Re: Asus 486 mobo PVI-486SP3

Posted on 2013-05-26, 19:27

by

by NJRoadfan

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hard to tell but the boards back in the days are built to last. The caps might need replacing though. There will always be a market for this kind of stuff. 486 boards are going to be long lived. Most don't have any electrolytic caps on them to go bad. They don't have elaborate voltage regulators …

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Re: VLB vga, enable IRQ use or no?

Posted on 2013-05-26, 04:53

by

by NJRoadfan

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

According to the manual that came with my Viper VLB card, the IRQ jumper is a compatibility setting for EGA software that requires its functionality. VGA operations normally don't use an IRQ and cards with the jumper usually leave it disabled by default.

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Re: Pre-VESA Proprietary 32-bit Local Buses?

Posted on 2013-05-21, 02:53

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by NJRoadfan

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The reason I ask is the video card likely uses the ET4000AX and the SCSI card is using the same host adapter chip Adaptec's ISA cards use. I don't think either chip can completely take advantage of a 32-bit interface.

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Re: Anyone with a dead 386/486 board?

Posted on 2013-05-20, 18:32

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by NJRoadfan

in Milliways

in Milliways

Jameco has the double sockets for $0.29US if you have trouble finding replacements. I might be tempted to get some. One or two of the 30pin sockets on my 486 boards have bent retainer clips. http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servl … 0001_1954746_-1

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Re: Pre-VESA Proprietary 32-bit Local Buses?

Posted on 2013-05-20, 12:54

by

by NJRoadfan

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Found some buried in a German forum. Wonder what they called it and how much better the performance was? They remind me of Amiga Zorro cards.

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Re: Diamond Viper VLB Questions?

Posted on 2013-05-20, 04:14

by

by NJRoadfan

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I could try taping off the ISA portion of the card, but I'd have to be mindful if the P9000 actual uses any of the power rails or signals. Most of the VLB video cards I have seem to have very few ISA lines connected, basically the ROM address lines and power.

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Re: Diamond Viper VLB Questions?

Posted on 2013-05-19, 22:44

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by NJRoadfan

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I tried a PCI version of a Weitek P9100 based card recently and the DOS SVGA performance was awful. That card was clearly not designed with DOS games in mind! That depends on if the DOS SVGA actually uses the P9x00 chip natively, or relies on the dud of a VGA chipset. I wonder if I pull the ROM off …

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Re: Why wasn't the Amiga popular in North America?

Posted on 2013-05-19, 21:25

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by NJRoadfan

in Milliways

in Milliways

Taking apart my Amiga 4000, it was quite obvious why Commodore couldn't compete in the 90s. Jack Tremiel's tactic in the early 80s to buy out MOS Technologies and build everything in-house was working against the company. Tons of custom logic is expensive to build and update vs. commodity stuff. The …

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Re: SB Live! or Vortex2

Posted on 2013-05-19, 21:16

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by NJRoadfan

in Milliways

in Milliways

The SB Live! with EAX and a surround speaker system sounded pretty damn good in its day. I still have the Cambridge Soundworks DTT2500 I bought to compliment the soundcard. Until I upgraded my machine, it used to be hooked up via the DIN output. Creative's software team seemed to have changed …

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Re: Pre-VESA Proprietary 32-bit Local Buses?

Posted on 2013-05-19, 21:11

by

by NJRoadfan

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Microchannel was never considered a "local bus". It ran at a fixed 10Mhz.

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Re: Another 486 build.... with EISA!

Posted on 2013-05-19, 21:02

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by NJRoadfan

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Since it came up before in this thread, archived information about the AIR 486EI has been "unlocked" in the Internet Archive! They were advertising it with "Green PC" support and write back cache (I presume this is referring to L2). http://web.archive.org/web/19961029012651/http://www.airwebs.com/ …

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Re: Diamond Viper VLB Questions?

Posted on 2013-05-19, 04:16

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by NJRoadfan

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here's the deal, the card is still sealed in its anti static bag. Its literally brand new, never used! Part of me doesn't want to open it.

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Diamond Viper VLB Questions?

Posted on 2013-05-19, 02:39

by

by NJRoadfan

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I happen to have one of these laying around new in the box. It is a later revision board (Rev. A7, BIOS v1.12) that features the Weitek 5186 VGA chip instead of the Oak one. Every magazine hated this card because of poor DOS performance, even though it delivered superior Windows performance....well …

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Re: Sunaiac's PCI 486 : 5x86 133, SCSI, S3 Trio64

Posted on 2013-05-19, 02:23

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by NJRoadfan

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Funny, the 1.76MB HD drive in my Amiga 4000 seems to work fine aside from a dirty DD/HD detection sensor. Those Chinon drives were never known for their reliability either. You'd think they would be more trouble given the precision needed to read/write GCR disks. In HD mode, the drive spins at half …

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Pre-VESA Proprietary 32-bit Local Buses?

Posted on 2013-05-19, 02:20

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by NJRoadfan

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does anyone have a list of these? These local buses came out mostly in 1991-92 on 386/486 boards before the VESA Local Bus standard was finalized. My research doesn't come up with much, particularly pictures of the slots and boards. The only one I know of that seemed somewhat popular is the Opti …

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Re: IBM Model 56/57 [IBM 8557]

Posted on 2013-05-18, 20:04

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by NJRoadfan

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

They are strictly 16-bit Microchannel. I call these machines "turkeys" for some reason. Very expensive new, but crippled by the fact that they are souped up 386SX machines (16MB memory limitation, 16bit external bus) with the IBM 486SLC series chips. There were better in the PS/2 line.

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Re: Collectiong Odd Systems?

Posted on 2013-05-16, 11:55

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by NJRoadfan

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The Presario 2200 was notable in that it was a sub-$1000 complete PC (included monitor). It was never intended to be fast. I ran across a few when I was repairing computers for a living. I think that store still has one in the junk pile some where! I have a few oddball EISA/VLB 486 motherboards now. …

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Re: Whats with the shipping costs from USA???

Posted on 2013-05-11, 23:50

by

by NJRoadfan

in Milliways

in Milliways

You obviously have never been to any major city in the United States where welfare recipients outnumber working people by a wide margin. It's not that these people can't get jobs, though some might, it's that the majority don't want jobs. Their families have been living on welfare for generations …

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Re: Help me decide Pentium Overdrive 83@100mhz vs Pentium 90

Posted on 2013-05-11, 19:44

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by NJRoadfan

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Anything special need to be done to a POD to run it at 100Mhz (besides the 40mhz bus speed)?

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Re: Suggestions for Desktop pentium M build

Posted on 2013-05-10, 17:04

by

by NJRoadfan

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Our outages range from hours to days. It hasn't happened recently but when it does it gets very boring. I've been through a 10 day outage. The solution is called a generator with plenty of fuel on hand. Keep the laptop batteries charged, the food cold (much more important than any computer in such …

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