Cleaned an old digicam today. It is one of these acrylic models from the early iMac era. A Palm Cam Trio, I think.
It was in a very bad condition when I got it. The battery had leaked and its interior was dirty.
Let's hope it still works. It is also supported by macam. 😀

How it looks if assembled (sample)

> SO... any of you reverse-engineering gurus want to help me tackle this thing? For starters, any pointers how I would go about dumping that ROM?

(This doesn't look like a ROM but like another microcontroller - mind the crystal - all of these controllers have a built-in ROM).

I'd first check with i.e. a Linux PS/2 driver in debug logging mode wether the keys are simply implemented as 'additional' scancodes. If not, the keyboard probably expects a special command to enable them.

I just dismantled a DE9 to 2xDIN cable that I got on eBay that was wired incorrectly for my Midiman MM401 MPU401 interface. I've never rewired a plug like this before, but thankfully it was a DIY-type held together with screws and had enough room to work with. After realizing that the "MIDI IN" cable is alltogether not wired correctly to even use with this card, I left it out and just used the MIDI OUT cable, wired to the two pins needed on the DE9, with the ground going to the DE9 casing. I just tested it and it actually works!

This is great, because I had been using a cable I borrowed from a newer M-Audio midi card and I'd like to be able to keep that set together.

EDIT: Oops... forgot to mention. I couldn't have done this successfully without the pictures and information in this thread:
MIDIMAN MM-401 breakout cable

Started recording output of the YMF724. I'm surprised that the digital output of the card can be recorded right into Audacity.

To demonstrate to a friend the missing percussion in Doom E1M2, I recorded it.

[Edit]
I got the SC link. Trying to get this via mobile isn't fun. They keep shoving their app at you. Also, I've allowed downloads in case you want to snag the FLAC source. Somewhere, I read that this card quantizes everything to 48k, so perhaps I should have recorded it at that rate.

https://soundcloud.com/saxxonpike/doom-e1m2-on-ymf724

Spent the afternoon fighting with Sound Blasters in a computer. LAte tonight I remembered though that the cards I had had SPDIF ports and I ahve buried in storage a 4.1 set that could do digial in.

Hmm......

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

> SO... any of you reverse-engineering gurus want to help me tackle this thing? For starters, any pointers how I would go about dumping that ROM?

(This doesn't look like a ROM but like another microcontroller - mind the crystal - all of these controllers have a built-in ROM).

Okay, that's weird. Wonder what they needed so many microcontrollers for. I expected to find one.

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

I'd first check with i.e. a Linux PS/2 driver in debug logging mode wether the keys are simply implemented as 'additional' scancodes. If not, the keyboard probably expects a special command to enable them.

I do believe that to be the case. On a generic driver the only keys that produce events on the PS/2 handler (/dev/input/event2) are the ones that would be found on a typical multimedia keyboard of the era - the QWERTY keys but also the volume wheel & play/stop/ff/rw bottons. (All of these work natively in Linux.) None of the MIDI keys or 'special' buttons (octave shift, pitch bend, etc.) do anything.

The problem is I have no idea what to write to the PS/2 port to activate it. There is no programming/dev kit to this thing available anywhere.

I'm thinking to try installing the official software suite on a windows machine and logging the PS/2 port. Not 100% sure the best way to do that though.

Weirdly this keyboard does not work if USB Legacy Mode is enabled in the BIOS, even though it's a PS/2 device. It even says so right in the user's manual.

Played around with an Aureal Vortex AU8820. Tossed it in the Tyan 😀 http://i.imgur.com/0t3x1bu.jpg

I've been benchmarking PCI and AGP video cards in Windows 98. I have around 24 of them, using 3dmark 99, 00 and 01. Got through about 4 of them fighting different issues with drivers etc, then my hard drive started throwing errors. Doing a scandisk now, found bad sectors in 2 different places so far. At the rate it's going it'll be another 6 hours or so. 🙁

Played some Ultima Underworld 2 early this morning. Finished up Killorn Keep and about to head into the Ice Caves of Anodunos. Now I'm cleaning out the basement, throwing crap out, and making room/organizing my retro gear. I'm at the point where I need to be more selective with what I hold onto. 😲

clueless1 wrote:

I'm at the point where I need to be more selective with what I hold onto. 😲

Or buy/rent somewhere bigger 😀

I'm considering building a large brick shed for all my retro kit (my bungalow look like a computer warehouse!)

debs3759 wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

I'm at the point where I need to be more selective with what I hold onto. 😲

Or buy/rent somewhere bigger 😀

I'm considering building a large brick shed for all my retro kit (my bungalow look like a computer warehouse!)

Kinda off topic but kinda on topic a little.. last month there was a small rural town 200 miles outside of DFW metroplex that had a school for sale, lots of space across 8 rooms and 2 floors. 3 of the rooms were rebuilt in to living space, the rest were rough / unfinished. They only wanted $86k for it and the 2 acres of land it sat on. Me and mom almost tried to look in to selling our house and moving to it. Until we went out to see it and found out the roof's worn out and leaks like a river into the downstairs and it would be another $55k to have the roof redone. I had thought if I had the money for it, woulda been great to convert in to datacenter space / computer storage / computer something. Or renovate it and rent out the rooms as condos or something. But we didn't have the money to really go through with it.. would only of come out with $20k after selling our house and could only get another loan for $110k. Woulda been nice to have all that room though. Other than it would've been expensive to heat/cool it too.

But all that room to store computer stuff in if we had the roof fixed woulda been nice 😁

Spent more time trying to raise The Pheonix. It just dies for extended periods of time and then boots right up, running stable for awhile. Then dying again. . .Think it is time to hang it on the wall. Swapping it out for an Intel RDRAM 423 board with 1.8ghz Willamette.

Been playing around with this lovely graphics card. At first glance it appears to be a 8800 GTX, but this is actually a Dell 8800 Ultra. It works great, handles most XP era games at 1600 x 1200 with 4x AA and 16x AF just fine. Does run a bit hot, I guess the paste could get replaced, but at the moment I see no reason to do so.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Been playing around with this lovely graphics card. At first glance it appears to be a 8800 GTX, but this is actually a Dell 880 […]
Show full quote

Been playing around with this lovely graphics card. At first glance it appears to be a 8800 GTX, but this is actually a Dell 8800 Ultra. It works great, handles most XP era games at 1600 x 1200 with 4x AA and 16x AF just fine. Does run a bit hot, I guess the paste could get replaced, but at the moment I see no reason to do so.

That looks just like my 8800GTX (Dell). Bought for $38 shipped a few years ago 😀 I'm surprised it's still running without artifacting.

Yes I heard a lot of them are dead. So I'm stoked it works. It's a cool card, very iconic and it was the top dog for a very long time, so owners back in the day had a good run. But for building a retro machine, there are better options that are faster, smaller, cooler, quieter and draw less power.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Been playing around with this lovely graphics card. At first glance it appears to be a 8800 GTX, but this is actually a Dell 880 […]
Show full quote

Been playing around with this lovely graphics card. At first glance it appears to be a 8800 GTX, but this is actually a Dell 8800 Ultra. It works great, handles most XP era games at 1600 x 1200 with 4x AA and 16x AF just fine. Does run a bit hot, I guess the paste could get replaced, but at the moment I see no reason to do so.

God I love that card.

Way better than the 2900 XT, I had at the time

added some new diskmags to my collection which filled a few holes in the numbering. also found my old bios collection for my old QDI P5I430TX Titanium Socket 7 motherboard that I ran with my K6-200 when it was brand spanking new. That was a nice motherboard.

more chuffed about getting some new diskmags mostly. I have a nice collection 😀 I really need to organise it and get it online.

Last night I broke a record. I could have gone farther but the ram craped out on me. I may be able to get one or two FSB more, but that's it. 222 is 100% stable, anything more and its not. The cpu is stable but the ram is not. I can push 2v into the cpu's with my board. but I can't do squat with the ram.

http://valid.x86.fr/9svr68

I also still have the recorded for the highest OC with a 750mhz e Piii
http://valid.x86.fr/zbmiit
http://valid.x86.fr/top-cpu/496e74656c2050656 … 0373530204d487a

Ran the VLB Tseng ET4000 card I had ordered a while ago through some tests. Seems to work fine.

Going to be downsizing. Try to get it down to 4 PC's and strip/store/get rid of everything else. Edit: Living situation is going to suck soon.