Re: Can't get mouse to work under Windows 3.1 (works fine in DOS)

Posted on Today, 15:44

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Roll back to generic 16 color VGA mode, then test, to confirm we're dealing with a mouse problem and not a VGA problem, i.e. driver tries to do a hardware cursor, but can't display it for some reason, meaning you've got a mouse pointer but it's invisible.

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Re: Windows 7 Retro?

Posted on Today, 14:59

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

XP is retro if you wanna do an original release install on a system with 256-512MB RAM and keep it in it's own little world, cut off from the present. XP is modern foolishness if you wanna run it with all updates and service packs up to when they cut off embedded support (ATMs etc) and you wanna …

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Re: Is this Netware data worth preserving or investigating further?

Posted on Today, 13:46

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Might only have microchannel slots....3xMCA on the riser appears to be "normal" though I swear I've seen them with 2xMCA and one ISA... the interwebs won't back me up though. Possibly customer or market specific or swapped in from another model.

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Re: Small scale amplifiers or powered mixer for PC usage?

Posted on Today, 04:02

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I had a tendency to pick up boomboxes or midi systems or hybrids of the two with aux inputs for cheap. Eschewing all PC speakers as exploitationally awful, like you'd need to spend $200+ to match the quality of a $50 boombox. Best bang for the buck I'm finding these days is discarded iPod and other …

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Re: I recently found this hardware, AKA the Dumpster find thread.

Posted on Yesterday, 20:25

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Snuck in a better look amidst todays activities... Case is either an Antec Nine Hundred or super close model. Mobo is Asus P5N-D. GPUs are EVGA 9600GT. PSU is 910W PC Power & Cooling. Big heatpipe cooler with a 150mm in the middle of it, not sure what that is yet. Couldn't see what the drives were, …

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Re: Have an opportunity to grab more CRT monitors

Posted on Yesterday, 17:57

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Another thing to remember about big CRTs is that they are very effective space heaters. Nice in winter, not so nice in summer. Hence you might wanna opt for Energy Star capable ones that have power off/standby features, otherwise any time it's lit, even blanked, it's putting out a couple hundred …

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Re: what will you do when your last hardware fails?

Posted on Yesterday, 02:43

by

by BitWrangler

in Milliways

in Milliways

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-06-14, 23:12: At 61 I can still lift up my motorcycles 😀 Unlike my 19" Dell trinitron crt................ There's a trick, you have to squish the screen side into your gut to get the c of g as near your legs as possible, and sort of cradle/bearhug them. 🤣

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Re: what will you do when your last hardware fails?

Posted on Yesterday, 02:41

by

by BitWrangler

in Milliways

in Milliways

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-06-14, 17:11: I can say with my hand on my heart I never ever yearned for a model M keyboard, Me too, but only since I've bought every one I've seen for under $10 since the early 90s, so I have plenty to be going on with.

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Re: I recently found this hardware, AKA the Dumpster find thread.

Posted on Yesterday, 01:38

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I just got... something... from a relative, was sitting out under a back porch for a year or more. Had to leave it on my porch for now, as I have to make sure it's spider free, etc before I can get it into the house. Seems it was a decent spec system in it's day, 6 bay mid tower Antec case, 900W or …

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Re: what will you do when your last hardware fails?

Posted on 2021-06-14, 11:47

by

by BitWrangler

in Milliways

in Milliways

3. OS support. Windows driver models and architecture have changed a lot over the years. Not only are the .inf files very different, but so is how Windows allows access to hardware. Super old drivers simply cannot be made to work natively on newer versions of Windows. You would need a new driver …

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Re: Intel Pro/1000 Uses Entire 'E' Segment of upper memory

Posted on 2021-06-12, 03:56

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does it got a boot ROM? That's where those get shadowed.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-06-12, 03:26

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

How did they pack the 30 pack to have a box that shape? Standard method, that was a side view of the 30 pack, the ten packs are like you are looking at the floppy label. Guess I should have set the boxes the same orientation :) Ah weird, thanks, must have been the perspective as it was higher and …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-06-12, 00:56

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

How did they pack the 30 pack to have a box that shape?

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Re: what will you do when your last hardware fails?

Posted on 2021-06-11, 21:54

by

by BitWrangler

in Milliways

in Milliways

Nobody will ever get my secret fan lube recipe, I'll take it to my grave, muhuahahaaaa!!!! Spoiler Well okay then, half and half moly extreme pressure/temperature bearing grease and clock oil... flush the old gunk out with alcohol or WD40 first.

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Re: Windows 7 Retro?

Posted on 2021-06-11, 16:49

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I can browse fine on an Atom N270, IDK what ppl are doing, need your 7 task bars and Bonzai Buddy or something?

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Re: what will you do when your last hardware fails?

Posted on 2021-06-11, 16:30

by

by BitWrangler

in Milliways

in Milliways

Electron migration is a thing for hot running CPU and GPU chips that will kill them eventually. Well it's thing whether they're running or not really, all the electrochemical valence forces, running at the speed of molasses in the arctic are trying to make everything into an amorphous blob, no N …

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Re: Can't get into CMOS setup on old 486.

Posted on 2021-06-11, 15:18

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's more like a 90:10 rule, 90% of each class are like that but 10% of them do the other thing.

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Re: PC Chips 286 M216 Motherboard

Posted on 2021-06-11, 14:38

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm wondering if Wolf3d is such a good benchmark, I didn't question it when I had a version 1.2 or something kicking around, that was too fast a third of the way up the 486 performance tree... faster machine, faster wolf, checks out... then I put version 1.4 on a PII, expecting it to be really silly …

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Re: Is this CF-IDE adapter a viable option for DOS?

Posted on 2021-06-11, 14:15

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Low for dos gaming is like 500kb/sec, which is what you'd get on an era and budget* appropriate 80MB PIO mode 1 drive on an ISA controller. Past the mid 90s you might get 2.5MB/sec on your fancy DMA mode 2 1GB drive in 96... then 5,10, 15, 20, until 30MB/sec was reasonable at around 99-00 and then …

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Re: Can't get into CMOS setup on old 486.

Posted on 2021-06-11, 13:26

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I can try another CPU later maybe. I have an SX2/50 laying around someplace. It's of course minus the FPU but that isn't an issue here. It's still clock-doubled @ 25/50. Hmpff! Other than parts-binning faulty vs working FPU parts of the chip, was there any other reason to make an SX2? Sounds like …

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