Re: The late 1997 - early 1998 build I never had. Until now?

Posted on 2021-03-18, 17:34

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I remember the excitement at this newfangled slot mechanism. A cartridge! It was almost like having a SNES again ;) Has anyone had much experience with dual Slot 1 builds? Are there any issues with drivers or gaming performance under Windows 98, specifically with the LX chipset and the initial …

---

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

Posted on 2021-03-18, 12:59

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I hate bent pins. This DX4ODP100 was utterly mashed up. Managed to get almost everything reasonably straight when this corner pin S17, ADS, broke :( 16160708699880.jpg Might be able to sort of fix it, but at best this will now be a fragile CPU to gingerly lower into a socket once and keep it there …

---

Re: The late 1997 - early 1998 build I never had. Until now?

Posted on 2021-03-18, 12:49

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] It’s actually almost impossible for anyone to visit the mainland, despite Beijing calling Hong Kong ‘one of us / ours’ and all that. Without getting political and going off topic (though I have many opinions on this) let’s just say they’ve made it extremely hard for the average visitor to …

---

Re: The late 1997 - early 1998 build I never had. Until now?

Posted on 2021-03-18, 12:25

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Dionb:Thank YOU for these nuggets. Reading your post was like a goldmine - and I love the InWin cases at the end (still a very respectable case maker now) - the V500 and A500 in particular. Unfortunately, eBay doesn’t seem to have any so I’ll need to keep a beady eye peeled the next time I …

---

Re: Identifying Chipsets/motherboard

Posted on 2021-03-17, 23:54

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nope. This little brown slot is probably one of AMR / CNR / ACR . Probably most useless slot in computer history, albeit available on many motherboards. Actually extremely useful for a very limited purpose for a very limited time. And that purpose was mainly legal/regulatory. Useless now if you …

---

Re: The late 1997 - early 1998 build I never had. Until now?

Posted on 2021-03-17, 23:41

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] I would like this to be as period accurate as possible (and I’m still in Hong Kong so shipping from USA / Poland / Russia - where most vintage PC parts seem to be found on eBay) is expensive, but doable and something I’m willing to absorb in this endeavour. I accidentally accepted a seller’s …

---

Re: Magical Power Supply?

Posted on 2021-03-16, 22:21

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

WazMeister wrote on 2021-03-16, 11:24: Year I've opened and listened. […] Show full quote Year I've opened and listened. Was getting these noises before sound card was installed, but its a ESS 1869 ESDRV GOLD16k PSU is Samsung 103C photos below That's just the case of the PSU. What did you see on …

---

Re: AT motherboard ATX PSU with AT attachment?

Posted on 2021-03-16, 17:26

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

DON'T DO THAT! IT WILL TOAST YOUR BOARD AND/OR PSU! What you have is an early ATX PSU with AUX 3.3V connector. What you need is an AT PSU with P8 and P9 connectors, which are physically the same as the AUX 3.3V connector, but wired very differently. This connector will short all kinds of things in …

---

Re: Have anyone actually gotten hardware damaged due to using old PSUs?

Posted on 2021-03-16, 17:23

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sounds like we have two different discussions here. ESD is unprovable as failure cause without access to the kind of electron microscope wiretap has access to, but I've seen the pictures of ESD at that level and they are clear enough. I've also seen concrete examples of differences in return rates …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-03-16, 16:41

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

yeah, I'm just missing a PCM12 now to have the entire range from that site in my collection, already got a PCM1 pro, FM10 and PCM10 and ^^ afaik the only ones that support the OPL4 in DOS are the PCM12 and PCM20 Yep. My PCM1Pro certainly doesn't. Looks beautiful and sounds decent in Windows though. …

---

Re: Identifying Chipsets/motherboard

Posted on 2021-03-16, 16:29

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Ah so I should get a PCI card for sound too Possibly, but be aware of the limitation. DOS basically doesn't know or support PCI so any PCI card needs to use some kind of workaround to allow themselves to be addressed using the ISA resources (DMA, IRQ) that DOS programs expect. CMI-8378 is …

---

Re: Identifying Chipsets/motherboard

Posted on 2021-03-16, 10:52

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Tyrant wrote on 2021-03-16, 09:08: [...] Nah it's not a PCI sound card it's attached to the board And exactly how does the chip communicate with the rest of the system? Look up CMI-8378, it's a PCI chip, regardless of whether it's on a separate card or soldered onto the motherboard.

---

Re: Magical Power Supply?

Posted on 2021-03-16, 09:55

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

More specs needed... what sound card? What PSU? What motherboard? Some sound cards are unshielded with unfiltered 12V/5V lines. Any crap in EMI (over the air) or via the power lines will be picked up and amplified. As for the PSU, it could be anythng from coil whine to spluttering leaking caps or …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-03-15, 23:57

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

miroSOUND PCM20 radio :3 with PCM1 manuals? including the MIDI/line breakout box, no joystick adapter unfortunately, but that shouldn't be too hard to make. hardware40_20.jpg I've never heard of these! Cool. http://dosdays.co.uk/topics/Manufacturers/miro.php It's a German brand sold mainly in ( …

---

Re: Do your old builds have 5.25 floppy drives and ISA cards?

Posted on 2021-03-15, 23:46

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] One thing I've never gotten a clear answer on really: can anyone actually hear the difference between a real ISA sound card and DOSBox or PCEm emulation, or is it just the value of knowing you are running a real card? Which has real value, I don't deny (as someone who has an MT-32 despite …

---

Re: Do your old builds have 5.25 floppy drives and ISA cards?

Posted on 2021-03-15, 22:18

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Of course the real retro-snobs here have two 5.25" floppy drives in their retro PCs: a 360KB Double Density drive, and a 1.2MB High Density drive, due to mutual incompatibilities between the two. :grin: Ah, but what do they do with 3.5" with such a setup? Period-correct 4-drive controller? Or LS- …

---

Re: Do your old builds have 5.25 floppy drives and ISA cards?

Posted on 2021-03-15, 19:43

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Unless you have specific archiving requirements (a trunk full of unique stuff on 5.25" disks), 5.25" drives are purely cosmetic on all but the very oldest systems (and many a 5150 has XTIDE with CF card onboard for good reason regardless). But ISA sound is different. In DOS era, certainly the pre- …

---

Re: Recommend me a multimeter

Posted on 2021-03-15, 16:02

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If budget is tight, I'd say take a look at Conrad's Voltcraft range. Their VC175 is the cheapest that does capacitance, it cost me EUR 37, and they still ship to UK. Oh, and it has a continuity beeper 😀 (add true RMS to that and you end up with the VC185 for about EUR 55)

---

Re: Getting ancient ASC-88 SCSI controller to do something useful

Posted on 2021-03-14, 10:05

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nope, afraid this card is most definitely AWOL. It's probably still in the room *somewhere*, but not anywhere I can find. Sorry.

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-03-12, 23:31

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Wolfus wrote on 2021-03-11, 22:48: [...] Congratulations to your promotion! 👍 Tnx 😀

---