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Bought these (retro) hardware today

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Reply 26400 of 52340, by yawetaG

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Just received this bugger:

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Kawai GMCat, basically a Kawai GMouse (very cut down GMega LX) grafted into a mini keyboard MIDI controller. Some details:

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It can be powered via a power supply or with 6 AA batteries, and the output is almost noise-free (some instruments are a bit worse than others, e.g. the electric guitars). Some of the instruments do weird things when sustaining the sound - the samples seem to be very short and the attack portion repeats. There are also a few instruments that use the names of the GM sound set, but are quite different than what they should be. No velocity sensitivity though.

Reply 26401 of 52340, by badmojo

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liqmat wrote:

Funny you should mention that. I have two Cirrus Logic chip based VLB cards and a Trident chip based VLB card and both the Cirrus Logic VLB cards definitely outperform the Trident card, but not substantially.

Yeah I can't really comment on the performance of the Trident VLB cards I've tried - their image quality was so awful that I had to avert my eyes before any benchmarks could be loaded 😵

Life? Don't talk to me about life.

Reply 26402 of 52340, by jaZz_KCS

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yawetaG wrote:

You can't do that. The MIDI specs on such FM synths are completely different than on GM modules. First and foremost, they are not standardised like GM, but also there can be major differences between the MIDI specs of different FM synths. Furthermore, the PLG100-DX has some voice loading issues - it has to happen through a specific software editor and the method Yamaha chose is pretty bone-headed.

On the other hand, if you were to stuff the PLG-100VH in a XG module such as the MU-128, MU-1000, or MU-2000, you might be able to use the effects on GM or XG music.

Both - the SW60XG and the SW1000XG have the ability to be set into Roland GM compatible mode, though. But this won't change the fact that the PLG boards won't be used for that.

Reply 26403 of 52340, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

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Aureal 3D and early EAX sound cards are quadraphonic, while modern AVRs are 5.1, so....

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Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.

Reply 26404 of 52340, by liqmat

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Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:
Aureal 3D and early EAX sound cards are quadraphonic, while modern AVRs are 5.1, so.... […]
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Aureal 3D and early EAX sound cards are quadraphonic, while modern AVRs are 5.1, so....

fosgate-gavotte.jpg

Let's get a link that works for the rest of us: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_tr … 058124&_sacat=0

Reply 26405 of 52340, by Kittan

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Got this from a friend in exchange for Wasteland 2 indie box. Intel Celeron 566MHz, 3DFX Voodoo 3 2000, 32 Mb of RAM, MS-6156 Ver. 2.1 BX7 motherboard. Just need to do a bit of cleaning, recap the motherboard a bit and figure out if I could find a replacement case cover, or if I'll have to find a new case for it.

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Reply 26406 of 52340, by RandomStranger

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Kittan wrote:

Got this from a friend in exchange for Wasteland 2 indie box. Intel Celeron 566MHz, 3DFX Voodoo 3 2000, 32 Mb of RAM, MS-6156 Ver. 2.1 BX7 motherboard. Just need to do a bit of cleaning, recap the motherboard a bit and figure out if I could find a replacement case cover, or if I'll have to find a new case for it.

I want friends like yours. 😐

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Reply 26407 of 52340, by badmojo

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I picked this up for a Christmas holidays project - if you believe the sticker on the outside then it's a Pentium MMX machine, but it's actually a 486 DX4 100 OD.

The motherboard is an example of classic 90s sleaze - the PCChips M915i. It's an interesting motherboard really, PCI and VLB, but of course it has fake cache. This can be corrected from what I read but that's a project for another day. I actually picked this up for the case, which is one I owned back in the day. From memory I ran a Cyrix based machine in it and clearly remember drilling holes in the bottom front of the case - why? Airflow I guess, or speed holes?

Anyway I'm going to try and recreate that machine, minus the drilling. It was filthy but is coming up well so far - I'm particularly pleased with the plastic which hasn't yellowed much at all. The PSU was revolting and has already been binned. Good times.

Anyway it's an interesting little PC - I get the feeling that the configuration is original, based on the vendor name stickers I found here, all the screw types matched, etc. It makes that Pentium sticker all the more mysterious - I wouldn't be surprised if it was put there for trickery purposes by the vendor. If 'hi-micro' could sleep at night after selling peeps a machine with fake cache, then why not trick 'em into thinking they're getting a Pentium too?

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Life? Don't talk to me about life.

Reply 26408 of 52340, by wiretap

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Sometimes it pays to wake up early. At around 5am my Ebay alert went off for a new listing -- Futurepower NewQ Gold, brand new in box.. $50. Muhahahah, mine!

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My Github
Circuit Board Repair Manuals

Reply 26409 of 52340, by jaZz_KCS

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@wiretap

Nice find.

It's so ridiculously useless, but awesome looking. (Somewhat semi-realistic fake surround with a breakout box for everything you could do on a desktop already.)

I love it!

Reply 26410 of 52340, by Intel486dx33

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My Ultimate 486 VLB motherboard arrived yesterday.

It's a Gigabyte GA-486vs Socket 3 VLB motherboard.
It came with an Intel 486dx4-100mhz CPU and 8mb of ram.

I don't think it was ever used. Or at least has seen very little use.
The barrel battery still looks good and the jumpers where not set up correctly for proper use.
The capacitors look good and I don’t see any signs of use.

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Reply 26412 of 52340, by wiretap

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The barrel batteries can randomly explode too, without any signs of leaking. I have a ton of those batteries in VME cards at work, and we have a 5 year PM to replace the batteries, and a 18mo PM to inspect them. We've had a few blow up over the years and cause damage to boards.

My Github
Circuit Board Repair Manuals

Reply 26413 of 52340, by BeginnerGuy

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Sony Mavica FD-87. I actually bid on this solely because I needed the disks.. Got the camera, bag, two batteries, charger, manual, case of floppies, and a bunch of loose floppies (no dummy floppy with a memory card though!) all for $14 after shipping.

Obligatory dog pictures:
1280x1024 Sepia, impressive no blur when he licked himself (had to con him with a treat for a picture).

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640x480 color to try to get an old look.. looks too "modern" though, colors aren't very accurate but not bad enough for retro vibes

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Nice camera to play with for the price!

This model actually writes to the disks VERY quickly, even though you can only squeeze 6 1280x1024 shots to a single disk.

Last edited by BeginnerGuy on 2018-12-10, 01:37. Edited 1 time in total.

Sup. I like computers. Are you a computer?

Reply 26415 of 52340, by BeginnerGuy

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Intel486dx33 wrote:

Wow! You took those photos with the old Sony Mavic ?
Nice pictures.

Sure did, just pointed and clicked. These were very nice cameras in their day, we had one but I can't remember which model, ours took terribly low resolution video as well but this one is images only.

Intel486dx33 wrote:
My Ultimate 486 VLB motherboard arrived yesterday. […]
Show full quote

My Ultimate 486 VLB motherboard arrived yesterday.

It's a Gigabyte GA-486vs Socket 3 VLB motherboard.
It came with an Intel 486dx4-100mhz CPU and 8mb of ram.

I don't think it was ever used. Or at least has seen very little use.
The barrel battery still looks good and the jumpers where not set up correctly for proper use.
The capacitors look good and I don’t see any signs of use.

Nice board by the way, I really like that chipset. Mine can't handle an AM5x86 though so I'm back on the hunt for a new POD83 😜

Sup. I like computers. Are you a computer?

Reply 26416 of 52340, by Intel486dx33

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wiretap wrote:

The barrel batteries can randomly explode too, without any signs of leaking. I have a ton of those batteries in VME cards at work, and we have a 5 year PM to replace the batteries, and a 18mo PM to inspect them. We've had a few blow up over the years and cause damage to boards.

I think the motherboard was manufactured in 1994 or 95.
You don't think the battery is any good anymore ?

Reply 26417 of 52340, by wiretap

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Intel486dx33 wrote:
wiretap wrote:

The barrel batteries can randomly explode too, without any signs of leaking. I have a ton of those batteries in VME cards at work, and we have a 5 year PM to replace the batteries, and a 18mo PM to inspect them. We've had a few blow up over the years and cause damage to boards.

I think the motherboard was manufactured in 1994 or 95.
You don't think the battery is any good anymore ?

No, conservative replacement is every 5 years to prevent damage per EPRI standards.

My Github
Circuit Board Repair Manuals

Reply 26419 of 52340, by Intel486dx33

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BeginnerGuy wrote:
48208217_126479678261437_4658212686180384768_n.jpg

Sony Mavica FD-87. I actually bid on this solely because I needed the disks.. Got the camera, bag, two batteries, charger, manual, case of floppies, and a bunch of loose floppies (no dummy floppy with a memory card though!) all for $14 after shipping.

I actually have the Sony Mavic MVC-FD100. I paid about $20 too. Came in a camera bag with all accessories and 128mb. Sony Memory stick.
I want to try it out but I need to purchase a Sony memory stick reader first. Looks hardly used. Came with a box of HD floppy disk too.