DOS it …

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