philscomputerlab wrote:

Quickly put together something to test two Diamond Viper V770 TNT2 cards. Liking the driver with the Diamond graphics, pretty neat. Not sure how the driver version fits in, any ideas what year this is from, or if it's an early or late driver?

4.12.01.0368? Sounds like it is based on the 3.68 reference driver. That would make it early 2000 if I'm not mistaken, around the release of the first Geforce. IMO very appropriate for a TNT2. The only reason to use a later driver with a TNT2 would be newer games which will run better with a later video card anyway.

alexanrs wrote:

I finally saw with my own eyes why the Virge is known as a 3D decelerator card xD. Tomb Raider works fine using the S3D patch on a Pentium 133 + my Virge DX at 512x364 (640x480 is a bit sluggish) and I'd use it any day over software rendering. Quake+mini GL is... well... absurd. Even at 320x200 it still stutters and runs at bad FPS, but both DOS quake and WinQuake run fine.

Is that this card? Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today
35ns RAM is quite good for a ViRGE DX, few cards have faster RAM. But that card only has 2MB, that might make a difference. Not that it is a good choice for glQuake under any circumstances. There is a detailed write-up on that subject here. Of course it is a fine card for 2D.

You might want to try to run Terminal Velocity. (It is possible that low detail textures will be chosen when running on a 2MB card.)

leileilol wrote:

Interstella 5555 is aw....esome

Fixed that for you, and QFT. 😁

A while ago, I picked up a HGC clone on Amibay.

Tonight I finally got to install it.

aww yiss, Hercules rocks! 😀

Your screen looks a bit narrow though... maybe check your B+ voltage?

Yeah, the ol 5151's been in storage for a bit, probably needs a few things looked at. 😀

I thought I had gotten rid of this, but apparently not. I found it in my stack of donor parts a few hours ago and gave it power (the AC adapter is within arms reach as I use it for the CZ-1000). It started up as usual, slowly. I hooked it into my keyboard and pressed a key only to hear no sound... OK, of course, it starts on Channel 2 and any chance I have to adjust that is not available on the front panel. OK, we have sound.

I always suspected the MT-32 was out of tune, so I got a chromatic tuner out and tested. It is... a lot. One bell patch has C8 around 48 cents out, it keeps dipping over and becoming C#8. At the other end, F4 is often picked up as a A4... You can actually trigger another but here, buy jumping an octave back and forth (Press F4, F5, F4, F5) after a while you get this weird twang and subsequent presses of F4 will result in EITHER a very off-key A4 or an A3!!! Is this a common problem, are all MT-32s tuned incorrectly or is it just mine? From what I have heard, i.e, recordings of Police Quest 2, it seems to just be how they work and the D50 I borrowed (and broke) years ago was much the same. Incidentally, I have to wonder only because I broke the MT-32 also when writing music on it a year or two back (when I thought I had thrown it out), my song was at the polyphony limit constantly and a crunch was heard before the volume started dropping out and the FX unit and vibrato stopped responding to MIDI messages, it also became impossible to re-program the module.

After around 15 minutes of abuse the module stopped responding to my keyboard. I turned it off and then back on, nothing seemed out of place. I continued to play with it hating every flat patch I heard before the same happened. Then on the next reset the interface quickly locked up. Then I got bored, unhooked this tinfoil abomination and cranked up the volume on my CZ-5000 before enjoying the sounds of a real synthesizer for a while.

Just now I attached power again and got what you see in the image above, sometimes the MIDI Message light is stuck on as well. The only things I can see are that the screen is blank, the module does not respond to MIDI and the SMD chips inside look as if moisture has baked out of them (they have sweaty stains on top) so may have gotten hot. Is the module likely repairable? If so, I will make a thread and provide further information. Or else, is it just a goner?

I'm not that bothered either way, it was on its way to the trash can in the corner anyway, so if its lost then, well, its lost. I'm out of pocket either way as I hate the module and don't ever plan on using it again, I just have a reason to repair it.

So yeah, what I got up to today was wiring an MT-32 up and watching it fail miserably. More miserably than usual, which takes some doing.

The MT-32 was never intended for studio or professional use. Therefore it's not surprising that it sounds underwhelming when tried with single patches on a MIDI instrument. I've never tried my MT-32's with MIDI instruments, firstly because i don't have any MIDI instruments. And second because the MT-32 would not be my choice for composing MIDI stuff, unless i wanted it to sound specifically MT-32ish.

So far, MIDI wise, nothing has impressed me like Yamaha XG composed stuff.

For anyone who owns a Yamaha XG do yourself a favor and listen to some XG MIDI's. Like the following example Sting song:

I'm an MU90R user primarily, or I was until I re-discovered the CZ, so I know. 😉 You want to hear what some of the bigger modules like the MU2000 or even the measly SW1000XG card (when in a good mood, I find mine temperamental and won't be re-installing it when I rebuild the machine) are capable of when used properly.

I only ever wanted to compose with the MT-32 for the same reasons I composed on an AdLib years ago; because I could. The MT-32 sounds identical to the D50 to me, it is outstripped by my CZ-1000, a budget synthesizer from a few years before the MT-32 was conceived. At least, to me. The major issue wasn't the terrible sound, I actually found the Proteus I owned worse - comparatively. It sounded better, but being years later it was judged by higher standards which it failed to meet - no, it was the difficulty of use, the module simply hates being talked to by MIDI devices and often decides to do its own thing, ignore the device entirely or else take a long time to do what I have asked it... Always sounded laggy to me anyway.

Uh.... digging Q3A and Q3TA for relics. Also dug some STVEF and its demo.

I put a pin-modded 1.4 Tualatin into an Abit vp-6 motherboard that I had given up on for scrap 2 years ago. For some reason it would freeze in the bios, randomly not boot, and never successfully install an OS with either of my two spare 800EB coppermine's or both at once. Used thermal adhesive to put a pretty blue Pentium HSF on the Northbridge and due to broken mounting brackets used MORE thermal adhesive to stick an Athlon xp 3000+ HSF onto the Tualatin. Idles at 27C on a hot day on an open test bench. Other than that I have started exploring the world of RDRAM and socket 423 🤣

ODwilly wrote:

Other than that I have started exploring the world of RDRAM and socket 423 🤣

Cool! Looking forward to your findings / how you go with that.

Began to pull apart the X68000 ACE HD I bought in Japan for 6800 yen that from the outside had no power supply and a broken volume knob.

Internally I can tell that the system ROM's are missing, the SASI cabling, drive and bracket are also gone and the battery has leaked. The handle is also sticking. The whole machine needs to be stripped and cleaned. Started first with removing the battery and cleaning the PCB up. The battery wasn't particularly bad and the board cleaned up well but I'll verify all the traces before I move on. I visually can't see any breaks though.

philscomputerlab wrote:

ODwilly wrote:

Other than that I have started exploring the world of RDRAM and socket 423 🤣

Cool! Looking forward to your findings / how you go with that.

So far I am thinking of going a little bit unconventional with it 😀 just need to talk a guy out of a case.

I have a younger brother who is more of a retro-console gamer (PS1 mainly). Today I set DOOM up for him on his notebook - the Steam version of DOOM is very poorly configured by default so I downloaded the shareware to get the missing files (mainly SETUP.EXE) and configured it to use GM instead of OPL. Even with Windows default GM software synth it sounds a lot better than the default Adlib. I might try to convince him to let me set a better software synth for him, as he seems to be enjoying the music.

To day I set up my Harris 286-16 system permanently on my desk.

I want to be sure to use it more often so the original ~28 year old barrel battery dosnt starts to leak, it keeps charge and only minimal corrosion can be seen where the leads attach to the battery.

Some old images of the system.

I did also install a Sound Blaster AWE32 CT2760 so I can use the system as a MIDI jukebox. I wanted to find some memory for the CT2760 but it seems I only have 1MB and 256KB modules except two strange 2.25MB? modules? I will try those but I have not had time to install the software for the CT2760 yet so I dont know if they will work.

Here is a picture of the modules, does anyone know what these are supposed to be used for? I think the chips are 4x 4Mbit chips and 2x 1Mbit chips, a very strange combination?

Skyscrapper: My first guess is maybe those SIMMS are out of a printer or some other strange system that would require that particular amount of memory for some reason? Also love that 286, any reason why you havent replaced the barrel battery yet besides it not leaking? I would be super nervous 😊

ODwilly wrote:

Skyscrapper: My first guess is maybe those SIMMS are out of a printer or some other strange system that would require that particular amount of memory for some reason? Also love that 286, any reason why you havent replaced the barrel battery yet besides it not leaking? I would be super nervous 😊

Im just lazy and the battery holds charge perfectly fine, I do not think it will go bad as long as the system is used frequently.

The Sound Blaster AWE32 CT2760 works just fine in this system, no hardware conflics or any other issues. Does anyone know of any utility for checking the 30pin sims installed on a CT2760 in DOS? I do also need an untility to load soundbanks to the expanded memory in DOS. AWEUTIL seems to lack those features?

I did also replace the systems intake fan, it was really noisy.

And finally a question people often ask me: "How can I tell if my systems exhaust air is hot enough" The answer is: "If the cables running behind the exhaust turns black!"

HighTreason wrote:

MT-32

Just a wild guess: caps may have dried up, check the power supply for excessive ripple if you've got a scope.

SquallStrife wrote:

Yeah, the ol 5151's been in storage for a bit, probably needs a few things looked at. 😀

I only noticed because mine suddenly got a narrow (and rather dim) screen too, after the regulator failed. It's easy to check and fix: just see if it's 15V, and if not, replace the 7815. 😀

Replaced the HDD in my IBM NetVista. Cannot get it to boot from CD-ROM. So I put this aside for now.
Replaced the HDD in my P233MMX. Installing MS-DOS 6.22 on it now.