Shagittarius wrote:

Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (Steam) runs fine on my Windows 10 RTX 2080ti machine. With the exception that full screen has a title bar.

Sure it does, but I use the original game on CD-ROM 😉

Last day I’ve played NFS Hot Pursuit 2 on my GeForce6 system, what a great game that still is after 15+ years, in fact it’s even better now because now I have some proper high end hardware, back in the early 00’s I played it using a TNT2 or GeForce MX (not sure anymore).

bakemono wrote:

I use MyPal 27.9.4 in win2k (with ext kernel) and don't have crashes. One problem is that downloads fail anywhere other than mypal's own directory. I suspect there is a fix for this as Palemoon Portable had the same problem and could be fixed by editing one of the config files. dom.messageChannel.enabled had to be added for craptchas to work, and 1-2 checkboxs under content-video had to be altered for youtube.

I'm surprised that FF 52 can still display the menu bar, I thought they had already done away with it to fit in with the current (reprehensible, IMO) fashion.

Is RAM beyond 3GB usable?

Haven't tried the beyond 3GB RAM limit but on 64-bit Windows 7 it uses all 8GB obviously. Will try MyPal, thanks!

As for KComp, try these AMD drivers... they worked for me.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/0iir6mvbbbvmjt … 304W2K.zip/file

EDIT: Holy crap, this MyPal is great! Works perfectly fine on Windows 2000 as well.

Haven't posted in awhile.

I picked up a Leading Edge 8088 system from my university for $0.05....but the jerks took the internal MFM hard drive and chucked it into a recycle bin due to NSA restrictions with a university and and resell of equipment and NASA stuff. Soooo...I wasn't thrilled with that.

However, I did pick up an MFM drive a long time ago, and formatted it with the DOS debug command to bring up the onboard Adaptec utility. NO DEAD SECTORS..WOW. Miracle for this drive!

I also had a very old SCSI 8-BIT "HARD CARD" generic that has 128mb SCSI drive on it I wanted to test out...and....NO DEAD sectors! The vintage GODS are smiling on me today!

Oh, and I got a IIGS system for 60 shipped that just needed one RAM chip replaced. Awesome.

Volunteered to do some technical education at my elder son's primary school.

Went to town on eight systems from P3 to C2D with about 30 11- and 12-year olds in groups of 3 or 4, disassembling them, then letting the groups who finished that soonest start rebuilding them. Two groups managed to rebuild systems to the point of POSTing, with one we added an optical drive and booted Knoppix too.

No coincidence that was the P3 system - partly because it was easier to work on, partly because it was the one I only entrusted to the children I felt would treat the stuff with respect - who of course tended to be most competent too. Nonetheless someone (I suspect the substitute teacher who tried to - hurriedly - help tidy stuff up at the end) managed to knock an SMD cap off the STB Velocity 4400, so need to fix that before doing a different group next week.

They were in awe of seeing something built the better part of a decade before they were born boot up after they had - with no more than some intentionally general hints from me - built it, angrily beep when they hadn't seated the DIMM properly and then reward them by successfully loading an OS. Then they almost lost it again when I told them that the oldest, lowest-end smartphone in the class outperformed this big system by an order of magnitude.

Oh, and all this time my 3-year old sat on a table as a sort of mascot, either eating fruit he purloined from somewhere in the classroom, or sitting on a table playing with screws and screw drivers.

Dead tired now, but very rewarding corrupting the youth in this way 😀

dionb wrote:

Volunteered to do some technical education at my elder son's primary school. […]
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Volunteered to do some technical education at my elder son's primary school.

Went to town on eight systems from P3 to C2D with about 30 11- and 12-year olds in groups of 3 or 4, disassembling them, then letting the groups who finished that soonest start rebuilding them. Two groups managed to rebuild systems to the point of POSTing, with one we added an optical drive and booted Knoppix too.

No coincidence that was the P3 system - partly because it was easier to work on, partly because it was the one I only entrusted to the children I felt would treat the stuff with respect - who of course tended to be most competent too. Nonetheless someone (I suspect the substitute teacher who tried to - hurriedly - help tidy stuff up at the end) managed to knock an SMD cap off the STB Velocity 4400, so need to fix that before doing a different group next week.

They were in awe of seeing something built the better part of a decade before they were born boot up after they had - with no more than some intentionally general hints from me - built it, angrily beep when they hadn't seated the DIMM properly and then reward them by successfully loading an OS. Then they almost lost it again when I told them that the oldest, lowest-end smartphone in the class outperformed this big system by an order of magnitude.

Oh, and all this time my 3-year old sat on a table as a sort of mascot, either eating fruit he purloined from somewhere in the classroom, or sitting on a table playing with screws and screw drivers.

Dead tired now, but very rewarding corrupting the youth in this way 😀

Well, at least kids somewhere show an interest. Last time I was involved with anything like that I was trying to teach recent school leavers how to do that sort of thing volunteering at an e-waste recycling centre/training provider. Most of the time they either didn't show up or showed up with all the enthusiasm of a group being lead to the front row of a firing squad. The theory was to give them some sort of skill employers would want, guess they thought otherwise. Seems to be an ever increasing problem here, no one has any interest in doing anything that requires even the slightest bit of mental effort.

Don't underestimate selection bias. At primary education level - like these 11 year-olds - you have everything from potential professors and engineers down to complete lowlifes. By the time you get to school leavers in a project to give no-hopers some kind of skill, everyone with brains and/or motivation has already left as either in further education or already working. You're left with those who have neither and there you are happy if they turn up, don't intentionally trash stuff, don't start fights and don't steal your equipment.

Been there, done that - I give schoolchildren tours of my lab at work occasionally and the older ones from 'dump' schools are rightly notorious. That's why I far prefer primary school children. A lot are intrinsically motivated and it's not too late to make a positive difference with the others.

Did the sensible thing and abandoned NT3.51 on the P2B-DS. Upgraded to NT4 and, after a false start with the video card, got both the RTL8139 and Permedia 2v installed. CT4520 left for another day.

StevOnehundred wrote:

Did the sensible thing and abandoned NT3.51 on the P2B-DS. Upgraded to NT4 and, after a false start with the video card, got both the RTL8139 and Permedia 2v installed. CT4520 left for another day.

Permedia 2V is a very decent card. I acquired one myself.

liqmat wrote:

Permedia 2V is a very decent card. I acquired one myself.

Mine was made by Imagine Graphics and didn't seem to appreciate the standard driver that I'd found. Located the correct one from their old site on the Wayback Machine, luckily.

Set up my retired Socket 775 Core 2 Quad system for the family to use and decided to do a "simple" clean and repaste procedure for the CPU & cooler.

I say "simple" because I absolutely despise those god damned stock Intel coolers with a passion! Ended up accidentally snapping 1 of the push pins, before violently launching the whole cooler at the wall and replacing it with a spare. 😠

Those push pin coolers really are a piece of shit! Give me screws & clips any day, that's why I generally prefer aftermarket coolers.

PTherapist wrote:

Set up my retired Socket 775 Core 2 Quad system for the family to use and decided to do a "simple" clean and repaste procedure for the CPU & cooler.

I say "simple" because I absolutely despise those god damned stock Intel coolers with a passion! Ended up accidentally snapping 1 of the push pins, before violently launching the whole cooler at the wall and replacing it with a spare. 😠

Those push pin coolers really are a piece of shit! Give me screws & clips any day, that's why I generally prefer aftermarket coolers.

Besides their garbage cooling performance (well, at least the non-775 ones without the copper base), a problem I have with Intel pushpin coolers is how hard it is to get them secured to a motherboard that is warped near the CPU socket.

I have an AsRock 775i65G R3.0 that came to my door that was noticeably warped around the CPU socket. Since I don't have any other available 775 coolers on hand, I have been using an Intel box cooler with it. The thing is, getting the cooler on was more difficult than it should have been because of the board's warped nature. I had to put a crazy amount of pressure on some of the pins for them to "click". It was a little scary.

the_ultra_code wrote:

PTherapist wrote:

Set up my retired Socket 775 Core 2 Quad system for the family to use and decided to do a "simple" clean and repaste procedure for the CPU & cooler.

I say "simple" because I absolutely despise those god damned stock Intel coolers with a passion! Ended up accidentally snapping 1 of the push pins, before violently launching the whole cooler at the wall and replacing it with a spare. 😠

Those push pin coolers really are a piece of shit! Give me screws & clips any day, that's why I generally prefer aftermarket coolers.

Besides their garbage cooling performance (well, at least the non-775 ones without the copper base), a problem I have with Intel pushpin coolers is how hard it is to get them secured to a motherboard that is warped near the CPU socket.

I have an AsRock 775i65G R3.0 that came to my door that was noticeably warped around the CPU socket. Since I don't have any other available 775 coolers on hand, I have been using an Intel box cooler with it. The thing is, getting the cooler on was more difficult than it should have been because of the board's warped nature. I had to put a crazy amount of pressure on some of the pins for them to "click". It was a little scary.

Wow, they're bad enough to fit correctly without a warped board, I don't think I'd have had the patience.

Plus after years of usage, those crap plastic pushpins tend to become brittle and bend/snap - as is what happened to me.

Backed up my Creative Labs CR-563-B firmware in case I need to make a new one.

In case anyone needs the firmware, here you go. The firmware uses a Fairchild NM27C256N-120 (32Kx8 120ns) and an Amtel AT28C256-120 (120ns) can be used on there in case the original firmware on your CD-ROM drive has failed or is corrupted (eg: cannot read or open files that are on a disk). The firmware version is 0.80

Also available on Google Drive for those who aren't registered: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zzOfbTKsuC6 … Oy9eqHQ7-ltOWxh

dionb wrote:

At primary education level - like these 11 year-olds - you have everything from potential professors and engineers down to complete lowlifes. By the time you get to school leavers in a project to give no-hopers some kind of skill, everyone with brains and/or motivation has already left as either in further education or already working. You're left with those who have neither and there you are happy if they turn up, don't intentionally trash stuff, don't start fights and don't steal your equipment.

People can change, also in their 20's, 30's, 40's and maybe even older.

By the way, just because some kids are not (very) interested in technology, doesn't make them 'lowlifes' (if that's what you try to say).

Anyway, I have played NFS Porsche 2000 today (I use AA 4x and AF 4x on my GF4 Ti4600), now I try to collect all cars, which costs a lot of money. The only way to get enough money (so you can collect them all) is to buy old bangers, fix them and sell them for a profit. You need to start trading cars as soon as possible in the game (1956), because by the time you have entered the golden era, some old cars don't show up for sale anymore and some have become ridiculously expensive.

upgraded my PS/2 model 30 to an NEC V30 and 8087 coprocessor. only marginally better 🙁

SpectriaForce wrote:

By the way, just because some kids are not (very) interested in technology, doesn't make them 'lowlifes' (if that's what you try to say).

I don’t think that’s what was being implied - some kids are just on the wrong track thanks to poor parenting. I.e no moral compass and no idea how to behave. That’s not to say they won’t find their way of course but it’s a handicap.

Started sorting and repairing my old HDDs.
Note for Quantum Fireball users (EX in my case) - Panasonic AN8428GAK motor comb IC can overheat. This leads to drive stalling and randomly parking. With a small radiator, some airflow and complete mhdd erase I ended up with a fully operational drive (only <10 & <50ms blocks). 😎
Also found that the warranty seal on my ST-4096 is punctured. Can't test it anyway - need to buy MFM controller first. 😢

SpectriaForce wrote:

dionb wrote:

At primary education level - like these 11 year-olds - you have everything from potential professors and engineers down to complete lowlifes. By the time you get to school leavers in a project to give no-hopers some kind of skill, everyone with brains and/or motivation has already left as either in further education or already working. You're left with those who have neither and there you are happy if they turn up, don't intentionally trash stuff, don't start fights and don't steal your equipment.

People can change, also in their 20's, 30's, 40's and maybe even older.

People can certainly change, but the ones who didn't need to change to get somewhere have already done so, which means what you're left with in something remedial for school leavers with no usable skills is the bottom of the barrel - with a very long way to change indeed.

By the way, just because some kids are not (very) interested in technology, doesn't make them 'lowlifes' (if that's what you try to say).

That is most definitely not what I'm saying. Technology is only one way to make a useful contribution in society. I'm talking about children with major behavioral and moral issues. They are a small, manageable part of the mix at primary level, but by the time you hit that unskilled school leaver demographic, they are most of what is left.

Haven't done or bought anything remotely retro in a while. Various real-life problems piled up, didn't have time, money and heart to do it. But today for the first time in weeks I had a moment to myself, so I opened my Toshiba 3020CT (looks worse in photo than in reality, it's actually very well preserved):

and removed the RTC battery, just in case, based on Maintenance Manual. I am amazed by its build quality, everything is neat, clean and well put together.

The battery doesn't look like typical spillers, though - pic attached.

Perhaps I am being overly cautious? Any ideas what to replace it with?

Also, my usual next step is to rip out the hard drive and replace it with CF-based solution, usually with DOS. That said, for DOS I would need a couple things:

• NeoMagic 2160 and Yamaha OPL3-SA3 DOS drivers - where from?
• Toshiba utility to scale 640x480 and lower resolutions to screen native 800x600 - I know there used to be one, but where to find it?
• USB port driver in order to make transferring files easier - does this even exist?

That is a NiCd battery. eBay or some other site might have them, however, the older laptops used the rechargeable batteries for a period of time (it depends on the manufacturer of the laptop) until they switched to the Lithium batteries in the 1990's. I have 2 Dell laptops that use the NiCd batteries for the CMOS settings, which I detest entirely.