Sphere478 wrote on 2024-02-04, 02:55:

What’s a cool build combo, or hardware hack, or software shoehorn that we haven’t done? […]
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What’s a cool build combo, or hardware hack, or software shoehorn that we haven’t done?

We’ve had windows 7 on socket 7
Dual socket 8 on a dual slot board
M.2 in a socket 7 on sata and pci
Unlocked gpus, cpus,
Etc…

What’s remaining?

How about a converter board that could be used to swap out the display on old laptops - from old, washed out, low contrast CCFL backlit LCD displays to modern LED backlit IPS units? There are quite a few interesting portables for retro gaming (Acer ferarri, Compaq N800/N1000, Dell Inspiron 8000/8100/8200, HP NC6000/NC8000 and so on) - machines capable of running win9x and XP, and some older ones capable of running DOS (486/P1/P2 Compaq Armadas, Toshiba Tecra and Portege, and others) that have one big downside - the display is hard to stomach. In the case of DSTN panels, unusable even.

Would it be possible to design a converter board to translate signals from these old machines (DSTN or LCD) to modern LED backlit displays? Aliexpress is riddled with cheap 4:3 and 5:4 displays of all sizes, that could be easily adapted to fit in allmost any vintage laptop.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-02-04, 14:32:

fosterwj03 wrote on 2024-02-04, 14:23:

Dothan Burger wrote on 2024-02-04, 05:30:

What about an ISA sound card like the Pico Gus that just plugs into a TPM header.

Why can't we adapt Socket 479 Pentium Ms and Socket M core 2 Duos to 479 Boards. Like the CT-479 but more universal.

That's a brilliant idea! You could slot it into a PCI slot or PCIE slot for power and use a ribbon cable to get the ISA signals. A card design could host any number of ISA sound blaster compatible chipsets.

Isn't that already available? dISAppointment - LPC to ISA adapter - ISA on modern motherboards

I'd like to see a PT880 based motherboard, with PCI, AGP, and a PCIE slot, with that ISA mod. 3 Generations of peripheral connectivity on one board. I know the IO chips on them support the mod. They just have to be soldered to the pins on the chip directly since there's no header to connect it to, as far as I can tell.

This particular board has solder points for a CNR slot too. It could possibly make it the single most versatile motherboard in terms of expansion options with the ISA mod.

A project I've been working on is a modified Windows 98SE installation disk that includes: enhanced IDE, SATA, and AHCI support, greater than 512MB RAM support, patch for the TBL invalidation bug on newer CPUs, USB2, LBA, USB mass storage, intel PCH chipset drivers, and a few other hardware patches and drivers, all in one installer. It's been really successful for me. I can install 98 on an x58 board, in AHCI mode, with 6GB of RAM installed without any fuss. My end goal is an installer, that can be put on a flash drive or disk, that can install 98 on almost any modern computer with CSM support without messing with manually patching it.

A smaller project I'm working on is getting Windows 2000 SP4's explorer.exe to work in 98, without KernalEx. It's only missing one boolean function from user32.dll that seems easy enough to hex edit in, "IsHungAppWindow". My plan is to try and inject that function into user32.dll to simply always return false, but I'm still trying to figure out how to do that.

leileilol wrote on 2024-02-04, 03:51:

NO AI SUCKS

all my homies hate AI

ISA graphics cards (ICs available new today):
Chips & Tech F65545 - lowest chip count
CL GD-5434
Tseng Et-4000 W32i

VLB cards using a PCI-only chipset and the Opti 82C822 VLB-to-PCI chip (also available new today).

Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum 16 emulation ?
MVSOUND.SYS wrapper/replacement ?
SNDBLST.DLL wrapper/replacement ?
MUNT port for DOS (with EMM386/QEMM/CLOAKING support)?

🙂

Edit: A few more ideas.
Replica of Gravis PC GamePad ?
- There were SNES look-a-like pads for DB15 gameport,
but they can't be turned around and don't support switching between left/right-handed operation.

Implementation of an MSX2+CGA, or even better, MSX2+MCGA graphics card?
- There was an XT class computer, the SVI 838, that supported both CGA and MSX2 graphics (superimposed).
It had PSG sound, too. A custom version of GW-BASIC exists.
A few DOS titles used the V9938 VDP, too.
http://msxbanzai.tni.nl/curiosity.html

Edit: Example of one game supporting it.
Re: Is Canabalt DOS demake possible?

I think the low hanging fruit would be a new slotket that supports coppermine and tualatin CPUs.

Sphere478 wrote on 2024-02-04, 02:57:

Here’s my list I would like to see the community achieve […]
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Here’s my list I would like to see the community achieve

Diy socket 7 motherboard

Fpga cpu replacements with modern instruction sets

More diy video cards (already several)
An ISA one with DVI would be amazing perhaps gd5434 4mb based?

DVI on an ISA card seems nice. But even nicer: A GD5434 with 2MB for Vesal Local Bus! I guess 2MB are enough. With DVI. better HDMI!

DP 1.2 8K on VLB.

Stuff I haven't seen anyone do:

- Doing a dedicated build around the Cyrix 6x86 PR90+ with 40mhz FSB (very very few motherboards support that FSB)
- Powerleap upgrade galore build. Use a 440FX Socket 8 board and use necessary Powerleap adapters to get to a Pentium III Tualatin (Celeron 1200 probably quicker due to the multiplier)!

I would like to see a slot A slotket!

dr_st wrote on 2024-02-04, 18:08:

DP 1.2 8K on VLB.

😁

I would like to see someone remove the epoxy from all the generations of pentium 1 chips and examine the gold wire configuration and look for multiplier mods

Apparently it seems at some point in time that tillamook supported 4.5 AND 5 multiplier. 4.5 has been demonstrated on the 300 and documented but so far the 5x hasn’t been seen in the wild.

65C02 wrote on 2024-02-04, 18:53:

I would like to see a slot A slotket!

That’s a good one. Didn’t there exist a 462 slotket for sale at one point?

vetz wrote on 2024-02-04, 18:32:

- Powerleap upgrade galore build. Use a 440FX Socket 8 board and use necessary Powerleap adapters to get to a Pentium III Tualatin (Celeron 1200 probably quicker due to the multiplier)!

Should be in theory be possible, bios updates are probably the biggest challenge

Sphere478 wrote on 2024-02-04, 19:55:

Didn’t there exist a 462 slotket for sale at one point?

So it seems.

https://www.hartware.de/2000/09/08/doch-noch-ein-slocket-a/
http://www.plasma-online.de/index.html?conten … _converter.html

I still stick to my idea of a 495 slotket tho 😁

I want a pentium pro cpu complex (card) for my IBM 9595.

https://www.ardent-tool.com/complex/

I think there's room for innovation regarding general midi. For example, I think it would be feasible to make a game soundtrack that sounds like an actual band. I think you could do this with existing tools relatively easy. Drums would be the easiest and there are a number of very realistic tools that music producers use today. These are based on high quality recordings of actual drum sets. Furthermore, some tools humanize midi drum tracks by introducing small "mistakes" and variability in terms of the timing and how hard the drum was hit. Guitars and bass are a bit harder, but there are some pretty good virtual studio instruments that people can use to record instruments they don't play. Ideally this would all be implemented in a small computer with hardware that allows the user to configure which instrument presets are used and other parameters like reverb. The user wouldn't have to do much tweaking for heavy metal game soundtracks, as they should sound good with similar presets. For other games, you could involve the community in creating and sharing presets.

I'm going to go on a slight tangent, but I'd like to see more PS/2 port gamepad adapters "re-done". I've seen some adapters mentioned here that translate gamepad actions into key presses. I might be mistaken, but I don't think many people are making these anymore. I have found one on Tindie that translates USB to PS/2, but it is a bit too pricey for me.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-02-04, 19:58:

So it seems. https://www.vogons.org/download/file.php?mode=view&id=184529 https://www.hartware.de/2000/09/08/doch-noch-ein-slock […]
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Sphere478 wrote on 2024-02-04, 19:55:

Didn’t there exist a 462 slotket for sale at one point?

So it seems.

https://www.hartware.de/2000/09/08/doch-noch-ein-slocket-a/
http://www.plasma-online.de/index.html?conten … _converter.html

I still stick to my idea of a 495 slotket tho 😁

Wow! Imagine running underclocked Barton in Slot A. 😀

Gotek style optical drive emulator at Gotek prices.

Socket3 wrote on 2024-02-04, 14:50:

How about a converter board that could be used to swap out the display on old laptops - from old, washed out, low contrast CCFL backlit LCD displays to modern LED backlit IPS units?

Would it be possible to design a converter board to translate signals from these old machines (DSTN or LCD) to modern LED backlit displays? Aliexpress is riddled with cheap 4:3 and 5:4 displays of all sizes, that could be easily adapted to fit in allmost any vintage laptop.

This one is already done:
one $8 chip will do the magic https://www.kinet-ic.com/stdp4028/
$4 NCS8801 NCS8805 http://www.newcosemi.com/product/7/
Second chip is used to make $40 "ips fhd thinkpad kit" (this phase will get you there on ebay) for upgrading Thinkpads from old LVDS screen to a modern cheap high quality DP one. https://www.sevarg.net/2019/02/10/thinkpad-t4 … screen-upgrade/
https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=126294

smtkr wrote on 2024-02-04, 17:24:

I think the low hanging fruit would be a new slotket that supports coppermine and tualatin CPUs.

New old stock '370 Pin PGA ZIF Socket' are $10, same money you buy whole slotket adapter:) solder two wires and you are done converting to tualatin. I guess it could be fun making one, but no economical sense.

65C02 wrote on 2024-02-04, 22:38:

Wow! Imagine running underclocked Barton in Slot A. 😀

Really bad Irongate chipsets, afaik derivatives of licensed VIA designs.

Alpha 21264 CPU in a regular Slot A/Socket A motherboard.

DEC licensed the Alpha 21264 "EV6" bus to AMD which was used on early Athlon processors and some Alpha made by Samsung used AMDs Irongate and Irongate2 chipsets rather than the more expensive 21272 and 21274 chipsets from DEC/Compaq. Big challenges are dealing with the fact there are no Slot A or Socket A Alphas, and the PC BIOS would have to be replaced with suitable Alpha firmware perhaps ported from those Samsung machines.