creepingnet wrote:

TTL on the NEC MultiSync is fixed, just forgot one little wire to patch the new DB-9 in.1

Also started a blog and posted the full repair there.

http://creepingnet2017.blogspot.com/

Great! Always nice to see these old 9pin monitors still working.

Hope you have fun with it 😀

Installed my newly aquired VIA C3 1200MHz into an Asus TUSC motherboard and tried out some DOS games with a Forte Media FM801AU PCI sound card installed. Music in Pinball Fantasies stopped skipping after I used JEMMX and disabled CPU cache. 😜

Kadath wrote:

Actually planning a new build, this time based on this socket 478 Gigabyte motherboard, for XP era gaming or 'new' re-proposal […]
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Actually planning a new build, this time based on this socket 478 Gigabyte motherboard, for XP era gaming or 'new' re-proposal of old classics, like Freespace or others:

Gigabyte GA-8PE667 Ultra:

What VGA would be a good and correct choice, for this model?

Depends on the CPU. A 3ghz Northwood or Prescott would be good for a 6600/6800 (GT) or something from ATI''s X800/x850 line.

Private_Ops wrote:

Kadath wrote:

Actually planning a new build, this time based on this socket 478 Gigabyte motherboard, for XP era gaming or 'new' re-proposal […]
Show full quote

Actually planning a new build, this time based on this socket 478 Gigabyte motherboard, for XP era gaming or 'new' re-proposal of old classics, like Freespace or others:

Gigabyte GA-8PE667 Ultra:

What VGA would be a good and correct choice, for this model?

Depends on the CPU. A 3ghz Northwood or Prescott would be good for a 6600/6800 (GT) or something from ATI''s X800/x850 line.

Thanks for your advice, I'm inclined to just use high clock P4 'heaters', like 3ghz or something. GeForce 7600 segment would be a good choice?

Kadath wrote:

Private_Ops wrote:

Kadath wrote:

Actually planning a new build, this time based on this socket 478 Gigabyte motherboard, for XP era gaming or 'new' re-proposal […]
Show full quote

Actually planning a new build, this time based on this socket 478 Gigabyte motherboard, for XP era gaming or 'new' re-proposal of old classics, like Freespace or others:

Gigabyte GA-8PE667 Ultra:

What VGA would be a good and correct choice, for this model?

Depends on the CPU. A 3ghz Northwood or Prescott would be good for a 6600/6800 (GT) or something from ATI''s X800/x850 line.

Thanks for your advice, I'm inclined to just use high clock P4 'heaters', like 3ghz or something. GeForce 7600 segment would be a good choice?

I'd say it would.

Last Night the XT PSU Came in for the 486's old XT chassis, so last night was quite a "kit bash" of PC hardware of sorts while I cleaned the mancave up (no better way of making clutter dissappear than making it a part of other things you actually use).

The 486 was reassembled, active cooling installed, the PSU I Bought is one of those new in box JDR Micro Devices PSUs off E-bay, 200 Watt (more than the original which was just 150 WATT. I Also took Windows 95 off the 8GB Drive and took out the 20GB to give it it's own personal setup for Win 95. I also cleaned and dusted the XT chassis out, which REALLY needed it after 10 years of hardcore use as various sytems (originally it ran as a Pentium 200 MMX, then a IBM XT class machine using IBM Parts, then was changed to my 486 when I downsized in 2012). Had to slightly modify the drive cage for cooling but it'll be fine.

The 286 was moved back into it's full AT enclosure. I tried out the backup power supply I have and I had the perfect number of connectors but no adapter for the 3.5" floppy, I also could not find the 2MB RAMpAT card anywhere - I'll just let it turn up on it's own. I have not run it yet though, but I'm pretty sure it's fine, but I'll run it today to be sure. I also cleaned and dusted the case and the old PSU for it because that PSU is a mess inside, plus the fan is getting a little noisy (lubing it up, if it does not improve I'll probably just replace it since PC Recycle has a metric shit ton of fans to put in there - maybe I'll throw a blue or red one in...maybe.)

I also souped up the Gateway Pentium, took out the noisy SCSI HDD, kept the CD-ROM, took out the SoundBlaster AWE64 that was in it, and slapped in a SoundBlaster Live 5.1 with LiveDrive module for the 3rd 3.5" bay, and put in the IOMEGA ZIP 100. Now has a 15GB Boot drive with a 40GB Drive D hanging over the PSU (Gateway did a clever thing when they realized just how under-used that area is, I used to double-stick tape hard disks to the PSU in my older Baby AT 486 units sometimes due to lack of availible slots for them). No pictures of this though. Also added a USB Card and am considering adding a TV-Tuner/Capture card for it as well for Youtube Video creation.

I've been playing around with FakeCD on my P166, which is a little DOS utility for emulating a CD-ROM based on the contents of a folder on your HDD. It works really well for early CD-ROM games that don't do any fancy checks - a little util is included which reads and stores some vital stats of the disk (label, etc), but that's about the extent of FakeCD's efforts to get around a game's DRM.

Now I can play C&C without dicking around with the disk 😎 Xwing CD, Links 386 CD, NFS, TerraNova are examples of games that work well. One significant limitation is that of course you can't copy music tracks for those games that use proper CD audio.

Spent the last few days messing around with an IBM Aptiva 2196-30A. I found the tower and the CRT in hard rubbish on the side of the road about 7 days ago, but only just got to checking it out.

The Aptiva has seen better days. I cleaned out all the dust and tried to power it on, but nothing happened. Out of curiosity, I opened the (proprietary) PSU and found a few burnt out components. Nothing major... yet. So I've put that aside to fix another day.

Yesteday I went to the local market and found an early 1980s pen writer typewriter. It's essentially a Commodore 1520 Pen Plotter, but for A4 sized paper and has a keyboard and centronics printer port! Unfortunately, the pens are dry as a bone, so I'm going to have to fix them or source a 'new' supply (good luck with that!).

So found an IBM Thinkpad a20m, missing the hard drive and cdrom drive... not sure what I'll do with that really.

Oh and some 'multimedia speakers'. I already had a pair, mostly. These ones are a similar design but they have some fancy 3D effect thing going on that seems broken.

This IBM monitor has now replaced my Packard Bell monitor. The thing is so heavy, the cheap Ikea table it sits one bends... I need to do something about that. Like buy decent tables 😐

Hey you got a Packard Bell monitor? What kind was it if you don't mind me asking?

I'm travelling home from work ATM, I'll have a look as soon as I can!

Okidoke! 😁

King_Corduroy wrote:

Okidoke! 😁

Ok so it is a Packard Bell A520. It's missing the speakers that hook onto the side of it, but it looks like any 'regular' mid 90s CRT 😀

http://www.backoffice.be/prod_uk/Packard_Bell … ote_1024_x_.asp

Oh you must be in Europe eh? I don't think those got sold here, that's post NEC purchase in 97 or 98. 🤣

Nah, I'm located in Victoria, Australia. I got this second hand a few years ago and was using it as my 'mid 90s' monitor for ages until I found that IBM monitor instead.

PS if anyone wants this Packard Bell monitor, and are located near me, you can have it!

Lol I would take it since I have a collection already of Packard Bells. Too bad it's in Australia! Although on second thought the later ones don't quite have the same awesome look as the real Packards from the mid 90's 😁

Haha yeah I know what you mean. If I was to hold onto it, it would have to be early to mid 90s. This one is a little bit too new...

badmojo wrote:

I've been playing around with FakeCD on my P166, which is a little DOS utility for emulating a CD-ROM based on the contents of a folder on your HDD. It works really well for early CD-ROM games that don't do any fancy checks - a little util is included which reads and stores some vital stats of the disk (label, etc), but that's about the extent of FakeCD's efforts to get around a game's DRM.

Now I can play C&C without dicking around with the disk 😎 Xwing CD, Links 386 CD, NFS, TerraNova are examples of games that work well. One significant limitation is that of course you can't copy music tracks for those games that use proper CD audio.

Will FakeCD work for Diablo? Let's just say I've got a sick trick I'm doing on the 486 (I got Diablo to run, at full frame rate no less, on a 486 DX4-100 years ago, even took it on Battle.net - only problem was no audio, I'm trying my DX2 now just for giggles).

Working on my new system. Trying to make a silent system. Aside from the PD, LS drives and Hdds.

That heat sink should work find for a k6-3+ at 2-2.3v

Went to pick up my sister's computer I loaned to her. To discover that she had thrown it out. 3.0ghz Athlon 64x2, 2gb of ram, a 200gb ide drive with under 200 hours on it and a HD4650. Nice. One less person to help with their computer issues 🤣. EDIT: forgot to mention the brand new 450watt Antec supply. . .

Went back to Computer Surplus and picked up some Drive sleds - plus a modern motherboard to slap into my retro-esque InWin D500 chassis (which I migrated my SSD from my junky laptop to so now I have a DECENT modern PC again -a nd it fits right in with the old stuff as it too is BEIGE and yellowed to hell, and probably worse than the vintage machines are).

With the Drive sleds - I slapped the 20GB into it's own sled, and thank god I prepped it already for use as a master complete with DDO! I just had to install Windows 95 on it - and let me tell you something - if anyone says you CANNOT run Diablo on a 486, that's a lie - I'm running it on a 486 DX2-66 with no L2 Cache and 64MB of RAM and a 2MB Video Card, seems to stick around full frame rate as I remember it for the most part, and this time, it actually has full audio. Might need to see if Battle.Net is still up - hehehe - 486 on broadband internet gaming here I come.

I also plopped the two junky....I think they are Samsung or Mitsumi....hard disks (2.1GB each) into a pair of beat looking old aluminum sleds. Those will be used for experimentation with other OS....might put my OS/2 install on one or two of them.....and maybe Linux on the other.....we'll see.

So the plan is this

7.2GB Maxtor = MS-DOS 6.22/WFWG 3.11
20GB WD = Windows 95 OEM OSR2
2.1GB = Linux/OpenBSD
2.1GB = OS/2....maybe experiment with some other old O/S as well

I'm now considering getting sleds for the Tandy 1000 and 286 - especially the 286, I found the RAMpAT memory card lurking behind a box in the closet....mibht be able to load XENIX and get that full 6144K memory usable in Protected mode. Might be fun to experiment if nothing else. Might also be fun to try CP/M-86 on the Tandy.....maybe run some 70's software or whatever if possible.