Replaced the CD-ROM drive on my Pentium 133 build. The previous Toshiba 6x was making weird ticking noises, so I swapped in an 8x Mitsumi.

After hooking up the CD audio cable, tested it with the most period appropriate soundtrack I could find. 😁

Did some test of this tool: https://github.com/TheSandBoxMKG/ipxgw, that allows IPX multiplayer games between real MS-DOS/Win9x and DOSBox.
Used DOOM as test case, it worked!
Gonna use it to play online, through a virtual LAN, with some friend 😁

Those floppy drives and CD drive match that case perfectly! It looks great.

Demetrio wrote on 2022-12-01, 17:05:

Did some test of this tool: https://github.com/TheSandBoxMKG/ipxgw, that allows IPX multiplayer games between real MS-DOS/Win9x and DOSBox.
Used DOOM as test case, it worked!
Gonna use it to play online, through a virtual LAN, with some friend 😁

Nice! 👍

I did something like that to play Hexen in co-op but with a USB to serial port years ago.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-12-01, 20:01:

Those floppy drives and CD drive match that case perfectly! It looks great.

Thanks a lot 🙂
Practically, I didn't need the 2nd floppy drive, but I added it anyway cause it looks good 😄

No, no-- it's perfect. The two floppy drives look great. Most of us peasants have to read, then write. You can do both at the same time. Show it off!

Demetrio wrote on 2022-12-01, 17:05:

Did some test of this tool: https://github.com/TheSandBoxMKG/ipxgw, that allows IPX multiplayer games between real MS-DOS/Win9x and DOSBox.
Used DOOM as test case, it worked!
Gonna use it to play online, through a virtual LAN, with some friend 😁

Very Nice!

Investigating this Satellite 2800-200, won't turn on. Well, if the power button isn't connected, it sure won't... 😀

Yesterday I installed the MSI TV-tuner card into my Shuttle XPC and replaced the CMOS battery in my XP build. The Shuttle is even more cramped than it first looked. I don't know if a longer sound card, like an Audigy 2 ZS would fit.

Today I went to this year's last vintage market. Month after month it kept getting worse for vintage computer parts. I hoped I could pick up some Geforce MX on the cheap, but today I haven't found ANY expansion cards. Not even the odd modem and networking cards you always find.

So I just picked up another pair of aluminum water bottles, 16 neodymium magnets, a boxed copy of Fallout 3 GOTY and FlatOut, and these:

Another addition to my pin-up art collection and a 1GB old-stock Intenso flashdrive that is an actual PEN-drive.

Recorded a video for my MS-Dos 7.1 floppy : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7Mp0szm-fA
Spent a lot of effort over the years on making this the most feature packed boot floppy I could make, its a single floppy that allows you to install MS-Dos 7.1 with a good set of memory managers, slowdown utilities, cd-drivers, tools and more.

Today was a "Zalman" day:

9800XT now runs in low to mid 40s under load 😀.
Both cards have quite hot memory chips (Samsung 2.8ns on FireGL/9700Pro and Hynix 2.5ns on 9800XT), so porcupines will help.

Nice cards. That orange got me thinking it was a X800 card. Take good care of them, R3xx based cards always tend to die on me.

i noticed today three caps on my windows 98 board hidden by the cpu heatsink were... rather embiggened. spent a little bit dismantling rather than playing unreal, so yeah...

PD2JK wrote on 2022-12-05, 13:26:

Nice cards. That orange got me thinking it was a X800 card. Take good care of them, R3xx based cards always tend to die on me.

It's stock cooling solution that kills them in most cases. Also, I'm out of Zalmans 🙁.

henk717 wrote on 2022-12-05, 01:25:

Recorded a video for my MS-Dos 7.1 floppy : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7Mp0szm-fA
Spent a lot of effort over the years on making this the most feature packed boot floppy I could make, its a single floppy that allows you to install MS-Dos 7.1 with a good set of memory managers, slowdown utilities, cd-drivers, tools and more.

Awesome! That's a great project.
And it comes just at the right time as I'm about to install my DOS/Win98-Laptop and I'm still using my tools from 'back then'.

HanSolo wrote on 2022-12-05, 18:08:

henk717 wrote on 2022-12-05, 01:25:

Recorded a video for my MS-Dos 7.1 floppy : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7Mp0szm-fA
Spent a lot of effort over the years on making this the most feature packed boot floppy I could make, its a single floppy that allows you to install MS-Dos 7.1 with a good set of memory managers, slowdown utilities, cd-drivers, tools and more.

Awesome! That's a great project.
And it comes just at the right time as I'm about to install my DOS/Win98-Laptop and I'm still using my tools from 'back then'.

Thanks! It feels a lot like digital origamy trying to find ways to squeeze out enough kilobytes to make more programs fit, most of it has been compressed with UPX on the strongest settings (After decompressing the original compression of the file).
Let me know how it works for you 😁

henk717 wrote on 2022-12-05, 18:24:

HanSolo wrote on 2022-12-05, 18:08:

henk717 wrote on 2022-12-05, 01:25:

Recorded a video for my MS-Dos 7.1 floppy : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7Mp0szm-fA
Spent a lot of effort over the years on making this the most feature packed boot floppy I could make, its a single floppy that allows you to install MS-Dos 7.1 with a good set of memory managers, slowdown utilities, cd-drivers, tools and more.

Awesome! That's a great project.
And it comes just at the right time as I'm about to install my DOS/Win98-Laptop and I'm still using my tools from 'back then'.

Thanks! It feels a lot like digital origamy trying to find ways to squeeze out enough kilobytes to make more programs fit, most of it has been compressed with UPX on the strongest settings (After decompressing the original compression of the file).
Let me know how it works for you 😁

As an Exe-packer I would recommend aPACK. That gave me better results than UPX on a 4K-Intro 20 years ago. (But things might look different with larger Exe-files)

Have you considered using the higher density format of Fdformat that you also mention in the video? I used that back then for some of my disks.

HanSolo wrote on 2022-12-05, 18:46:

As an Exe-packer I would recommend aPACK. That gave me better results than UPX on a 4K-Intro 20 years ago. (But things might look different with larger Exe-files)

Have you considered using the higher density format of Fdformat that you also mention in the video? I used that back then for some of my disks.

Ill keep aPack in mind since for some programs the UPX result was broken while the original one was with aPack.
I have considered the 1.72M format, but wanted to maintain maximum floppy drive compatibility since not all drives can handle that well.

henk717 wrote on 2022-12-05, 19:28:

HanSolo wrote on 2022-12-05, 18:46:

As an Exe-packer I would recommend aPACK. That gave me better results than UPX on a 4K-Intro 20 years ago. (But things might look different with larger Exe-files)

Have you considered using the higher density format of Fdformat that you also mention in the video? I used that back then for some of my disks.

Ill keep aPack in mind since for some programs the UPX result was broken while the original one was with aPack.
I have considered the 1.72M format, but wanted to maintain maximum floppy drive compatibility since not all drives can handle that well.

Is that some kind of overburn feature for floppies? Or more bits per track?

PD2JK wrote on 2022-12-05, 20:58:

henk717 wrote on 2022-12-05, 19:28:

HanSolo wrote on 2022-12-05, 18:46:

As an Exe-packer I would recommend aPACK. That gave me better results than UPX on a 4K-Intro 20 years ago. (But things might look different with larger Exe-files)

Have you considered using the higher density format of Fdformat that you also mention in the video? I used that back then for some of my disks.

Ill keep aPack in mind since for some programs the UPX result was broken while the original one was with aPack.
I have considered the 1.72M format, but wanted to maintain maximum floppy drive compatibility since not all drives can handle that well.

Is that some kind of overburn feature for floppies? Or more bits per track?

More sectors (up to 21) per track and more tracks (up to 82).