Re: Green thinking still companies change computers every 3 years.

Posted on 2020-02-18, 14:56

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There's nothing wrong with replacing PCs after three years, as long as they are not just trashed. I know many companies myself that donate old PCs to schools etc. But companies must do that for various reasons. First, time is money. Yes, a 3-year old PC might still work, but it can hardly keep up …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-02-18, 13:53

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The huge hauls are going to keep happening, but they will be for P4 and Athlon64, Xeon and Opteron stuff. Not for 1980s. Well, mostly. And yeah, the things I've thrown out or given away... the stuff I offloaded when I moved from house with cellar and shed to small appartment without storage would be …

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Re: Asus P2B-DS dual CPU

Posted on 2020-02-18, 12:59

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What you would you use such old dual slot server motherboard for? As some kind of linux server? I have a gigabyte GA-6BXD with dual P3 450Mhz attached to it, but I have no idea what I would use such thing for personally. Would there be some retro use that a Windows NT 4.0 would be best suited for? …

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Re: Alpha hardware for Windows 2000

Posted on 2020-02-18, 12:54

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The firmware is what you need to look for: ARC firmware: Win2k compatible (and other OS a pain) SRM firmware: incompatible with Win2k, plays nice with OpenVMS and Unixen Check here: https://www.debian.org/releases/squeeze/alpha/ch05s01.html.en System Type Console Type Supported alcor ARC or SRM …

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Re: Found ABIT AB-BH6 Slot 1, Seeking to Identify hardware...

Posted on 2020-02-18, 08:49

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Hmm.. okay, here's another thing :- a. External Midi players, are meant or mostly build, for older DOS games, right(like Monkey Island 1/2, Doom.. etc)? Since Pentium 2 is not able to slow down(say slow till 386 or 486) to accommodate older DOS games, than it is pretty much suitable for …

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Re: Running without chipset drivers

Posted on 2020-02-18, 08:43

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

No computer will work without chipset drivers. The question is whether whatever default is in your OS will function at an acceptable level. Generally hardware that is common and (slightly) older than the operating system in question will work out-of-the-box, take Dochartaigh's i440BX-based …

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

Posted on 2020-02-18, 00:52

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A colleague of mine at one of our other engineering departments turned up at work last week with a fairly original (late 1970s clone) Pong game. Primitive but great fun - and amazing what purely analog circuitry can do. But of course I'm not going to get outdone here, and neither is our department, …

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Re: Is it even possible to save a "fried" board?

Posted on 2020-02-17, 18:52

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have an update! I examined the board and found what seems to be the damaged component. The only problem is that I don't know what this component is, and the damage makes its markings unreadable. https://twitter.com/EvieSigma/status/1229463278675546112?s=09 That's a MOSFET in the power regulation, …

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Re: Found ABIT AB-BH6 Slot 1, Seeking to Identify hardware...

Posted on 2020-02-17, 18:47

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] a. Yes, I did mentioned 1980s, as I thought to re-build it like "all in one 80s-2000s" Gaming Era! LOL! :D hehehe... since that's not possible, I will re-built it accordingly to the P2 era gaming.... b. Thanks for sharing the link. I check the SoundCard compatible list, and OMG, This …

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Re: Tube Time: Announcing The Snark Barker, a 100% Compatible SB 1.0 Replica!

Posted on 2020-02-17, 14:52

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Wow, sounds good. Looking forward to the mail!

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Re: Recommendation for a pci sound card that will work with a SC-55

Posted on 2020-02-17, 13:32

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Exactly which motherboard do you have? PC/PCI (SBLink) might be an option, in which case a YMF7xx card would be perfect as they almost all support it.

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Re: Is it even possible to save a "fried" board?

Posted on 2020-02-17, 13:07

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Core crunch? Do you mean the CPU die? I know the die getting broken was a problem back in this era... Yes, that's what i'm referring to. Essentially the die is a bit of brittle glass, and in the Athlon(XP) series it was very exposed and very easy to break a corner off. That generally means …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-02-17, 12:57

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Yeah, from what I can tell it is a Model 2168 of some sort. Motherboard jumper settings on Statson has some weird PSU connectors apart from the AT connector, but I'm not sure if these are actually used or not. Regardless, if I can just find a way to mount a 3.5" floppy drive on there, it will …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-02-17, 12:45

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] My real question here though, IBM stuff are notorious for being terribly proprietary and the PSU here is obviously not AT. How about the rest of the system? Can I just plug in an ISA Multi IO and assume everything will work on IDE? Have I made a dumb purchase? Of course, this isn't an AT case …

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Re: Promise SATA150 TX2Plus: how to use + no CD-ROM?

Posted on 2020-02-16, 23:22

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As in your previous topics, you're getting into a mess by trying to do everything at once. Take it one step at a time, get one configuration working before adding a single extra component... [...] So (taking a deep breath lol ;) me attempting to use the Promise controller is actually me trying to …

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Re: Is it even possible to save a "fried" board?

Posted on 2020-02-16, 23:06

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Could be, on the other hand Gigabyte tended to have better caps than most. I'd say core crunch is at least as likely.

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Re: Promise SATA150 TX2Plus: how to use + no CD-ROM?

Posted on 2020-02-16, 19:51

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You need to get into the Promise card's BIOS to set everything up. Without configuring stuff in the card's BIOS it will never work. Ctrl-F is the key combo to get into the card's BIOS. You must do this on the POST screen when it says it is loading the card's BIOS. They usually come up with a …

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Re: Promise SATA150 TX2Plus: how to use + no CD-ROM?

Posted on 2020-02-16, 19:16

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As in your previous topics, you're getting into a mess by trying to do everything at once. Take it one step at a time, get one configuration working before adding a single extra component... I'm not convinced by what Der Sammler said about the TX2Plus BIOS rendering the onboard IDE inoperable. I …

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Re: Found ABIT AB-BH6 Slot 1, Seeking to Identify hardware...

Posted on 2020-02-16, 18:50

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As for the Vibra, see here: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=60063 CT2960 isn't the worst, but it's not great: - CQM, not OPL3 (so old 'AdLib' music might sound a bit harsh). - Pretty much every kind of Soundblaster MIDI bug out there. Don't use this card for MIDI. - Singing/hissing after …

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Re: Olivetti M290 how to go into bios?

Posted on 2020-02-16, 13:43

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

First hit on Google with "Olivetti M290 BIOS": the original Olivetti documentation: https://secure.corradoroberto.it/doc/olivetti/systems1/cap32.pdf BUILT IN SETUP and EXTENDED SETUP UtilitiesBUILT IN SETUPThis program, resident in ROM BIOS, allows users to change some of the Personal Computer con- …

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