Re: Where to get bracket for Vibra 16S?

Posted on 2019-05-22, 20:16

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

That card seems to lack more than just a bracket - also a bunch of capacitors, and a transistor. A complete CT2800 looks like this - http://hw.fagear.ru/wp-content/uploads/20140413_615962.jpg Probably not worthy of spending any resources to fix it...

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Re: VLB VGA total ram amount

Posted on 2019-05-21, 18:41

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Indeed, 8 x 4x256K = 1 MB CL-GD5428 supports up to 2 MB, so there may be sockets for additional RAM on that card.

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Re: Promise EIDEMAX manual request

Posted on 2019-05-21, 18:35

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It would be nice to upload the content of that diskette as well. It seems that my clone card came without any software, so I feel like experimenting with the stuff from Promise. Thank you in advance!

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Re: Promise EIDEMAX manual request

Posted on 2019-05-20, 20:30

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm using the card as a secondary IDE controller as my machine only have one, and I disabled the BIOS. Then how are you accessing the drive(s) connected to it? Some driver for DOS? Or Windows? Anyway, I've found the manual for my card, but that's probably not what you're looking for - my card is …

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Re: Promise EIDEMAX manual request

Posted on 2019-05-20, 17:13

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've got a similar card, and noticed one little problem: its BIOS steals a few KB of RAM at the top of conventional memory, leaving less than 640 KB. Does your card also behave this way? I'm wondering what to do: just live with it, or experiment with some other BIOS - perhaps XUB?

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2019-05-20, 15:22

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Obviously there's a need for "Amiga vs. PC advocacy" thread 😁

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2019-05-16, 04:43

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

realnc wrote: If Grzyb has a point, I'm struggling to understand what it is. Can someone enlighten me? The point is simple: We all agree that Amiga computers were good for games. But some people claim they were also good for other purposes, especially compared with PC - and this I'm not buying, …

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2019-05-15, 20:32

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just like your claim of PCs having a HDD by default since 1983. Yes, if you google, you will find that PCs with HDDs installed as standard were sold that early. However, what you can't easily google is that the majority of PC users still used low-end 8088 floppy-only machines late into the 80s. …

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2019-05-15, 18:41

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Oh, there was a lot of people who needed something faster than 68000@7MHz, or even 68020@14MHz - but those people were usually purchasing various accelerators, 3rd party tower cases, and so on. They were? I never saw them. Well, I don't know details, ask appiah4, as he was writing: TF530, …

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2019-05-15, 17:27

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think that has more to do with the fact that the A3000 wasn't very useful for most people. Amiga 500/1000/2000 set the standard, and most software didn't require more than that. So for most people there was little reason to spend the extra money on an A3000. Oh, there was a lot of people who …

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2019-05-15, 12:20

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you look at my 500 that I have on my blog, then I have a machine with VGA output, harddrive and lots of ram. It is just over 7 times faster than a stock Amiga1200 and 2 times faster than a stock Amiga 3000. It has some 60/70 percent of an Amiga3000's features too. And it is all internally …

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2019-05-14, 23:36

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Speaking of demanding jobs.... Space Shuttle and Amiga at NASA. Ha, but note that they weren't using A500, it was all A2000 or other "big" Amigas. If you really want to compete with PC/AT, you need an A2000HD, where you can install a LAN card, a GPIB card, and more - just like in a PC. However, I …

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2019-05-14, 20:09

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sure. And on A500, games looked better, and sounded much better than on that 286. But try running on that Amiga some DBMS with several megabytes of data, try connecting it to Arcnet or Ethernet LAN, try using it with some some lab equipment via GPIB, or with some industrial gear via RS-485... "The …

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Re: comparision of 286 memory modes, did i get it right?

Posted on 2019-05-14, 18:45

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

OK, so there were DOS extenders before 1993, but it took them years to become dominant. Wolfenstein 3D (1992) still ran on a 286, in real mode. Word Perfect 6.0 (about 1992, too) also ran on a 286, in real mode. There was plenty of 16-bit real mode software still made in the 486 era, which kept EMS …

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Re: comparision of 286 memory modes, did i get it right?

Posted on 2019-05-14, 17:09

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

EMS idea died the moment the CPU could address past 1MB without resorting to slow, dirty tricks. And that happened with 386. Even real mode DOS programs quickly moved to protected mode and DOS extenders, so it's not like there was a reason to keep this solution alive. OK, but not "quickly". First …

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Re: comparision of 286 memory modes, did i get it right?

Posted on 2019-05-14, 16:15

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

why is ems useless on 386? i dont speak of emu - for example a memory card.. EMS can be very useful on a 386, as in the 386 era there was still plenty of software using EMS. But it can be efficiently provided in software, via eg. EMM386 - so, instead of spending money on an EMS card, it's better to …

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2019-05-14, 16:04

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Amiga absolutely decimated the PC AT Decimated? Really? Somehow 286 machines are still plentiful, and maybe even cheaper than Amigas... Again, in the pre-3D era Amiga was a great gaming machine. However, PC was great for many other purposes. Different targets, no direct competition, no way to …

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Re: comparision of 286 memory modes, did i get it right?

Posted on 2019-05-14, 15:08

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Interrupt handling is slow in protected mode both on 286 and 386, and V86 is a variant of protected mode. Therefore, EMM386 doesn't always slow things down, but it does when there's a lot of interrupts. Try eg. playing samples via PC Speaker - which requires frequent timer interrupts - on a 386 with …

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Re: got a Highscreen ALPHA 5000

Posted on 2019-05-14, 14:53

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nice machine, indeed. Is Digital Unix/Tru64 supported on it?

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2019-05-13, 19:41

by

by Grzyb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

On our Hercules AT PC you couldn't get in through the windows I also experienced this problem, present on Hercules (with some CGA emulator, of course), absent on VGA. Now I'm wondering why... Alley Cat was made for IBM, maybe IBM deliberately made it non-functional on Hercules? Hercules was …

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