I've been having fun today with getting my Soundblaster 2.0 knock-off to have CMS sound. It works with the same CMS GAL as described here, pinouts are all the same 😀

The first GAL16v8 I bought was a used one, which was a mistake because pin 3 on that chip didn't work, which lead to patchy / single channel CMS audio. The fresh GAL16v8D came in a couple of days ago, .jed file made and flashed onto the GAL.
After that, just remove the CMS jumper, install the chips and it works. I've only tried it in KQ1 so far, but it sounded good with really nice stereo effects.

With that, I had a good reason to test out this PCA-6134P SBC I bought last week. A cacheless AM386 SX-40 made in around '96 that takes 72-pin SIMMs for memory. It even has LBA support in the BIOS 😀 To start with when I plugged it in, it seemed to be cutting out, that that was just because I'd set the bench PSU current too low and it was detecting a brown-out and shutting down. The CMOS battery on the dallas chip block is dead but the board appears to be working otherwise.

This little PC has it all, motherboard, CPU, DC-DC PSU, IDE, floppy, parallel/serial then graphics and soundcard in this fairly tiny space of 190 x 150 x 80 mm

Thermalwrong wrote on 2020-12-12, 00:49:

I've been having fun today with getting my Soundblaster 2.0 knock-off to have CMS sound. It works with the same CMS GAL as described here, pinouts are all the same 😀

Looks like this card - Re: Help with Drivers for an 8-bit SB 2.0 clone?
I think I have such a card, too, together with a manual which says that CMS is not supported, so I never bothered to try...
but if it works for you, I'm going to install those chips anyway!

I put a socket on a mainboard that had a soldered in Dallas RTC chip. Oh and I used Windows XP on a CRT monitor from 1997.

Grzyb wrote on 2020-12-12, 05:16:

Looks like this card - Re: Help with Drivers for an 8-bit SB 2.0 clone? I think I have such a card, too, together with a manual […]
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Thermalwrong wrote on 2020-12-12, 00:49:

I've been having fun today with getting my Soundblaster 2.0 knock-off to have CMS sound. It works with the same CMS GAL as described here, pinouts are all the same 😀

Looks like this card - Re: Help with Drivers for an 8-bit SB 2.0 clone?
I think I have such a card, too, together with a manual which says that CMS is not supported, so I never bothered to try...
but if it works for you, I'm going to install those chips anyway!

Yeah it's that exact card 😀
The manual that I found makes mention of the Optional C/MS Wafers, and the wiring did match up with what's defined here in scorp's video. The MSI006 seems to be quite close in function to the SB 2.0's CT1336a.
Here's the .jed file that I used and is working on mine if you'd like to try it out.

Cleaned up the dot matrix printer and Amiga A600s plastics. The Amiga was very yellowed.

Ahhhghh
So thats why it wont start...

Edit: If anyone have a picture of the area around/under the battery on a Opti-495slc board it would be very appreciated. some traces are gone.

Recapped my first motherboard today! Well, first successful recap. I practiced on a cadaver board first. Didn't work before or after.

This board (m7ncg 400) sort of worked before, which was amazing to me because all of the 3300uf caps had nearly lifted themselves off the motherboard within a day after powering it up for the first time in years. Didn't like being woken from it's long slumber, I guess.

There is a spot for a 5th 3300uf capacitor on the motherboard that was not occupied. I see that it would block the heat sink. Any chance the board would be more better with an extra capacitor or would I kill the patient?

SVD wrote on 2020-12-12, 19:34:

Ahhhghh
So thats why it wont start...

Edit: If anyone have a picture of the area around/under the battery on a Opti-495slc board it would be very appreciated. some traces are gone.

UH19 now has 10 different identified OPTi 495SLC boards to choose from. More info would be welcome I think.
https://www.ultimateretro.net/en/motherboards/?chipsetId=375

evasive wrote on 2020-12-12, 20:09:

SVD wrote on 2020-12-12, 19:34:

Ahhhghh
So thats why it wont start...

Edit: If anyone have a picture of the area around/under the battery on a Opti-495slc board it would be very appreciated. some traces are gone.

UH19 now has 10 different identified OPTi 495SLC boards to choose from. More info would be welcome I think.
http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/result/?chipsetId=375

Ahh thanks, it is this http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/show/1487

I just cleaned up a couple of mechanical keyboards I've had laying around since spring. One is a Vendex XT-compatible in beautiful condition (with, I believe Hi-Tek switches) and the other is a Focus FK-2001 which seems to have some kind of white Alps switches.

Also had to fix a broken case tab on the Focus (it was shipped to me without sufficient packaging), which took some creativity involving a piece of metal harvested from an old floppy disk slider.

Can't wait to put them to use. 😀

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2020-12-12, 21:09:

I just cleaned up a couple of mechanical keyboards I've had laying around since spring. One is a Vendex XT-compatible in beautiful condition (with, I believe Hi-Tek switches) and the other is a Focus FK-2001 which seems to have some kind of white Alps switches.

Also had to fix a broken case tab on the Focus (it was shipped to me without sufficient packaging), which took some creativity involving a piece of metal harvested from an old floppy disk slider.

Can't wait to put them to use. 😀

Interesting, I used to have one of those FK-2001 keyboards, but it was rebranded as "Microbits". I think they might have been an Australian company.

Did some investigation work on the dead M577 / Amptron PM-9900A. Turns it has broken traces all over the place, especially in the FSB jumper area. Who ever had this board didn't treat it that well. Well, now it becomes wall art. 😜

I worked on a Amptron PM9100A over the last few days, was dead and now it works. Had broken+shorting SIMM socket plus some other minor stuff.
Only thing left to do is flash the BIOS to newest version and find proper Serial/LPT back plate.
Did find a Video back plate that works with the onboard header so do not need to use a PCI card but probably will when/if I build a system out of it.

Swapped the power boards between the AMS and Austin laptops as the one in the Austin shorted and caused the laptop to turn on when plugged in. My initial plans are to remove the battery terminals and reflow solder on the one IC that has a bit of corrosion on it.

Would a Voodoo 3 3000 go well with a Geforce 6200 AGP card?

RetroLizard wrote on 2020-12-13, 04:31:

Would a Voodoo 3 3000 go well with a Geforce 6200 AGP card?

No.

kolderman wrote on 2020-12-13, 04:44:

RetroLizard wrote on 2020-12-13, 04:31:

Would a Voodoo 3 3000 go well with a Geforce 6200 AGP card?

No.

Voodoo 2?

RetroLizard wrote on 2020-12-13, 04:48:

kolderman wrote on 2020-12-13, 04:44:

RetroLizard wrote on 2020-12-13, 04:31:

Would a Voodoo 3 3000 go well with a Geforce 6200 AGP card?

No.

Voodoo 2?

Better, but 6200 is too new for win98 gaming. Get fx5900.

kolderman wrote on 2020-12-13, 04:51:

RetroLizard wrote on 2020-12-13, 04:48:

kolderman wrote on 2020-12-13, 04:44:

No.

Voodoo 2?

Better, but 6200 is too new for win98 gaming. Get fx5900.

Would that card work in an AGP 2x slot?

Actually, as of the moment of writing this, I'm posting this while doing some quasi-unofficial DOScember-ish stuff for my YouTube channel. So me writing this post will turn up in the video.