Re: Macintosh instead of PC for retro gaming?

Posted on 2018-03-08, 16:19

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I can answer a couple - You should find any generic IDE cd/dvd reader or writer will work, so long as it will fit and the eject button is in the correct place etc. Never tested an IDE to SATA adapter in my Mac, but it might work. I've used random generic IDE hard drives on many Macs and never had a …

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Re: Macintosh instead of PC for retro gaming?

Posted on 2018-03-08, 14:37

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There's lots of games available for the Mac, ports of games available for both Windows & DOS. As mentioned above, sometimes games are radically different from their PC equivalent versions. Some Mac ports can be poor or lacking features when compared with their PC equivalent also. With regards to OS. …

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Re: RAM for PowerMac G5 1,8Ghz DP and some Questions..

Posted on 2018-03-06, 12:46

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

matze79 wrote: Anyone knows if it will run AIX too ? It won't. It's not a Power 4/5 machine, despite similar CPU. There are Linux distributions available, as well as flavours of OpenBSD and freeBSD. But generally Mac OS X is about the best and most supported OS you can run on it.

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Re: Subtle differences between Cyrix and IBM 6x86s

Posted on 2018-03-05, 22:21

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I remember trying Windows XP on an IBM 6x86L PR200+GP back around 2001/2002. Not for very long mind you, it wasn't a pleasant experience. I stuck with 98SE & 2000 dual boot on that PC instead. I do recall once running into a piece of software that refused to run due to incompatibility regarding …

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Re: What you thought you will never have?

Posted on 2018-03-02, 11:07

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For me - a 286 build. Back when I first got into PC hardware in the mid-1990s, I started with an 8088 and then later moved straight to a 386DX. I was forever curious about the skipped 286. Last year I finally found a motherboard for a decent price and decided to put together a system. Nothing …

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Re: Windows 95 or 98 Pentium Box

Posted on 2018-02-23, 11:28

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I pretty much always try to opt for 98SE on Pentium and above computers. I always try to include it on my PIII computers too, though it's often as a secondary OS there. Windows 95 I always reserved for 486 systems, with 3.11 for 386s. Below 386 I don't tend to bother with Windows for anything other …

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

Posted on 2018-02-15, 12:26

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Played around with trying to set up the XTIDE Universal BIOS onto a boot ROM on a 3C509B network card. I configured the card to enable the BOOT ROM etc, but no luck yet. I will experiment further, I think I know why now after some research. Should be an easy fix. Also created a ROM image of 2 old …

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Re: Windows2000 or WindowsXP for a dual P3 1Ghz (Coppermine), 2GB of ram, Geforce 6800+voodoo2 SLI ?

Posted on 2018-02-12, 10:11

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Windows 2000 was a great OS back in the day and could run much more comfortably on lower spec hardware, than the more bloated XP. However, the spec you intend to use is more than adequate for XP and using 2000 would be hobbling yourself for no good reason, as XP has the wider software support.

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Re: Where's the CMOS Battery?

Posted on 2018-02-11, 19:06

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I haven't looked recently but I think the DS12887A has generally been available on eBay. Of course some of them might be old. I'd say it's 99% sure you will get one with a dead battery. I've bought several from different sellers, all DOA. The whole DIY fix is a very simple job, it will take around …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2018-02-11, 12:58

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A little retro - I bought a modern USB EPROM programmer and a couple of old CMOS EPROM chips. Should be good to play around with hopefully. Decided to get one of these after discovering a broken leg on a BIOS chip on an old 8088 Motherboard - no wonder it wasn't POSTing! I already have the ROM image …

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Re: How many Retro PCs do you got in your house?

Posted on 2018-02-07, 21:08

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Photos or it didn't happen. Lol. Funnily enough, that's actually something I've been meaning to do at some point - taking proper decent photos of them all. I've got a few pics scattered about online of some of them though, using the number ordering from my post above: ZX Spectrum https://imgur.com/ …

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Re: How many Retro PCs do you got in your house?

Posted on 2018-02-07, 12:31

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Pretty much all of my PCs & Macs are old or retro, as they are all 9+ years old. Only 1 laptop & 1 Intel Atom Windows tablet that are only a couple of years old. I currently have 56 systems in my collection, 47 of them built & ready to use. Which includes 10 systems in active usage each day. 9 are …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2018-02-04, 20:43

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bought another QuickShot II Turbo joystick. Was on eBay as "sold as seen / untested" which as expected pretty much always means "doesn't work" these days. True enough when I received it, it didn't work properly - no working Fire buttons or Right direction. I opened it up and discovered the issue, …

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Re: Old MFM Hard Drive, how to access?

Posted on 2018-02-02, 20:27

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This is the card: https://imgur.com/ekaW8EJ And found this info: http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-disk-floppy-controllers/I-L/LONGSHINE-MICROSYSTEM-INC-Two-MFM-ST506-ST412-driv-201.html The card comes from an old Jaton JXM-JET 88-V2 motherboard, which was PC compatible. I tried again in my 286 with …

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Re: Old MFM Hard Drive, how to access?

Posted on 2018-02-01, 22:28

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

When switched on the drive spins up and makes the normal sounds it always did. Just had a play around with SSTOR. Wouldn't run on my XT, I just got "program too big to fit in memory", so tried on my 286 but it only detected the IDE controller & IDE drive, no MFM.

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Old MFM Hard Drive, how to access?

Posted on 2018-02-01, 18:39

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have an old Seagate ST-225 Hard Drive, with an 8-bit ISA "LCS-6210D Rev. A3" controller card. These 2 were paired up in an original 8088-based motherboard that hasn't worked in years. Numerous times I've tried the drive & card in more modern PCs and mostly recently I tried it on an IBM 5160 XT …

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

Posted on 2018-01-31, 21:10

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Received the ready built AT2XT keyboard adapter that I bought today and set about experimenting with my IBM 5160 motherboard. I don't currently have a HDD for this (or a case for that matter) but booted into MS-DOS 3.21 from Floppy and played around with some software from various disks. It's …

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Re: "Inappropriate behavior" of a CF card in my old system

Posted on 2018-01-27, 12:49

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As you didn't mention in your post, after booting from a DOS floppy - Have you tried doing sys c:

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Re: Ontrack 9.57 on CF card - can't view on modern PC

Posted on 2018-01-27, 12:34

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by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What I've done in the past to get around this is set up the DDO on the drive in a computer that fully recognises it anyway. Not sure if it will work, it did for me on my 286 recently though, try the following - Uninstall Ontrack using your 486. Remove the drive and place it in a modern PC or any …

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Re: Commodore 64 Project ideas

Posted on 2018-01-27, 08:56

by

by PTherapist

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Personally, my C64 project would be to actually find the damn thing! I've been searching all over the house and have found 2 PSUs, 3 boxes full of games, the datasette, 4 joysticks, composite cable & the RF cable, but no actual Commodore 64 computer. I know I haven't thrown it out, so this beast has …

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