Re: MSX owners - thinking of finally getting one, some doubts

Posted on 2025-05-19, 05:47

by

by wbahnassi

in Milliways

in Milliways

I use a Carnivore2 cartridge as a memory expander (1MB) and SCC/SCC+ and many other things. There is a Carnivore2+ now though.. but either way these expansion carts aren't quite cheap. I put Nextor DOS on my C2, which brings MSX DOS 2 much closer towards MS DOS (directories, auto-complete, ...). …

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Re: Best hardware/software for attempting to archive/salvage old floppy disks?

Posted on 2025-05-13, 03:22

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I once received a pack of ~100 5.25" floppies.. Tried a few and they all weren't reading properly and started to bust my drives. At that point I understood that all the disks were subjected to the same conditions, and thus they will mostly all fail the same. I cleaned a couple and they worked, so I …

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Re: Help identifying EGA card

Posted on 2025-05-10, 21:18

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by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes, it's neither, but there is a good possibility the switches match. It's worth trying IMO. Hopefully you find the exact model's manual, but good luck either way.

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Re: ADVICE SEARCHING ON CHOICE OF EEPROM PROGRAMMER

Posted on 2025-05-10, 05:11

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by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I recommend the T48 as well. Cheap, capable, and software is good and useable (at least the Windows version). I programmed BIOSes of various DIP sizes. Never failed. EPROMs must be cleared first though before writing, so you'll need a UV eraser for those. I prefer EEPROMs though.. much faster to …

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Re: Help identifying EGA card

Posted on 2025-05-10, 05:01

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by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's a variant of one of those two: http://www.uncreativelabs.de/th99/v/C-D/50009.htm http://www.uncreativelabs.de/th99/v/U-Z/50790.htm Try the switches from each case and see which one matches the behavior.

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Re: Good "super small/portable" suggestions?

Posted on 2025-05-10, 04:56

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by wbahnassi

in Milliways

in Milliways

I would vote for the Book8088 or Pocket386 for pure DOS just because it has the screen and keyboard. Otherwise a WeeCee would have been the tiniest, but it needs a screen and a keyboard and power. If you could get the Surface3 to boot to DOS, that would be fantastic, as it's really slim and …

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Re: SB16 Vibra +1 tone

Posted on 2025-05-08, 15:59

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

So things to check easy: * Proper voltage going into the OPL3 +5V on pin 1 * Proper clock 14.32MHz on pin 24 of the OPL3

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Re: Pico or small AT PSU options?

Posted on 2025-05-05, 08:33

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by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Right. I guess the peripherals would only add their real load when activated, so say a floppy drive is reading, and the CD drive is reading...etc. But a Voodoo1 is a continuous load, so it really eats out of the PSU's capacity. I'm not an electrical engineer, but the starting point would be to …

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Re: Pico or small AT PSU options?

Posted on 2025-05-05, 07:33

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

RockstarRunner wrote on 2025-05-05, 04:50: I need this thing to drive a voodoo 1 along with the other components. I think you are expecting a little too much from picoPSU 🙂

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Re: SB16 Vibra +1 tone

Posted on 2025-05-05, 01:43

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Awww that sounds cute 😅 I'm wondering if your mobo/BIOS settings are using a too high ISA clock. The BIOS settings should have frequency divider setting (or sometimes it's jumpers on the board). Try to use the maximum divider and see if it makes any difference.

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Re: Pico or small AT PSU options?

Posted on 2025-05-05, 01:20

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by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are you using an original picoPSU or a Chinese knock-off? The Chinese ones can't power ****. The original picoPSU on the other hand successfully powered a Pentium4, a P233MMX, a 386... all with discreet cards for VGA (not a 3D accelerator of course), sound (SB16), CF card, CD drive, and 2 floppy …

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Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2025-05-04, 19:55

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by wbahnassi

in Milliways

in Milliways

For the last couple of months I went through Sierra's AGI adventure games on my TurboXT. The machine has no HDD. It has two 5.25" drives. So it was quite an experience 😅 Started with SQ1, SQ2, then KQ1-4 and finally Police Quest and Black Cauldron. I ran them from their original media, and a save …

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Re: Best hardware/software for attempting to archive/salvage old floppy disks?

Posted on 2025-05-04, 19:42

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've used just a strip of paper, get it under the head, close the drive (you may have to hold it partially closed to get the heads to touch the strip without so much pressure it tears) and move it back and forth inder the head. Nice one! I prefer that technique over the cloth-like media that …

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Re: Pulling my hair out with EGA programming.

Posted on 2025-05-04, 19:32

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by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Yes I agree. Anyways I feel at this level one needs to always keep an eye on the generated instructions anyways.. especially in hot-spot areas like a blitter. Just put a breakpoint at that function and switch to disassembly to see what the compiler decided to do. One can then play around the code to …

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Re: Text mode pel panning Demos for VGA?

Posted on 2025-05-04, 13:01

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by wbahnassi

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

Adlib Tracker 2 is "seemingly" text-mode VGA and allows smooth vertical scrolling with the mouse. I always wondered what cool trickery was that.

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Re: Best hardware/software for attempting to archive/salvage old floppy disks?

Posted on 2025-05-04, 12:56

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeow. 1000 disks would stress even the best drives. My suggestion is to actually keep the floppy drive out of the computer case. Remove the drive's top cover, so you can easily access the reading heads. Get your isopropyl ready with qtips. As you read your disks, stop to clean the drive heads with …

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Re: need help for picking my first crt monitor for gaming

Posted on 2025-05-04, 12:43

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Same here in Canada. It's not like we have the full catalog of CRTs to choose from. A CRT appears in the local market around 6 times a year nowadays.. and they're usually priced ~100$ and above, and they sell immediatelly too (even if broken). I know many people will disagree, but I feel resolutions …

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Re: SB16 Vibra +1 tone

Posted on 2025-05-03, 22:29

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by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I don't have that same model. I have the CT2890 Vibra16 S, which also has OPL3 and is PnP. It plays fine and dandy though. Didn't notice any issues with pitch or speed of FM. It could be some electronic component going off the mark (crystal oscillator or a cap maybe?) Is digital sounding alright?

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Re: Pulling my hair out with EGA programming.

Posted on 2025-05-03, 22:19

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

It's actually slightly faster (about 3%) to read vmem into a char 32 times than it is to read vmem into itself 32 times. Interesting. That's probably because writes to vram are super slow whereas writes to main memory are pretty fast (in comparison). So. vram read -> mem write = fast, vram read -> …

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Re: [SOLVED]"Lemmings 2: The Tribes" on Vorext86 EX based system

Posted on 2025-05-03, 13:32

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by wbahnassi

in DOS

in DOS

Right, that to me confirms its a memory layout quirk in the Vortex86, and SMARTDRV -being the fatso driver it is- is changing the layout in favor of the game.. it's a lucky find I'd say.. so yeah, maybe you should buy a number or two from the lottery 😅

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