Anyone know why the 'cpu-world' site seems to have been down the last couple of day?

The site is managed on the east coast and we are getting hit hard with this major storm (we had wind storms on Tuesday) or possible that the server stopped working.

Finally, I could test the 720k 5.25" drive I mentioned earlier... I had gone through a bunch of test systems (all of them failed to read even from my tested should-be-ok Teac 720k drive) before it finally dawned on me to try another FDC card. OMG. So I installed my 8-bit HD card with its own BIOS in my 286-12 test board and yes, it worked flawlessly...
So my Goldstar Prime2/2C cards are not friends with these drives.

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-12-24, 20:37:

Did honorable screwdriver combat against this TECO TR3230F/Relisys RWT205CE, which is a “legacy-free” thin client based on the 2 […]
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Did honorable screwdriver combat against this TECO TR3230F/Relisys RWT205CE, which is a “legacy-free” thin client based on the 200MHz SiS550 SoC (which itself is derived from the Rise mP6) - tried to get a Yamaha YMF724 or a Crystal 4630 to work with it.
Ultimately fruitless.

00D35711-E1E8-4376-A3CB-C23C7C08A510.jpeg

What’s good about it?

a) The SiS550 is kinda rare and performs somewhat well against a 200MHz Pentium MMX.
b) Uses PC100/133 SDRAM
c) Low power usage (about 4w on tap, which compares well to the 6w used by my Wyse 5070 thin client)
d) Fairly competent 2D core (SiS301, or the 2D base of the SiS315 Mirage series) - the SiS UniVGA drivers for Win98 can be modified to work with it.
e) No publicly available datasheet with register file info for it, so it’s not like you can bitbang it to work like with a Trident 4Dwave legacy core.

And bad?

a) AC97 only with an ADI AD1881 codec
b) No support for DMA or bus mastering in LPC or ISA
(no old school Soundblaster support for you)
c) No support for the same in PCI (so the YMF 7 series and Solo-1 cards won’t work)

Who would find something that performs like a Pentium 233MMX with no legacy support to be useful? At least the Via C3s with the 686C/8231 southbridge or a K6 embedded with a SiS Chipset would happily work with the YMFs or the Solo-1s, and the slower NatSemi Geodes will have SB emulation baked into its BIOS via some SMI (system management interface) state machine. What is this good for, really?

Eh, if you find one, strip it if its useful components and put it back into the recycling bin. It's not really worth your while.

This might need 12V modification to supply 12V to PCI slot and add capacitors on the PCI riser. Both is needed to work properly. Chances this might help.

Cheers,

Doing some S478 water-cooled OCing today. See how far I can safely push these chips (I'll stop at about 1.6V Vcore in OS at idle - that seems to be a safe max voltage on water for my Netburst and Core CPUs).

Merry Christmas!

alvaro84 wrote on 2020-12-17, 08:07:

It's folded into a new, bizarre shape, the front fork completely bent under the rest of the bike and the grips bent... I can't even grip what they did.
The driver offered some other bike, btw. As for the rest, let's see some lawyers/insurance company match. I don't even have an idea how to assess the value of a 41-year-old, perfectly functional spleen (that I lost), for example.

What in the Kentucky Fried Fuck 😱 You're lucky to even be alive, let alone able to walk. There better be some decent compensation for that injury 😠

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2020-12-25, 03:55:

Anyone know why the 'cpu-world' site seems to have been down the last couple of day?

@bjwil1991's reply is feasible, as all the sites and email addresses tied to the server are down. I tried to email Genna, but it was undeliverable. Apparently there have been some very short periods of up time, so power outages seem likely.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2020-12-25, 15:25:

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-12-24, 20:37:

Did honorable screwdriver combat against this TECO TR3230F/Relisys RWT205CE, which is a “legacy-free” thin client based on the 2 […]
Show full quote

Did honorable screwdriver combat against this TECO TR3230F/Relisys RWT205CE, which is a “legacy-free” thin client based on the 200MHz SiS550 SoC (which itself is derived from the Rise mP6) - tried to get a Yamaha YMF724 or a Crystal 4630 to work with it.
Ultimately fruitless.

00D35711-E1E8-4376-A3CB-C23C7C08A510.jpeg

What’s good about it?

a) The SiS550 is kinda rare and performs somewhat well against a 200MHz Pentium MMX (it's somewhere between a 200MHz P55c and a Tilamook 233 MHz)
b) Uses PC100/133 SDRAM
c) Low power usage (about 4w on tap, which compares well to the 6w used by my Wyse 5070 thin client)
d) Fairly competent 2D core (SiS301, or the 2D base of the SiS315 Mirage series) - the SiS UniVGA drivers for Win98 can be modified to work with it.
e) No publicly available datasheet with register file info for it, so it’s not like you can bitbang it to work like with a Trident 4Dwave legacy core.

And bad?

a) AC97 only with an ADI AD1881 codec
b) No support for DMA or bus mastering in LPC or ISA
(no old school Soundblaster support for you)
c) No support for the same in PCI (so the YMF 7 series and Solo-1 cards won’t work)

Who would find something that performs like a Pentium 233MMX with no legacy support to be useful? At least the Via C3s with the 686C/8231 southbridge or a K6 embedded with a SiS Chipset would happily work with the YMFs or the Solo-1s, and the slower NatSemi Geodes will have SB emulation baked into its BIOS via some SMI (system management interface) state machine. What is this good for, really?

Eh, if you find one, strip it if its useful components and put it back into the recycling bin. It's not really worth your while.

This might need 12V modification to supply 12V to PCI slot and add capacitors on the PCI riser. Both is needed to work properly. Chances this might help.

Cheers,

Eh, I am not even sure if it’s necessary, or if it’s indeed even worth it.

The BIOS is spartan (to say the least) since the thin client was originally designed to run the x86 version of Windows CE. That's not the problem - it's more the uncertainty of dealing with something that's not really consumer facing and with legacy-free feature lock-downs in mind. SiS locked the data sheets (more specifically the SiS 55x register file) behind an NDA, and once DM&P took over the 55x SoC design they released a few PC104 boards. PC104 designs using the VortexDX (rebranded SiS 550) made passing mention of ISA DMAs in their manual. In theory it's do-able. The southbridge looks like a SiS 5513 or its functional derivative (which can do distributed DMA and PCI to ISA interrupt remapping) - it's just writing back a value or two on register 60 and 62 of that Southbridge chip , but bitbanging using Uwe Seiber's pciset got me nothing so far. The SiS 55x block diagram mentions a PCI access arbitor, which might require a flag or 2 set during boot to allow writing to those registers, but without a written reference, I am running full speed into a brick wall.

At the end of the day I already have 3 thin clients and a router, all 4 has some form of legacy SB support in one form or another. If I can get it easily to work, great. If not, this thin client is just waiting for the New York City e-waste collection program to start back up again...

Oh well, going to download/tweak the SiS7018 VxD drivers and see if I can shoehorn DOS support onto it - maybe the 7019 is closer to a 7018 than a 7012..?!

Archiving old manuals from Amptron website just to give me something to do 😀

I wanted to engage in some 90s Christmas nostalgia, but my parents don't have a CD player and I don't know where my old MP3 CD player from my teens is located. So made use of some period-correct spare parts I have lying around...

Pinouts handily printed on the drive. Haven't tested the digital output, though there's a lot of hiss on the analogue output so I wouldn't be surprised if this setup is too ricketty for that to work.

Big Pink wrote on 2020-12-26, 00:37:

I wanted to engage in some 90s Christmas nostalgia, but my parents don't have a CD player and I don't know where my old MP3 CD player from my teens is located. So made use of some period-correct spare parts I have lying around...

Pinouts handily printed on the drive. Haven't tested the digital output, though there's a lot of hiss on the analogue output so I wouldn't be surprised if this setup is too ricketty for that to work.

Great Work ! Good thing the cdrom has a play button and volume control, hate the old models with nothing but a eject button.

just got my dad into this addiction. he wanted to play SimCity 2000 like he used to do, so I set up a dosbox for him on both his mac and ipad. Must be having fun from what I can hear (SC2000 music is up there) 🤣. Merry Xmas everyone!

Swapped out the faulty battery on the Macbook Pro 13 (Retina) from some cheap Chinese knockoff purchased on Amazon (died after 6 months) with something that's higher grade of quality from iFixit.

The difference in quality? Instantly recognizable. The battery actually fits in the chassis, not much fiddling was required, and there are clearly written directions on how to contact support for warranty service. Seriously, had I known how terrible the generic knockoff batteries were on Amazon.com I would not have bothered.
Note: The terrace battery on the MBP13s were glued onto the chassis by design and not nearly as easy to work with as the one piece swappables on the pre-Retina Macbook Airs.

The MBP13 is back up and running , and as a bonus, the new battery actually plays well with the system controller. The fan is not stuck on full blast and i didn't have to zap the PRAM. Pity that the left hand speaker developed a nasty buzz and needed to be swapped out (That's a 5 minute project but it's 5 days to get the replacement parts shipped).

- ran OpenTTD for about 5 hours to calibrate the new battery. Looks like with the 2cc train sets the higher cost of running the fancier rail cars made it nearly impossible to run a profitable railway. That being said, streetcars became immensely profitable....

Also did some poking around for a PC104 based project - not sure whether I am truly comfortable with the risks inherent with those machines. Looks interesting, though.

my sister an illustration artist asked what I would like for xmas, and golden axe old map came to mind. She did it on chamois to mimic old map making, I think it's awesome.

ElBrunzy wrote on 2020-12-26, 05:12:

my sister an illustration artist asked what I would like for xmas, and golden axe old map came to mind. She did it on chamois to mimic old map making, I think it's awesome.

goldenaxemap-13x21-dec2020.jpg

That is really nice ! What a beautiful way to make a personalized, hand-crafted gift .

It is really heart-warming and truly in the spirit of what the holiday season should be about, IMHO .

when I'm looking about that picture I'm not sure about the heart-warming part. The c64 version is pretty violent if you want my advice https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zFoN1ZMmNUA/hqdefault.jpg

ElBrunzy wrote on 2020-12-26, 05:29:

when I'm looking about that picture I'm not sure about the heart-warming part. The c64 version is pretty violent if you want my advice https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zFoN1ZMmNUA/hqdefault.jpg

The heart-warming aspect I was referring to is in relation to the fact that it is a custom-made gift from a loved one who likely does not share in your hobby but wanted to make you happy . IMHO, these are some of the best and most meaningful gifts one can receive .

The fact that the game itself is violent is not at issue . Incidentally, my first experience with a "realistically" violent video game was seeing Barbarian being played on an Amiga 500 when I was 10 or 11 .

darry : at some point my sister asked me if I was not mistaken with the ghouls and ghost game. What do you think ?

ElBrunzy wrote on 2020-12-26, 05:45:

darry : at some point my sister asked me if I was not mistaken with the ghouls and ghost game. What do you think ?

If I understand your question correctly, I think that your sister may be into retro gaming as well after all, or at least knowledgeable about it . If this is the case, it is even cooler. I don't know anyone in my immediate vicinity (i.e. that I could easily meet in person, COVID-19 considerations aside) that is into retro gaming or hardware, let alone any family members that would be even interested in hearing about it.

yes, I was a bit insulted she think I could mistake golden axe with ghouls and ghost. But she was right since I was talking about arcade in attract mode in the '80s plane port where golden axe and ghoul and ghost cabinet where many presents. I guess you arent ready for that yet, but I guess your kids gonna love it.