HannibalAnthrope wrote on 2020-05-12, 13:52:

My retro activity this morning was chasing down an ms-dos utility to do keyboard testing in my troubleshooting an issue I've had with keymapper. And after that, writing plain 'c' code on an RPi to do the same task just so I could be sure what my keyboards are sending.
Those are 2 things I have not done in over two decades I believe! And hope to never do again! 🤣

Maybe a thread on customizing Win7 in the Marvin Software section would be a good idea?

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-05-12, 20:23:

Maybe a thread on customizing Win7 in the Marvin Software section would be a good idea?

I was thinking the same. I want to experiment with those tools in a VM.

computerguy08 wrote on 2020-05-12, 20:38:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-05-12, 20:23:

Maybe a thread on customizing Win7 in the Marvin Software section would be a good idea?

I was thinking the same. I want to experiment with those tools in a VM.

Second that - I was just putting together a fully updated .wim for deployment via Integrate7: https://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setu … ll-updates.html

I would be interested in how others are getting Windows 7 to be more of a daily driver, supported or not.

I actually have a thread for my VMs in the PC emulation section.

Last night I had setup a Win 7 ultimate VM, not really sure if I will keep it, because I'm very annoyed with the icons - I'm a web designer, and part of my job is to design them; so when I tried XP and used the inexperience patcher, I was very pleased to see the Win 98 icons back in their full glory. But XP in VMware does not get more than 128mb video ram, rendering it practically useless for the games I wanted to play. Hence why I tried 7 - and it's pretty close, except for the Windows Explorer and the "toy" icons. I was never a fan of the original Windows XP design & icons. Windows 10 Icons are actually not that bad, even the new ones they are rolling out in the next update are great, but nothing will beat the classic Windows icons.

Btw my games can run well with Win 7 VM and even Win 10 VM, because VMware only allows more than 256MB video ram for these two terrible versions Windows...

For getting things done why do you need 256megs of video ram?

I'm more interested in real hardware as opposed to VMs.

Sorting out another Acorn RiscPC. This one pops up a directory fault on start up. At the * prompt typing "desktop" loads the desktop fine. I'm doing a verify check on the hdd to see if it is ok. I'll be replacing the original 3.6 RiscOS roms with 3.7 roms. This gives me TCP/IP out of the box and the ability to use StrongARM co-processors. I also upgraded the ram to 64megs on this system.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-05-12, 23:22:

For getting things done why do you need 256megs of video ram?

I'm more interested in real hardware as opposed to VMs.

Grand Prix 4, despite being produced for the year 2001/02, and of what the system requirements say, needs more than that. The pure non-modded game runs in a W7 VM with 2GB of video ram and 8gb of RAM and locked at 60 fps.

This is where the problem begins. The Grand Prix 4 mods use high quality and high polygon cars and tracks, not to mention the doubled size of cars & tracks textures. There is an amazing 1998 F1 mod that uses high quality stuff and can display cars way better than, let's say, Codemasters F1 2010. (an amazing feat for a mod that was made five years before Codemasters F1 2010!).

But a high quality mod requires LOTS of video processing power. I remember that I had bought an AMD Radeon HD 6600 (or 6800?) around 2002-2006 (well, my memory is failing for the year, but I did have that GPU installed) just to play the game (a few months later, I was playing rFactor 1 on it before switching to NVIDIA graphics cards because it was said that rFactor had better compatibility with them and AMD was giving problems).

The game runs flawlessly with either W7 or W10. But I cannot for the life of me play it with W2000 or WXP with the same level of quality and smoothness because VMWare locked these two to 128MB. (well, actually, it's XP, because W2000 is locked at 64MB).

I get your interested in hardware - I have more interest in software, as an UI/UX designer. Since I do not deal with hardware as much as you guys amazingly do, I use the VMs to get what I want to mess with old OS and old games/apps the way I want.

Bruninho wrote on 2020-05-12, 22:20:

But XP in VMware does not get more than 128mb video ram, rendering it practically useless for the games I wanted to play.

You can set the machine as Win 7 x86 but have Win XP installed on the virtual hdd, this way you'll get around the 128MB limitation.

Another PlayStation 2, SCPH-50004 this time, that needs some serious maintenance:

Guess what, it's still working...

What happened to that ps2 it looks like it was in a flood.

Probably a decade of storing in a wet basement. Certainly no flood, as only the bottom of the HDD cage has rusted and there are no other signs of water inside.

(the corrosion on the left port is from a memcard that was inserted all the time, causing a chemical reaction between the metals)

That'll do it. It's quite impressive that it actually works.

Now have to make it look great again. 😉

derSammler wrote on 2020-05-13, 08:31:

Another PlayStation 2, SCPH-50004 this time, that needs some serious maintenance:

IMG_20200513_102617027.jpg IMG_20200513_102621524.jpg

Guess what, it's still working...

From the photo's it does look like just the protective case got damaged. Older electronics, especially specialized stuff such as a machine dedicated to gaming should be able take more mistreatment than newer stuff. This reminds me of a Fisher Price cassette player that survived falling down the stairs unscathed. ☺️

Still remarkable that the optical drive still reads discs.

Tested the Pentium II 450 that arrived today. Works like a charm. I just have to clean the heatsink and fan and then drop it into my 440BX Slot 1 machine (Epox EP-BX3).

Yesterday I thoroughly cleaned the Tulip TC76 mainboard that will go into my Visionline dt. Today I replaced the P166 MMX with a P233 MMX, upgraded the RAM from 32MB to 64MB, replaced the BIOS battery and ordered a 2MB SGRAM SO-DIMM to expand the onboard video memory (let's hope it works).
Later today I plan to actually swap mainboards from TC48 to TC76.

Thanks to the excellent documentation, provided on minuszerodegrees.net, I was able to fix the problems my ’83 Model F keyboard gave me.
No more stuck keys, unreliable operation (solder joints/wire harness) or the dissolving mat.

While I was at it I also flashed two 27C256-100 EEPROMS with the ’86 BIOS revision to give my XT some extra love…

That's much better. 😀

derSammler wrote on 2020-05-13, 13:48:

That's much better. 😀

IMG_20200513_131330473.jpg

IMG_20200513_154604270.jpg

I have a few corroded battery boxes meant for use with technic Lego that could use a similar treatment. What did you use to clean that metal?

50% water, 40% vinegar, and 10% rust converter. The rust converter was just to speed up the process and is not needed.