Re: Identifying old PC hardware\chip company logos?

Posted on 2020-02-16, 10:05

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As for that other site, maybe this one: http://plasma-online.de/english/identify/pict … x_logochip.html Most of the site's functionality went down when they migrated to idhw.com some 10-15 years ago, but crucially the manufacturer pics weren't migrated. They can still be seen on the old site.

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

Posted on 2020-02-16, 00:13

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Trying to upgrade my iMac from 10.3 Panther to 10.4 Tiger. Should be straightforward, verification of DVD went fine, but "there were errors, try again". Mac is great when things go OK and totally opaque when they don't... oh well, trying again, now as a complete clean install.

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Re: Award BIOS Settings for FIC VA-503+ Motherboard

Posted on 2020-02-16, 00:01

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What OS are you running? That aside, there are quite a lot of performance-related settings on Disabled, things like: - Write Cache Pipeline - PCI Dynamic Bursting - PCI Delay Transaction - PCI Master Read Prefetch No idea exactly how much real-life benefit these things will give, but it's worth a …

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Re: To find the right projects and retro computers AKA what should I build or focus on? (486,Pentium 1-4?)

Posted on 2020-02-15, 21:12

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Those arguments towards a versatile 486 play right into my need of one :P And I'll have a look into the Coppermine P3s. Prices are not too inflated. Is it absolutely neccesary to have a Socket 370 board with ISA or is a PCI card compatible enough for the games a P3 would run (the ones that are too …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-02-15, 18:26

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

bearking wrote on 2020-02-15, 18:13: [...] Is it soldered to the mainboard? No, inserted into a LIF socket. That's my trusty DataExpert Opti495SX-VL2 board, with both 132p and 168p LIF sockets for pretty much any 5V 386 or 486 CPU.

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Re: To find the right projects and retro computers AKA what should I build or focus on? (486,Pentium 1-4?)

Posted on 2020-02-15, 16:06

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thank you a lot for your detailed reply and all the information about Ultima 7. I knew it's a tricky game to run and my DosBox runs were not were pleasant, I also wasn't into the alternatives and the real thing, as in having a running machine for it, would be amazing! I only have basic knowledge …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-02-15, 14:25

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A little gem: Filename 15817587265700.jpg File size 114.52 KiB Views 789 views

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Re: Bunch of soundcards, anything particularly worthy of interest?

Posted on 2020-02-14, 18:31

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

[...] Very interesting about the NXPro, particularly WSS and Covox as I have 0 experience with them. Looks like I will be having some fun testing stuff :) Many thanks, so there definitely were interesting things I would have missed! Glad I posted :) cheers Covox is pretty unique, just a resistor …

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Re: Bunch of soundcards, anything particularly worthy of interest?

Posted on 2020-02-14, 10:07

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

That ALS100 looks different from mine which doesn't have the Crystal chip on board, so take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt. ALS100 is a SB16 compatible card with proper High DMA functionality. I have tested about 30 games with it and have yet to encounter one which didn't work. Games …

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Re: To find the right projects and retro computers AKA what should I build or focus on? (486,Pentium 1-4?)

Posted on 2020-02-14, 09:31

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You wrote Ultima 7. That's the kind of game to build a system around, both because it is epic and because it really needs a specific speed to work properly, and that's a late 386 or early 486, specifically a 486DX-33 with about 4MB of RAM, with 386DX-40 being second choice. It also is incompatible …

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Re: Any love for AM2?

Posted on 2020-02-12, 15:18

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have an Asrock AM2NF3 board with Phenom2 x4 CPU on it. I run Linux on it and use it as general purpose desktop/HDD test machine in my retro area. Not entirely happy with it - it's a bit slow/unresponsive for modern stuff, but at the same time the FDC only supports a single drive. I'm going to move …

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

Posted on 2020-02-12, 12:19

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I keep finding internal Zip drives. Have a little pile I need to test one day. Don't have a sensible use for them though, so I'd agree with appiah4 that they are mainly of cosmetic interest. An external drive can be useful for file transfer, but is hardly more practical than CF cards or a Gotek.

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Re: I recently found this hardware, AKA the Dumpster find thread.

Posted on 2020-02-12, 11:11

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, this came out of a transfer station, so I guess it counts. The case was horrible, so finding a nice one. 100mhz of pentium socket7 glory. It will be my DOS machine, if I can get it to POST. Currently I get a long beep, silence, long beep, silence, ad infinitum. Preliminary findings indicate …

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Re: P5I430VX/250 socket 7 what jumper setting for bigger CPUs ?

Posted on 2020-02-11, 22:07

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You're forgetting the most relevant section, the voltages. According to TH99 the board has settings down to 2.5V. That's far too high for K6Plus CPUs, but fine for K6-3 (non-plus) and a bit high but not dangerous if your cooling is decent for K6-2. If you're trying to use unsupported CPUs, first …

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Re: 9x Era PC Setup Help

Posted on 2020-02-11, 20:41

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] One last thing: I would consider building something that had a good ISA card for DOS + a good WDM card for DirectX and early games on Windows. So there's one piece of this puzzle left; what good card to use for Windows? or should I just use the spare Audigy 2 ZS that I have in order to …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-02-11, 20:23

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Parcel arrived today: 15814493228420.jpg Inside everything was almost mint: 15814493943721.jpg 15814494503482.jpg Only thing missing is the CD,even the velcro feet are unused. For once it just works too, at least in regular gamepad emulation under DOS. Surprisingly the pads are pretty good, much …

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Re: Help to identify an Aztech soundcard

Posted on 2020-02-11, 16:29

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Quite an interesting Aztech card. I'm wondering whether the jack is a speaker/line out jack or an input jack (line in/mic in). I agree with imi. Try the drivers for I38-MMSN826. Hopefully the jack is a line out jack which you can then connect to your speakers. MMSN826 matches the AZT2316 and the …

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Re: 9x Era PC Setup Help

Posted on 2020-02-11, 16:14

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Would you still recommend DOS & Windows on dual boot even if I run that specific DOS software in MS-DOS mode (given that I manage to fix this USB / PS/2 mouse inconvenience)? Also if you do, would they still play nice if I add another hard drive and install DOS on that one, then dual boot …

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Re: Sound Blaster 128 and SBLive

Posted on 2020-02-11, 14:44

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Neither PCI card is really recommended for DOS, but given that, the SBLive has far better SNR, so whatever sound it makes will at least sound crystal clear. You will need nasty TSR drivers in any event. Exactly what other options you may have depend on your system - what motherboard are you using?

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Re: 9x Era PC Setup Help

Posted on 2020-02-11, 14:37

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] - Soltek SL-75KAV with some capacitors replaced (most of them on top of the CPU next to some voltage regulators that had to be definitely bad since they were all swollen) Motherboards of that era in general and Soltek boards in particular were notorious for capacitor plague. Dead right you …

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