Re: Good PCI Controller to use with SCSI2SD?

Posted on 2020-07-07, 09:21

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I prefer SCSI for 1990-95 systems. For newer systems PCI IDE is mature enough IMHO. My reasons: 1. Performance of SD2SCSI v6 is excellent and for pre-UDMA disks it is consistently faster than ISA/VL-BUS or early PCI IDE ATA-1/2 implementations. Both in throughput and especially in CPU utilisation ( …

---

Re: AdLib vs Game Blaster

Posted on 2020-06-27, 07:25

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I get why the CMS is technically inferior (although it has more voices and stereo compared to AdLib). I feel in this era vendors we're desperately trying to replicate natural instrument sounds. Digital audio wan't feasible thus FM or wavetable synthesis was a way to go as next closest thing. OPL2/3 …

---

Re: AdLib vs Game Blaster

Posted on 2020-06-26, 14:51

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes. Maybe not the map part. But stereo makes CMS sound nice. It is not meant to be perfect. It is a pixelated VGA game after all. Love the main tune (on any hw) or the LeChuck. Check the real hw - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr-84mjV3CI.

---

Re: AdLib vs Game Blaster

Posted on 2020-06-26, 14:37

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Maybe it is just me but I love the CMS sound. Even if technically inferior to AdLib.

---

Re: general cpu support question

Posted on 2020-06-26, 12:04

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For the 233MMX you just need a higher multipler. If your board supports a 200MMX I would be surprised if the 233 wouldn't work.

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-06-26, 10:13

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The Falcon64 is amazing find. The pinout doesn't look like Trio64. The feature set looks identical though.

---

Re: Pentium Overdrive competition - socket 3/4/5/7

Posted on 2020-06-23, 21:30

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

FWIW I have been experimenting with processor upgrades for a not-the-optimal-platform 486DX2/66 (Compaq Deskpro/I) and comparing it to a stock Pentium 60 (Compaq Deskpro XE). In the below, I'm using the same ISA video card which is generally the fastest ISA DOS card I own. Thanks for sharing your …

---

Re: Pentium Overdrive competition - socket 3/4/5/7

Posted on 2020-06-23, 21:04

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sounds reasonable to me - totally ignoring the interface to the cache was pretty foolish of me. But the "narrow bus" causing a secret cut to the architecture was a bit too alluring. Yes. The PODP83 not having 60/66 MHz and 64bit bus of a conventional Pentium might sound like a big cut. However, …

---

Re: Pentium Overdrive competition - socket 3/4/5/7

Posted on 2020-06-23, 16:11

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Regarding the pipeline issue on the POD - I can't imagine that both pipelines can work on a 4 byte bus, and if they do they would "interleave"(aka no idea how it would work). Why should that matter? The Pentium has instruction cache. Every cache line fill happens in bursts of 4 lines (4x16 bytes) …

---

Re: Pentium Overdrive competition - socket 3/4/5/7

Posted on 2020-06-23, 15:14

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The BIOS is 1.00.12.AX1T which suggests that my motherboard is from a Gateway computer. The BIOS update can be downloaded here http://files.mpoli.fi/unpacked/hardware/rom/i … el/platord.exe/ I doubt BIOS can make a difference for CPU compatibility....

---

Re: Pentium Overdrive competition - socket 3/4/5/7

Posted on 2020-06-23, 11:25

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Probably not the 5x86 (Nov 1995), but they could have had a DX4 (Mar/Oct 1994). Obviously overdrives weren't meant to be upgrading high-end CPUs. However, when upgrading from DX4 the PODP83 would still win the competition with healthy 1.72x improvement. At least in Quake - not so much in Winstone or …

---

Re: Pentium Overdrive competition - socket 3/4/5/7

Posted on 2020-06-23, 06:03

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The MMX overdrive works on the Plato mb. I only briefly tested it at 150/50 MHz, so it was rather slow, but it ran. Pentium microcode cannot be patched by BIOS.

---

Re: AT Motherboard with sound chip--how do I use it?

Posted on 2020-06-22, 16:11

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Advanced/EV boards use Vibra16 chipset instead of CS4232. But the header should be the same.

---

Re: identify 486 motherboard

Posted on 2020-06-22, 14:57

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

kalohimal wrote on 2020-06-22, 14:52: stason.../TULARC/pc/motherboards/A/ACTION-WELL-DEVELOPMENT-LTD-486-AM-8887.html Version that doesn't ruin your sex life: https://th99.bl4ckb0x.de/m/A-B/35852.htm

---

Re: AT Motherboard with sound chip--how do I use it?

Posted on 2020-06-22, 09:55

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This is how the original header looks like (found picture - not mine, sorry for quality). There is a bunch of passive components (capacitors, etc.). I believe the analog audio should still work without them but it could be a bit noisier:

---

Re: AT Motherboard with sound chip--how do I use it?

Posted on 2020-06-22, 09:40

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Pinout: Filename Screenshot 2020-06-22 at 11.40.07.png File size 102.14 KiB Views 333 views

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-06-22, 07:01

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It doesn't look to me that those pins are shortened. So no need to touch it IMHO.

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-06-21, 15:05

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

CHiLL72 wrote on 2020-06-21, 14:52: Picked up this beauty yesterday. Couldn't resist because of the memory expansion board, giving this card a total of a whopping 4MB Nice. It is also the one with better 220 MHz DAC. Earlier versions had 175 MHz.

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-06-20, 13:15

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Finally international travel restrictions are relaxing so I could visit my parent's house and collect some hardware I bought earlier and couldn't pick up. SMT4321 "Terminator" motherboard: https://dependency-injection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/DSC_7544-scaled.jpeg Two SiS551x based motherboards …

---

Re: Help finding COAST L2 cache module for Pentium

Posted on 2020-06-16, 10:23

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I believe this is Intel Trion board based on Intel Advanced∕EV OEM design. The 512kB module you mentioned (and virtually all pipelined-burst COAST 256k/512k modules) should work. Just avoid any synchronous burst modules (those with 4 square Motorola or IDT chips and to tag SRAM). I believe some …

---