Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-03-15, 19:30

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

With the recent purchases I've got this Y2K rom bios card :) y2k-rom.jpg Obviously we don't need these devices anymore, living past the extinction level event of crossing the new year of 2000. Still this will make a useful tool. I've socketed the rom chip, and now can put something of my own in 28- …

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Re: SD-IDE or CF-IDE adapters - Is there any recommended model/make?

Posted on 2023-03-15, 07:36

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The device is what's controller sees on the cable. Converter is a bridge between the device interface and the device implementation, it is a device from the IDE controller's point of view, and must behave as a device. I've checked with ATA1, the only time when the device can drive that line on the …

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Re: Borland Turbo Assembler, alignment filler in uninitialized segment

Posted on 2023-03-14, 14:00

by

by vstrakh

in Milliways

in Milliways

It's "UFARDATA", U for uninitialized, and when no name specified the Tasm will default to FAR_BSS name for such segment, it's BSS effectively. There is .FARDATA? in MASM mode (I'm using Ideal), but I'd guess it will produce the same results. life is much easier with nasm if your writing new code... …

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Borland Turbo Assembler, alignment filler in uninitialized segment

Posted on 2023-03-14, 11:16

by

by vstrakh

in Milliways

in Milliways

Does anyone know if it's possible for Tasm to align location with "dup(?)" without inserting zeroes? The segment is declared with UFARDATA directive. The docs say Tasm inserts NOPs, and when such alignment is used in the uninitialized segment - everything before that inserted NOP will manifest as …

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Re: SD-IDE or CF-IDE adapters - Is there any recommended model/make?

Posted on 2023-03-14, 11:03

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Maybe it's compatible, but how it's the adherence to standard when the device is supposed to probe the line, and instead the device is actively pulling it down? This does not seem valid at all.

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Re: Troubleshooting 386 motherboard, video memory writes clashes with PCM audio playback

Posted on 2023-03-14, 07:02

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah, I remember the CSEL jumper on the HDDs back in the day, but never was interested enough to learn how it was implemented. And googling for IDE pinout (not ATA) I found the picture with ALE, which solved my case, though didn't tell the whole story of pin 28 :) Still, I don't agree that the pin …

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Re: SD-IDE or CF-IDE adapters - Is there any recommended model/make?

Posted on 2023-03-13, 19:45

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Must post the discovered issue. The adapter from my earlier post has a critical design flaw - it grounds the ALE signal that is delivered with IDE cable. When the adapter is used with Multi-I/O card without onboard ALE buffering this will wreak havoc in motherboard DMA logic, potentially damaging …

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Re: Troubleshooting 386 motherboard, video memory writes clashes with PCM audio playback

Posted on 2023-03-13, 18:24

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ok, plugging back all the devices - Gotek floppy emulator, CF card with IDE adapter. The ALE is dead again. The ALE is present on the IDE interface, so unplugging the CF card in case it's somehow behaves bad - ALE is still bad. Unplugging the whole CF adapter - now it's alive again. Hmm... You know …

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Re: Troubleshooting 386 motherboard, video memory writes clashes with PCM audio playback

Posted on 2023-03-13, 18:22

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So, I did suspect the 74F32 IC that forms the ALE signal. I wasn't quite sure how ALE supposed to look, but I know for sure how the OR gate should function. I've made few springy posts to put the scope probes into, and soldered those to the 74F32 pads - two inputs, output, and a VCC to watch if …

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Re: Troubleshooting 386 motherboard, video memory writes clashes with PCM audio playback

Posted on 2023-03-12, 12:59

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

On the other hand, the 286 on TD60C motherboard produces very much the same ALE, so this shape alone is not the problem. Filename ALE_286.png File size 22.34 KiB Views 749 views

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Re: Troubleshooting 386 motherboard, video memory writes clashes with PCM audio playback

Posted on 2023-03-12, 09:59

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Probing it with the oscilloscope. Very inconvenient without having something to grab multiple individual lines simultaneously, so no multichannel waveforms at the moment. The ALE signal (ISA pin B28) does not look particularly healthy. Severe undershoots, and spikes are too short to carry any useful …

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Re: UNISOUND - Universal ISA PnP Sound Card Driver for DOS v0.80a

Posted on 2023-03-11, 09:05

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I have a Crystal sound card that is faking the Yamaha YMF719. The chip was sanded and relabeled, and the EEPROM strings were altered. The UNISOUND successfully initialized the card, showing the faked name in "PnP card found:" row, and the only indication it's really the Crystal - is the name …

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Re: Fake Yamaha OPL3-SAx, old stock or modern take?

Posted on 2023-03-11, 07:31

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

ItsaFake.jpg So, first trying the UNISOUND on it for general detection. The card is found and configured. The report is shown as: unisound_report.jpg The string read from EEPROM is "[CDC4835] OPL3-SAx" is meant to convince inexperienced user he got the Yamaha. But see the last line - "Crystal Mixer …

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Re: Fake Yamaha OPL3-SAx, old stock or modern take?

Posted on 2023-03-10, 17:52

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

GigAHerZ wrote on 2023-03-10, 15:21: Those tiny-flimsy PCBs of those sound cards look like something made with Crystal chips... Found the Crystal card photo with exactly the same pcb. Yep, that's relabeled Crystal. Filename crystal_card.jpg File size 28.99 KiB Views 536 views

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Fake Yamaha OPL3-SAx, old stock or modern take?

Posted on 2023-03-10, 14:40

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I had this sound card in the pile of old scrap for some time, but never really tested it. Under close inspection it appeared suspiciously scratched. I've touched it with IPA, and the label faded away. fake1.jpeg Trying to identify what's actually was sold under the name of Yamaha I found images of …

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Re: Troubleshooting 386 motherboard, video memory writes clashes with PCM audio playback

Posted on 2023-03-09, 20:48

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

something like floating IOW signal and only GD5422 card has pullups? or maybe GD5422 dgaf about /IOW signal and just decodes all addresses It's not that it's all failing always with other cards. It's all working separately, and you wouldn't even know something is bad until you hit a certain access …

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Re: Troubleshooting 386 motherboard, video memory writes clashes with PCM audio playback

Posted on 2023-03-09, 14:44

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just try to set the games sound config to use low dma on both channels, and you'll see, that they run without hanging. I tried that in the first place, hoping maybe it was related to damaged DMA traces on the board. Tried DMA 1 and 3 for main and secondary channels and swapped (i.e. "esscfg /D:1 …

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Re: Troubleshooting 386 motherboard, video memory writes clashes with PCM audio playback

Posted on 2023-03-09, 07:40

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

POST card is just displaying whatever any software writes to port 80h garbage on screen and writes to POST suggest broken address lines, like maybe cracked solder joints Two unrelated motherboards, having in common only the base design and using different clones of the same original chipset, …

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Re: Troubleshooting 386 motherboard, video memory writes clashes with PCM audio playback

Posted on 2023-03-09, 07:35

by

by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Try running your games with setting high and low dma channels both to channel 1 (so both use low dma) and/or change BLASTER variable if needed. It's not about game settings or blaster configration. It's about having the same setup - same disk/cards - everything except the motherboard, working ok …

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Re: Troubleshooting 386 motherboard, video memory writes clashes with PCM audio playback

Posted on 2023-03-08, 15:27

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by vstrakh

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've bought another 386 motherboard (M326 V5.5), physically looking very similar to the one in question. It's built on PC Chips chipset, a SARC clone of the same UMC chipset. It did behave identically, same garbage on Pinball Fantasies launch, garbling sound and pixels on screen. Also at the time I …

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