Re: 64-bit error message ? zip files ?

Posted on 2018-06-01, 14:39

by

by gca

in Windows

in Windows

If the games in question are 16-bit they won't work on a 64-bit version of windows 7. The minimum that a 64-bit version of windows will run is 32-bit software (that is by design, however the 32-bit version of windows 7 will run 16-bit software just fine which may be where your confusion stems from). …

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Re: Bad caps but no visible signs?

Posted on 2018-06-01, 12:49

by

by gca

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a Dell with the same symptoms which I did manage to coax into running its own diags once (not got that far since) which pointed to the clocks being out (RTC not matching motherboard clock (paraphrased somewhat)). In my case it looks like I have a bad cap (shorted to earth) starving the clock …

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Re: Any Thinkpad lovers here?

Posted on 2018-05-25, 13:29

by

by gca

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Agreed, I've got a G575 ... To be fair, that is not a ThinkPad; rather it's a bottom-tier model from Lenovo's "Essential" line of consumer-focused machines. Don't let that TP-inspired model number fool you! Oops, well that is what I get for posting before checking to ensure that it actually is a …

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Re: Any Thinkpad lovers here?

Posted on 2018-05-24, 23:47

by

by gca

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thinkpads are great for collecting and retro use hands down but the modern ones are disappointment after disappointment and last year I said to hell with it and went Dell and that is with the proper mxm and socketed machines not the bga shit. One of the big problems with modern thinkpads is that …

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

Posted on 2018-05-24, 12:39

by

by gca

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Saved one of my 486 boards from a battery related death. Caught it just as it was starting to affect other components near it. Not using the board for anything but it was from one of the machines that got me through college so its mostly held onto for senitmenal reasons. Trying to work out why my …

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Re: Any Thinkpad lovers here?

Posted on 2018-05-22, 14:34

by

by gca

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah I've got a couple, X20 and T41. Used to have three but one of my T41 boxes died because of the way I was picking it up (had no idea at the time you could blow the bga joint on the gpu by picking it up wrong due to slight mobo flexing). Solid little machines both of which still have a lot of …

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

Posted on 2018-05-16, 14:35

by

by gca

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nothing special, just replaced the cmos battery on my ThinkPad X20. Poor thing was flat as a pancake having been in the machine since it was built (28-August-2000, according to the time stamp in the main battery compartment). Nothing a new battery and some heat shrink couldn't put right. Its been …

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Re: Retro mouse pad? :o

Posted on 2018-05-02, 21:03

by

by gca

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This one may be more vintage than retro, but I bought this mouse and pad a few years ago. I can't even remember if I tested it. It is a Q500 digital mouse made by a company called Chakers INC. Reminds me a lot of the pads we had to use with some of the optical rodents we had at my old workplace …

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Re: DOS Development Forum?

Posted on 2018-04-23, 22:04

by

by gca

in Milliways

in Milliways

Sounds like a good idea to me, the development stuff could easily get lost in the general flow of discussions without their own dedicated forum.

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

Posted on 2018-04-21, 13:09

by

by gca

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Installed XP on my ThinkPad x20 which is a bit of a pain. It has no CD drives and won't boot from any form of USB device. So I had to resort to installing 2003 server in a VM, promote it to a PDC, set up DHCP and DNS before going through setting up RIS. Then use a RIS boot floppy to get the install …

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Re: Oldest Possible Hardware to Run Minecraft

Posted on 2018-04-20, 21:18

by

by gca

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Someone made a partial port for the Amstrad CPC a while back (so, that would be 4MHz Z80 and either 64K or 128K memory (depends on which CPC model they were using)). http://www.indieretronews.com/2015/10/amscraf … mstrad-cpc.html Why? Who knows but they did it anyway.

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Re: Retro mouse pad? :o

Posted on 2018-04-17, 14:34

by

by gca

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

One from a former employer:

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Re: Need new work PC w/o bloatware

Posted on 2018-04-12, 22:12

by

by gca

in Milliways

in Milliways

You could always buy an off the shelf machine then use a generic retail OS to reinstall minus all the bloatware (not sure about activation though). You get a nice bloat free install which might be quicker than trying to eradicate the junk that comes pre-installed these days by hand.

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Re: How many floppy disks do you have? And what do you do with them?

Posted on 2018-03-31, 12:29

by

by gca

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not sure how many I have but they are a mix of mostly 3.5" followed by some 5.25" and even a number of Amstrad CPC 3". Spent a couple of days last year making images of them just in case some of them decide to go bad (not the 3" though, not even sure if it would be possible to make images of those). …

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Re: Lesser known first person shooters

Posted on 2018-03-16, 23:36

by

by gca

in Milliways

in Milliways

timb.us wrote: DosFreak wrote: Here’s my pick for a FPS series that’s not talked about enough: Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Sex Ah, are you sure about that last word or are you thinking of a VERY different game to the one I remember?

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Re: Lesser known first person shooters

Posted on 2018-03-14, 13:56

by

by gca

in Milliways

in Milliways

Marathon, that's all I can think of ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_(video_game) ) played it a couple of times on my G3 iMac but never got into it.

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Re: Who ever had Mac?

Posted on 2018-03-01, 12:34

by

by gca

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

G3 iMac running OS X with 256MB memory and its original HDD the size of which escapes me right now. Sadly the RTC battery is dead so I have to keep resetting the date every time I power it up but that's no great hardship. Only annoyance is using it on-line. Any site that uses HTTPS causes the …

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Re: Daemon or burn in ISO?

Posted on 2018-02-22, 13:39

by

by gca

in Milliways

in Milliways

ISO mounting for me, unless you get a title that refuses to work that way and wont even start from a physical CD if daemon is present. Also use them for playing with various OS in a VM which takes up far less space that a room full of machines with random retro operating systems installed on them ( …

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Re: QuickBASIC: Any DirectQB/BWSB tutorials available?

Posted on 2018-02-13, 14:39

by

by gca

in Milliways

in Milliways

There are a few tutorials here http://www.petesqbsite.com/sections/tutorials … tutorials.shtml the site hasn't been updated for a long time but the links still work so you can get the tutorials.

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Re: Most frustrating part of working on old computers?

Posted on 2018-02-13, 13:48

by

by gca

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not really related to working ON old machines but living WITH them. Relations constantly trying to get you to thin down the collection and get rid of stuff because it's so old. Eh, no! I have piles of ancient software and peripherals that won't run right (if at all) on newer systems. And many of the …

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