Seems to vary a lot. I suspect they have some kind of contract with the courier, possibly they wait for the OUT pile to reach a certain size or the courier picks it all up at certain intervals. If you order at the right time it might just reach the pile as the courier gets there and you get it early, otherwise, you're waiting for them to come and grab it.

It seems I can affect eBay purchases from the US when on the Pitney Bowes program as it seems they only fly certain days, if I time it right it goes right through in about a week, if i leave it a day late it takes twice as long whilst waiting for the next flight... Still haven't quite gotten it down yet and it's pointless anyway so I don't try, it was just an observation I made over time. Also depends how quickly they get the item to KY or NY where the two main handling places seem to be for shipping this way.

Fastest order ever was from Japan. I ordered two things that day, a Sega (MK-II Wondermega for anyone wondering) from Japan with middle-of-the-road shipping (Just enough that my item was insured) and a sound card (Came from my city on a nearby industrial park) - the Sega got here in three days, the sound card (1st class) took a week! I remember talking to the postman about it when I signed for the parcel, we had a good laugh at the expense of the Royal Mail (Royal Manglers) over that one, he said the boys were probably playing soccer with the sound card which turned up the Monday of the following week (Several days later than the Sega).

That's our postal service though, it isn't always very good. There are worse ones in the world I am sure, Royal Mail at least tend to get the parcel there in one piece, they just run up a bill and send it the longest way possibly most of the time - I think that sound card had been out to York before coming back to Hull (Where it started) and reaching me.

@carlostex
thanks, I will check out the bioses as I am building a XTIDE rev2 card

@robin4
seems like you found the mobo! thanks for that! I will test and hope it works

keropi wrote:

Got these freebies today: […]
Show full quote

Got these freebies today:

- a 8088 mobo with fpu and full ram (no idea about model or ram size - I assume 640kb) , the pcb states "10mhz Turbo Board" "SM-215B2"
edit: looks like this is a close match: http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/U/UN … ml#.VcpAxlVsFBc

I have this exact board. Does what it says on the tin, an XT class board that runs at 10MHz. And yes, 640KB present.

idspispopd wrote:

So it might be possible to use the MIDI synth in XP, just not the digital wave audio (which is not important since notebooks suitable for XP usually already contain an audio solution). I suppose this method should also work with Win98 (assuming that also contains a generic MPU-401 driver.
I suppose if XP could manage to assign an interrupt to the card it should work fine. I think I have even read a report that this works somewhere, but I can't find it any more. Wouldn't help much anyway since no special tricks were mentioned IIRC.

Don't think SCP-55 has digital output, just the synth. It shouldn't need an IRQ as such either, just port I/O. I assume the problems in XP are down to initialising and configuring the card.

bjt wrote:

Don't think SCP-55 has digital output, just the synth. It shouldn't need an IRQ as such either, just port I/O. I assume the problems in XP are down to initialising and configuring the card.

According to my research it has 2 digital input/output channels. (ie. wave I/O). Also, why would the MCB-3 have Mic and Line In connectors? Anyway that feature is not too important for me, useful maybe when Win98 don't support the integrated audio of the notebook. It would be interesting if the digital output was compatible with the RAP-10 because some DOS games support that card. But the RAP-10 needs DMA and I understand that PCMCIA (not CardBus) doesn't support DMA.
Regarding IRQ: MPU-401 has an IRQ so I would think that any compatible solution also needs one. Or is the IRQ only for intelligent mode? But then the RAP-10 also can't do intelligent mode and has an IRQ.

I agree with your conclusion, though.

Traded an NES and some Atari 2600 games and controllers for these three apple computers. I had to replace the PSU on the Macintosh LC but that just arrived today so now it's fully functional once again, I've never had any macs before or even ever seen one in person until a few years ago so I'm pretty excited about owning these quirky little machines. They are pretty unique. 😁

1987 Apple IIgs:

1990 Macintosh LC (Using a Unimac mac to VGA converter and a 1996 Sceptre VGA monitor I just picked up yesterday):

1992 Macintosh LC II (again using a mac to VGA converter and plugged into my main monitor)

In addition to all this I also got a copy of Windows 3.0 from a local computer shop for ten bucks and this ZEOS monitor (for free) that made a perfect replacement for my IBM PS/2's monitor which sadly was DOA when I got it and was scrapped.

King_Corduroy wrote:

Traded an NES and some Atari 2600 games and controllers for these three apple computers. I had to replace the PSU on the Macintosh LC but that just arrived today so now it's fully functional once again, I've never had any macs before or even ever seen one in person until a few years ago so I'm pretty excited about owning these quirky little machines. They are pretty unique. 😁

1987 Apple IIgs:

The IIGS is an interesting machine. After using it a while you'll wish Steve Jobs wasn't so obsessed with the Macintosh and hadn't killed it off. In some ways, it is a superior machine to the 128k Mac.

Artex wrote:

It's HAMMER TIME!!! (Get it?!)

I couldn't resist locating a YouTube MC Hammer video after reading that. Boy does did that ever bring back the times.

feipoa wrote:

Artex wrote:

It's HAMMER TIME!!! (Get it?!)

I couldn't resist locating a YouTube MC Hammer video after reading that. Boy does did that ever bring back the times.

I'm glad those times, or more fairly MC Hammer (and those pants) are over. 🤣

To be honest, I think things are much worse today;

HighTreason wrote:

To be honest, I think things are much worse today;

But.. he's so... HIP! 😵

Artex wrote:

HighTreason wrote:

To be honest, I think things are much worse today;

But.. he's so... HIP! 😵

He's just a hipster. Mmmm....
Reminds me of some wierd punk/grunge/emo wanna-be.

This is way better if you ask me. (That chick 😜 )

Even the model looks bored oO
Where is this from? One of those crappy magazines inteded for teenage girls? I can't possibly imagine these photos having any use besides that.

Oh, so we're on about women now?

Much better. No idea where this is from, I'd rather have found a legit photo from the 70s or 80s, but couldn't... Suppose I could dig out old family photos - yeah, I'm from one of those families that never really fit in.

You wanna talk about weird styles, queensryche was always up there as strange and almost dark looking. 🤣

King_Corduroy wrote:

You wanna talk about weird styles, queensryche was always up there as strange and almost dark looking. 🤣

DOn't care how they look - Jet City Woman & Silent Lucidity were staples during my grade-school years!

Lol Yeah I had the Rage for Order album when I was in HS. 🤣 Loved that band.

HighTreason wrote:

To be honest, I think things are much worse today;

Where's his Che Guevara shirt?

Stop, please.. 8)

easy_john wrote:

Stop, please.. 😎

Hammer time??? 😳