Yeah, these two occurred to me as well:

liqmat wrote on 2020-01-02, 00:39:

A.) They thought they were going to get a dual core 386 (sad face when they turned it on)

I mean, in theory, sure, SMP 386 systems did exist. Sure, those were expensive servers/file storages. Sure, they had full-blown daughterboards to host the CPUs. Sure, they needed something like WinNT 3.1 to support all that. Question is, why not just stick a second CPU and show Compaq the finger? 😀

B.) Just put it in there for safe storage so the pins wouldn't get bent

Option B is my theory anyway.

That is more realistic, but sticking an inappropriate CPU into the board just for storage seems so very weird to me. Which made me wonder if there would be a third reason.

bjwil1991 wrote on 2020-01-02, 00:44:

Or option C: onboard CPU stopped working (if it did).

This option is even pretty sane by comparison. Kind of improbable, though. I mean, what do you need to do in order to damage a 386 so fast? It's a ~1993 board already. If you've killed this CPU after 5 years of work, that would already be 1998, and it wouldn't make sense to bother with a 386 even for office applications. That's like trying to resurrect an Intel Atom nettop in 2015 or so.

Takes George R.R. Martin levels of technological persistence for that to happen.

bfcastello wrote on 2020-01-01, 20:43:

Today I've found that the new VMWare Fusion 11.5, for the first time, on macOS hosts can emulate the Sound Blaster 16. I'm about […]
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Today I've found that the new VMWare Fusion 11.5, for the first time, on macOS hosts can emulate the Sound Blaster 16. I'm about to try it out now... for a WfWg 3.11/MSDOS 6.22 VM.

If it works, I won't need dosbox at all, except on my iPad with the very old ported version (iDOS2/DOSPad), which hasn't been updated for almost an decade.

Starting with iOS 13, I can feel that there will be a problem with very old apps. I can't believe no one has taken over litchie's work and forked it to continue the development. DOS games with iPad can be much more fun than most of the silly games available on App Store. I despise Fortnite...

https://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-40539

EDIT: Aaaaand... it works. I can hear the Windows sound when starting/exiting. Amazing. For most people this is nothing, but for a deaf person like me, with childhood memories, it's amazing.

After successfully installing the sound drivers, I went to install the network card drivers. And kaboom everything went wrong. the network drivers do not play nice with the SVGA drivers. It's one or another. I don't know why. Dammit. VMware Fusion uses AMDPCNET drivers for networking.

First I tried to install network drivers and then later the patched SVGA drivers, but I keep getting "error loading USER.EXE" when I attempt to run Windows.
Then I tried to install the SVGA drivers first and then the network drivers later, but it just gets worse, Windows refuses to boot with garbled splash screen graphics, never reaching the desktop. It's irritating. I can't believe I will have to stick with DOSBox (NE2000 Patched) and it's inability to network from wifi instead of ethernet. GRRR...

EDIT: I f$%$ing finally managed to make it work. I used some other SVGA driver from the original windows disks and patched it before installing. I have sound, video (256 colors max anyway) and networking. Thanks God.

I replaced the Radeon 7000 PCI in my Compaq Deskpro EN-SFF with a Radeon 9250 PCI and something very uncanny happened.

The card causes very weird artifacting in 2D only in the form of randomly colored pixels across the screen, particularly when moving windows around. It also does the same thing in full screen DOS windows but there is no corruption in BIOS/DOS. It's probably a driver issue of some kind so I reverted to the Radeon 7000 PCI, but it was weird nonetheless.

Anyone experienced something similar in the past?

Took a look at my Toshiba 490XCDT. Removed the two batteries (no real leaks but a few crystals were found). I will only replace the RTC battery unless I can find a good deal for the restore battery.

It seems to work fine but needs a reinstall. I'll probably do DOS/Windows 98SE. It has real OPL3 sound which is nice.

Toshiba still has all drivers on their website!

derSammler wrote on 2020-01-01, 16:14:

Spent most time today 3d-printing trays for my socket 7 CPU collection. Still some more to go...

Socket 7 done, now doing socket 1-3. One done already, second is printing.

After that, I need to modify the design to fit 68040/060.

derSammler wrote on 2020-01-02, 14:39:

derSammler wrote on 2020-01-01, 16:14:

Spent most time today 3d-printing trays for my socket 7 CPU collection. Still some more to go...

Socket 7 done, now doing socket 1-3. One done already, second is printing.

After that, I need to modify the design to fit 68040/060.

Very nice.. Can you share the STLs for these? I need a couple for my Socket 7 and 3 CPUs as well 😁

I posted the link to it on page 691. It's not my design, btw.

I'll share all modifications I do for other CPUs, of course.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-01-02, 14:40:

derSammler wrote on 2020-01-02, 14:39:

derSammler wrote on 2020-01-01, 16:14:

Spent most time today 3d-printing trays for my socket 7 CPU collection. Still some more to go...

Socket 7 done, now doing socket 1-3. One done already, second is printing.

After that, I need to modify the design to fit 68040/060.

Very nice.. Can you share the STLs for these? I need a couple for my Socket 7 and 3 CPUs as well 😁

I asked the same question and the answer was this 😀 :

derSammler wrote on 2020-01-01, 19:35:

I'm using this:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3026939

Spent that last couple of days trying to figure out what the hell broke my XP install.

The machine hasn’t been used much since 2017 and it was fine right up until I applied the 2018/19 EPOS updates. So I guess somewhere, not sure where, an update broke something rather important.

Try to run any installer (for example Microsofts own AV or Panda) and they tank … SILENTLY … no error message, nothing in the event logs just poof, gone. Even media player refuses to fire up. Not sure what the hell happened but getting to the bottom of it is going to be a major pain in the you know what.

System spec: AMD K6/2 500Mhz, 768MB memory, GA-5AA Motherboard, XP Pro.

According to Nirsofts Simple Program Debugger (log attached) this is what is happening while trying to install MS Antivirus, process halts with Exit Code: 0xc000001d which appears to be an illegal instruction error, so, update changed something in a manner not compatible with a P1 maybe?

You probably need a CPU with SSE2 support. MS made SSE2 a requirement for updates sometime in 2018.

Yeah figured that might be the case, nice of the updates to ensure compatibility before installing eh. Guess that was too much to ask for. Now just need to figure out if there is a way to get back out of this mess without a reinstall, which on that spec will take an age and something I would like to avoid having to do if at all possible.

gca wrote on 2020-01-02, 15:19:

nice of the updates to ensure compatibility before installing eh.

Remember that POS updates were not for the masses, but for a niche. They are not supposed to check for compatibility whatsoever (it's up to the client to ensure hardware-compatibility) and they are released with little to no testing done.

Fair point, only other XP box I update must have been SSE2 complaint as it had no issues so I just went ahead and updated the P1. Live and learn I guess.

derSammler wrote on 2020-01-02, 14:42:

I'll share all modifications I do for other CPUs, of course.

Made a variation for 68040/060:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4080531

Did not make a proof-print yet, but they should fit.

Cyrix200+ wrote on 2020-01-02, 08:12:

Took a look at my Toshiba 490XCDT. Removed the two batteries (no real leaks but a few crystals were found). I will only replace the RTC battery unless I can find a good deal for the restore battery.

It seems to work fine but needs a reinstall. I'll probably do DOS/Windows 98SE. It has real OPL3 sound which is nice.

Toshiba still has all drivers on their website!

Lucky! The Toshiba 490CDT I got hold of had corroded extremely badly around the northbridge area thanks to those two batteries, with no hope of resurrection.
On most of the laptops I've removed the RTC/resume battery from, I prefer just leaving it without one, those little RTC batteries cost more than they're worth if they're going to cause more damage just a few years down the line. BIOS defaults work well enough 😀
I wonder what causes the differences in rate of corrosion? Date it stopped being used, temperature / humidity of its storage?

Powered on three of my retro Toshiba laptops to make sure they're still functional - a Toshiba T1910CS (486-33, 4 MB Ram, 200 MB Hard drive, passive matrix colour screen), my 430CDT (Pentium 120, 32 MB Ram, C&T Video, ESS688 w/real OPL3!), and my Tecra 500CDT (P120, 32MB Ram, C&T Video, CS4232 w/real OPL3) and thankfully all seem to be as they were when I last booted them.

The 430CDT has a couple of quirks - seems to run into issues with Duke Nukem 2 (plays and then freezes randomly) and the headphone jack doesn't seem to work, but the onboard speaker does. I'm pretty sure I pulled the batteries from this one -they're easy to get to on this one.

The T1910CS is near mint (save some marks from storage, should be able to clean right off) and seems original, down to the 200 MB hard drive. I haven't opened it yet to remove the batteries, mostly because it's in such nice cosmetic shape and I've never been the best luck at cleanly opening and reassembling retro laptops. Probably should do it soon though.... Everything works on this one too, right down to the floppy drive at last check.

The 500CDT looks really rough, cracks in the palm rest, some missing case bits at the edges.... but it 's the one that works best for me. The only issue I'm aware of is that the headphone jack works but doesn't always mute the onboard speakers. Pretty sure I pulled the batteries from this one already too.

Unfortunately my Toshiba external floppy died a while ago and I was unable to resurrect it - and the 430 and 500 won't boot from CD, so I need to move the drives out to other computers when I want to do re-installs which sucks.

Went thru my collection of scsi cards and drives. Flashed the bios on a few Adaptec's to last known version. Tested a few scsi hd, all worked but the old Seagate ST1480n "brick" 🤣. It finally died and I don't care 😁

Horun wrote on 2020-01-03, 03:25:

Went thru my collection of scsi cards and drives. Flashed the bios on a few Adaptec's to last known version. Tested a few scsi hd, all worked but the old Seagate ST1480n "brick" 🤣. It finally died and I don't care 😁

Nice paperweight 😜

Repaired 4CD, swap clockers from 775DC (ICS to RT). On stock BIOS it didnt want work with AGP card, but on 2.2A MX400 work fine


Bought some stuff))

Still looking for a best SS7 mobo, I'm testing now MPV4.