Re: DOS anti-virus recommendation

Posted on 2020-12-13, 23:30

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Will modern antivirus software be able to detect old DOS era viruses? Yes! I downloaded an archive of live DOS viruses and Windows Defender went ape when I ran a manual scan. I don't know if it caught most or all, this was a huge library of them, but it certainly was aware of DOS viruses and wasn't …

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Re: Capacitor Replacement Question

Posted on 2020-12-13, 23:16

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by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It depends. The capacitor hipster brigade will tell you to shotgun it of all capacitors and replace them with polymer models or at least the lowest ESR ones you can find. There's a lot of people who do feel that way in our retro PC community. My attitude is to use some logic and selectivity. One …

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Re: WebOne - proxy for old browsers to make them Web 2.0-capable

Posted on 2020-12-06, 22:06

by

by radiounix

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

I just wanted to thank you for making this. I agree it works pretty well, I was using it with Windows 3.1 and Netscape a while back; soon I hope to be using it with a Raspberry Pi Zero W.

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Re: Found my old Matsonic and PC chips motherboards, are they worth the trouble?

Posted on 2020-12-06, 22:00

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What you read is correct, Matsonic, Amptron .etc were made by PC Chips, and the quality is dubious. However, many of them are still quite popular in this community and people definitely do make builds with them. Part of their bad reputation is probably from the fact that since they were the cheapest …

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Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga

Posted on 2020-12-06, 02:43

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ultraportables are nothing new, they weren't new in the 486 era. You could get an 8086 Nec Ultralite or Zenith Minisport, and by the early 90s the Quaderno and Omnibook lines were out. Plus the handbook, though that WAS chunky.

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Re: DOS anti-virus recommendation

Posted on 2020-12-05, 21:09

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Okay. I guess I came to the same opinion as everyone else. I'm sure MacAfee had something like this in the early 90s, but I imagine it might use an unreasonable amount of conventional memory and impair system responsivity. And obviously, given such an AV would be around 30 years old it would have …

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Re: Good OS selectors ?

Posted on 2020-12-05, 15:39

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I strongly suggest XOSL. It has a great interface and is very easy to setup. Since it was abandoned back in 2001, it's roughly from the era and probably was tested on 486 hardware.

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DOS anti-virus recommendation

Posted on 2020-12-05, 15:38

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Yes, I'm serious. I know the prevailing consensus is that you can't get a virus because DOS is dead and old. But that doesn't in my mind mean that one can't pick up a classic 1980s or 1990s virus off of an old FTP archive or BBS dump, used recyclable or program disks, or random "abandonware" …

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Re: SATA to Micro SD adapter questions

Posted on 2020-12-05, 00:06

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I did some reading up on this matter because I bought a Raspberry Pi, and those use a MicroSD for mass storage. Apparently normal consumer MicroSD drives, because of their firmware, are likely to get trashed if a system is turned off improperly/during a write operation. They also tend to have a …

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Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga

Posted on 2020-12-03, 03:25

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by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I always thought Tandy computer prices were insane, but then I saw some old ads for mail order Tandy products from franchise Radio Shack dealers. About 30-40% less than MSRP across the board. I think Tandy did about the same in their stores with frequent megasales, not sure, wasn't around then. More …

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Re: Great Accessories for building Retro PCs

Posted on 2020-12-02, 02:44

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by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Did anyone mention band-aids and neosporin yet? And maybe some fine grit sandpaper so it doesn't happen again? On a more serious note, having spare cards, memory, a spare power supply .etc is really helpful. Sometimes it's easier to just swap components, see if you can get it to work, then figure …

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Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga

Posted on 2020-12-02, 02:42

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The Lattitude C-series are a decent choice for a more modern laptop, not because they're well-built, but because they're well known and were made in huge numbers. Also, yes, the parts can be swapped between myriad models. I had one, really easy to work on. As for the 1400LT being extremely common, …

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Re: Testing an AT PSU?

Posted on 2020-12-01, 20:43

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a half dozen or more AT supplies still in service with no issues Good for you. But I don't see good reason to specifically buy old junk AT PSU, when new modern PSUs can be easily used via adapter, which is safer. This whole "safety" thing is what I object to. The chances of ANY AT/ATX power …

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Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga

Posted on 2020-12-01, 19:23

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just going to leave this here: I had the same idea, but then I realized that no such thing exists. Some machines lack sound, most lack it in DOS. Others have worse than average LCDs. Only a few support a joystick. Some have an abominable pointer. Some take weird RAM that will be hard to track down. …

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Re: Should I build multiple PCs to play different era pc games or just one?

Posted on 2020-12-01, 19:10

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The oldest hardware has a really distinct feel, sound, maybe even a certain smell. An XT keyboard layout, CGA color monitor, 80s CH Mach joystick, MFM drives and dual floppies .etc are a pretty unique experience though not to most people's taste. Even the later AT clones, 386s and 486s, have clicky …

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Re: Testing an AT PSU?

Posted on 2020-12-01, 18:52

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

We're dealing with decades old hardware now, and it's an increasingly reasonable expectation that hardware will need board level servicing, lubrication, alignment .etc. Stuff that people into IBM XT hardware, CPM-era stuff .etc have long been doing. People into 8-bit home computers often have repair …

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Re: History of a dump went wrong :cry:

Posted on 2020-10-12, 16:49

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yikes! Looks like the oxide came right off the media. Complete binder failure? This makes me think of old 1970s and 1980s open reel tape media and how the binders often break down gummy after a surprisingly short period of time.

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Re: Isa sound card that can play back higher quality audio?

Posted on 2020-10-04, 21:55

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Normal compression at the time was ADPCM, and shouldn't require much CPU time and achieves 50% compression by dropping the sound to 4-bits. It sounds less awful than it seems like it should. Wholly uncompressed audio was common too. 8kz is indeed awful, but 8bit/22khz mono is pretty okay outside of …

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Re: Win311 will not start ?

Posted on 2020-10-02, 22:02

by

by radiounix

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Try running setup and switching to the normal 640x480x16 VGA mode driver. I think you might just have an issue with your video driver. If there's any issue with it, Windows 3.1 will happily show garbage on the screen, or more likely, lock up before hitting the desktop or just show a black screen. …

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Re: Alltronics has vintage computer parts cheap:

Posted on 2020-10-02, 21:42

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by radiounix

in Milliways

in Milliways

They also have a IBM compatible add-in card (random) item on there. Probably all modems. lol Hahhaaa, yes it does say dealers choice :) I remember what I bought from them many years ago: heatsink+fans, got a few for 486, a few for soc 370, and some 30mm x 10mm 5v fans for very reasonable. Still …

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