amnesia wrote:

ME is definitely not something one would like to use, unless being hold up at gunpoint.

Right up there with Vista and Windows 8, With Vista probably being the least sucky one.

Some people here, actually like ME. To me it seems like a wierd choice. I guess we all like it differently.
My experience is, that if one can find the right parts, then ME is decent. Not great.
Just keep in mind, that changing hardware beyond that point, most likely results in an unstable system.
I don't like Win8/8.1/10 at all. I like Win7 and when times come (2020) I go for Linux.
Shure I have messed with Linux in the past. Setting up a file and minecraft server on a Mac-G4.
And I have used it on and off as a desktop OS.
Speaking of Vista. Yeah.... Don't run Vista without any service pack. And update it 100% before using.
Run it on a powerhouse and you actually get a great OS. The features in the GUI are way better than 7.
I like the look and feel and the structure of the GUI over Win7.
Win7 just runs better on my primaery PC. Wich are an dualcore Celeron laptop from 2010.

Lukeno94 wrote:

There really isn't that much difference between Vista and 7 on a decent system. A small improvement in performance, but most of what people saw was due to them upgrading to much stronger hardware than had been around at Vista's launch - and, crucially, going past 512MB/1GB of RAM. Vista got a lot of undeserved flak that actually should've been aimed at the lazy and dodgy OEMs who couldn't be bothered to stock things with proper hardware and/or drivers for said hardware - it was no more of a leap forward than XP was over 98 (which, if you think about it, was a slightly smaller time gap) in terms of system demands.

I'm glad more people are aware of this. Vista has some shortcomings, but the performance problems vs 7 tended to be hardware related. We're basically talking about a time of transition from main stream Single to Dual core CPUs, from DDR1 to DDR2, from 512MB-1GB being "all you need" to 2GB-4GB, and not to mention, the early days of the netbook era which was a huge step toward making PCs as cheap as possible... always at the cost of performance.

I remember seeing a system at Walmart back in 2007 that had... and remember this is 2007... a 17" non-flat CRT, a mini tower with a Via C7 1.5Ghz, 512MB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive and... Vista.

HOLY COW... after I typed that I wanted to search for it to see what brand it was, and actually found mention of it from 2007. And I was actually correct with the specs! 😀

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid= … 29083308AA43hU1

It was an Everex.

Ozzuneoj wrote:

I'm glad more people are aware of this. Vista has some shortcomings, but the performance problems vs 7 tended to be hardware rel […]
Show full quote

Lukeno94 wrote:

There really isn't that much difference between Vista and 7 on a decent system. A small improvement in performance, but most of what people saw was due to them upgrading to much stronger hardware than had been around at Vista's launch - and, crucially, going past 512MB/1GB of RAM. Vista got a lot of undeserved flak that actually should've been aimed at the lazy and dodgy OEMs who couldn't be bothered to stock things with proper hardware and/or drivers for said hardware - it was no more of a leap forward than XP was over 98 (which, if you think about it, was a slightly smaller time gap) in terms of system demands.

I'm glad more people are aware of this. Vista has some shortcomings, but the performance problems vs 7 tended to be hardware related. We're basically talking about a time of transition from main stream Single to Dual core CPUs, from DDR1 to DDR2, from 512MB-1GB being "all you need" to 2GB-4GB, and not to mention, the early days of the netbook era which was a huge step toward making PCs as cheap as possible.

I remember seeing a system at Walmart back in 2007 that had... and remember this is 2007... a 17" non-flat CRT, a mini tower with a Via C7 1.5Ghz, 512MB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive and... Vista.

HOLY COW... after I typed that I wanted to search for it to see what brand it was, and actually found mention of it from 2007. And I was actually correct with the specs! 😀

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid= … 29083308AA43hU1

It was an Everex.

Most people ditched Vista so early on that, to be blunt, their opinions are misguided. Or they just listened to the press and raging forums and avoided it altogether. The fact that so many graphics and sound drivers were never updated because of lazy manufacturers who wanted to push their new products did not help, neither did the fact that OEMs didn't bother to properly equip their systems.

I've run it on a variety of systems. With an Athlon64 X2 3800+ and 1GB of RAM, it struggled, and would often have Aero switch itself off. Going to 2GB made a HUGE difference - as did replacing the anemic stock PSU, which couldn't get close to its supposed 300W rating (thanks Dell!) - even the cheap CIT 450W unit I put in was much better (I was a poorly-informed rookie then, don't judge!) Having run Vista Home Premium 32-bit on an i3 2120 with 4GB of RAM, and 7 Ultimate 64-bit with 12GB of RAM and the same CPU, I can honestly say that you only notice a major difference when you use a web browser, and that is solely down to the huge increase in RAM. I should note that I ran Vista from 2007 or 2008 until 2012, so I'm not exactly lacking in experience with it!

When it comes to Windows 8, the sole issue really centres around the UI (apart from the odd Windows 7 driver being totally broken, which didn't make sense as most Vista drivers went to 7 just fine, and it's not like 8 was that different under the hood), which doesn't work for portable or desktop devices - it's just a messy mish-mash. Millennium was a deliberately nerfed 98 that was also rushed and, I suspect, some of the lack of polish was a deliberate ploy to encourage people to swap to XP - which worked.

Picked up some goodies this past two months...

Some CPU's

Dell Latitude L400 PIII Laptop

HP xw4600 Workstation - edit: sorry - not so retro

HP xw9400 Workstation edit: sorry - not so retro

Intel L440GX+ server motherboard with 256MB ram and dual PIII600e CPU's

A few more items...

Matrox Millennium

SMart RAID Ultra IV Controller

Toshiba Satellite 2610 DVD Laptop

US Robotics 28,800bps Fax Modem

and a Yamaha TG-100 sound module(!!I'm very happy about this one 😀 !!) - I am picking it up today from seller. I hope it works...it was listed as untested

As for Vista vs. 7, not long ago I upgraded a Vista laptop (circa 2006, core 2 duo/2GHz, 4GB, GT9600M) to 7. Prior to that I had been maintaining that laptop for many years even though I wasn't using it primarily, so I'm well aware of what it could do. I had also reinstalled Vista from scratch twice before on it, so I also know well how Vista worked fresh on it.

After installing 7, the system is significantly improved. Not a huge difference, but noticeable. And that is without using any manufacturer-tweaked drivers (MSI doesn't support anything but Vista on this model, but the hardware is generic enough that I've found 7 drivers for everything). And several months down the line, I don't see any of the instability that occurred with Vista over time show up again. The hardware wasn't altered in any way.

retrofanatic wrote:

SMart RAID Ultra IV Controller

SMART RAID IV Ultra.JPG

Nice one. DPT was my favorite SCSI brand before they were bought out by Adaptec and basically turned into dust. I still have a SmartRaid III in a machine somewhere, and I think a SmartCache IV in a storage box.

More and more items from the famous bay arrive. Too many to list, standout ones below

MSI 6167 Slot A with 600Mhz Athlon 😀

Abit BP6 with 2 x 433mhz PGA370 Celerons

Another Socket 7 board, bought many of these recently to build a retro lan. This one had a nice Gold Cyrix MII underneath the HSF

Voodoo 3 2000 AGP, I had a PCI and had to get an AGP too 😀

Amstrad MSDOS 4 disks as I have an Amstrad laptop of the right era, already imaged and preserved!

I also bought 60 more 5.25" disks as you can never have too many! All blanks and checked for data (just some cnc machine data) so if anyone is desperate for disks let me know!

The only other notable purchase was going mad with the CEX 0.05p-£1.00 selling of old pc games. Think I've bought about 50 games so far - might be more as everyday more arrive!

Vista is good, and definitely a change for the better. So eye candy.
I just don't like searching files and the fact that one day i installed Vista Vista without Service Pack and i lost a partition.
No damage has been done and i could undelete all the files, i just got scared like dying.

That's not easy (not jumping the bandwagon).
______________________________________________________________________________________________

Alrighty, we're walking in circles. You saw that Diamond Monster MX300 in the first page ? Well, after 8 years of his purchase, an Aureal Vortex 2 has arrived to me intended to host my Scb-55 daughtercard.

Yeah, nothing special.
So i connected the Scb-55 on the Wave Blaster header and then selected Aureal MPU401 in control panel for MIDI reproduction in Windows XP. The problem is Doom and Dosbox are mute and i can't play any MIDI files (it plays, but no output). Same thing with the Yamaha DB60XG, so the odds are i am having an address conflict (330h and 330h) ?

Excuse me, could i get some help ?
What i can do do get your attention ? Helloooooo... 😎

Dunno about the XP factor but in '98 the MIDI volume level slider is mislabel in the mixer - something like "video". Un-mute that and try again.

Bullseye!

Thank you very much.
Right now the daughtercard in artefacting when the volume is maxed out, but i think it is a missing capacitor causing the issue.

Video ? Ahahahaha I would never solve this one. 😎

What a strange mistake to make!

Lukeno94 wrote:

What a strange mistake to make!

Yes the wavetable header was obviously a very low priority when it came to software testing time. There's no mixer at all in DOS and the default level of MIDI is "XXLOUD_SCARETHEUSERSPANTSOFF".

I edited the registry in Win98 to rename the mixer appropriately 🤣

I found this nifty little gem at a local junk shop for $4.

I haven't tested its reading\writing capabilities yet, but simply plugging the power in and putting in a disk seems to work fine. I do wish it had a "play" button on the front though, because it has stereo RCA outputs (and a headphone jack) and I've always been fascinated by the fact that you can use many old CDROM drives to just play music without even using a computer... there's no way to make this one play though.

I'm still not 100% sure what I'm going to do with it, but if there's any way to make a parallel port CDRW work in DOS or Windows 3.11 it could be handy for backing up large amounts of files on systems too old for USB flash drives. I have no such systems at this point (aside from my IBM 5150, which doesn't really need such a thing, and I'm sure is too old to use it).

... by the way, does anyone have any methods they use for getting permanent ink off of surfaces like this? I used Goo Gone and it helped, but it won't all come out. Next I'll try a magic eraser, but since they're abrasive I know they will affect the surface itself too.

I need to check this shop more often as they seem to randomly have really unusual stuff. I found Civilization 2 in its big-box in great condition there a few months ago... it was with the "board games" and only cost $3. 😀

They also have an old CH Flightstick Pro there, which looks pretty cool but at this point I don't really need it.

Ozzuneoj wrote:

I found this nifty little gem at a local junk shop for $4.

I have one of those but without the external case. It's quiet, but not as silent as I would have hoped considering its 6x read speed. Mine cost 3€, so considering the external case you got a good deal!

Ozzuneoj wrote:

They also have an old CH Flightstick Pro there, which looks pretty cool but at this point I don't really need it.

You can get it and sent it my way and I won't complain 🤣

devius wrote:

I have one of those but without the external case. It's quiet, but not as silent as I would have hoped considering its 6x read speed. Mine cost 3€, so considering the external case you got a good deal!

I forgot to mention, the model number on the bottom of the case is CDD-3615 /03 with a manufacture date of 1998. I can't seem to find much about the drive or the enclosure. I did find a DOS Parallel CDROM driver online, which should work for it, but I don't know if its possible to actually use it as a burner in anything before Windows 95\98.

devius wrote:

You can get it and sent it my way and I won't complain 🤣

Well, its nothing fancy... it's identical to this, and it is in decent condition.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/CH-Products-Flightsti … uEAAOSwRgJXgpbe

They want $10 for it. I'm waiting to see if I'll be getting a couple flight sticks in another lot of stuff I'm bargaining for online. If I get those I really won't need this. If I don't, it seems like a nice stick for $10. I just wish it was more ergonomic. The little buttons and dials look like they'd be very difficult to use in anything somewhat fast paced.

retrofanatic wrote:

Picked up some goodies this past two months...

Some CPU's

cpus.JPG

Interesting AMD's!... i've never before seen them.

What application would you use these Am29040's on? and what socket do they fit? From what I've found they seem offer multiprocessor support.

DOS 4.01? You sick puppy.. The Amstrad 2286 was my first PC. It wasn't that bad really, reasonably fast, half decent graphics card, and ok hard disk.

DOS 4.01, though. Horrid. It was needed to address all of the 40MB hard drive in one partition, but so memory hungry getting some games to run was more than a little pain in the arse.

Oh, and yeah, on the Vista front it wasn't that bad as soon as SP1 or later had been applied. I originally ran Vista x64 with 2GB and then tried to run Oblivion - it lasted ten minutes before grinding to a halt. An upgrade to 4GB happened very speedily, then 8GB some time later.

386_junkie wrote:

retrofanatic wrote:

Picked up some goodies this past two months...

Some CPU's

cpus.JPG

Interesting AMD's!... i've never before seen them.

What application would you use these Am29040's on? and what socket do they fit? From what I've found they seem offer multiprocessor support.

Am29040 are not x86 compatible chips. They are part of AMD's 29k family of RISC CPUs. Typical applications for these are embedded systems. Similar market segments as Intel's i860 and i960.

Though it does appear that AMD used the FPU from the 29050 in the K5/5x86 CPUs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Am29000

Socket 7 weekend special. I'll find out what's in there soon enough. Had to pass up on the $50 Dimension 2400 however...