Re: Ensoniq / Creative AudioPCI

Posted on 2019-04-25, 11:21

by

by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I've done a little bit of experimentation. I tried running it on my P3-667 with SB-live, but it divide by zero error occurs, and doesn't start. Next I installed it on my 486-DX2 66, starts fine. In this machine, I have a CQM based sound blaster 16. * With CQM, the music is sorta OK, but the digital …

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Re: Ensoniq / Creative AudioPCI

Posted on 2019-04-25, 06:28

by

by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Yeah, you are right. That is certainly an edge case, probably won't work well with SB Live.

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Re: Ensoniq / Creative AudioPCI

Posted on 2019-04-25, 01:57

by

by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Sound blaster live emulates FM synthesis a lot better than the AudioPCI. I wouldn't put up against a real OPL3, but it isn't plainly broken like the vortex or AudioPCI's attempts at it

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Re: 16 bit ISA lan card for 386, 486?

Posted on 2019-04-24, 14:18

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You will find lots of NE2000 and compatible network cards, like the first one you purchased. They are not fast, not sexy, but typically work well enough if you find the appropriate driver disk. You may need to remove the novell sticker to find the chipset for this card, to find appropriate drivers. …

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Re: A tale of two PSUs

Posted on 2019-04-24, 12:56

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hmmm, the primary side capacitors rarely fail in PSUs, and I didn't notice any significant bulge, so I'd bet money on it being perfectly fine.

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Re: A tale of two PSUs

Posted on 2019-04-24, 09:14

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hmmm, that PSU actually looks pretty good. I wouldn't bother recapping it as Rubycon capacitors rarely fail without serious provocation. it might be causing your problems however, you have to test with a different PSU.

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Re: Green Battery leak repair advice.

Posted on 2019-04-24, 02:37

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Edit: Never tried soap... I'd be afraid of the non-soluble compounds it makes... Dishwashing liquid is good for breaking down grease and mucky dust that often builds up on old hardware. It hasn't hurt any of the hardware that I have used it on, just be sure to liberally rinse it off once you have …

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Re: Green Battery leak repair advice.

Posted on 2019-04-24, 01:16

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Vinegar and a scrubbing brush. Then soak/wash in soapy water for a minute. Put in oven at 70C for a few hours to dry it out fully. Then test and see what works and what doesn't. If you have soldering iron, use it to go over any traces that look damaged from the battery. If you can, replace any …

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Re: Hyped for my new 98/XP computer!

Posted on 2019-04-23, 15:05

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

http://m.ebay.com/itm/1pc-used-Advantech-Industrial-Motherboard-AIMB-742-478-865G-with-2-ISA-/142540772206?nav=SEARCH OR https://m.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=aimb-865+v1.0s1.2&isNewKw=1&_sop=12&_pgn=1&epp=24&itemId=&fads=1&mfs=GOCLK&acimp=0&sqp=aimb-865+v1.0s1.2&_trksid=p2053742.m2428.l1313.TR0.TRC0. …

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Re: Anyone try a new off-brand PSU w/ strong 5v rail?

Posted on 2019-04-23, 14:12

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah, try adding a hard drive. the 12V load of a Pentium III system with only ssds is going to be very very low. Given your 550W PSU is really rear bottom of the barrel in terms of design and probably construction, I will echo other people saying that your system is suffering from extreme crossload. …

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Re: The myth of the vertical retrace interrupt on EGA/VGA

Posted on 2019-04-21, 14:55

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I have one of these cards. https://computer-retro.de/Bilder/Grafikkarten/Trident-TVGA9000-FCC-ID-HNG2YPTVGA-06X4LT2-Quadtel-Alltronic-386-SX20-ISA-Taiwan-1991.jpg IRQ2 is not actually connected to the trident chip, but the pin on the ISA connector is routed to the top, along with the IRQ pin from …

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Re: Performance comparison of CPU: 286-25 vs 386DX-25 vs 386SX-25

Posted on 2019-04-20, 18:10

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've done a few benchmarks on my own 386SX-25. While your 286 still seems to beat it most of the time, my 386-SX 25mhz is definitely a fair bit faster than your example. I am using 70ns RAM, running with 0WS on read and write ram (according to bios), and 2/4 bus ratio. Chipset is Opti and using …

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Re: Hardware-hacking to "blend" motherboards from 2 different times

Posted on 2019-04-19, 04:30

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'll make it simple Its not really possible, you would need to change the chipset, you would need a new BIOS and a new board. It would turn out to be the same as the donor board you took the PCI chipset from, rather than your favorite ISA only 486.

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Re: Rage Fury Pro problem

Posted on 2019-04-19, 04:03

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I think you press F7A03 to save and exit (looking for that key on my keyboard still) Not sure if there is any particular reason to spend too much time on this card, unless you can see something obvious damaged.

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Re: Hardware-hacking to "blend" motherboards from 2 different times

Posted on 2019-04-19, 03:48

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Why not use the PCI 486 motherboard as it is? It will have ISA sockets. I must admit to being utterly confused your thinking process here.

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

Posted on 2019-04-17, 10:52

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I re-calibrated the top head position on a 3.5inch floppy drive by hand as well. I used a disk reading program to see what tracks the drive could see and properly read, and using a floppy formatted on a different drive, I simply moved the head back and forth until it was able to properly read …

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Re: Jumper settings for STB Trident 9000 ?

Posted on 2019-04-15, 11:40

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

If I were a betting man, and looking at my card. I'd say Jumpers 2,3,4 switch between 16 and 8 bit mode, and J1 at the top might change the display mode between interlaced and non-interlaced for high resolutions.

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Re: AWE64 Gold change

Posted on 2019-04-13, 14:22

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

No, it's not that. IMHO Hevy doesn't mean FM versions difference. I think he means WAVE/FM sounds difference. As I said it is the only way to use SB/SBpro/clone. FM version OPL/CQM doesn't matter. Hevy , replace your AWE with any cheap sbpro clone and try. If success install both as I've shown you. …

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Re: AWE64 Gold change

Posted on 2019-04-13, 11:25

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

You will need to change it for something with OPL2/OPL3 on it. AWE64 uses CQM rather than FM synthesis, so it doesn't sound quite like DOSBOX or a proper OPL2/3 sound card would in price of persia. Edit: you would struggle with both a OPL3 based sound blaster and AWE64 card installed. Better to just …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-04-13, 08:58

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Oh yeah, I should have mentioned the model name. I am pretty sure it isn't jumper configured, more of a non-PnP but software configured SB16 Oh, I was wrong, did some research, and the jumpers above the vibra chip actually do configure the resources used by the card when powered up. So it is usable …

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