VOGONS


What retro activity did you get up to today?

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Reply 4960 of 28625, by Arctic

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I cleaned and reactivated my Dell P1110 21" CRT that I found in my attick. It still works 😁
1280x1024 at 100Hz and finally I can test the old 3D Shutter Glasses.
Later I fixed an old E6300 PC and added a Radeon X300SE to it 😵

Does anyone know why my refresh rate drops down from 100Hz to 60Hz when I start a game? (D3D)

Next up is fixing my HP Kayak Dual BX Workstation and the Power Macintosh G3 Outrigger Desktop.

Reply 4961 of 28625, by kithylin

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Arctic wrote:
I cleaned and reactivated my Dell P1110 21" CRT that I found in my attick. It still works :D 1280x1024 at 100Hz and finally I ca […]
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I cleaned and reactivated my Dell P1110 21" CRT that I found in my attick. It still works 😁
1280x1024 at 100Hz and finally I can test the old 3D Shutter Glasses.
Later I fixed an old E6300 PC and added a Radeon X300SE to it 😵

Does anyone know why my refresh rate drops down from 100Hz to 60Hz when I start a game? (D3D)

Next up is fixing my HP Kayak Dual BX Workstation and the Power Macintosh G3 Outrigger Desktop.

Sometimes drivers are coded with profiles that limit a game to XXX Htz, you may need a 3rd party program like nvidia inspector (if using nvidia) to modify the profiles to disable this. Also, some games may be hard coded to only work at a certain refresh rate and there's nothing you can do to change it. Depends on the game.

Reply 4962 of 28625, by dogchainx

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Quickly went through 4 motherboards I bought "AS-IS". Two 486 boards (one completely dead, but 10ns cache in the sockets) and two 386 boards. One of the 486 board was toast, and the 386sx board doesn't do anything with booting up. The other 486 board just needed a CPU, seems to work fine. The other 386 board had a 386DX-40MHz cpu, and didn't boot at first. However, someone took ALL of the jumpers off the board. So, a quick google let me to a common M321 board layout, I put jumpers on it and booted right up.

$24 shipped for two working boards, one unknown and a fourth a parts (for the cache). Not bad.

386DX-40MHz-8MB-540MB+428MB+Speedstar64@2MB+SoundBlaster Pro+MT-32/MKII
486DX2-66Mhz-16MB-4.3GB+SpeedStar64 VLB DRAM 2MB+AWE32/SB16+SCB-55
MY BLOG RETRO PC BLOG: https://bitbyted.wordpress.com/

Reply 4963 of 28625, by creepingnet

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Back up to tweaking my old 486 DX2-66. Got Genecyst, MAME, ESNES, and a few other things working on the emulation front, kind of surprising how well MAME Works, ESNES is better than I remember it being, and Genecyst - have to rename all *.GEN files to *.BIN to make them work.

Still working on the 2-3 games I posted about here last - still working on artwork, trying to draw sprites that look good for the walking animation, resorted to using Guybrush Threepwood as a template to work off of. Also working on a DOS version of Five Nights at Freddy's that's more it's own thing that's not a part of the normal game. The other horror game is starting to have the puzzles added, and the humor game is still mostly in the artwork stage (49 floors of a business + about 20 auxiliary screens is nothing to sneeze at for one guy. One lofty achievement was on the FNaF game I got 8-bit digital audio working in AGS 2.3.1 - so I can use my own full stereo soundtracks with the game now (!!!) instead of resorting to MIDI For everything. MIDI has been kind of a.....PITA to say the least. Surprisingly I'm still not taxing the machine too much despite being under spec.

Since I was last here, the 486 was moved into my 286 full AT chassis as my XT PSU blew up in the old one. I have a baby AT PSU laying around but am coming to find that desktop cases and replacement XT PSU are bloody expensive now. I also added DOS 7.01, and a second 20GB HDD with FAT-32 partitions (that's why I upgraded DOS to an unofficial release) - bringing the total space up to roughly 28GB (that's a stupid amount for a 486 - I've still got 3 FAT-32 partitions with nothing on them, 🤣).

Busy thinning the herd a bit mentally as well - moving my focus more to my 80286 parts, 486, and 8088 - and might be offloading some stuff on ebay or trading to fund these projects to pass the time while I hunt for a house. Just fixed up a Playstation 2 and I have a dead mint 1995 Gateway 2000 P5100 with the original SCSI HDD, CD-ROM, and all other parts I upgraded to 64MB of RAM, plus a Compaq Portable 486 that needs a screen (I'm tired of looking for one), and a Mac SE FDHD assuming my wife is willing to let me part with it. Currently will be looking at selling a Playstation 2 I just fixed up though.......been very busy on the digital front that's for sure.

For the 486, have been shopping E-bay for a DX4-100 or 5x86 to replace the one I lost, plus some Cache SRAM (DIP 28/32 pin 32Kx8 TAG & 4X 128Kx8 or 64Kx8 for the actual L2 Cache - running NO cache at the moment), and looking at some of those new-in-box desktop cases, particularly the open one for $69.99 with the speakers built in - but we'll have to see how the Playstation 2 auction goes first before I decide to dive in to buying something for that much money. Would love to put the GEM 286 back in it's proper case and give the 486 a new home in something more suitable to the task (and easier to replace the PSU on since it's almost a daily driver for me at this point - it's surprising how helpful the 486 has been for tabbing out guitar stuff). I've been a tad tempted to see how far one can REALLY go witn Windows 3.11 For Workgroups in 2017 - it still sees the web occasionally even (as ugly as it may be on certain pages in Opera 3.62).

~The Creeping Network~
My Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/creepingnet
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The Creeping Network Repo - https://www.geocities.ws/creepingnet2019/

Reply 4964 of 28625, by stamasd

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Installed a SCSI CD-ROM in my Thinkpad Dock II which I use with 3 of my laptops (2 Thinkpads 755CX and one 755CE), none of which has a built-in CD-ROM. The dock has built-in SCSI controller (Adaptec AHA-1530) which is bootable too. The only problem I had is that the internal SCSI bus is narrow SCSI-2 (50-pin), whereas the CD-ROM is wide (68-pin). It's a 20x Plextor that I posted about a while ago in the other thread (retro hardware bought), probably made for an IBM server as it came with a tray and SCSI2-to-SCA adapter, and in IBM's colors (black bezel, purple button). It doesn't exactly match the dock as IBM's early colors were black and cyan (purple is a later change) but close enough. Also it's identified at boot as IBM CDROM, not Plextor. Has both IBM and Plextor part numbers on the label.

I looked all over for appropriate bus adapters (male 50-pin to male 68-pin) to attach it to the existing cable in the dock, but couldn't find any. So instead I did something different. I bought a female 50-to-68 pin adapter which are easy to find; I removed the internal cable and plugged the adapter directly into the dock's SCSI port, then attached to the other end of the adapter a wide SCSI cable which became thus the new internal bus of the dock. Plugged that one directly into the CD-ROM, attached terminator, closed dock which was a bit iffy because the new cable is bulkier than the original one, and the CD-ROM bezel doesn't fit perfectly into the dock opening. But in the end it worked, and I like the look a lot.

And it actually works! Of course I don't imagine that I converted the whole SCSI subsystem to wide just by changing the cable; it still works as narrow SCSI2. But it's functional, and for a CD-ROM I don't expect great speeds. Good enough for a Pentium-75 anyway.

Next step will be to install a 18GB SCSI drive in the remaining bay. But that's for another day.

Untitled_1.jpg

Also will install a sound card in one of the dock's ISA slots, for some sweet retro gaming. Probably a CT1740 or a CT2290. I hope to find a way to hook the sound card's output to the dock's speakers (which were designed to work with the internal Mwave card of the laptops which came with it).

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 4965 of 28625, by stamasd

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And it's done. I managed to install a HP 18.2GB SCSI HDD in the dock. It was pretty hard to cram everything inside in a manned that allowed all to fit, the cover to close and not interfere with the dock's mechanism.
The HDD is connected to the new 68-pin bus through a SCA80-to-68-pin adapter; works fine, is recognized at boot and is currently formatting. After 10 minutes it's at 7% formatted.

This will take a while. 😀

To sum it up, the SCSI chain inside the dock is now:
internal connector (50-pin) -> 50-to-68-pin adapter -> wide SCSI cable -> CD-ROM (SCSI ID 3) -> HDD (SCSI ID 2) -> terminator.

There are 2 more open connectors on the cable for 2 additional devices, but I have no more space to add anything else inside. However the adapter bus continues on the other side with a HD50 external connector to which I can add external SCSI devices.

Overall I'm pretty pleased up to this point.

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 4966 of 28625, by luckybob

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i0eTckk.jpg

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 4967 of 28625, by kva

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I have tested bunch of old GPUs (Radeons: 3650, 4670, 5750, 6570 Geforce: 280, 285, 430, 560Ti, 640) in World of Tanks and I am going to write article about them.

Celeron Tualatin vs Celeron Conroe at equal clocks
Pentium Pro 256k vs Pentium Pro 1M vs Pentium II Overdrive!
VIA C3 vs VIA C7

My website all about old hardware

Reply 4968 of 28625, by stamasd

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luckybob wrote:
http://i.imgur.com/i0eTckk.jpg […]
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i0eTckk.jpg

Don't be so moist: the transfer speed on the fake wide bus with a P75 is pretty bad. Took over 5 minutes to copy the contents of the W98 install CD (333MB) from the internal SSD onto the SCSI disk.

But since this disk will be primarily used for storage of installers, DOS games etc. I'm OK with it.

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 4969 of 28625, by Standard Def Steve

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Started work on yet another temporary rig; this time, an over the top, FSB133 Pentium II system. This marks the first time I've paid any real attention to the PII. Back in the day I owned a PII-300 with a lame duck 440FX motherboard. That system never impressed me, so I ignored the rest of the Pentium II lineup. P3 was awesome though. 😊

So far, my Pentium II Comeback Special consists of:
-PII-400 at 533, 2.2v
-Asus P3B-F
-512MB of PC133 CL2
-SQ2500 (vortex 2) audio
-Win98SE (for actual gaming) and XP (for proper benchmarking)

I've been experimenting with a wide range of video cards (9800Pro, 5900U, GF3-Ti500, more...). About half of the cards I tested weren't even stable. However the combination of a GF4 Ti4400 and a couple of V2s in SLI worked out of the box and felt so...right.

I haven't done any real benchmarking yet, but I've been fairly impressed with the system so far. Compared to my old 300MHz 440FX, the performance is in a completely different league. It's like going from a Pentium 4 to a Core 2 Extreme.

"A little sign-in here, a touch of WiFi there..."

Reply 4970 of 28625, by Scali

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I refactored and optimized my VGM player for DOS, for SN76489 sound chips (Tandy/PCjr), and it is now accurate enough to even play samples... my 5160 is just a tad too slow for it, so the samples are distorting a bit, but still: https://youtu.be/gDMTU5nW0mE
On faster machines it works perfectly.

http://scalibq.wordpress.com/just-keeping-it- … ro-programming/

Reply 4972 of 28625, by yawetaG

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stamasd wrote:

And it actually works! Of course I don't imagine that I converted the whole SCSI subsystem to wide just by changing the cable; it still works as narrow SCSI2.

Of course it works, SCSI devices are usually downwards compatible with previous bus versions and will then work with the lower bus speed. SCSI was designed to do that. It also means you can mix narrow and wide SCSI on the same bus on a wide card; just make sure the narrow devices are all at the end of a chain.

Reply 4973 of 28625, by cj_reha

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Messed around with overclocking a few of my "haven't parted it out yet only because it still works" machines.

Was able to get a 533mhz Celeron running at 546, any higher and it becomes unstable.

Also got a 400 running at 450.

Join the Retro PC Discord! - https://discord.gg/UKAFchB
My YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDJYB_ZDsIzXGZz6J0txgCA

Reply 4974 of 28625, by Munx

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Decided to take my old Geforce2 MX400 for a spin - Half life 2 in glorious 1024x768! With the graphics set to the highest possible! (minus the AA)
Though 640x480 is needed if I want to maintain a decent framerate during intense moments.

The attachment P_20170101_134454[1].jpg is no longer available

This is the old 2004 version running. If I want to play the updated one I'm out of luck since Dx7 support has been dropped and tweaking the launch properties on steam is no longer an option.

My builds!
The FireStarter 2.0 - The wooden K5
The Underdog - The budget K6
The Voodoo powerhouse - The power-hungry K7
The troll PC - The Socket 423 Pentium 4

Reply 4975 of 28625, by kithylin

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Munx wrote:
Decided to take my old Geforce2 MX400 for a spin - Half life 2 in glorious 1024x768! With the graphics set to the highest possib […]
Show full quote

Decided to take my old Geforce2 MX400 for a spin - Half life 2 in glorious 1024x768! With the graphics set to the highest possible! (minus the AA)
Though 640x480 is needed if I want to maintain a decent framerate during intense moments.

P_20170101_134454[1].jpg

This is the old 2004 version running. If I want to play the updated one I'm out of luck since Dx7 support has been dropped and tweaking the launch properties on steam is no longer an option.

How do you find the old version? I've looked all over for it. Is it just a different *.exe with the same files?

Reply 4976 of 28625, by Munx

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kithylin wrote:
Munx wrote:
Decided to take my old Geforce2 MX400 for a spin - Half life 2 in glorious 1024x768! With the graphics set to the highest possib […]
Show full quote

Decided to take my old Geforce2 MX400 for a spin - Half life 2 in glorious 1024x768! With the graphics set to the highest possible! (minus the AA)
Though 640x480 is needed if I want to maintain a decent framerate during intense moments.

P_20170101_134454[1].jpg

This is the old 2004 version running. If I want to play the updated one I'm out of luck since Dx7 support has been dropped and tweaking the launch properties on steam is no longer an option.

How do you find the old version? I've looked all over for it. Is it just a different *.exe with the same files?

It's not the version I'd like to discuss here... >.>

My builds!
The FireStarter 2.0 - The wooden K5
The Underdog - The budget K6
The Voodoo powerhouse - The power-hungry K7
The troll PC - The Socket 423 Pentium 4

Reply 4977 of 28625, by stamasd

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Wrestled with my Thinkpad + dock with SCSI devices some more. It turns out with all the additions I've made the laptop will not undock cleanly anymore; I had to disassemble the dock just to get the laptop out of it. It appears that something I've added interferes with the mechanics of undocking, will need to investigate. I suspect it's the SCA80-to-68-pin adapter as it sits very close to the mechanism that pushes the laptop tray forward.

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 4978 of 28625, by Eendje

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All parts for my Asus P2B-DS / dual P3@733MHz / Voodoo3 / Win98 build have arrived. Will post pics soon.

Reply 4979 of 28625, by orinoko

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I was given a Roland SC-55mkII for christmas, and so I built a MIDI interface cable for it today 😀 Sounds great!!