VOGONS


Reply 12220 of 27171, by KCompRoom2000

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Lately, I've been doing some changes with a couple of my main retro rigs (the Celeron-433 build and the Dell Optiplex GX150). Remember when I said I was sticking to Windows 95OSR2.5 on the Celeron rig? I changed my mind and decided to change the operating systems on both rigs by installing Windows 98SE on the Celeron and replacing Windows 98SE with Windows ME on the GX150.

I decided to do this for a couple reasons:
1. Windows 98SE has been giving me some issues on the GX150. Once in a while, the system would freeze (most infamously: it froze as soon as I installed drivers for the SB Audigy 2 sound card, but it didn't freeze when I installed them on Windows 2000). So I thought I'd give Windows ME a try to see if it would be any different. From what I've heard, Windows ME tends to work better on slightly newer hardware compared to 98, so I thought it'd be worth a shot.
2. Since the GX150 was the only Windows 98 machine I had setup at the moment, I figured I'd install 98 on one of my other computers to balance things out. I decided to install it on my Celeron-433 rig, partially because I got bored of Windows 95 and I already have a few other computers that run it.

I've just finished installing Windows 98SE on the Celeron rig, it detected most of its hardware out of the box (including the Sound Blaster AWE64 sound card and the ATI Rage Pro GPU), the only components I'll have to install drivers for are the Voodoo2 and the RTL8139 Ethernet NIC. Upon getting ready to install Windows ME on the GX150, I discovered that the DVD-ROM drive was dead, so I replaced that with a Pioneer DVD-RW drive that I bought at Goodwill a few months ago. Right now, I'm formatting the hard drive, let's see how this goes.

Reply 12222 of 27171, by Mister Xiado

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Icon pack 25. That makes and even 200 icons for Windows 3, of varying utility. Yay. I would make icons for Win9X, but I'd already done that 20 years ago, and new ones would be pushing the boundaries of the site's theme of the early/mid-nineties. Also, there are fifteen point eight trillion Win9X icons out there already. Also, burnout kills the imagination.

icxw25.gif
disk.gif

b_ldnt2.gif - Where it's always 1995.
Icons, wallpapers, and typical Oldternet nonsense.

Reply 12223 of 27171, by LHN91

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

We're moving in the next few months so I've started going through some of my stuff to see what I'm keeping and what I'm getting rid of - might make use of the hardware giveaway thread for some of it, but would anyone be interested in stuff either shipped or picked up from Southern Ontario, Canada?

Pulled out an old Cisco PIX 315 I've had hanging around for a couple years that I never used... might still use it for a retro lab, but I was doing some research and noticed mentions of the PIX line using standard Intel/AMD x86 parts, with early ones using 486 class CPU's. Well turns out mine isn't 486 based, but it does have a nice clean 200 Mhz Pentium MMX in it!

So oddly enough, if you're looking for Socket 7 or possibly Socket 3/5 CPUs, scrapped turn of the millennium network gear might be a place to look!

Reply 12224 of 27171, by TheeRaccoon

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Just got another addition to my Quantum3D collection in yesterday, Quantum3D Obsidian2 200SB! With the rare optional fan rail system!

Cleaned it up and erased the contacts to get rid of any oxidization.

Played some Half Life and it worked perfect first try. (:

Attachments

Reply 12225 of 27171, by dionb

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Progress on my Osborne keyboard:

full.jpg

Soldering completed (and debugged and fixed), controller written and it works!

At least, you press keys, they generally register and the input gets fed to the computer. What it lacks is any way of detecting how long a key is pressed for, any form of modifier use and general reliable usability. Oh, and the keyboard itself lacks any form of delete...

Refining the software (and thinking of a way to delete after all...) is for another day. Come to think of it, I might just use Caps Lock as a modifier for the modifier keys 😉

Reply 12226 of 27171, by ryoder

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I got my Tandy 1000 graphics library working on Open Watcom and my sprite compiler is working better than ever.

Attachments

Reply 12227 of 27171, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Looks like Mortal Kombat and King's Quest combined. Very interesting.

Currently working on the GameBoy DMG-01 bundle by inspecting and repairing the items in question. I cleaned the nasty battery acid/corrosion on the one battery terminal for the DMG-01 system (had a little bit of corrosion on it) and the Nuby GameLight (had heavy battery acid and corrosion on the terminals). Both work, however, I need to fix the vertical lines on the DMG-01 system and clean it up as it has crud on it. No yellowing, which is nice and I'll be working on the newly acquired desktop from a fellow Vogoner.

Edit: fixed the vertical line issue on the DMG-01 successfully and it's 100% functional. First time fixing the vertical line issue the right way.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 12228 of 27171, by pan069

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
ryoder wrote:

I got my Tandy 1000 graphics library working on Open Watcom and my sprite compiler is working better than ever.

Awesome. I've been working on my 286 sprite and graphics library for DOS. Been inspired by playing Bitmap Brothers games on my 286, Gods and Speedball, trying to emulate the performance that they get out of those games on such low-end hardware.

I assume that when you say, "sprite compiler", that you compile your sprites into op-code? I have that planned for the future but currently focusing on just RLE sprites. If I need more performance (which I probably will) then for non-clipped sprites I will also introduce a compile sprite technique.

Reply 12229 of 27171, by appiah4

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Benchmarked my 386SX some. Sounds about right for an SX-25?

Attachments

  • 386SX Benchmark 04.JPG
    Filename
    386SX Benchmark 04.JPG
    File size
    772.17 KiB
    Views
    1484 views
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • 386SX Benchmark 03.JPG
    Filename
    386SX Benchmark 03.JPG
    File size
    1.03 MiB
    Views
    1484 views
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • 386SX Benchmark 02.JPG
    Filename
    386SX Benchmark 02.JPG
    File size
    622.07 KiB
    Views
    1484 views
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • 386SX Benchmark 01.JPG
    Filename
    386SX Benchmark 01.JPG
    File size
    951.32 KiB
    Views
    1484 views
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 12230 of 27171, by kaputnik

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Got a text from a friend's dad yesterday evening, "You don't happen to have a spare Asus P5A-B mainboard to sell?". Explained to him that no, I don't have one, that it's one of the hotter retro mobos, and next to impossible to fetch at a reasonable price here, if you even can find one. If he told me what he was up to though, I could perhaps come up with alternatives. This guy is retired since a few years, and got plenty of spare time, wondered if he'd been bitten by the retro bug by some odd chance 😁

Turned out he's repairing an old broken CNC plasma cutter, which is equipped with a P5A-B mobo, some custom ISA control card, a special PCI graphics card with dual outputs, and is running DOS. The CPU is a Pentium 133. Funny choice of mobo for that CPU, I would certainly have gone for a 430 series chipset board if I didn't need more than 66 MHz FSB. Perhaps a question of availability when the machine was built?

Figured any old AT board should do the job, scrounged up a working 430VX board from my stashes, and suggested we swap boards. He gets the tested and working board from me to replace the P5A board, and I get the latter back, to give repairing it a shot.

Even the transport problem was elegantly solved. My friend is going to visit her parents - they live in the southern part of the country, 500 km from here - tomorrow. Sending the board with her, and she brings back the P5A when she goes back 😀

So, soon I've got a P5A-B to try to restore during rainy days. Really looking forward to it, haven't really done anything retro computing related for quite a while 😀

Reply 12231 of 27171, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Finishing up a system I'm currently working on. Replaced the dead CMOS battery, installed the data cables (COM, LPT, FDD, and HDD), the power connectors, and the motherboard connections: HDD LED, Reset switch, power LED (connects to the PSU), and PC speaker (the real PC speaker, not the squeaker cam speaker that are in today's computer cases).

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 12234 of 27171, by PTherapist

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Not been doing a lot PC wise lately, got myself a PS2 console and have mostly been playing around with that and using Free McBoot with OPL to run PS2 games over Ethernet. I was tearing my hair out the other night when OPL stopped working. No amount of reconfiguring, changing cables or rebooting the host PC would make a difference. Then after about 1 hour of much cursing, I discovered a rather dumb mistake - I'd accidentally placed the iso of a PS1 game into the samba share folder for OPL. It totally locked up OPL when it tried to read it and I couldn't even remove the file from the folder in Windows without disabling the ethernet first. 🤣

Other than that, an "old" activity, but not really retro - I replaced the laser on my Xbox 360 drive, which was suffering the common "Open Tray" problem when inserting DVD or Game discs and you had to tap the top of the console repeatedly after inserting a disc to get it working. I could have tried tweaking the DVD pot on the old laser, but even if it had worked it probably wouldn't have lasted long so I went with the new one instead. The new laser resolved the issue and now it's happily reading all types of disc again.

Reply 12235 of 27171, by PcBytes

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
oeuvre wrote:
https://i.imgur.com/yQxH85Ul.png […]
Show full quote

yQxH85Ul.png

Speaking of 9x.... 🤣

file.php?mode=view&id=65469&sid=157af7a02e22244ec890ceac3a879003

No, you're not seeing things. I took my liberty and literally set up a Beta 1 build of WinME as a gaming OS. Close to 98SE, but with native (yes, native) USB support. Stable, although drivers are a bit of headache, but that's 9x for ya.

Attachments

  • 98TE.png
    Filename
    98TE.png
    File size
    91.45 KiB
    Views
    1261 views
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB

Reply 12237 of 27171, by Mister Xiado

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

For quick reference:

OEMINFO.INI wrote:
[…]
Show full quote
[general]
Manufacturer=Company Name
Model=Custom

[Support Information]
Line1=" For technical support and service,"
Line2=" buy a new computer."

Your logo image, at least in Win9X, 2K, and XP, should be 180x114, and 8 bit color if you want transparency. Palette index 0 will be your transparent color. If you use Paint Shop Pro to create and edit your logo, you can change palette settings under Colors, Edit Palette (in in PSP X, Image, Palette, Edit Palette). Double-click palette index 0 and change it to a color not used in your image. I usually use bright green (#00FF00) or bright purple (#FF00FF). The filenames I use for my images are:
9X: oemlogo.bmp
2K: oemlogo-2k.bmp
XP: oemlogo-xp.bmp
The batch file below handles renaming the files after they've been copied to the appropriate directory. This just allows you to use different images for different Windows Versions, so you can make era-appropriate logos, if that's your fancy.

And for easy-peasy installation of your custom logo and information:

OEM.BAT wrote:
[…]
Show full quote
echo off
copy oemlogo.bmp %systemroot%\system32
rem ***************************************************
rem Script for deploying OEM INFO and OEM LOGO to
rem different operating systems
rem Simon Butler, Amset IT Solutions Ltd. 12-12-03
rem see http://www.amset.info/netadmin/oemlogo.asp
rem Requirements
rem Image file for Windows 2000 named oemlogo-2k.bmp
rem Image file for Windows XP named oemlogo-xp.bmp
rem And oeminfo.ini file.
rem
rem All three files should be placed in the same
rem directory as this batch file
rem If running from login script, place all three files
rem in your "netlogon" share on the domain controllers.
rem Remember - if you are running from a network share
rem it must be a mapped drive!
rem ***************************************************

rem Get the OS and dump to file
ver >%systemdrive%\ver.txt

Rem now find the operating system and act accordingly
findstr "4.0" %systemdrive%\ver.txt
if not errorlevel 1 goto nt4
findstr "5.0" %systemdrive%\ver.txt
if not errorlevel 1 goto win2k
findstr "5.1" %systemdrive%\ver.txt
if not errorlevel 1 goto winxp
findstr "5.2" %systemdrive%\ver.txt
if not errorlevel 1 goto win2003

goto win9x

:nt4
set OpSys-NT4
echo %OpSys% >>%systemdrive%\result.txt
rem Windows NT4 settings

copy oeminfo.ini "%systemroot%\system32"
copy oemlogo-2k.bmp "%systemroot%\system32"
del "%systemroot%\system32"\oemlogo.bmp
rename "%systemroot%\system32\oemlogo-2k.bmp" oemlogo.bmp"

goto next

:win2k
set OpSys=Win2K
echo %OpSys% >>%systemdrive%\result.txt
rem Windows 2000 settings

copy oeminfo.ini "%systemroot%\system32"
copy oemlogo-2k.bmp "%systemroot%\system32"
del "%systemroot%\system32"\oemlogo.bmp
rename "%systemroot%\system32\oemlogo-2k.bmp" oemlogo.bmp"

goto next

:winxp
Show last 43 lines
set OpSys=XP
echo %OpSys% >>%systemdrive%\result.txt
rem Windows XP settings

copy oeminfo.ini "%systemroot%\system32"
copy oemlogo-xp.bmp "%systemroot%\system32"
del "%systemroot%\system32"\oemlogo.bmp
rename "%systemroot%\system32\oemlogo-xp.bmp" oemlogo.bmp"

goto next

:win2003
set OpSys=Win2003
echo %OpSys% >>%systemdrive%\result.txt
rem Windows 2003 settings

copy oeminfo.ini "%systemroot%\system32"
copy oemlogo-xp.bmp "%systemroot%\system32"
del "%systemroot%\system32"\oemlogo.bmp
rename "%systemroot%\system32\oemlogo-xp.bmp" oemlogo.bmp"

goto next

:win9x
set OpSys=9x
echo %OpSys% >>%systemdrive%\result.txt
rem Windows 9x settings

copy oeminfo.ini "%systemroot%\system32\"
copy oemlogo-2k.bmp "%systemroot%\system32\"
del "%systemroot%\system"\oemlogo.bmp
rename "%systemroot%\system\oemlogo-2k.bmp" oemlogo.bmp"

goto next

:next
echo done >>%systemdrive%\result.txt
echo Cleaning up!
del %systemdrive%\result.txt
del %systemdrive%\ver.txt
rem if problems, put REM in front of above two lines
rem to read the results files.

Put all of these on a floppy or flash drive, insert, and run the batch file.

b_ldnt2.gif - Where it's always 1995.
Icons, wallpapers, and typical Oldternet nonsense.

Reply 12238 of 27171, by Jed118

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I'm almost done with my hard disk plexiglass thing!

https://youtu.be/lTxyFkq1r9k

Youtube channel- The Kombinator
What's for sale? my eBay!

Reply 12239 of 27171, by bakemono

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

It was hot upstairs so I reorganized some stuff down in the retro room. Decided to hook up my MSX2 system and verify it was still working (been a few years). It still showed the correct date! But it had a 1.4GB HDD connected to a Sunrise IDE cartridge. I had to smack it a few times to get it to spin up, and then some files wouldn't read so I guess it's dying. Time to salvage some data while I still can (of course I probably have all the same files on my PC somewhere)

again another retro game on itch: https://90soft90.itch.io/shmup-salad