Re: Windows 98SE 486 requirement

Posted on Today, 03:14

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

OK, so the limitation is totally artificial, thanks all! It isn't completely artificial: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040506-00/?p=39463 Windows NT 4 dropped support for the 80386 processor, requiring a minimum of an 80486, so it could take advantage of this instruction. Windows 98 …

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Re: UMC IDE/EIDE controller datasheets

Posted on 2024-04-20, 02:48

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

5,753 KB/s using BIOS PIO mode 4 setting and no driver 6,607 KB/s using UM8673.SYS /D0:17 /NF0 /SM0 10,779 KB/s using UM8673.SYS /D0:17 /F0 /SM0 13,900 KB/s using UM8673.SYS /D0:16 /F0 /MM0 Just wanted to update on this... My HOT-433 is a revision 3 I believe but it has the UM8886B... I did some …

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Re: Hex editing a game exe - How do you figure out which parts represent what?

Posted on 2024-04-06, 03:37

by

by jakethompson1

in Milliways

in Milliways

Are all, more complicated, game exe fixes really made with that method? There are a lot of mods out there that patch the exe. I don't imagine most modders have that level of coding knowledge... or do they? Is this a DOS game or a Windows game, and what do you mean by Vert-? 32 and 64 bit Windows …

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Re: Drive bay extinction in cases, PC chassis, accelerating ???

Posted on 2024-03-22, 04:08

by

by jakethompson1

in Milliways

in Milliways

The problem is they get mocked in reviews if they have drive bays, either for being outdated or for having all that "wasted space" occupied by a drive cage when you could put more fans there

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Re: TK 8287 2J D01.1 IDE controller settings...?

Posted on 2024-03-22, 02:12

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are you sure your BIOS supports secondary IDE? Many VLB era ones don't. One way to know is if it refers to the disks as C: and D: rather than primary/secondary master/slave, it only supports primary, and the secondary interface would need to be supported via a DOS driver. oh and by the way: pre-El …

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Re: Ripping Pre ISO-9660 Discs

Posted on 2024-03-20, 01:56

by

by jakethompson1

in DOS

in DOS

Not sure if it helps but https://www.os2museum.com/wp/looking-for-high-sierra/

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Re: L2 Cache via CPU interposer?

Posted on 2024-03-11, 18:16

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Interesting idea; obviously a trivial example would be the later 486es with 16KB L1 instead of 8, or Pentium OverDrive with 32KB

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Re: Asus P/I-P55TP4 Rev. 1.21 boot error - no screen, beep code only

Posted on 2024-03-08, 21:55

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Don't know where you are physically located but I'd take it to a VCF event or VCF repair workshop if one is nearby

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Re: Is the IRQ for my sound card important? If so how can I free up resources to change the IRQ

Posted on 2024-03-08, 21:52

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

This is an ISAPNP compliant card, correct? How do you know if it is? It's a ct4380 awe64. Your BIOS may print a list of ISAPNP devices during POST, or device manager in Windows 98 can tell you. If your BIOS has a "Plug and Play OS" yes/no option, flipping it could cause it to be more aggressive at …

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Re: Is the IRQ for my sound card important? If so how can I free up resources to change the IRQ

Posted on 2024-03-08, 21:41

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

This is an ISAPNP compliant card, correct?

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Re: Update on ESA 486 industrial motherboard

Posted on 2024-03-08, 01:42

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm curious if any of you have a BIOS dump for this board? I have a board that I believe has a corrupt BIOS. I would really appreciate it! I have the system but it's put away at the moment. The BIOS comes on a QFP chip so I don't have a way to read it through an EEPROM programmer. I have to think …

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Re: Asus P/I-P55TP4 Rev. 1.21 boot error - no screen, beep code only

Posted on 2024-03-08, 01:40

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nice board; can you imagine having such a high end system in 1995, pre-Windows 95? Check the back of the board behind the SIMM slots for any traces that may e scratched through. It would always looks to the system as if there is no RAM even when there is. Although the BIOS would be agnostic to cache …

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Re: New 386: Help me understand and make use of my RAM

Posted on 2024-03-06, 21:28

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

kingcake wrote on 2024-03-06, 20:19: Gate A20 is controlled by the keyboard controller, right? I would check that over the ram. Working A20 is all tested during POST, I think, so it wouldn't seem like a hardware issue to me

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Re: New 386: Help me understand and make use of my RAM

Posted on 2024-03-06, 00:25

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

No great ideas Maybe try /verbose Or try a Linux boot floppy from that era (e.g. slackware 3.9) just to get himem.sys out of the way entirely and see if it works

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Re: New 386: Help me understand and make use of my RAM

Posted on 2024-03-05, 22:57

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You may need to supply a /machine: switch to himem.sys /machine:2 is a PS/2 /machine:6 is an Acer 1100

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Re: Unic 2V 486 Motherboard - Anyone Know About This Board?

Posted on 2024-03-03, 21:58

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nice, I'm guessing it is a 486DX-33? The main limitation is that it is strictly ISA bus rather than VLB or PCI so it isn't going to be the quintessential 1994 DOS gaming PC, as ISA bus hampers video performance. Still it could be a fun little DOS 6.22 + Windows 3.1 or Windows for Workgroups 3.11 …

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Re: How to get and validate DMA mode for disks in Windows 3.1?

Posted on 2024-03-03, 01:43

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

IDE drives could work perfectly as targets for 3rd-party DMA driven by the 8237A DMA controller. The "single-word DMA" mode is specified in a way that it is compatible with the "single" transfer mode of the 8237A, and the "multi-word DMA" mode is specified to be compatible with the "demand" …

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Re: How to get and validate DMA mode for disks in Windows 3.1?

Posted on 2024-03-02, 03:38

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A lot of Bios' did not support this for some reason. Had the option to set PIO mode or DMA but it would not actually set up DMA mode in DOS. So users coud use the 430FX chipset a good 6 months before Win95 came out and have MWDMA in Dos/Win3.1 if your motherboard bios supported it. I suspect it's …

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Re: best version of Office to learn

Posted on 2024-03-01, 03:52

by

by jakethompson1

in Milliways

in Milliways

There are a lot of keyboard shortcuts that are still recognized in the current version, but that aren't mentioned anywhere and you had to use Office 2003 to see them in the UI

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Re: Native PS/2 mouse implementation for 386/486 boards using the keyboard controller

Posted on 2024-03-01, 03:25

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Aquarius Systems/BCOM MB-4DUVC There was a batch of "Techmedia" motherboards on eBay last year that I think are the same as that one. Onboard everything (VLB IDE, VLB VGA, IO, etc.) I have it put away now but there are likely a bunch here or on the retro web discord who got one. I do remember it …

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