Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2023-09-15, 22:50

by

by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

I don't know if the reviews were more mixed when it came out, but I only got around to playing it a few months ago, so my expectations were shaped by the Steam reviews, which are very positive. Oh well. I'm still getting a lot of fun out of Brutal Doom and there are a million boomer shooters that I …

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Re: Which old programming languages do you still use/play with today->

Posted on 2023-09-08, 21:37

by

by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

Even though I've been a software engineer for more than 20 years now, I no longer feel any passion for it as I find modern software development extremely boring and uninteresting since everything became a web/mobile app. Millions of pointless development projects related to things I don't really …

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Re: BusTek BT-742A EISA SCSI adapter problem with >1GB HDs - fix

Posted on 2023-09-08, 07:14

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have that same card (even same versions of the ROM chips, 3.22 and 4.42). It came with the manual and it does mention something about low-level formatting via DEBUG. I will try to take some pictures of it in case there's more useful info there that is not on your text file.

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Re: Building a 486 VLB system

Posted on 2023-09-08, 07:07

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

POD can have compatibility issues with some boards, especially those from before mid-1995 since Intel changed some specs shortly before releasing that CPU. For that reason many earlier boards that claim to be POD-compatible don't work properly with it, especially in L1 WB mode. Regarding the other …

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Re: Build your own AT power supply

Posted on 2023-09-08, 06:54

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I haven't yet recapped a single AT PSU, but recently did two 5V heavy Enermax ATX supplies from early 2000s. I had zero problems finding low ESR caps for them which fit nicely on these tightly populated PSU boards. I've used mainly Panasonic FR series and with some occasional other Panasonic type …

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Re: Thoughts on these specs for a period correct(ish) 1997 build?

Posted on 2023-09-02, 04:49

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I am also putting together a '97 build, originally I was also planning a 233MMX but I recently got an FX motherboard with a Klamath 300. I know the LX is better, but it's too similar to the BX other than the FSB speed to be interesting and I think the 440FX fits better with an "early 1997" kind of …

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

Posted on 2023-08-30, 04:34

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by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

Today I retired my Ryzen 5 3600 and Radeon RX 5700 XT I've had since I built this PC in 2019. Replaced the CPU with a Ryzen 7 5800X3D and the GPU with a GeForce RTX 4070 and kept the X570 motherboard, 32GB of DDR4-3600 RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD, 4TB HDD and 850W power supply from the original build. I was …

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Re: Help with early PII motherboard - dead as a doornail

Posted on 2023-08-28, 04:31

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

3.3v on the power button is from transistor and 5v PSU standby. dead transistor, no power on button, no start. something like this check the power button circuit Gotcha :thumbsup: , I see a 3904 NPN near the headers that may be part of the power-on circuit. I'll check the voltage on the header pin …

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Re: Help with early PII motherboard - dead as a doornail

Posted on 2023-08-28, 04:02

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Before doing anything to the board (assuming the current PSU is 100% good) I would check the board for direct shorts first w/o cpu, ram, adapters and no psu: at the psu connector using ohms (not continuity) on the digi meter I would then force PSU to start by shorting the green lead (Power on) to …

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Help with early PII motherboard - dead as a doornail

Posted on 2023-08-27, 23:39

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have this early Pentium II motherboard, based on the 440FX chipset. Model name is "R653", apparently manufactured by "m-tech": R653_Board.JPEG The problem is it appears to be completely dead. And when I say "completely" I really mean it. When I hook up a power supply (tried several known working …

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

Posted on 2023-08-27, 22:48

by

by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

I don't think it's phishing - I looked into the phone number sending a lot of the 2FA messages/phone calls and it's legitimately Wells Fargo. They aren't sending a URL and nothing is asking me for information, it's just 2FA code numbers that "Ricardo" keeps generating because he thinks if he does …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-08-25, 08:17

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Is the "slowdown when playing 16-bit SFX + MIDI" bug (such as in Duke3D or some LucasArts games) also a bug in the DSP code? I wonder if that too can be corrected, because unlike the hanging note every SB16 has this problem.

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Re: AMERICAN MEGATRENDS 286 motherboard missing BIOS chips

Posted on 2023-08-22, 15:13

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

vmr_ wrote on 2023-08-22, 15:07: what could possibly go wrong if I switch the BIOS chips? No danger at all, other than the board not working at all due to being unable to execute BIOS code. In that case just swap the chips and try again. Do take care of installing the ROM chips in the correct …

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Re: CRT experience

Posted on 2023-08-15, 22:05

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As strange as it may sound, the reason I use CRTs for gaming on retro systems is purely convenience more so than looking for a "superior" experience. Yes, they're bulky and get hot, but they just work and as an added benefit things look just as the original developers intended. What I want to avoid …

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Re: Issue with MSI 3113-7 386DX Mainboard

Posted on 2023-08-13, 08:22

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The picture in The Retro Web (https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-3113-7) shows a board apparently configured for 25MHz and all 4 jumpers in the JP2 block are closed. You could try that, if that configuration works for that board (50MHz oscillator divided by 2) it should be no different on …

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Re: Diamond Stealth 64 vram upgrade

Posted on 2023-08-10, 13:45

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

No, it won’t work as the 964 uses VRAM and the 416c256 is regular DRAM. You can try to search for “40-pin SOJ 256x8 dual port video RAM” or something similar to include other manufacturers so you don’t restrict the results to Samsung chips (KMxxxxx).

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Re: Alternative Socket 7 heatsink clamp - spring?

Posted on 2023-08-09, 05:40

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't even want to comment on this solution 😁 You laugh, but it was quite common back in the 486/Pentium era for the heatsink to be attached with thermal tape to the CPU. Can you provide the link to the topic, please? I have a GA-6OXT mobo with one broken tab on its socket. Something like this …

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Re: Old floppy disk restoration

Posted on 2023-08-07, 19:27

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

"RNC" stands for "Rob Northen Compression", it was a format used to distribute some PC games. I believe it was mostly used on Amiga games and to compress graphics for games on other platforms. Some of the games distributed on this format use a form of copy protection called "Copylock". It requires …

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Re: AMI Color BIOS (1993 and earlier) modification in hex editor

Posted on 2023-08-06, 00:10

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A huge thank you to JakeThompson & TheMobRules. Being an accountant by profession with zero programming knowledge made it easy for me also understand how to edit the AMIBIOS for my OPTI 495XLC chipset-based motherboards (after a bit of trial and error using PCem). My idea is to use the BIOS image …

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Re: AMI Color BIOS (1993 and earlier) modification in hex editor

Posted on 2023-08-05, 23:11

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Perhaps they intended it to be a read of port 23h (checking bit 0 of whatever register index was previously selected)? That could indeed be the case, however in the chipset docs they clearly mention the need for writing to 22h before every access due to the index being reset after every read/write: …

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