Re: Creative AWE64 Non Maskable Interrupt error with MFBEN jumper installed?

Posted on 2024-05-05, 08:59

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The sound font loads fine from the output text of the util. But when I run the game with "monkey r", the error is displayed in large blueish text on a black display at the top. Am I doing something wrong? I am using QEMM fwiw. Oppinions are split about QEMM. My family had QEMM on all 386 or higher …

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Re: S3 ViRGE VLB project (or " Making a Concurrent for Creative 3D Blaster VLB" )

Posted on 2024-05-03, 09:30

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Sure, as it waited ~2 years, no hurry :) I'm interested in S3 with 2 or better 4 MB DRAM. Don't get your hopes up on the 765VL for 4MB. As the VLB uses a lot more pins than PCI, because address and data pins are separate, S3 ditched the /RAS pin for the second bank in favour of a pin for the VL …

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Re: Doom not starting from ramdisk without L2 chips

Posted on 2024-05-03, 08:59

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I suspect your RAM timings are too fast, and if you have L2 Cache installed, the cache mitigates some access patterns that can not be executed correctly. Furthermore, I experienced with some UMC 8881 based board, that disabling cache can actually make some RAM patterns execute faster, because the …

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Re: MS-DOS 4.00 is now open source

Posted on 2024-04-28, 17:55

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

And the source can't compile. Additional details here: https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5565411/ms-dos-4-0-source-code-fails-to-compile The two files mentioned to break the build, GETMSG.ASM and USA.INF do not have "random, unexplained corruption", but have obviously been mistreated while being …

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Re: Working XTA (IDE on XT) setup on GLaBIOS

Posted on 2024-04-28, 17:16

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That makes total sense. Do you know if IBM ever documented this formally? Sorry, I don't know of any formal documentation. Just as I don't know why the ISA bus pinout looks like someone accidentally swapped /DACK2 and IRQ2. There are a lot of weird things in the IBM PC/XT architecture. It doesn't …

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Re: Drivers/Questions about ESS488

Posted on 2024-04-27, 22:38

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Unfortunately, the only cd drive I have to test is an internal LG one from 2000. Interesting though that they look the same. A drive from 2000 with a 40-pin connector surely has an IDE interface as you already correctly identified. The connectors of drives using the old Mitsumi and Matsushita/ …

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Re: Working XTA (IDE on XT) setup on GLaBIOS

Posted on 2024-04-27, 22:28

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

When you are writing to a drive using DMA (floppy drive on any kind of computer, hard drive on XTs), you rely on the source memory being addressable by DMA. Possibly that's not the case for ISA ROMs on this mainboard. That's what people tried to work around using the "M" command by first copying …

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Re: 16-bit ISA EGA card?

Posted on 2024-04-27, 22:22

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Grzyb wrote on 2024-04-27, 14:55: OK, multisync monitors had switches like 3/8/16/64 colors: My EIZO 9050S also has an "auto" setting that does the 16/64 switch like the IBM 5154. If you don't use auto, you can choose 8/16 IBM/16 AT&T/64 manually, with the difference between 16 IBM and 16 AT&T …

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Re: Drivers/Questions about ESS488

Posted on 2024-04-27, 06:41

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Good to know! As for the cdrom port, could I just add an IDE cd-rom drive to it? Or would I have to stick it into the parallel port? No chance to get IDE drives running with that card. IDE drives use 16 data bits, and the card is an 8-bit card. As the CD-ROM port has 40 pins (like IDE), it might be …

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Re: MS-DOS 4.00 is now open source

Posted on 2024-04-27, 06:28

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Pretty cool. Looking forward to seeing 3.3 and 5.0 source also released someday. That will get us a really usable open source DOS. Maybe modern day assembly wizards can improve and optimize it. I suspect that Microsoft did not release the DOS versions that have the most commercial value on source, …

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Re: Working XTA (IDE on XT) setup on GLaBIOS

Posted on 2024-04-27, 06:25

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It is pretty weird though, displaying it works, yet writing to file doesn't. I admit I don't know too much about the workings of debug. When you are writing to a drive using DMA (floppy drive on any kind of computer, hard drive on XTs), you rely on the source memory being addressable by DMA. …

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Re: Pentium PRO?

Posted on 2024-04-26, 17:33

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Technically it is possible for a VLB device to appear as a PCI one, by listening PCI conf mechanism accesses and responding to them as if it was a PCI device. This idea is similar to how the 3c509 can be set into EISA mode and configured using the ECU by listening to the EISA configuration …

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Re: Drivers/Questions about ESS488

Posted on 2024-04-25, 21:17

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Sbdetect and hwinfo are helpful programs to have around, but they both give me A240 as the I/O port, different from what people here have been telling me. Any reason for this? Or just something to not worry about This means that you should shuffle the JP1 jumpers until they give you A220. A220 is …

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Re: Drivers/Questions about ESS488

Posted on 2024-04-24, 00:37

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Wow! Thanks for that! Should I redo the continuity without the jumpers? No need to do so. As I have enough experience with analyzing cards, I could easily deduce the effect of the jumpers. I just meant this as general hint if you want to practice to trace stuff this yourself, it's easier to …

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Re: Drivers/Questions about ESS488

Posted on 2024-04-23, 22:34

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Alright! So I've tested the continuity and came back with a (probably) poor way of showing it. I don't know if I did this correctly? Let's see: Yellow: IRQ2 Green: DACK3 Cyan: DRQ3 Red: DACK1 Orange: DRQ1 Blue: IRQ7 Purple: IRQ5 Pinl: IRQ3 It would have made interpretation slightly easier for …

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Re: Cyrix appreciation thread

Posted on 2024-04-23, 18:06

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Vcc2 is the volage used for the processor core. 3.2v would put you beyond the Recommended Operating Condition but still within the Absolute Maximum Rating, so I guess it's a judgement call if you feel safe operating it that way. Just to point out what this means, so you can do the judgement …

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Re: Looking for help with analyzing disassembled code->

Posted on 2024-04-23, 14:36

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by mkarcher

in Milliways

in Milliways

Also, how I am going to figure out the application code if I don't know what C function's they're calling or what part of the binary is application code? As a DOS EXE file does not contain any kind of function name information, all names displayed by IDA (like _open or __dtoxmode ) are there …

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Re: Looking for help with analyzing disassembled code->

Posted on 2024-04-22, 20:05

by

by mkarcher

in Milliways

in Milliways

Whether double or single underscores, I prefer to have at least some idea what a function does so I know whether or not it's worth paying attention to later on. It may very well turn out to be way too hard, but I'd like to try modifying Cartooners and see what I can make it do. I understand the …

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Re: SOYO 4SAW Mod BIOS

Posted on 2024-04-22, 19:54

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Do you perhaps have a VLB fix for the original BIOS? I've been looking for it forever. I just re-checked my around 7 years old notes about my 4SA (which should be identical to the 4SAW in that regard). The notes say that "the BIOS wrongfully configures the chipset to support a further PCI master …

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Re: Blown SMD components on Motherboard - any tips?

Posted on 2024-04-21, 22:54

by

by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Cleaning out the solder from the holes first and cleaning up the flux etc did take off quite a lot of the brown solder mask. I guess it's a good idea to paint some more on? Is it the UV curable stuff I should use? If you don't need the property of the solder mask to be heat resistant and repel …

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