*cough*

https://pi-hole.net/

*cough* *cough*

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Boycotting CPUWorld because they now force you to disable adblock to see detailed information.
Nope, I don't care you rely on ads. I'll get my information somewhere else.

Anyone else want to join me in the boycott?

Yes. Fuck these guys. I have added them to my personal chrome blocklist so they will never show up in my search results now.

squiggly wrote:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Boycotting CPUWorld because they now force you to disable adblock to see detailed information.
Nope, I don't care you rely on ads. I'll get my information somewhere else.

Anyone else want to join me in the boycott?

Yes. Fuck these guys. I have added them to my personal chrome blocklist so they will never show up in my search results now.

Yeah how dare a site provide useful information for many people in one place, and then dare to expect to try recoup a fraction of their hosting/etc costs.

I make a few exceptions to my Ad Blocker, very useful "free" (to the user) sites are pretty much all of them.
Many people have no clue on how much time, effort and yes MONEY it takes to run a "free" website. Especially one that gets any real amount of traffic.

Back on topic now?

Recapped a few old motherboards that I had in storage that the caps dried up on.

As far as cpuworld goes, I really like their site. They deserve to be around. But the last time I "turned off my blocker" the first page threw a full screen ad, that tried to download malware immediately and I had to physically throw the switch on my computer.

So fuck em.

^^ I hate that, I don't even run an "ad blocker." I use a hosts file on all my machines (including my phone) and even have some stuff set up at the router level on my home network. It's a HUGE PAIN to disable certain ad hosts (by design!!) and it means I'd get ads from them on ALL sites. There's no "whitelist."

More importantly what comes down my pipe is MY bandwidth which I pay some of the world's most expensive internet rates for, so I should be able to control what gets through. If you want your visitors to support your site, put up a Patreon or ask for donations instead of going out of your way to piss everyone off. It's worked for tons of demoscene sites for years.

In the end I think the sites that put up these blocker bans will find it hurts their bottom line even more, as people will just stop visiting the site. I suppose if you get zero visitors and pay for zero data you're breaking even.

Got my old MFM Hard Drive working on my XT motherboard, so have been playing around with that and seeing what I can still run from it.

Played some DOS games I found on there that would still work -
Jumpjet
Blox
Ranger
Leaper
Go-Renju
Chess 88

Will back up what I can on another system soon and then reformat the drive to get it working properly again, hopefully.

xjas wrote:

^^ I hate that, I don't even run an "ad blocker." I use a hosts file on all my machines (including my phone) and even have some stuff set up at the router level on my home network. It's a HUGE PAIN to disable certain ad hosts (by design!!) and it means I'd get ads from them on ALL sites. There's no "whitelist."

More importantly what comes down my pipe is MY bandwidth which I pay some of the world's most expensive internet rates for, so I should be able to control what gets through. If you want your visitors to support your site, put up a Patreon or ask for donations instead of going out of your way to piss everyone off. It's worked for tons of demoscene sites for years.

In the end I think the sites that put up these blocker bans will find it hurts their bottom line even more, as people will just stop visiting the site. I suppose if you get zero visitors and pay for zero data you're breaking even.

Yeah donations are the way to go for sure. Patreon falls under that category too IMO. Much larger websites survive off them. In CPUWorlds case I can get most of the information I need from the Intel ARK for Intel processors, and the few AMD processors that I ever need to look up I can get the information I need (which mostly consists of the socket type, architecture, cache size, tdp etc) from various review sites. Anandtech is my go to along with Toms Hardware. Both have review archives for basically every major CPU and every architecture going back to there foundings. There are other sites with more sporadic coverage. Failing that I can always use the various review databases out there and the internet archive for the information that I require.

Sadly it seems that serving scummy adds and malware is common place more so than ever. The last update to the K-Lite codec pack not only ditched XP support (which is dubiously justifiable, though I argue there are many early dual core machines out there that are still perfectly usable for video watching, but thats beyond the scope of this arguement) but added a Chromium installer that you have to remember to disable. Previous versions of the pack didn't have this. Basically every free program tries to install Chromium, Yahoo Search Bar, *Insert Name* Fake Antivirus, change your homepage to some malware portal, or change your default browser (Microsoft is horrible about the last two, doing it to nearly everything including standalone WIndows Updates. At least they've stopped trying to ram Windows 10 up my arse).

Whats worse is with stuff like Windows 10 now we need adblock for our OS's. I plan to keep all my machines on 7 until mainstream games drop support for it. Windows 10's EULA gives Microsoft permission to datamine for basically everything including our passwords. There attempting to lock Windows into a controlled ecosystem with the new WIndows Store and Universal Binaries which will go down about as well as GFWL in the end I'm sure. Also, my start menu should show me my frequently used programs or last opened documents along with an array of things that are commonly needed for quick access. It should not try to sell me the latest program, feed me Microsoft Politically Correct Left-wing Bullshit (no, I don't care about the Crisis actors in florida saying I shouldn't own an assault rifle. Like damn if your going to serve me politics at least use some of that ad data to determine I'm a far right kinda guy), sell me the latest movies or TV shows, or convince me to enable Cortana so that you can mine even more of my data. Also, I refuse to use an OS that forces me to update whenever Microsoft wants it to. Microsoft also originally had some BS in there about being able to detect and delete without the user permission stuff like torrents and cracks which is hilarious considering that torrents have many legal uses and that Microsoft broke every SecuROM or SafeDisc game that isn't cracked in the name of security because apparently these protection schemes that use drivers are too much of risk, despite having been out of use for 5 plus years.

I hate the world.

luckybob wrote:

As far as cpuworld goes, I really like their site. They deserve to be around. But the last time I "turned off my blocker" the first page threw a full screen ad, that tried to download malware immediately and I had to physically throw the switch on my computer.

So fuck em.

Odd, I just opened it up now and it didn't do anything bad like that, I actually have it on my exception list and they haven't shown any invasive ads in my experience (but if they ever do, I'll go somewhere else in the meantime like you guys said).

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

-snipped a whole buncha this post to not be cluttersome-

I hate the world.

I totally agree with you about how scummy advertising has gotten (and Windows 10, I'd rather use 8.1 than get tortured by that excuse of an OS, at least there are no forced advertisements and updates there).

Back on topic: I've been doing some work on the Toshiba Tecra 720CDT laptop that came today, and it's going great, all it needs are floppy drive maintenance, CD drive testing, and an OS reinstall and I'll see how good it is for what I plan on using it for.

The docking station has some excellent expandability, I can have a modular bay drive, a 5.25" IDE/SCSI drive, and 2 ISA/PCI cards in there. This project is off to a good start, I can finally put my Satellite 315CDS into retirement.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

I hate the world.

Well, on the subject of advertising...let's just say Bill Hicks is my idol and Pi-Hole......yeah, I think once I get a house, a nice Linux based firewall is in order, after all, *nix admin skills > Windows Server skills, plus not as common a discipline.

On subject, did do a round of thrifting looking for CRT monitors. Still waiting on a call back from the Redmond dudes. Looks like in 2 weeks I hope RE-PC has one 15" beige/white one around to put with the Gateway 2000....

This situation with finding just one CRT now has me making plans to spend a small fortune on E-bay for them after I finally get into a house. I'm toying with the idea of some retro PC businesses as a result, small scale of course.

I have multiple nice CRTs I'm trying to re-home and I'm on the opposite end of a ferry ride from you. Just saying.

The internet would be a better place if it were hosted by communities and hobbiests instead of people who want to get paid for providing a service.

I say , Let 'em crash.

Gave this little puppy a clean/upgrade/repair: CMOS battery replaced, RAM upgrade, replaced broken 6GB 5 1/4" HD with 12GB 3,5" one, installed W98SE and gave the case a clean.
Still need to look into an unknown device that I don't know what it could be. Otherwise it would be a known device ofc 😀
It was a PITA to work on but I am going to keep this one but not use it.

Murugan wrote:

Gave this little puppy a clean/upgrade/repair: CMOS battery replaced, RAM upgrade, replaced broken 6GB 5 1/4" HD with 12GB 3,5" […]
Show full quote

Gave this little puppy a clean/upgrade/repair: CMOS battery replaced, RAM upgrade, replaced broken 6GB 5 1/4" HD with 12GB 3,5" one, installed W98SE and gave the case a clean.
Still need to look into an unknown device that I don't know what it could be. Otherwise it would be a known device ofc 😀
It was a PITA to work on but I am going to keep this one but not use it.

Does that model have Compaqs (Extremely annoying) case locking solinoid tech? If so that might be the device. I highly recommend snipping the wires to it. If it gets locked and you dont have the password for whatever reason (or cant access the bios) good luck getting the machine open.

EDIT: I'm not sure if I have any fellow scientifically inclined people here but I just received a push notification from CNET that Stephen Hawking has died. Multiple sources seem to confirm it. His intelligence was truly as infinite as the universe is vast. It really makes you wonder if there is any relation to the fact he was born exactly 300 years to the day after the death of Galileo Galilei. RIP Stephen Hawking: 1942-2018

Ummm first time I hear about that 😀 Just screws for all that I know

Edit: yeah I was shocked when I heard about Hawking this morning!!!!! One of the greatest minds I dare to say.Loved his humor top. I always wanted to attend a lecture of him. RIP

Shagittarius wrote:

The internet would be a better place if it were hosted by communities and hobbiests instead of people who want to get paid for providing a service.

I say , Let 'em crash.

counterpoint.jpg

Unless you plan on expropriating the means of production and abolishing capitalism in favor of socialism, this will never happen, and even still "communities" would be municipalities, not internet forums. Things cost money. A server eats money every second it is running. Cables cost money. The labor of technicians to maintain and repair these things also cost money, and skilled IT techs are still not cheap despite the efforts of outsourcers. In the early days, the principal sponsors of the internet were the US military and intelligence agencies--not only have the spooks always been spying on the internet, they helped midwife it into existence!

Meanwhile the commercial, corporate-controlled internet is now the backbone of the entire world economy with trillions of dollars of private investments entangled with it. It is not going anywhere.

Also, he was on the ISS years ago. RIP. 🙁

Back on-topic, I fixed my A/V cable for my C64 since the ground fork broke loose (solder was too weak, and when I moved the cable, it would either go out, or have jailbars), and I put some heatshrink tubing over every connection, except for ground (but I covered the ground wires with heatshrink tubing before re-assembling the cable to prevent interference).

Played around with the XTIDE Universal BIOS today.

I received some 32KB EEPROMs that I ordered, so I programmed one with XTIDE (after copying the 8KB ROM 4 times into a 32KB ROM file) and then placed it into the Boot ROM socket on 1 of my 3Com 3C509B ISA Network cards. Configured the card with the 3Com software and enabled the Boot ROM etc and all is working well.

XTIDE correctly detected my IDE Hard Drive's correct size etc, as you'd expect, where the PC's BIOS cannot. I've got quite a few spare EEPROM and EPROM chips and many spare 3Com 3C509B cards, so this will be helpful and a nice alternative to troublesome DDO software. I might even be tempted to set up Windows NT 4 on 1 of my old systems, as I was previously hindered by it's bootloader's lack of support for DDOs.

I originally tested out XTIDE on my 286, but that PC seems to have issues when a boot ROM is present - namely it doesn't like functioning at the full CPU 12MHz speed, with freezes during POST (sometimes a few reboots cures it). If I turbo down and boot at 6MHz, all works as it should until I go back to 12MHz and then I start experiencing graphics glitches. Bit odd, but this issue is unrelated to XTIDE and seems to be a motherboard curiosity as I've had weird issues with this board before, where it will occasionally be running strangely fast in games and upon checking the CPU speed it's reporting as only 4.77MHz. Will need to look into that at some point.

I tried the XT version of XTIDE on my XT motherboard and it boots, but I don't presently have any kind of IDE controller for it. Not a major concern right now, but nice to know I have the option.

Unfortunately I'm declaring my Packard Bell PB430 beyond repair 😢

I received it as an 'unknown untested 486 motherboard'. It was in an awful state, with leaked battery corrosion over one of the chips near its onboard RAM. Someone had removed the offending battery, but also stripped the 14.31818MHz oscillator crystal, the BIOS EPROM and almost all the jumpers. What was left had been pretty roughly handled too.

Nonetheless I decided to give it a shot, so soaked the corroded bits in vinegar, then water, then cleaned with alcohol. After that was dry I smeared some solder onto the worst affected SMD connectors, replaced the oscillator crystal and populated all the missing jumpers. Then I hot-flashed a (hard to find...) BIOS image for this one on another board, put the chip in this one, plugged it all in and... absolutely nothing. The POST card stayed resolutely on 00, and no fiddling around with settings could convince it to budge. I can only assume that the corrosion had gotten into the PCB itself and done damage deeper down there.
Oh well, time to recover the crystal, the EEPROM and all the jumpers and continue searching for another LPX board for my LPX case.

Upshot:
#1 While I was working on this (specifically on hot-flashing that BIOS image) I figured out why my Gotec floppy emulator was almost never working. The emulator itself was fine, it just didn't like the ancient USB stick I had given it for its imaged. Once I replaced it with a recent Kingston DataTraveller it reliably worked every time. A huge relief.

#2 As I was hot flashing BIOS images anyway on my MS-6168 board (uATX BX with Voodoo3 onboard) I decided to flash the latest Award image (1.3) to replace the Packard Bell OEM AMI image originally on it. Amusing aside: this also took some finding. Eventually I found it on the Vogonsdrivers site. It had been uploaded there two weeks ago. By me, while I was dumping a copy of my big personal support archive on there. So I had it all along but had forgotten. Must be getting old and senile... anyway, it worked perfectly and I noticed OC functions. The P3-600E was well cooled, so gave it a spin. 104MHz FSB: fine. 112MHz FSB: fine. 133MHz FSB: fine 😎 - the P3-600E was pretending to be an 800EB (and being detected as such), PCI was nicely on 33MHz, so no I/O issues, and apparently the Voodoo didn't mind AGP running at 88MHz. If this turns out to be stable over time (and in something more graphical than a minimal DOS environment), I'm hunting for a Slot-T adapter and plugging a P3-S 1400 into this baby 😉

The last few days, I did a little work on my Commodore64. First up, I cleaned the keyboard.
Took off all the buttons, cleaned the springs, and wiped every keys, using alcohol and cutton pads.
Cleaned the frame, using the same procedure. The result are good enough for me.

Yesterday I recieved my Lumafix64 in the mail, and started to install it. Boy it took some fiddeling.
I have two VIC-II chips, and the one that gives the best result are the MOS branded.
The Commodore branded are a tad worse, wich I don't quite understand, as they are the same model number.
Adjusting the three pots, are a time consuming task, and the TV has to be adjusted perfectly.
Yet a couple of days work, resulted in a stripe-less picture, with only minor shades of red and blue on my LCD tv.
That is shades of red and blue in white text on the blue basic-screen, and in the filebrowser program.
Nothing to see in gfx displayed on the screen. It is only in when the computer display characters.
I am using composit cable, and I really like the way the picture is presented.... (forgot to take picture of the end result)
All I can say, is that I can give thumbs up for a Lumafix, when dealing with modern televisions (LCD/TFT/Plasma)