chinny22 wrote:

xjas wrote:

I brought some old batteries & rubbish down to the scrap metal bins today and came back with more than I started. 😜

Hate it when that happens, actually no I don't!
What do you use fireware ports for? I've got a few in my systems but struggle to think what I can use them for

Firewire is basically only useful for storage, some older video cameras, and some audio interfaces.

I've never actually used a firewire port for anything.

Don't forget networking.

On WinXP machines, you can link 2 PCs together over FireWire for a high speed network link.

I run Firewire audio & MIDI interfaces in my music studio and have a couple external firewire drives kicking around. For audio work I find it VASTLY better than USB, which is a catastrophe.

xjas wrote:

I run Firewire audio & MIDI interfaces in my music studio and have a couple external firewire drives kicking around. For audio work I find it VASTLY better than USB, which is a catastrophe.

how come? do the usb ones lose sync/connection or something?

Not actually mine yet, but I have first dibs on it when my oldest colleague (who refuses to part with it even though is has never been used for over a decade) retires:

An MPEG analyzer system based on an Asus CUV4X-DLS and a single P3 coppermine (why this board if you never intended to do SMP??). Rest of the specs are less than spectacular, a single 512MB PC133 ECC DIMM, a single U160 SCSI drive, a CD-ROM and floppy - and two huge PCI cards with custom logic from Tektronix for the MPEG stuff. The outside of the case (ATX midi tower) is battered and dirty, but due to dust filters and having spent the last 16 years lying untouched in the bottom of a 19" rack in a climate controlled data center, the motherboard and other internals are absolutely pristine, looking as if they had been installed yesterday.

For now this system is in the corner of our lab under a desk, but one day soon...
(all I need to do is make sure it stays away from the things another of my colleagues and I do that occasionally go wrong and catch fire 😜 )

keropi wrote:

xjas wrote:

I run Firewire audio & MIDI interfaces in my music studio and have a couple external firewire drives kicking around. For audio work I find it VASTLY better than USB, which is a catastrophe.

how come? do the usb ones lose sync/connection or something?

MIDI timing & latency is the biggest reason, because of the way USB frames work it's virtually impossible to get musically-consistent timing over it. This is literally a case of USB being the wrong tool for the job. In terms of accuracy a DOS PC using a Soundblaster MIDI port or an Atari ST will wipe the floor with anything "modern" using a USB-MIDI interface (I've tested this!) Then there's issues with audio latency & buffering, and with the fact that every disconnect/reconnect of the same device into the same port apparently gets assigned a new device ID (at least in OSX/CoreAudio) so you have to re-do the whole routing configuration if you're trying to use e.g. a laptop that gets docked & undocked into a setup.

Plus the numerous OS- & hardware- caused USB issues get compounded a billion-fold by manufacturers' drivers being almost universally shoddy, even from major companies like Roland or M-Audio. I bought a couple brand new Roland boutique synths last year & the USB drivers are unusably bad. (They are fantastic little synths when connected with DIN-5 MIDI cables & analog audio outs, so that's what I did.) I have more than one USB interface here that will prevent a system from booting if it's plugged in. Hopeless.

USB should never have caught on for anything more than a keyboard&mouse port IMHO.

I'm too lazy to post most of my dumpster finds! 😜

Here are 3 not very exiting systems I have found during the last week or two.

From the right.

A year 2002 socket 478 system complete with HDD. I think the motherboard was some MSI i845 board, the video card a Geforce4 Ti4x00 and the sound card a Sound BLaster Live! Digital 5.1. I have not tested the system but I expect it to work as there were no visually bad caps or such. I have borrowed the sound card and an optical drive from this system to use with the dual P3 system I'm tinkering with as I couldn't be arsed with getting items from storage. I will probably return the sound card and test this system later.

A 2009 or 2010 entry level AM3 system without HDD. No intresting items.

A late (probably 2009) socket 775 system with an Intel G41 motherboard. The video card is a Geforce 9800GT otherwise the case is the most intresting part.

xjas wrote:

MIDI timing & latency is the biggest reason, because of the way USB frames work it's virtually impossible to get musically-consi […]
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keropi wrote:

xjas wrote:

I run Firewire audio & MIDI interfaces in my music studio and have a couple external firewire drives kicking around. For audio work I find it VASTLY better than USB, which is a catastrophe.

how come? do the usb ones lose sync/connection or something?

MIDI timing & latency is the biggest reason, because of the way USB frames work it's virtually impossible to get musically-consistent timing over it. This is literally a case of USB being the wrong tool for the job. In terms of accuracy a DOS PC using a Soundblaster MIDI port or an Atari ST will wipe the floor with anything "modern" using a USB-MIDI interface (I've tested this!) Then there's issues with audio latency & buffering, and with the fact that every disconnect/reconnect of the same device into the same port apparently gets assigned a new device ID (at least in OSX/CoreAudio) so you have to re-do the whole routing configuration if you're trying to use e.g. a laptop that gets docked & undocked into a setup.

Plus the numerous OS- & hardware- caused USB issues get compounded a billion-fold by manufacturers' drivers being almost universally shoddy, even from major companies like Roland or M-Audio. I bought a couple brand new Roland boutique synths last year & the USB drivers are unusably bad. (They are fantastic little synths when connected with DIN-5 MIDI cables & analog audio outs, so that's what I did.) I have more than one USB interface here that will prevent a system from booting if it's plugged in. Hopeless.

USB should never have caught on for anything more than a keyboard&mouse port IMHO.

I'll second the horribleness of USB for MIDI purposes. USB 2.0 helped with some of that, and for Windows you can disable core parking which helps with latency even more. Still it is not near as good as a real midi interface.

USB is also fine for external storage, web cams, adding devices such as serial and parallel ports, etc. to do work on stuff such as networking equipment.

I use a Dreamblaster X3M over USB on modern systems and have not encountered the USB horribleness most people are complaining about. This is probably an issue mostly caused by poor implementation of USB with early USB 1.1/2.0 buses which were often buggy as hell, coupled with weak IPC of earlier single or dual core processors. My AM3 FX system works great with a USB MIDI device. For retro systems, I use the MIDI/Gameport though. I find most Pentium to Pentium 3 class hardware's USB controllers suck ass for even storage devices.

appiah4 wrote:

I use a Dreamblaster X3M over USB on modern systems and have not encountered the USB horribleness most people are complaining about. This is probably an issue mostly caused by poor implementation of USB with early USB 1.1/2.0 buses which were often buggy as hell, coupled with weak IPC of earlier single or dual core processors. My AM3 FX system works great with a USB MIDI device. For retro systems, I use the MIDI/Gameport though. I find most Pentium to Pentium 3 class hardware's USB controllers suck ass for even storage devices.

On pro-audio forums I've also seen little of the USB-related complaints I see on this forum, but then most musicians on those forums use a powerful, modern machine with their USB interfaces. Another thing is that for vintage USB/MIDI interfaces there really only are a few interfaces that are worth it (hint: MOTU interfaces are available for cheap secondhand for a reason...).

I use a powerful, modern machine with my MIDI interfaces. I'm also on "pro audio" forums (as well as some serious synth-head ones) & see lots of the same complaints. A lot of producers are pretty young, it's totally possible that someone who got into music in 2010, never suffered through the mid-2000s driver hell, and never tried a properly-designed dedicated MIDI port doesn't have any complaints because they think the sloppy, jittery performance of USB is "just how it works."

I will grant that modern interfaces are generally better than ones from a decade ago (but not pre-USB ones from two decades ago!) That said, the brand new Roland boutique synths I bought last year with a completely unusable USB-MIDI implementation? There's no excuse for that.

I'm sitting in my studio right now surrounded by about 12 vintage & modern hardware synths hooked up to a modern Mac via a DigiDesign 002 Rack firewire interface with DIN5 MIDI cables throughout. The improvement when I switched from the previous multi-USB setup was immense, and I do know what I'm doing with MIDI.

Just to clarify - if you use a simple USB interface to drive one GM module to listen to the soundtrack from one game at a time, which starts, plays through, and stops, it's entirely possible to have a completely satisfactory experience. It's when you try to do anything complicated with it that the whole thing falls apart. (MIDI isn't that complicated; USB is.)

When going to the local dump... a working and good condition Amstrad 1512... Alan Sugar's first attempt at an IBM PC compatible. Monochrome monitor unfortunately, though seems to have the 640K upgrade.

Story time!

I just had a surreal experience. Saw on craigslist a "free" computer that looked BRAND new. Seller claimed his crotch goblin was being an undisciplined little shit, so the parent took his christmas present back. (obviously paraphrasing here) He wanted someone to come and take it while his kid watched. Apparently he got it for minecraft and instead was watching porn. At thirteen! What is this world coming to?

I wasn't going to get the hard drive, but I bought an USB stick with dban and he let me have it. I almost feel sorry for the kid. I think every wall had a crucifix on it of some caliber. I know in 5 years that kid is going to rebel so hard it will be biblical. Anyway, here is a couple shots of the system:

Talk about a score!

Specs:
Gigabyte AM3+ motherboard - https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-970A-UD3P-rev-2x#ov
8gb of 1600mhz ddr3 gskill (2x4gb)
Amd FX6300 - wow!
1tb seagate drive
Geforce 210

Damn thing is SPOTLESS. I'm honestly sad now. I looked it up, and it is faster than the computer I'm typing on right now. my dual xeons are barely faster than this single chip! 🙁

And for the record, I have no qualms about the situation.

Was it free in exchange for being part of an awkward shaming?
Most of those components are pretty old and budget level like it came from a shop that had it boxed up for awhile. They wouldn't accept returns after 30 days so that's what made him more upset!

Oh man... it would have been punishment enough to make the kid play Minecraft on a Geforce 210. That is one abysmal graphics card for gaming... even for Minecraft.

yep. Had to sit there and watch too. It didn't really sink in for the kid until he actually saw what dban was doing, then shit hit the fan when I walked out the door. There was a dell keyboard and mouse, but just thinking about those grubbly little fingers made me ill. I trashed them outside and used 1/2 a bottle of alcohol to clean my hands.

The monitor looked like a 1080p affair. It would be passable. I really wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth here.

luckybob wrote:

yep. Had to sit there and watch too. It didn't really sink in for the kid until he actually saw what dban was doing, then shit hit the fan when I walked out the door. There was a dell keyboard and mouse, but just thinking about those grubbly little fingers made me ill. I trashed them outside and used 1/2 a bottle of alcohol to clean my hands.

The monitor looked like a 1080p affair. It would be passable. I really wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth here.

Yeah, its a pretty outdated system and the CPU is easily outpaced by Intel Sandy Bridge chips from 7 years ago, but its still a fairly capable machine... for free, I'd have taken it too.

xjas wrote:

I run Firewire audio & MIDI interfaces in my music studio and have a couple external firewire drives kicking around. For audio work I find it VASTLY better than USB, which is a catastrophe.

I've owned both USB and Firewire audio interfaces along with PCI cards. I actually bought the mobo I'm using now specifically because it has a firewire port on it so I can buy either another M-Audio Firewire Solo or a Firewire 410. Firewire was always rock solid for professional audio applications and for the longest Digidesign's Pro Tools LE interfaces relied on it (up through the M-box2 and Digi003 line of interfaces).

I still lust for a Digi003 control surface/interface.

Ozzuneoj wrote:

Oh man... it would have been punishment enough to make the kid play Minecraft on a Geforce 210. That is one abysmal graphics card for gaming... even for Minecraft.

Exactly my thoughts. The whole PC is just pure trash for any kind of modern gaming, even for Minecraft-like games. On the other hand, even tho GT210 is so old, it still should should support video acceleration, so the result situation isn't really that surprising 🤣