Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-03-16, 15:56

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Woohoo! Just picked up an old (and heavy...) KVM switch with serial ports. The seller then said "I also have this bag with random old cards. Want it?" Hell yes. Turns out it's a very big, heavy bag. Can't unpack it yet, but second card (after an 8b ISA printer card) was a PAS16. Looking forward to …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-03-16, 08:46

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Woohoo! Just picked up an old (and heavy...) KVM switch with serial ports. The seller then said "I also have this bag with random old cards. Want it?" Hell yes. Turns out it's a very big, heavy bag. Can't unpack it yet, but second card (after an 8b ISA printer card) was a PAS16. Looking forward to …

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Re: Informal poll on anecdotal failures of blank floppy media, specifically for documents needed for school or work

Posted on 2023-03-16, 08:00

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Never? Hah. Happened regularly. That said it was such a convenient excuse that I suspect the majority of cases were of the "dog ate my homework" type.

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Re: Socket 7: CPU Speed/jumpers, "CPU Plug and Play" boards?

Posted on 2023-03-16, 07:59

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Why not just wire up some switches to the jumpers? You can put them on the outside of the case (maybe on a 5.25" bracket) and do what you want to without having to mess around inside every time.

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Re: IBM Model M Keyboard (1391401): 1990s or 1980's?

Posted on 2023-03-13, 18:20

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thank you for your insightful comments. I think at the end of the day, it comes down to personal preference: To me (personally), the prospect of having a brand new keyboard in a box, seemed appealing. And although I enjoy restoring retro hardware, as much as the rest of you guys, having a pristine, …

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Re: IBM Model M Keyboard (1391401): 1990s or 1980's?

Posted on 2023-03-12, 23:44

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yep 3rd gen IBM Enhanced 'Model M'. You can get them for well under USD 100 on eBay right now. This one appears new but is incomplete. I'd sooner go for the 1st gen incredibly grimy 1390131 board missing one keycap ending in a few hours currently going for USD 31. Chuck keycaps in the washing …

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Re: Old Laptop, Need help for identification, I can't find device drivers

Posted on 2023-03-12, 19:39

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Or alternately, just open it up and look at which chips it has. I find that's frequently the fastest and most fool-proof way.

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Re: IBM Model M Keyboard (1391401): 1990s or 1980's?

Posted on 2023-03-12, 16:50

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've incidently read a lot about different Model Ms recently, and what I've gathered there is no difference at least between the white and blue labels. They are the same keyboard, IBM at some point just transferred keyboard manufacturing to Lexmark division. They were made with same tooling in same …

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Re: Using a DDR 400 on a (it seems) less powerful PC

Posted on 2023-03-09, 15:59

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] I've read the instructions of the notebook, which i've found on a site: https://i.ibb.co/3fVJYvt/image.png Yeah. it seems that it uses 512mbX2. I've found two on Amazon , but... is it a problem if they are not Compaq original, like the manual suggests? The 256MB ram it's a Samsung, but it's …

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Re: Using a DDR 400 on a (it seems) less powerful PC

Posted on 2023-03-09, 14:54

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Within each standard (DDR1 in this case), speeds are backwards compatible. Also, the DIMM itself doesn't clock anything, the memory controller on the motherboard does. So see a speed indication as the speed limit on a road: staying under the limit is always safe, going faster risks crashes. There's …

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Re: General advice for building first retro gaming pc

Posted on 2023-03-06, 23:12

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think you really need to determine whether DOS is in or out, as gen_angry points out, keeping it cheap is a very good idea and part of that is being crystal clear about what you're trying to achieve. His suggestion is excellent if DOS isn't required, but even though you can more or less get the …

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Re: General advice for building first retro gaming pc

Posted on 2023-03-06, 11:52

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

> I want to cover the area from late 1997 to late 2000 if possible. So you are pretty much in the Windows only era, which simplifies things a lot, but covers a good deal of Glide games like Quake 2. I would probably build something like this: Pentium 4 Northwood / Athlon XP (former is probably …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-03-06, 02:17

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] See my post above. This is actually a Honeywell 101WN, which is not mechanical. I'm not too pleased to hear that Alps switches are ALSO a pain to clean, because that is what my Vendex keyboard uses, and that is the one I was most likely to actually try to use. Here's a three-part walkthrough/ …

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Re: Cisco PIX 515 as regular PC

Posted on 2023-03-06, 01:58

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Because digging revealed some info about PREVIOUS version of PiX (506) -- this one was "pure pc" and utilized just ISA "pix board" . Remove board and have standard PC. Insert pix-board to any other PC, set BIOS to boot from "external controller" and voila ... FrankenPix. Also BSD froums had …

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Re: Cisco PIX 515 as regular PC

Posted on 2023-03-05, 14:46

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

How did you determine it was an Intel-made motherboard? And not any other manufacturer utilizing and Intel chipset? There aren't that many Intel-made i430TX boards: AN430TX (ATX form factor) LT430TX (ATX form factor) YM430TX (BabyAT form factor) CN430TC (NLX form factor) However none of the above …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-03-05, 11:52

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Oh gawd... It came with the GOOD AT101 keyboard, and not the later rubber dome "QuietKey" trash!!! This machine is a good getting just for the keyboard alone! Meh, get ready for a very laborious clean then. Old Alps switches are highly regarded, but only when taken apart, cleaned, possibly …

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Re: Cisco PIX 515 as regular PC

Posted on 2023-03-04, 12:36

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Which Intel 440LX board exactly? Is it the AL440LX 'Atlanta'? Or a different one? DOS and the Windows tend to be very reliant on regular PC BIOS, but Linux can boot from a lot more. Possibly you could boot into Linux, flash the board to retail BIOS from there, then see what DOS does

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Re: Kinda lost building my legacy gaming setups and I need YOUR HELP *points finger*

Posted on 2023-03-03, 07:53

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Another vote for slightly lowering the spec of the XP system to the point where Win98SE will run on it. Given your XP games are mostly early and mostly not the most demanding (RTS rather than FPS) that shouldn't be an issue. The elephant in the room is Oblivion, but that's a) a complete outlier in …

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Re: Re-making worst mouse ever

Posted on 2023-03-02, 15:59

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The original Genius 3-button mouse was a torture device. At least this one is round, I still remember palm pain from playing mouse-driven adventure games back when I had the Genius. It was hardly great, but no, there were far, far worse mice. After four years of inflicting RSI on myself with the …

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Re: Build Suggestions - Pairing hardware

Posted on 2023-02-28, 22:53

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] I guess your mother was just being jealous because she liked the computer : ) How old was you? No, she honestly didn't know what to do with 'toy' computers like that. Her expertise was in old Nixdorf and later IBM mainframe machines. It was lack of experience/knowledge combined with worry …

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