Re: How Should I Service An Old CD-ROM Drive?

Posted on 2023-05-25, 11:04

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That sounds very natural to me. What matters is that the sound is smooth and doesn't have any irregularities or cracks or bumps. The common failure on tray mechanisms is the plastic gears. Those often crack under a little of misuse. Like when people force the tray to open without proper procedure. …

---

Re: CM32L drum kit on AWE32 MT-32 Emulation

Posted on 2023-05-23, 16:45

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I'm running Might & Magic 3 with MT-32 option for music under Win98. It works, but the walk sound effect plays a high note instead of the CM-32L's foot steps effect. In the AWE32 panel I have it loading the MT-32 sound bank. So if I have a CM-32L sound bank, that would possibly work? I never looked …

---

CM32L drum kit on AWE32 MT-32 Emulation

Posted on 2023-05-23, 04:28

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Hi, as I was browsing the SB AWE32 books, I found mention of loading the CM-32L drum kit. I got excited with the idea and wanted to try it with Might & Magic 3, which uses CM-32L for additional sound effects you miss on the MT-32. However, for the life of me I can't seem to figure out how to load …

---

Re: Mitsubishi 355C 252M write 1.44mb floppy, but other drives can't read it

Posted on 2023-05-21, 09:58

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you were able to access it properly then jumpers are fine.. so leave them as they were. This is an alignment issue of course. There are three fail points: 1- Stepper motor adjustment out of place 2- Heads not aligned to each other 3- Track 0 detector out of place Fixing 1 is easy and it's a …

---

Re: What DOS games are there that support two simultaneous joysticks?

Posted on 2023-05-14, 12:26

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What is the difference between using two dedicated ports versus a Y cable? How can try joysticks work off of the same port? I believe Y-cable limits the joysticks to two buttons only. My source of info is the Gravis Gamepad Pro, which comes with a Y-cable. When you set it to use it (2 player mode) …

---

Re: What SB for a Dos6.22/win95 233MMX build?

Posted on 2023-05-10, 20:18

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

ASP chip, you're not missing that much without it though.

---

Re: Problem with floppy 5.25"

Posted on 2023-05-05, 10:49

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I suggest starting with a blow of canned air on the sensors (not the heads), and cleaning the data cable connector very well with alcohol. After that, turn on the PC and try to access a disk in the drive while slowly and lightly wiggling the data cable connection at the drive, see if suddenly the …

---

Re: Missing libcaca.so.0:

Posted on 2023-04-29, 15:02

by

by wbahnassi

in DOSBox General

in DOSBox General

texashuman wrote on 2023-04-29, 14:59: His who?? Maker of that lib. It's a code library for colored ascii art generation.

---

Re: Missing libcaca.so.0:

Posted on 2023-04-29, 03:09

by

by wbahnassi

in DOSBox General

in DOSBox General

Rather disgusting... He intentionally named it like that.. in fact his github account is all about the same.. well.. smelly thing. 🤢

---

Re: Old 5 1/4 inch floppy disks..re-use

Posted on 2023-04-27, 11:35

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Vipersan wrote on 2023-04-27, 10:40: Ideally I'd need a 1.2mb commercial software diskette... Do these even exist ? Yes of course they exist. Many early 90s software shipped on 1.2MB disks. Common ones include DOS 4 & 5, Might & Magic 3, King's Quest 5, Space Quest 4, Wing Commander 1 & 2,...etc.

---

Re: What DOS games are there that support two simultaneous joysticks?

Posted on 2023-04-27, 10:22

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Didn't games always support two joysticks via one port only? (Y-cable). Try Ninja Turtles Manhattan Missions, IIRC it supported two joysticks.

---

Re: Old 5 1/4 inch floppy disks..re-use

Posted on 2023-04-27, 10:19

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You should calibrate to factory disks. Grab disks from various games from various companies.. write-protect them, and try to align to those. Don't trust other drives unless they've proven proper head alignment on factory disks too.

---

Re: Can't get 5.25 floppy drive to work

Posted on 2023-04-25, 20:58

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Please remove the scsi card with floppy controller, AND attach both drives to the onboard floppy controller AND enable the controller in the bios. The cabling should look like straight part of floppy cable between mainboard and 5"1/4 drive then part of floppy cable with twist and then the 3"1/2 …

---

Re: Can't get 5.25 floppy drive to work

Posted on 2023-04-24, 21:57

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Don't keep both DRIVPARM and DRIVER.SYS at the same time. Just remove DRIVPARM. And why do you use D:3? It should be D:1 (second physical floppy drive). Finally, please screenshot when DRIVER.SYS loads. I want to see what it says.

---

Re: "The Tiniest 486 Computer" video

Posted on 2023-04-24, 12:19

by

by wbahnassi

in Milliways

in Milliways

Nice it has that enclosure and screen. Points for the expansion cards and external IDE connector. I would also expose the FDD connector as well. A little concerned on heat dissipation.. does it vent well? The tiniest build I could achieve with real devices is my lego PC. 20221207_211239.jpg This is …

---

Re: Can't get 5.25 floppy drive to work

Posted on 2023-04-24, 00:05

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There should be no need for DRIVPARM on D:0, the BIOS already exposes it. You just need D:1. But also I recommend using DRIVER.SYS instead of DRIVPARM, as DRIVPARM is explicitly listed as a way to redefine an existing drive rather than define a new one.

---

Re: Can't get 5.25 floppy drive to work

Posted on 2023-04-22, 07:45

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

- Both drives are connected to the AHA-1542CF via 1 Cable which supports 3 Drives The cable having 3 connectors doesn't mean it supports 3 drives. There are cables with even 4 connectors. The idea is you have both forms of connection (5.25" & 3.5") at each side of the twist so you can choose what …

---

Re: Why floppy drives are important

Posted on 2023-04-22, 07:08

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Personally I can't withstand a DOS machine without floppy drives. Specifically 2! One at least being a 5.25" ... yeah I know that's too strict.. but to me the sound of two drive seeks followed by a single short beep is what registers in my brain as a DOS machine booting. This was how I always knew …

---

Re: Unsual 90's Thin Client, customized AMD case!

Posted on 2023-04-18, 14:16

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Hmmm makes me wonder if it's possible to sneak out floppy/IDE/Power cables from the back. Those could then be connected to external drives on demand. Would look ok if the drives have an enclosure too.

---

Re: Socket 7 MMX cpu temperature in MS-DOS?

Posted on 2023-04-17, 14:02

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just turn off the machine outside of HDD activity to avoid bad FAT records. No need for anything else.

---