Re: Combinations of hardware/software that you don't like

Posted on Today, 01:48

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by jakethompson1

in Milliways

in Milliways

What exactly is the defect in third-party drivers that breaks PAE on 32-bit consumer Windows, considering that it was used fine on Windows Server, and 32-bit Linux? edit: By the way, PAE is a prerequisite for no-execute pages (aka DEP), so XP SP2 and later actually ran with it enabled, but must have …

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Re: VTech / Laser computers history

Posted on Today, 01:40

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just pinging both of you as mkarcher helped me figure this out (we think) https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=1347592#p1347592 Thanks ! That is all very helpful info. I never did get the cache thing fully worked out but now think I can knowing what the tag sockets actually need. The picture from …

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Re: VTech / Laser computers history

Posted on Yesterday, 23:58

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

After doing some research think I found that the board 35-2527-01 only truly supports 128k of cache and it must be 15nS (20nS hangs the POST). The manual for board 35-2528-11 states 128k cache and the jumper settings are identical (except for location on the board) compared to 35-2527-01. I only …

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Re: Combinations of hardware/software that you don't like

Posted on Yesterday, 23:54

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by jakethompson1

in Milliways

in Milliways

- MS-DOS 4.0 on anything. Buggy, ugly and too heavy for 86 and 286 class computers. The barely minimal memory managers don't justify install it on 386+ computers. You should use 3.x for older computer or 5+ for 386+ computers. Not complaining as it's really neat that they open sourced it (and …

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Re: Getting cache working on this 486 board

Posted on Yesterday, 21:36

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

OK, I seem to get the first part: You read 512KB with L1 enabled. This makes sure the end of this 512KB block is in cache. For 128KB of cache, 384k..511k is now cached (assuming the 512K block starts at 0). This obviously means 512k..543k is not in cache, and reading this block is a guaranteed miss …

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Re: Getting cache working on this 486 board

Posted on Yesterday, 21:31

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As we've found pin 1 of one socket to go to A12, there must be a difference in how the boards are wired, as it seems impossible to put an 8Kx8 into U43 as it wouldn't see A12. Maybe the blurry picture I linked before also was a difference board version, or had different or additional bodge wires ( …

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Re: Getting cache working on this 486 board

Posted on Yesterday, 20:35

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

U42 (possible tag RAM) assume 62256 pinout -- 80486 address lines A4-Vcc A5-NC --> Given A4 and A5, it seems an 8Kx8 SRAM actually belongs here? I don't think there is an universal agreed numbering of the address pins of the 62256, but going with a common scheme, this would be pin 6 to Vcc and pin …

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Re: Getting cache working on this 486 board

Posted on 2025-04-26, 22:29

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

By the way, the symptoms are identical to here: Re: VTech / Laser computers history Suggesting it does need some special type of chip

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Re: Getting cache working on this 486 board

Posted on 2025-04-26, 22:15

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think there's some kind of "warming up" that this machine has to do for things to start working 'correctly'. For example, another issue this machine has is that you need to press the RESET button after starting it for it to POST, but after it's been on for about an hour it will start right up …

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Re: Help with upgrading Edom/WinTech MV035F to 128MB RAM

Posted on 2025-04-26, 00:26

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Many VLB boards do not have a Flash BIOS, rather, you purchase and program another BIOS chip using a hardware programmer and then swap it.

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Re: Combinations of hardware/software that you don't like

Posted on 2025-04-25, 22:37

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by jakethompson1

in Milliways

in Milliways

I could never get on with the Adptec CD burning software. I cant remember what it was called. I used it way back when CD burners were new and have memories of it turning out coasters more often than not. Easy CD Creator It was way too heavy for my system, only used it once or twice then discovered …

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Re: Working ISA diagnostic card

Posted on 2025-04-25, 03:30

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Do we know where these cards get their power from for their ISA part? Could it be the -5V pin? I can't think of anything else that makes sense after reading what OP has tried. I have that card as well. I guess half of the retro system builders on VOGONs have a copy of that card. The card is a 5V …

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Re: Combinations of hardware/software that you don't like

Posted on 2025-04-25, 02:22

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by jakethompson1

in Milliways

in Milliways

That said some silly combinations don't merit the time spent making it work. like getting 98/XP running on Ryzen systems, I mean why ? so you got it to boot .. what now, you have no driver support and cant do fuck all with it but hey it boots. To be fair, some such Win98 compatibility issues arise …

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Re: Improving a FIC 486 VAV REV A machine.

Posted on 2025-04-23, 16:44

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Your Cachechk scores for internal and external cache are in line with a fully tuned 486DX2-66 system. However, the memory speed is bad. Something you can do is temporarily disable external cache, and run Cachechk again. If the memory scores improve, it's an Always Dirty issue (should not be an …

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Re: Getting a 486 DOS machine to come back to life

Posted on 2025-04-23, 04:00

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The . entry within a directory is a link to the containing directory, and .. is a link to its parent. These appear in every directory except the root, possibly because DOS started without support for subdirectories.

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Re: Improving a FIC 486 VAV REV A machine.

Posted on 2025-04-23, 03:47

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Your Cachechk scores for internal and external cache are in line with a fully tuned 486DX2-66 system. However, the memory speed is bad. Something you can do is temporarily disable external cache, and run Cachechk again. If the memory scores improve, it's an Always Dirty issue (should not be an issue …

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Re: Combinations of hardware/software that you don't like

Posted on 2025-04-22, 22:09

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by jakethompson1

in Milliways

in Milliways

USB keyboard and mouse on DOS/Windows 9x once you hear about the horrible SMM kludge it takes to make that work, when systems of that era almost invariably had PS/2 ports anyway Win9x on widescreen monitors, particularly 16:9. I resisted widescreen as long as I could; at least 1366x768 finally died. …

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Re: Windows 95C OSR2.5 required installation files

Posted on 2025-04-21, 22:29

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I go by the list to delete here (after making the proper .INF changes): http://toastytech.com/evil/lab.html#rem95

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Re: Need help with a 486 build

Posted on 2025-04-21, 22:17

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's how these systems tend to multiply, yes. The Award memory test can get annoyingly long with huge amounts of memory. Some VLB video cards might want to put their framebuffer at 64MB also. At least, if you get the 1MB cache, you shouldn't have to worry about cacheable area. It looks like that …

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Re: Difference between expansion card RAM and motherboard RAM?

Posted on 2025-04-21, 19:40

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The RAM ISA card can also impose its own additional wait states too though, right? But presumably there are DIP switches or jumpers to avoid that.

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