Warlord wrote on 2020-08-07, 18:50:

vorob wrote on 2020-08-07, 18:04:

Any way to make USB mouse work under pure dos on N600C, and any solution for keys limits? I can press only two keys in time, if I press third it won't work. For eg, if I walk forward-right I can't jump.

only this, you still have to run cutemouse afterwards.
USB DOS Drivers

For some reason it freezes,

Okay, now it’s not freezing. And on device list I can even see my Logitech mouse. But it’s not working.

Cute mouse is loaded, touchpad works perfect, but not my wireless mouse.

Do you have a wired mouse that you can use? I know the DOS USB TSR software doesn't like certain mice or CuteMouse. One of the two.

Try disabling the touchpad, or specify with command line arguments which mouse cutemouse should bind to.

It will be a big of topic for this thread, but I bought MacBook Pro 15 (1211) for old Windows games 😀

12.33 GHz (T7600) Intel Core 2 Duo
2ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256 MB of GDDR3 SDRAM
32Gb PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM (667 MHz)
4120 GB
5Mac OS X 10.7.5 Lion

I was looking for a laptop with ATI X1000 GPU Series as it is the last GPU that supports stuff required for old Windows games (Dithering, Paletted Textures, etc.) I bought Fujitsu with ATI X1800 (Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Xi 1546, or my final step for an ultimate old gaming machine), which is a perfect machine but GPU shows some signs of dying (visual glitches when temperature is over 60C). And I always wanted to have old MacBook, so here I'm 😀

Its CPU is good for DosBox emulation, and Windows games will run perfectly on this GPU in Win XP. For EAX i'll buy Creative X-Fi XtremeAudio Notebook

vorob wrote on 2020-08-18, 09:02:

It will be a big of topic for this thread, but I bought MacBook Pro 15 (1211) for old Windows games :) […]
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It will be a big of topic for this thread, but I bought MacBook Pro 15 (1211) for old Windows games 😀

qYblnWt8FxE[1].jpg

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12.33 GHz (T7600) Intel Core 2 Duo
2ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256 MB of GDDR3 SDRAM
32Gb PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM (667 MHz)
4120 GB
5Mac OS X 10.7.5 Lion

I was looking for a laptop with ATI X1000 GPU Series as it is the last GPU that supports stuff required for old Windows games (Dithering, Paletted Textures, etc.) I bought Fujitsu with ATI X1800 (Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Xi 1546, or my final step for an ultimate old gaming machine), which is a perfect machine but GPU shows some signs of dying (visual glitches when temperature is over 60C). And I always wanted to have old MacBook, so here I'm 😀

Its CPU is good for DosBox emulation, and Windows games will run perfectly on this GPU in Win XP. For EAX i'll buy Creative X-Fi XtremeAudio Notebook

...and this is the part where you start your own thread. I have no idea how the search for a “perfect” DOS laptop evolved into a late 2006 MacBook Pro 15 running DOSBox.

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-08-19, 03:50:

vorob wrote on 2020-08-18, 09:02:

It will be a big of topic for this thread, but I bought MacBook Pro 15 (1211) for old Windows games :) […]
Show full quote

It will be a big of topic for this thread, but I bought MacBook Pro 15 (1211) for old Windows games 😀

qYblnWt8FxE[1].jpg

Copy code to clipboard

12.33 GHz (T7600) Intel Core 2 Duo
2ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256 MB of GDDR3 SDRAM
32Gb PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM (667 MHz)
4120 GB
5Mac OS X 10.7.5 Lion

I was looking for a laptop with ATI X1000 GPU Series as it is the last GPU that supports stuff required for old Windows games (Dithering, Paletted Textures, etc.) I bought Fujitsu with ATI X1800 (Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Xi 1546, or my final step for an ultimate old gaming machine), which is a perfect machine but GPU shows some signs of dying (visual glitches when temperature is over 60C). And I always wanted to have old MacBook, so here I'm 😀

Its CPU is good for DosBox emulation, and Windows games will run perfectly on this GPU in Win XP. For EAX i'll buy Creative X-Fi XtremeAudio Notebook

...and this is the part where you start your own thread. I have no idea how the search for a “perfect” DOS laptop evolved into a 2008 MacBook Pro 15 running DOSBox.

It just shows how good the classic MacBooks were... if I had time and resources I'd try to get a white or black classic MacBook '06 or '07. Install Ubuntu or hack it to run the newest macOS possible (probably High Sierra, thanks to dosdude1) and throw in XP, 98 and DOS emulation. BTW even his 2008 MacBook 15-inch pro can run Catalina with his patcher.

Here in Brazil I could get one of these for an affordable price, restoration would cost a lot of my time and some money (well spent), and it would be a very usable machine with any linux distro in 2020.

So I managed to take apart the battery in my 2805-s402. using a multimeter i tested the cells and believe I determined the 3 that are bad. The particular cells are not available anymore but I order 3 other Li-Ion cells that should work.
Hopefully thats all thats wrong with it. I'll update here if I am able to repair the battery.

I just figure if you don't have a working battery its not the ultimate laptop anymore.

Bruninho wrote on 2020-08-19, 04:21:

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-08-19, 03:50:

vorob wrote on 2020-08-18, 09:02:

It will be a big of topic for this thread, but I bought MacBook Pro 15 (1211) for old Windows games :) […]
Show full quote

It will be a big of topic for this thread, but I bought MacBook Pro 15 (1211) for old Windows games 😀

qYblnWt8FxE[1].jpg

Copy code to clipboard

12.33 GHz (T7600) Intel Core 2 Duo
2ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256 MB of GDDR3 SDRAM
32Gb PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM (667 MHz)
4120 GB
5Mac OS X 10.7.5 Lion

I was looking for a laptop with ATI X1000 GPU Series as it is the last GPU that supports stuff required for old Windows games (Dithering, Paletted Textures, etc.) I bought Fujitsu with ATI X1800 (Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Xi 1546, or my final step for an ultimate old gaming machine), which is a perfect machine but GPU shows some signs of dying (visual glitches when temperature is over 60C). And I always wanted to have old MacBook, so here I'm 😀

Its CPU is good for DosBox emulation, and Windows games will run perfectly on this GPU in Win XP. For EAX i'll buy Creative X-Fi XtremeAudio Notebook

...and this is the part where you start your own thread. I have no idea how the search for a “perfect” DOS laptop evolved into a 2008 MacBook Pro 15 running DOSBox.

It just shows how good the classic MacBooks were... if I had time and resources I'd try to get a white or black classic MacBook '06 or '07. Install Ubuntu or hack it to run the newest macOS possible (probably High Sierra, thanks to dosdude1) and throw in XP, 98 and DOS emulation. BTW even his 2008 MacBook 15-inch pro can run Catalina with his patcher.

Here in Brazil I could get one of these for an affordable price, restoration would cost a lot of my time and some money (well spent), and it would be a very usable machine with any linux distro in 2020.

Actually, no - I just realized that he bought a 2006 (original Merom) MacBook Pro (the big giveaway is the non-unibody design work), and not a 2008 model. Not that you want to invest too hard in either model, since:

The 2006-7 Conroe/Meroms
- Can only support up to 3GB of RAM (1+2), and that’s DDR2 SODIMMs
- Can only support either Snow Leopard or Lion, which are old
- The ATi X1600s are deliberately downclocked to fit the thermal envelope - about 20-25% below standard specs (Conroe)
(It’s like you are paying extra for an underperforming Thinkpad T60p)
- The X1600 machines are also known to fail (not as bad as the nVidias but it's still a thing)

The 2007-2008 model (early Penryn)
- Can only support 6GB Max (4+2 configuration), and once again DDR2
- The NVidia 8600M GT/G86 series are known to die early and kill boards (the thermal management is not up to snuff on this line)
- Only support up to MacOS 10.11

I would not recommend any MacBook Pros for retro-computing until the Unibody (Late Penryn/Bridge machines) or Retina (Well machines). As for the Polycarbonate Macbooks, I would not touch the i945 based machines, avoid the X3100 machines and only focus on the “Snow White” MacBook5,2 model (I bought one new in 2009), or the later polycarbonate/Aluminum Unibody (DDR3 based) models.

Uh. And honestly, why anyone want to run Catalina on a vintage machine is beyond me. You lose all of the 32 bit MacOS underpinnings without much upside in return...

My logic is simple. MacBook Pro looks nice and X1600 is a perfect card for old stuff. Intel HD 4000 also can do the same, but it won't run some games, like Shadow Vault for eg. Definitely not recommending this to anyone, but still its good.

Btw, MacBook Pro 15 Early 2006 has downclocked X1600 and some thermal issues, it also has only Core Duo CPU. Late 2006 version, which i bought, have C2d CPU and X1600 almost on stock speed. Plus it has GDDR3 memory, compared to Acer's GDD2 for eg.

Have to agree, I don't see how a macbook makes a good retro gaming laptop, and express card X fi doesn't run on 98. Driver support for a ATI X1600 certainly isn't there for 98 either, nore does it fully support Direct3d and directx 7 features.
You can probably run XP on it. That lowers the bar so much. Like if I wanted to go that route I would go for 10-15 other laptops that had ether geforce 4go, Geforce FX go or some sort of comparable quadro that has a PCMCIA compatible slot and use an Audidgy 2zs notbook card, which can be forced to run on 98.

That's why I called it offtopic 😀 Its not for 98 or DOS. Dos will be here is DOSBox. I've installed XP here.

Anyhoo, I found the laptop I wanted. I found a list of FX go laptops, if anyone wants to shift through there to see if anyone of them has a sound card that will work in DOS. Hypothetically the 5200go could be forced to run 40.xx series drivers like other FX5200s

https://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/5688- … 5xxx-notebooks/

That's nice. I've got Dell D800 with GF4200 but it can be swapped with GeForce FX Go 5650. It have sound in Win 98 and its dosbox, but not in pure dos.

Warlord wrote on 2020-08-19, 06:40:

Have to agree, I don't see how a macbook makes a good retro gaming laptop, and express card X fi doesn't run on 98. Driver support for a ATI X1600 certainly isn't there for 98 either, nore does it fully support Direct3d and directx 7 features.
You can probably run XP on it. That lowers the bar so much. Like if I wanted to go that route I would go for 10-15 other laptops that had ether geforce 4go, Geforce FX go or some sort of comparable quadro that has a PCMCIA compatible slot and use an Audidgy 2zs notbook card, which can be forced to run on 98.

Or make a separate topic and discuss it there.

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-08-19, 05:48:

Actually, no - I just realized that he bought a 2006 (original Merom) MacBook Pro (the big giveaway is the non-unibody design wo […]
Show full quote

Actually, no - I just realized that he bought a 2006 (original Merom) MacBook Pro (the big giveaway is the non-unibody design work), and not a 2008 model. Not that you want to invest too hard in either model, since:

The 2006-7 Conroe/Meroms
- Can only support up to 3GB of RAM (1+2), and that’s DDR2 SODIMMs
- Can only support either Snow Leopard or Lion, which are old
- The ATi X1600s are deliberately downclocked to fit the thermal envelope - about 20-25% below standard specs (Conroe)
(It’s like you are paying extra for an underperforming Thinkpad T60p)
- The X1600 machines are also known to fail (not as bad as the nVidias but it's still a thing)

The 2007-2008 model (early Penryn)
- Can only support 6GB Max (4+2 configuration), and once again DDR2
- The NVidia 8600M GT/G86 series are known to die early and kill boards (the thermal management is not up to snuff on this line)
- Only support up to MacOS 10.11

I would not recommend any MacBook Pros for retro-computing until the Unibody (Late Penryn/Bridge machines) or Retina (Well machines). As for the Polycarbonate Macbooks, I would not touch the i945 based machines, avoid the X3100 machines and only focus on the “Snow White” MacBook5,2 model (I bought one new in 2009), or the later polycarbonate/Aluminum Unibody (DDR3 based) models.

Uh. And honestly, why anyone want to run Catalina on a vintage machine is beyond me. You lose all of the 32 bit MacOS underpinnings without much upside in return...

Humm, yeah, I made a little confusion about the release years of certain Macs. When I spoke about the white/black ones, I was referring to the 2008/2009 ones, so please excuse me for that.

About the amount of RAM supported in certain models, some can support more than the officially reported by Apple. I have done that before with certain models.

If you're a diehard Apple fan, I would recommend all of these aforementioned old models for linux though, they're cheaper now, and if you slap in a SSD and some RAM, a linux distro or Windows 10, and you'll have a very good machine for daily usage for less than $300. As for 32-bit apps, I don't miss them. But for those who want them, you can stick to El Capitan on 2006/07 models, and use dosdude1's patches for any of the newer versions (Sierra and above) on 2008 and later models. I did my own research and I found out that they all will run smoothly, like new after some much needed SSD + RAM upgrades. I am still using a 2009 iMac on unsupported Catalina.

once i get the battery repaired, and this thing fully screwed back together, I plan on making the ultimate laptop thread, as this one checks all the boxes of the OP 1st post of both configurations into 1.

Warlord wrote on 2020-08-19, 07:15:

Anyhoo, I found the laptop I wanted. I found a list of FX go laptops, if anyone wants to shift through there to see if anyone of them has a sound card that will work in DOS. Hypothetically the 5200go could be forced to run 40.xx series drivers like other FX5200s

Good catch. 100% no one sound card will work in Dos.

I also got a laptop to add to the list of "close but not quite": Compaq Armada 1700.

With it's Pentium II 233 - 266MHz and ESS ES1869 it's perfectly suited for DOS gaming, and the Chips and Technologies 65535 is fine for most (if not all) newer DOS games. It's just that the scaling of the TFT is not ideal.

640x480 (or 640x400, I forgot) in Quake looks fine, even when seen from up close. DOS itself looks a bit rough when stretched (no smoothing of any kind), but for example with Doom the screen has two big black bars on the top and bottom. I guess it preserves the ratio of the screen which is good, but when sitting at a distance I'd rather have the option to have to whole screen filled.

Scaling can be disabled with Fn+T but that only adds more black bars obviously.

[edit]
Untested but I also got the docking station with it which has a gameport/MPU-401 port, so that's also nice for gaming.

[edit II]
To clarify, my Armada 1700 has a TFT screen which, I think, is 13.3 inch and has a native resolution of 1024x768.

Bruninho wrote on 2020-08-19, 15:38:

Humm, yeah, I made a little confusion about the release years of certain Macs. When I spoke about the white/black ones, I was re […]
Show full quote

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-08-19, 05:48:

Actually, no - I just realized that he bought a 2006 (original Merom) MacBook Pro (the big giveaway is the non-unibody design wo […]
Show full quote

Actually, no - I just realized that he bought a 2006 (original Merom) MacBook Pro (the big giveaway is the non-unibody design work), and not a 2008 model. Not that you want to invest too hard in either model, since:

The 2006-7 Conroe/Meroms
- Can only support up to 3GB of RAM (1+2), and that’s DDR2 SODIMMs
- Can only support either Snow Leopard or Lion, which are old
- The ATi X1600s are deliberately downclocked to fit the thermal envelope - about 20-25% below standard specs (Conroe)
(It’s like you are paying extra for an underperforming Thinkpad T60p)
- The X1600 machines are also known to fail (not as bad as the nVidias but it's still a thing)

The 2007-2008 model (early Penryn)
- Can only support 6GB Max (4+2 configuration), and once again DDR2
- The NVidia 8600M GT/G86 series are known to die early and kill boards (the thermal management is not up to snuff on this line)
- Only support up to MacOS 10.11

I would not recommend any MacBook Pros for retro-computing until the Unibody (Late Penryn/Bridge machines) or Retina (Well machines). As for the Polycarbonate Macbooks, I would not touch the i945 based machines, avoid the X3100 machines and only focus on the “Snow White” MacBook5,2 model (I bought one new in 2009), or the later polycarbonate/Aluminum Unibody (DDR3 based) models.

Uh. And honestly, why anyone want to run Catalina on a vintage machine is beyond me. You lose all of the 32 bit MacOS underpinnings without much upside in return...

Humm, yeah, I made a little confusion about the release years of certain Macs. When I spoke about the white/black ones, I was referring to the 2008/2009 ones, so please excuse me for that.

About the amount of RAM supported in certain models, some can support more than the officially reported by Apple. I have done that before with certain models.

If you're a diehard Apple fan, I would recommend all of these aforementioned old models for linux though, they're cheaper now, and if you slap in a SSD and some RAM, a linux distro or Windows 10, and you'll have a very good machine for daily usage for less than $300. As for 32-bit apps, I don't miss them. But for those who want them, you can stick to El Capitan on 2006/07 models, and use dosdude1's patches for any of the newer versions (Sierra and above) on 2008 and later models. I did my own research and I found out that they all will run smoothly, like new after some much needed SSD + RAM upgrades. I am still using a 2009 iMac on unsupported Catalina.

Well, the 2006s with the i950s are pegged to 3GB RAM max, the 2006-8s are X3100 based and maxes out to either 6 or 8, the nVidia 9400Ms can do 8GB (DDR2 or 3), the nVidia 320Ms from mid-09/10 can do 16GB on DDR3, just like the '11/'12 Sandy/Ivy bridge afterwards.

I still retain 32 bit with Mojave and Sierra on my 2015 MBA11, 2013 MBP and my 2010 MBP13, it's good for early carbonized apps like Halo and UT2004, and titles like BioShock Infinite (which is 32 bit only)