Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-04-11, 10:36

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got this very late Socket 3 486 motherboard with pipelined-burst L2 cache. I've always wanted to know if the cache can help it to beat more conventional 486 PCI boards with UMC, SiS and ALi chipsets.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-03-25, 16:07

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That Trident 9680 ISA is cool. I also wonder how does it perform. CL-GD cards are known to be fast in passive DOS mode with no accel. I wonder if the bridge chip on the trident could slow things down slightly (but I am sure it would still excell in GUI due to better acceleration architecture).

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-03-25, 11:42

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Picked this Speedstart 64 ISA. Possibly the fastest ISA card ever made

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-03-01, 14:29

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think another benefit of not buying anything from russian sellers at this point, even from those who don't support this horrific regime, is to give them enough time to work out how to dispose their failed dictator. But politics aside, I suspect this dilemma will be over soon, at least from buyers …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-02-26, 18:55

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This weekend, I was about to purchase a CBM 1541 disk drive for my Commodore 128 I acquired last week, but having seen the news about "peacemaking" operation in Ukraine, I am re-routing my retro purchase budget to war refugee charities. Could't be happier about my choice.

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Re: Fixing Dallas battery on 486 motherboard.

Posted on 2022-02-23, 12:17

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

snufkin wrote on 2022-02-23, 10:06: don't think any of the Dallas chips have any pins for an external battery, hence the various mods involving cutting in to the casing to get at the internal battery points. DS1385/DS1387 does. But it is far less common that DS12887 or like models.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-02-22, 22:33

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not a typical thing I normally buy, but I've always wanted one of those. As a boy I had a C64 and this was the next best thing I could imagine but never had.

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Re: Is there Anyone "Overpaying" for Hardware and Proud of it? Well, maybe not Proud, but...

Posted on 2022-02-21, 13:05

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Or collector dies, family throws out "junk." That's the reason why my wife asked me to put some descriptions and aproximate valuation on back of my display units. So when you see a complete collection of Gravis Ultrasound cards (different models and revisions) or nearly complete collection of early …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-02-21, 10:17

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just received two ISA graphics card. A WDC WD90C31 based card made by Philips Multimedia Production Group and a Graphics Ultra Pro ISA from ATI. I believe your ATI card is in fact "Graphics Ultra +" as there are FPM DRAM chips as opposed to dual-ported VRAM on the Pro model. I do have the Pro model …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-02-21, 10:03

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Matrox MGA Impression Lite VLB: Hope that's the right model as it is quite right to find out details about early Matrox cards.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-02-14, 22:21

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't collect 3DFX stuff, but I heard that this might be the best performing 2D PCI card for my 486 so couldn't resist. It is now the most modern graphics card in my collection

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Re: Fixing SB AWE64 Gold

Posted on 2022-02-10, 19:20

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Arguably for a late wavetable card the quality of FM synthesis is a less an issue than let's say on a SB16. Most will probably want to use MIDI emulation if not native.

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Fixing SB AWE64 Gold

Posted on 2022-02-09, 10:18

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I gambled on this CT4390. Looks like a car has ran over it or something as the PCB is slightly out of shape. https://dependency-injection.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/DSC_1304-scaled.jpeg However, the only obvious damage seems to be that the main chip seems to be floating above PCB with only only …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-02-08, 21:36

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That Key Board connector is thanking you for saving its life .. that battery was about to execute it along with the board. Yes. It probably juststarted eating into the surrounding copper. Luckily continuity is still, there so no major repair is needed (apart from vinegar bath). The keyboard power …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-02-08, 20:45

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I kind of like those Vartas. I consider it a part of retro look. :) https://dependency-injection.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/DSC_1284-scaled.jpeg Luckily clean under no damage under or around. Here with the battery removed. https://dependency-injection.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/DSC_1290-1- …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-02-08, 20:23

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Some 386 goodies. A combined 386/486 motherboard (Acer Vi9). https://dependency-injection.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/DSC_1280-scaled.jpeg Likely the first 386 motherbards I've seen or owned with an integrated soldered-in coprocessor: https://dependency-injection.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/ …

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Re: Do 40 Pin Compact Flash to IDE Adapters need power?

Posted on 2022-01-23, 16:59

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Even when using 40pin. Some connectors do provide VCC on pin 20 and many CF cards happily power the card from pin 20 if available. But it is more likely than not that you have to use external power. I modified some of my IDE controllers to supply +5V on pin 20.

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Re: 486 L2: Comparison between Write-Through & Write-Back (with and without dirty tag ram)

Posted on 2022-01-16, 19:21

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

However some boards deliver better perf in WT mode. At the same time other ones based on the same chipset do better in WB. It does not feel like flawed wb support since using dirty bit or not makes a difference which indicates that wb+db is handled. Yes. Not all WB implementations are equal. Apart …

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Re: 486 L2: Comparison between Write-Through & Write-Back (with and without dirty tag ram)

Posted on 2022-01-16, 15:05

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just as mkarcher says. I find it tricky to compare differences between cache write modes using speedy or speeds or similar microbenchmarks. WT / WB with or without tag is all about trade-offs. The CPUs is less blocked by memory writes.The cost we have to pay for this is (apart from implementation …

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Re: WD 90c33-zz no video output on known good 486. Possibly jumper settings?

Posted on 2022-01-13, 13:49

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The ISA OSC signal is perfectly reliable. The reason that some card manufacturers opted not to use it was fear of bus interference noise. That's kind of contradicting isn't it? It could be either perfectly reliable or noisy, plagued with interference, unreliable at power-on, when shared or even …

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