Re: Pentium with no L2.

Posted on 2019-03-01, 00:56

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In cases whereby one motherboard shows a marked improvement when using SDRAM over EDO, it would be very interesting to compare such a board with another of an identical chipset which did not show improvement when using SDRAM. It is possible that the board which you suspect is dodgy may just be able …

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Re: Pentium with no L2.

Posted on 2019-02-28, 22:48

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I assume that with faster CPUs L2 is much more significant, but for a Pentium with SDRAM is right on the edge of L2 speeds. This is only an assumption as I have no EDO ram to test. On my 430TX board, SDRAM did not offer any speed benefit to EDO. In fact, I was able to set the RAM timings faster …

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Re: Authenticity vs Power

Posted on 2019-02-28, 16:37

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yep. And in fact even back in 1996/1997, the difference in CPU and VGA might have been huge, but if you had an 'old' Gravis Ultrasound and/or Sound Blaster AWE32, not to mention a good mechanical keyboard, there would have been little reason to upgrade those parts even if you'd just upgraded your …

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Re: Game pads for DOS ?

Posted on 2019-02-28, 16:26

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You know, we'd be a lot more likely to help you if you gave the impression of at least having Googled the question before dumping it here... Game controllers were invented in the DOS era and as with most DOS stuff, games need to address the hardware directly, but pretty much any one will work, …

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Re: Intel 82706 Graphic Card

Posted on 2019-02-27, 20:28

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Interesting beast! It's a Hercules card, and if that's an Intel 82706 (can't make it out on the picture), VGA. The right-hand side of the card is pretty standard, the left less so. That 50p connector at the top looks SCSI-ish, but the socketed chip is a TMS34010 i.e. TIGA, which would suggest SVGA …

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Re: Authenticity vs Power

Posted on 2019-02-27, 16:25

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] That is so pointless it is funny again! :D But no one beats Windows XP on 7 MHz: https://www.winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini.htm Yep, my setup was basically the 16MHz he did there - not 100% sure, but probably also a late SiS 486 chipset - just with more RAM. Tempted to start looking for an …

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Re: 8BIT ISA SERIAL I/O TO PS2 MOUSE

Posted on 2019-02-27, 16:17

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Great idea. I'd be happy to help too - my love of old computers does not extend to old pointing devices, and whereas I can get my preferred trackballs down to PS/2, they don't talk native serial. Also, PS/2 plays nice with my KVM-switch. All in all lots of PS/2 things I could plug into it to check …

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Re: Authenticity vs Power

Posted on 2019-02-27, 16:07

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

486 with 32MB RAM? Amateur! 15 years ago I was running one with more than that, I found one that would take 128MB 72p FP SIMMs and did 256 MB :P (also installed Windows XP on the system using a PODP83, then clocked it down to 16MHz for the most pointlessly slow experience I could generate :dead: ). …

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

Posted on 2019-02-27, 15:50

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I love my MCE2VGA :) Been playing around with mono modes on an ATi Small Wonder (CGA+Hercules). With Hercules the difference between analog and TTL mono is striking; TTL is crisp and clear, analog is downright fuzzy, although it looks fine if you switch to CGA (i.e. low-res) output. Of course, this …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-02-27, 08:35

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So, it's time for mine january-february haul report: [...] Aztech Sound Galaxy Basic 16 Lots of stuff happening here. Still, sadly there's no geniune OPL3 here Ooh, that's a nice one. It may not have an OPL3 with genuine Yamaha markings, but that LS-212 is an exact 1:1 copy so should sound exactly …

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Re: Max memory for Asus p55t2p4

Posted on 2019-02-26, 13:57

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Exactly. Also not every sram was made equal so a "bad" one could have limited you to less than a speedy 83mhz. Albeit it was hard to gauge which IC was the limiting factor. At least in the case of the tag being the bad guy a daring "enthusiast" could have soldered in a "better" one. Fortunately …

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Re: Max memory for Asus p55t2p4

Posted on 2019-02-26, 12:16

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] AFAIK the TAG ram has nothing to do with the ability to reach 83MHz FSB. Yes it does - it's also a RAM chip with a max speed. If you have a slow Tag, it'll limit your clocking as much as slow RAM or cache. This is an issue as COAST was a transitional technology at the very beginning of PLB …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-02-25, 21:54

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Just busting your chops. Personally I have no qualms picking up hardware for cheap like that because I have to do all the legwork, like you said, with testing, cleaning, etc. Yep. Next time your conscience plays up in a similar situation, keep track of the time you spend on what you buy and …

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Re: Need Help Identifying 486 MB and Upgrade Potential

Posted on 2019-02-23, 21:35

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's a voltage thing. Non-overdrive DX4s use 3V-3.45V, this board can only do 5V. Interposers exist that can regulate the voltage down to 3V, but they are rare. I found one (broken, and repaired it) and use it to run a DX4-100 on a board like this. As for HDD - possibly there's a newer system BIOS …

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Re: Compaq Deskpro XE466 - Bios on disk?

Posted on 2019-02-22, 23:18

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The BIOS itself is on the motherboard, but Compaq was famous (though by no means unique - IBM did the same on many models) for not having a BIOS setup utility on the motherboard, but keeping that as a separate piece of software that had to be run from a disk. However this seems to be a very late …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-02-22, 14:11

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] The lack of I/O is a minor issue, pci/vlb/isa cards can solve that. The fact that there is no manual or markings on the board is a bigger problem. This will require alot of fiddling around to get everything going. I am wondering what the crystal socket next to the VLB slot is intended for.. …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-02-22, 13:01

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I bought this motherboard last Friday and received it today: Spring Circle SF586 REV VIP3A.jpg Spring Circle SF586 REV VIP3A motherboard. This freak board has Socket 5 with PCI, ISA and VLB... Still searching for all the info I can find but there is hardly info regarding this board. :angry: Hope I …

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Re: My DOS Rig hates DOS Games

Posted on 2019-02-22, 12:42

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

PnP SB16 does not require TSR, but it does require the init utility (CTCM) to run. This forum is a bit split on whether SB16 advantages are overrated or maybe 100% SBPro compatibility importance is overrated, and how terrible it is if you don't have a real OPL3, and so forth. When you are offering …

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Re: My DOS Rig hates DOS Games

Posted on 2019-02-22, 10:00

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Do you still have the AZT2320-based sound card? I'd consider it broadly superior to a finicky, buggy, TSR-requiring SB16 for most DOS games. It has better SBPro2 compatibility than the SB16, also a real OPL3, less own noise, no MIDI hanging note bugs and above all it doesn't need anything more than …

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

Posted on 2019-02-21, 21:58

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ugh the smell of blown tantalum cap just doesn't want to get out of my fingers... Fortunately it was worth it. My colleagues who gave me a beautiful ancient NEC mono monitor wanted to see it in action. So I decided to build a tiny PC I could easily take to work. It's based on a Cx486SLC/e board that …

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