Re: Success: Adding a PS/2 mouse port to the Shuttle HOT433 (using a dedicated keyboard controller chip)

Posted on 2020-06-22, 22:18

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm wondering, do you have any documentation about these chipsets ? You mention strap pins etc. No, I do not have any documentation. There is a thread here on VOGONs requesting documentation for UMC chipsets in https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=68829 . This thread contains a schematic for …

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Re: ES688: FM distorted on Line-Out, smooth on Speaker Out.. What gives?

Posted on 2020-06-22, 20:17

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Interestingly I noticed that FM music is extremely distorted on Line-Out but otherwise perfectly smooth on Speaker out. What could be the cause? Is the distortion due to hooking it up straight to el cheapo headphones or TV audio in? Line-out is designed to deliver some voltage to an amplifier, but …

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Re: identify 486 motherboard

Posted on 2020-06-22, 16:59

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sorry to scare you. I can't remember having seen the "keyboard locked" message due to a missing keyboard, but if it works fine now, good for you. I will keep that in mind before scaring other people. This actually looks fine, but oviously the BIOS is a bit dated and does not know the brand name of …

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Re: identify 486 motherboard

Posted on 2020-06-22, 15:32

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Floppy disk(s) fail is OK if no floppy controller or floppy drive is connected. CMOS checksum error is normal if the CMOS battery is flat. Keyboard error or no keyboard present is expected if indeed no keyboard is connected. "Keyboard is locked out" is not expected when you test a board, and most …

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Re: New sound card project: AWE64 Legacy

Posted on 2020-06-21, 21:04

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Going from memory here - but I could swear there was an issue with one of the star trek adventure games. Either judgement rites or 25th, I can't remember exactly what it was but I think it was related to getting stereo opl3 maybe? Stereo OPL3 on a soundblaster pro 2 should work perfectly at ports …

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Re: Success: Adding a PS/2 mouse port to the Shuttle HOT433 (using a dedicated keyboard controller chip)

Posted on 2020-06-21, 17:25

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

By the way, I recently ordered some UV-erasable 8042 chips (i.e. 8742 chips) that can be used as keyboard controllers. Does anyone know a (preferably legal) source for a PS/2 compatible firmware image for them? I just assumed the open-source community already had developed suitable firmware, but my …

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Re: Newly made ISA CL-GD5434

Posted on 2020-06-21, 17:10

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Even if you could build a card that would fully use the 16.67 MB/sec. possible with 16-bit ISA, do the maths on how many frames you can get thru. And I've yet to see an ISA graphics card being able to push more than 7 MB/sec. over the bus. Actually, the fastest you can put over ISA (not overclocked …

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Success: Adding a PS/2 mouse port to the Shuttle HOT433 (using a dedicated keyboard controller chip)

Posted on 2020-06-21, 16:52

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I successfully added PS/2 support to Disruptor's Shuttle HOT433 (rev 1, 2 or 3) mainboard (using an external KBC). This post is a detailed explanation on what needs to be modified on the board to switch it to external keyboard controller support, and suggests a BIOS image that can be used as base. …

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Re: All the truth about FM in ALS100 Plus+ cards (includes facts, tech info and tests)

Posted on 2020-06-20, 09:03

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Great analysis! [*] The ALS100 Plus+ chips DO NOT HAVE an internal FM implementation. Avance Logic CHEATED on the documentation. Okay, now, as shown in ALS100+/ALS200 documentation, this chip has internal FM emulation (nope, cheaters!!). To enable it, without external OPL3 chip mounted, ALS100+ pin …

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Re: 386 Systems and Memory Instability With 4mb SIMMs? (Errors)

Posted on 2020-06-20, 08:22

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Slow refresh cannot be disabled, only set to 15, 30, 60, and 120. One of these all-to-often confusing setup option names. "15" is the settings you would call "disabled". The setting actually seems to mean "refresh interval in microseconds". Industry standard is 15.6 microseconds per row, which …

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Re: Compaq ESS ES1868F with 3 extra ISA pins?

Posted on 2020-06-20, 07:33

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There are no visible traces going from the pins to any of the components in the card, as far as I can tell from the pictures in the listing. placa-de-sonido-compaq-D_NQ_NP_752042-MLA30329818698_052019-F.jpg This back side picture is of insufficient quality to tell anything about traces to the pins …

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Re: Compaq ESS ES1868F with 3 extra ISA pins?

Posted on 2020-06-20, 07:25

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm looking for an ISA sound card to install into my secondary P-III build and happened to find a listing for this OEM card. Notice the slot connector at the bottom left. placa-de-sonido-compaq-D_NQ_NP_9.jpg The board I plan to use it with is a Soyo SY-6VBA133 (VIA VT82C693A), which comes with 16- …

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 Clones

Posted on 2020-06-20, 07:19

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

In my oppinion, these drivers are dongle-protected software, where the dongle is the original Creative Labs card. The difference to typical dongle-protected software is that Creative Labs never made the dongle function of the Sound Blaster cards known - they just enjoyed their drivers crashing on " …

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 Clones

Posted on 2020-06-19, 22:12

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Also, has anyone tried using the SB16 Windows drivers and/or the Creative SB16 DOS mixer with an ALS100 card? Looking at the Linux driver source the card really should be 100% compatible - I'll see if ICU + SB16 mixerset.exe works. I would not put high hopes in using Creative Labs original drivers …

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Re: 386 Systems and Memory Instability With 4mb SIMMs? (Errors)

Posted on 2020-06-19, 21:45

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

2. I ran memtest86+ (can confirm 4.10 is the last version that works on 386's) overnight and completed 6 passes with 0 errors. 3. Sounds like row refresh could be the issue. The BIOS on this machine has options for both "hidden refresh" and "slow refresh", both of which defaulted to disabled. (The …

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Re: 386 Systems and Memory Instability With 4mb SIMMs? (Errors)

Posted on 2020-06-19, 10:42

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

30 pins SIMMs have speed grades. If the board requires -70 RAMs and you put in -80 or slower, then it is possible that they won't be able to keep up. To ensure the RAMs are ok, I usually test and label all my RAMs using this program: memtest86+ . Oh and there are 2 versions, memtest86 is the …

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Re: 386 Systems and Memory Instability With 4mb SIMMs? (Errors)

Posted on 2020-06-19, 10:38

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Since 8mb on a 386 clearly wasn't gonna be enough for me (lol), I bought two more 386 systems that support 4mb SIMMs (32mb total). However, I started getting strange memory errors as soon as I tried to install Windows (95 and 98) on them. Here's what went down: [snipped typical symptoms of memory …

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Re: 486 motherboard won't post - DRAM config?

Posted on 2020-06-18, 21:00

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The PSU is on, it's fan is spinning, but the motherboard won't post, won't beep or anything. The CPU gets slightly warm over time, but not hot, and it's not getting warm fast either. [...] How should I jumper the board, and which RAM slot should I use, if I only want to use a single 16MB 72pin …

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Re: 486 motherboard won't post - DRAM config?

Posted on 2020-06-18, 20:55

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Then I started measuring voltages, and noticed, that the -5V line has -6.80V coming out of the PSU.. so I switched to another, which had the right output voltage, but that just didn't help. -5V level is unlikely to cause any problems as it is only used by less common expansion cards. But might be a …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-06-18, 20:47

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Some stuff from the Bay and Mr. Bezos arrived today. I bought a used ASUS XP55T2P4 Rev.3.x mainboard with 256KB cache onboard and an empty slot for a COAST module. In the package was a, apparently NOS, ASUS P55T2P4 Rev.3.10 mainboard with 512KB cache onboard. I’m trying to contact the seller to …

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