maxtherabbit wrote on 2025-04-19, 13:00:

MikeSG wrote on 2025-04-19, 08:34:

Getting a 1GHz Raspberry Pi to replace a sound card or some other function is bogus.

This tbh

Im going to say that the Pi replacement for the MT32 is usually cheaper than buying a real MT32 or other ISA wavetable card, same for grabbing a Pi to convert modern USB Keyboards and Mice to PS2/Serial or to do hardware video scaling.

They have their uses for retro machines even if you don't agree and they are usually far cheaper than trying to source real hardware.

*last time I checked ISA wavetable cards can run hundreds of dollars usually upwards of 400 - 600 USD for the decent ones, and if you want a Roland MPU 401 card well good luck in trying to buy one. All of this can be done via a Pi or other modern replacement and far cheaper than the original hardware.

So throw me on the other side of this silly fence, Ill use real if I can get it at a reasonable cost if not Ill use a more modern replacement and wont lose any sleep over it either.

How about both, an HDD and a CF card?

After using CF-only builds for a while, I was annoyed with their behavior and random issues. So now my builds all have HDDs as the main drive for OS and normal usage. The CF is only for transfers between modern and old machines.. so by default I disable the CF in BIOS until needed.

HDDs are noisy, yes. And some of them have developed a very strong whining, and I can't take that. The HDDs I install are generally quiet, and I don't mind using a relatively-new HDD and size it down with Seagate tools.. this is still in my experience much more behaved than CF/SD cards.

Speaking of MFM HDD noise, I also have one in my XT machine, but I actually disconnected it because of its very loud noises.. it's like constantly changing gears and moving heads as in floppy drives. But what's more annoying is that it spins down after 10 seconds of no access.. so the next access becomes very slow and halts the software until the HDD spins up again.

So for me, CF cards aren't cheating, but even if they were.. they aren't a very good cheat. I'd rather stick to the non-cheating solution because HDDs are the better solution for my typical usage pattern.

wbahnassi wrote on 2025-04-19, 13:41:

How about both, an HDD and a CF card? […]
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How about both, an HDD and a CF card?

After using CF-only builds for a while, I was annoyed with their behavior and random issues. So now my builds all have HDDs as the main drive for OS and normal usage. The CF is only for transfers between modern and old machines.. so by default I disable the CF in BIOS until needed.

HDDs are noisy, yes. And some of them have developed a very strong whining, and I can't take that. The HDDs I install are generally quiet, and I don't mind using a relatively-new HDD and size it down with Seagate tools.. this is still in my experience much more behaved than CF/SD cards.

Speaking of MFM HDD noise, I also have one in my XT machine, but I actually disconnected it because of its very loud noises.. it's like constantly changing gears and moving heads as in floppy drives. But what's more annoying is that it spins down after 10 seconds of no access.. so the next access becomes very slow and halts the software until the HDD spins up again.

So for me, CF cards aren't cheating, but even if they were.. they aren't a very good cheat. I'd rather stick to the non-cheating solution because HDDs are the better solution for my typical usage pattern.

Just grab a small 32Gb SATA SSD and throw a IDE adaptor on it, Size it down and boom you have a quiet drive that has none of the silly quirks of CF. You can get 32Gb SSDs for pennies now as no one wants them, got 10 of them for myself recently, they are all ex Intel server SSDs that from the SMART info never got used.

Use it as the Boot drive only and have a second IDE HDD for daily use, lets you boot the machine stupidly fast but runs off the HDD for everything else.

I do this for my Win98/XP builds.

MikeSG wrote on 2025-04-19, 08:34:

Getting a 1GHz Raspberry Pi to replace a sound card or some other function is bogus.

Not that ridiculous when you consider the limited available and high cost of authentic retro hardware, especially sound cards.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-04-19, 13:46:

MikeSG wrote on 2025-04-19, 08:34:

Getting a 1GHz Raspberry Pi to replace a sound card or some other function is bogus.

Not that ridiculous when you consider the limited available and high cost of authentic retro hardware, especially sound cards.

The cost is honestly insane for the better wavetable cards, anything from Roland/Yamaha commands a princely sum and your first born, want a MT32 or SC-55 .. be prepared to pay through the nose for a tested one, though they are normally cheaper than the ISA ones.

You can forget getting a Roland MPU401 card ..if they exist they are beyond expensive.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2025-04-19, 07:32:

I would like to move the margin to the centre for a minute.
Does using a IDE to CF card and a modern CF card increase the performance of a 486 system?
Is it noticeable increase or only slight?

Yes, I upgraded my Intel 486dx4@100 and my AMD 5x86-133@160mhz from spinning 5400rpm IDE hard drives to CF
Cards. And YES it is a noticeable upgrade. It’s just like using an SSD.
Everything runs better and faster.
I can now run Office 97 on my 486.

This is the #1 Upgrade I would recommend to 386/486 owners that want a Best performance
Computer. The OS, Programs, applications, games, Networking, Everything works better and faster.

But in the End it’s still only a 486 CPU that can’t play MP3’s or Video very well.
So don’t expect a Miracle.

But Now at least you will know it’s your CPU that is the limiting factor.
The CF card will push your CPU to its limit.

I prefer to use the Startech CF card adapter for its Quality and Versatility.
And I use the Sandisks Extreme CF cards. ( 4gb or larger )

I like silent retro systems. I put Noctua fans into my P3 tower and an SD-IDE adapter. I don't care about those parts not being period-correct, it's just annoying having to listen to loud fans and old harddrives. 😜

One exception are notebook harddrives. I have a lot of Thinkpads and the drives in those usually don't bother me and I keep them in there. Unless one fails, then I'll replace it with solid state media.

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-04-19, 13:36:

Im going to say that the Pi replacement for the MT32 is usually cheaper than buying a real MT32 or other ISA wavetable card, sam […]
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Im going to say that the Pi replacement for the MT32 is usually cheaper than buying a real MT32 or other ISA wavetable card, same for grabbing a Pi to convert modern USB Keyboards and Mice to PS2/Serial or to do hardware video scaling.

They have their uses for retro machines even if you don't agree and they are usually far cheaper than trying to source real hardware.

*last time I checked ISA wavetable cards can run hundreds of dollars usually upwards of 400 - 600 USD for the decent ones, and if you want a Roland MPU 401 card well good luck in trying to buy one. All of this can be done via a Pi or other modern replacement and far cheaper than the original hardware.

So throw me on the other side of this silly fence, Ill use real if I can get it at a reasonable cost if not Ill use a more modern replacement and wont lose any sleep over it either.

I also like to argue the point that the vast majority of people didn't use this hardware back then since it was so expensive. Then things started changing where you had memory banks on sound cards to hold wavetable samples. So the Pi isn't doing anything that couldn't have been done back then when in General MIDI mode. Except that it has the option to render the MT32 at a higher sample rate so the output is not only cleaner, but also sound better than a real MT32.

As for flash storage, RAM drives were a thing if you had enough money. So you could create one an copy files to it to use. Doom levels load faster from that than a flash drive over IDE.

In the end it seems to always boil down to gatekeeping and people wanting to be superior to others. What is this CD? I only listen to my recording of Bach's 5th performed with Stradivarius violins recorded to an Edison wax cylindrical. And in case you aren't up on the music world, modern violins surpass Stradivarius, yet all the purists complain just like the hardware purists.

I've never been a stickler for "period" correctness. Period hardware is really cool, and it's definately fun to collect. At the same time, this stuff is getting harder and harder to purchase in good working order at reasonable prices. Modern replacements will become more and more necessary as time goes on to experience retro hardware computing at all.

I'll also say that I really appreciate the convenience of modern kit. SD cards offer the capacity, easy swapping, and speed we could only dream of back then. I totally would have used SD cards back in the 486 days if it had only cost $3 for 8GB of swappable storage.

The same goes for software defined expansion cards. Imagine living with a single ISA sound card that could replicate the behavior of a half dozen sound cards with a DOS command back in the mid-90s at a reasonable price. I would have had one in my system for sure had they existed back then.

I still have hard drives in my computers, but I've inserted a cf-ide adapter into each of them, in the rear slots. I agree to use a cf because I created one with dos 6.22 and the games and I insert it into the computer where I think that game is more correct. If I want to play prince of persia I insert it into the 286, if I want to play monkey2 I insert it into the 386 and if I want to play a game of stunt in the DX2. Then maybe I get curious about how to play Doom on a 286 and I insert it into the 286 (when Doom came out I had a DX2). I agree to use CFs only for the simplicity of doing these swaps quickly without opening the case to move a hard drive. But if I had found an adapter for the rear slots to insert a 2.5 or 3.5 disk I would have definitely used a hard drive. By the way, does anyone know if they exist? I've never found them

Old hard drives are fun, but a finite resource.
Of course, anything retro can fail, but HDDs are far more consumable in that regard.

So no, I don't think using modern storage solutions is cheating, in many cases it's the only way for reliable, long term storage.
Without which, your retro build is entirely unusable.

Honestly I'm fine with replacing storage though admittedly its sad to see , magnetic media go, I had mechanical drives before but i had one fail on me and got a spare but they were also noisy and I was a bit paranoid so I moved over to all solid state hard drives for each of my retro systems.

And while I'm still using real floppies on my x86 systems and sharp x68000 my Amiga 1200 is using a gotek , also I've seen that someone managed to get a CD emulator working on on a raspberry pi and while I'm also still using 8x cd drive on my DOS system and two 2000's era Pioneer DVD drives on my 98 PC they wont last forever.

The main important thing for me at the time being is preserving the IC chips or using equal replacements , that's where most of the magic happens anyways , but even then its already tricky to get an original ICS 11614 or Hitachi HD61J221F.
People now are using aftermarket solutions that can emulate things that are becoming more unobtanium. Some people mentioned a ship of Theseus type situation , and most probably that's what's going to happen.
Over time more imitation solutions will spring up till eventually unless someone finds a way to make ASICs on the cheap PCBway style it will either be some kinda of FPGA peppered system or just full emulation in software , its just how things go and you cant stop entropy.

Best bet for now might be to decap as many IC's as possible and reverse engineer the logic gates which thankfully people already do.

Personally it’s about what part of the experience I am nostalgic for.

Usually I am not nostalgic for slow load speeds. I do miss the old drive sounds sometimes.

I am NOT a hardware collector I just want the Right performance for the OS, Programs, games, Applications, Networking, etc.
The CF card is just like a SSD and Pushes your Computer hardware to its limits.
Everything works better and Faster.

Hi, did you guys ever consider an RAID setup with flash drives?
It's not so much about throughput, but access time.
In some RAID configurations it is possible to simultanously read/write different files.
Even with real SSDs, this can make the operating system operate more fluid.

Systems like Windows 98SE or NT do access a dozen files simultanously.
DLLs are constantly being loaded/unloaded, virtual memory is being accessed, applications opening their own files etc.
An SSD, while very quick, isn't the best there is. RAM is. SmartDrive or an equivalent can be quicker, depending on processor power.

Also, the interface type matters.
Both IDE and SATA (no AHCI) don't support NCQ, native command queing, for example.
SCSI and SAS do, by contrast.

NCQ is comperable to an elevator logic. It stops at the next most logical floor level.
Instead of traveling bottom-up-middle (in order of request), it travels bottum-middle-up (out-of-order request).
It makes a stop at the middle floor level first, instead of moving in exact the given order by the passengers entering the elevator.

This, of course, also can have drawbacks.
In certain applications, the order of processing data by HDD/SSD is important.
Like for example when playing a movie or recording something.
In this linear/sequential access, NCQ can be causing worse performance.

That's why large HDD software caches aren’t exactly being made unnecessary by SSD technology.
RAM is the fastest working component on motherboard, only being matched by cache memory.

On a 286/386/486, the overhead may still matter, though.
Especially if SmartDrive accesses main memory through himem.sys or EMS.

Ideally, the processor has VME (and advanced form of V86) and DOS runs in a V86 session.
Then DPMI or VCPI can be used to access main memory more efficiently.
(Win-OS/2 is a DPMI client, for example. It doesn't use himem.sys under OS/2.)

Using a special version of SmartDrive, such as the version provided by Helix Multimedia Cloaking is an alternative, too.
It doesn't use himem.sys, but accesses the memory past 1 MB by a dummy stub in conventional memory (sort of a remote control) and using a pointer to the real thing in extended memory.

PS: This video is a classic, from about 15 years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eULFf6F5Ri8

I enjoy some of the nostalgic aspects of retro computing, such as the sound through the PC speaker when my 486 machine counts the RAM at POST, however I do use CF and SD cards in some of my retro machines because classic hard disks that are a suitable capacity to work with vintage hardware are a challenge to find and when you do find them, you're lucky if they are even in a fully working condition.

I can still enjoy this hobby while taking advantage of more modern tech such as the Gotek Floppy drive, my TL866 programmer, CF and SD to IDE adapters and various other products that either weren’t available back in the day or were prohibitively expensive.

I mean, if you’re going to be particular about period correct hardware, it needs to encompass every aspect of the build, and let’s be realistic, even fnding a vintage AT or desktop case is near impossible at this point in some locations.

It doesn’t matter too much to me to be 100% period correct and I don’t consider it cheating to use some tech that makes it easier to get things working or to enhance the experience, such as modern ISA sound cards or XT IDE etc…

It seems like most of you guys use Goteks. I’ve never been interested in those, for the simple reason that I enjoy using floppy disks, which feel like an appropriate removable storage medium not for the time period per se, but for the capabilities of the computer itself.

byte_76 wrote on 2025-04-22, 13:52:

I mean, if you’re going to be particular about period correct hardware, it needs to encompass every aspect of the build, and let’s be realistic, even fnding a vintage AT or desktop case is near impossible at this point in some locations.

The problem with period-correctness is, that there are two types of it, at very least.
a) the catalogue period-correctness
b) the real world period-correctness

Then there are people who go by history books and think that a 386,
because it was invented in 1985, had no reason to be used in a PC in the 90s.
Because, after all, the 486 was from 1989! So that can't be, they think!
While in reality, the am386DX-40 was a very beloved budget CPU in 1992-1994!
The plastic versions even had the Windows 3.1 logo on it!

Period-correctness as such is very complicated also because many PCs had been built from spare parts.
People used what they had an PC technology was very modular and flexible by nature.

So a 286 with CD-ROM drive and a 486 with Hercules card/monitor did exist for sure.
Some people needed a faster motherboard, but were otherwise happy with rest of the system.

PS: I forgot about the 5,25" floppy drive! 😃
Some young people find it strange to see a Pentium build with a 5,25" floppy drive and think it doesn't belong in a 90s computer.
In real life, though, the 1,2MB floppy drive was very common throughout whole 90s.
It was mainly to be found in tower PCs, which had enough spare drive bays.
In my country, new 5,25" floppies were still being sold in 1995, at least.
Past this time, "typewriter" stores also still had them for sure (they also sold ink ribbons for calculators, matrix printers etc).
So yeah, 5,25" drives were not uncommon in the days of Windows 95.

I'm not super pedantic about period correctness , my set ups are more like a technologies greatest hits sort of deal when i throw as many iconic pieces of hardware together into a semi dream machine setup and enjoy an idealized premium experience.

If I cared religiously about period correctness i wouldn't have a Pentium 233 MMX(1997) running DOS 6.22(1994), WIN 3.1(1992) and WIN95
connected to a Sony Trinitron G500 flat screen 21 inch crt display(1999) whilst on one hand utilizing a Roland MT32 from (1987) and a Tandy printer port sound card which is circa(1984).

Its a hodge podge mix of stuff , but hey if you can't run windows 3.1 at 1280x1024 with miniaturized icons for the fun of it what's the point?

Jo22 wrote on 2025-04-22, 15:10:

The problem with period-correctness is, that there are two types of it, at very least. a) the catalogue period-correctness b) th […]
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byte_76 wrote on 2025-04-22, 13:52:

I mean, if you’re going to be particular about period correct hardware, it needs to encompass every aspect of the build, and let’s be realistic, even fnding a vintage AT or desktop case is near impossible at this point in some locations.

The problem with period-correctness is, that there are two types of it, at very least.
a) the catalogue period-correctness
b) the real world period-correctness

Then there are people who go by history books and think that a 386,
because it was invented in 1985, had no reason to be used in a PC in the 90s.
Because, after all, the 486 was from 1989! So that can't be, they think!
While in reality, the am386DX-40 was a very beloved budget CPU in 1992-1994!
The plastic versions even had the Windows 3.1 logo on it!

Period-correctness as such is very complicated also because many PCs had been built from spare parts.
People used what they had an PC technology was very modular and flexible by nature.

So a 286 with CD-ROM drive and a 486 with Hercules card/monitor did exist for sure.
Some people needed a faster motherboard, but were otherwise happy with rest of the system.

PS: I forgot about the 5,25" floppy drive! 😃
Some young people find it strange to see a Pentium build with a 5,25" floppy drive and think it doesn't belong in a 90s computer.
In real life, though, the 1,2MB floppy drive was very common throughout whole 90s.
It was mainly to be found in tower PCs, which had enough spare drive bays.
In my country, new 5,25" floppies were still being sold in 1995, at least.
Past this time, "typewriter" stores also still had them for sure (they also sold ink ribbons for calculators, matrix printers etc).
So yeah, 5,25" drives were not uncommon in the days of Windows 95.

Pretty much aligns with my thoughts on the matter.

There was a similar discussion tangent to this one in this thread a few months ago. Is the interest in retro PC hardware decreasing?

In that thread, I tangentially mentioned the fun I had while testing a newly upgraded PC with demanding software/games/benchmarks had been using for years. Some of these programs had been way past their prime by then.

Putting an ultra fast hard drive replacement in a very old machine is a just more extreme derivative of that, IMHO. For those people who feel like it might be "cheating", I ask the question of how they would feel if the same or similar had been achieved long ago with ludicrously expensive hardware using actually available technology ? For example, would running software from a RAM drive on a fully populated EMS expansion (8MB or 16MB RAM) that had been modified with battery backup have been cheating back in the 1980s ? If a similar result can be reached today using cheap and reliable commodity hardware, is it really somehow worse ?

EDIT: Corrected typos