Re: PCie-to PCI, PCI to ISA, # of slots multipliers - bridges, risers, backplanes, research, especially for DOS, WIP.

Posted on 2018-11-25, 10:03

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's hard to say without looking more closely at the source code. It mentions enabling "Sound Blaster compatibility registers" which suggests the card supports SB emulation in hardware. If this is true, then the code won't help with getting any other type of sound card working. It would help with …

---

Re: Configuring case display on a 386

Posted on 2018-11-25, 09:53

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes but if the pins are connected incorrectly they can accidentally reroute power in a way that the manufacturer didn't intend, which could be why they are only dimly lit. If you can get three cheap AA batteries to generate 4.5V and use that to power the board instead of the PC power supply, then …

---

Re: soundblaster 16

Posted on 2018-11-25, 09:46

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

All FM OPL chips support pitch bends. You do it by just programming the note pitch while the note is playing. If pitch bends "didn't work" then neither would normal notes because they are both programmed into the OPL chip the same way. The Windows MIDI driver also supports them, but there is a bug …

---

Re: Problems with my VLB IO card

Posted on 2018-11-24, 11:57

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You really need to be able to measure voltages to know which pins do what. You can buy multimeters very cheaply, some are $5 or under, there's really no excuse not to have one! Especially when you're dealing with old hardware that has no documentation. You can unscrew the hex nuts on the DB9 port …

---

Re: Mindscape save disk

Posted on 2018-11-24, 11:52

by

by Malvineous

in DOS

in DOS

...which you can do with DOSBox just fine without needing to install anything 😜

---

Re: PCie-to PCI, PCI to ISA, # of slots multipliers - bridges, risers, backplanes, research, especially for DOS, WIP.

Posted on 2018-11-24, 11:46

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Don't know much about SB-Link support on motherboards, but compatibility should be good as it is directly connected to the original ISA bus. This is why only motherboards with ISA bus support have an SB-Link connector. However it only carries the DMA signals used by sound cards (I guess DMA1 and …

---

Re: Problems with my VLB IO card

Posted on 2018-11-24, 04:46

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sounds like what happens when cards get damaged by static electricity from improper handling (not even by you but a previous owner). The damage accumulates gradually until all of a sudden one day for some reason it's too much and it will just die.

---

Re: Mindscape save disk

Posted on 2018-11-24, 04:39

by

by Malvineous

in DOS

in DOS

A 1.44MB floppy image is just a blank file that's 1.44MB in size. There are programs that can create them, or I'm sure you could even download a blank one that's already been formatted and use that straight away.

---

Re: Mindscape save disk

Posted on 2018-11-23, 23:18

by

by Malvineous

in DOS

in DOS

If you look at the disk in the DOSBox command line ("dir a:") and then switch disks with Ctrl+F4, do you see the contents of the disk change? I always thought Ctrl+F4 only worked for swapping disk images mounted with IMGMOUNT rather than actual folders, but I'm not sure.

---

Re: PCie-to PCI, PCI to ISA, # of slots multipliers - bridges, risers, backplanes, research, especially for DOS, WIP.

Posted on 2018-11-23, 23:14

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Had a look through that patent and although it's a bit random and disorganised, here is the core part: The AT compatible interrupt requests (IRQs) are provided directly to an 8259 compatible interrupt controller via a sideband connection from the PCI device. These sideband signals are not supported …

---

Re: Configuring case display on a 386

Posted on 2018-11-23, 22:57

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

LEDs do wear out over time and not all of them are of equal brightness to begin with (especially older ones) so it is possible that this is the case. But for a low power device like this it is also very easy to supply power the wrong way and have some of it reach the LEDs through an unexpected path, …

---

Re: Problems with my VLB IO card

Posted on 2018-11-23, 22:50

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

According to pinouts.ru a serial mouse needs a positive voltage on pin 7, which gets toggled to reset the mouse, something the driver would be doing when it tries to detect the mouse. So if you have a multimeter and you can measure the voltage on pin 7, try to load the mouse and see if you get a …

---

Re: PCie-to PCI, PCI to ISA, # of slots multipliers - bridges, risers, back plates, research, especially for DOS.

Posted on 2018-11-23, 12:32

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Have you had a look at this thread where an industrial backplane was connected to a normal motherboard with a passthrough cable, so that all those slots were available for use with the normal motherboard? This lets you add many more ISA slots to a machine that already has ISA slots. Interestingly …

---

Re: Mixer for sound cards and midi modules.

Posted on 2018-11-23, 12:01

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Although it's not rackmount, I was using an ART SplitMix4 for a while. It can mix up to four stereo channels into a single stereo output, and it's entirely passive so it doesn't need a power supply to work. It only cost me the equivalent of about US$50 as well so it's a great budget option. Inputs …

---

Re: Configuring case display on a 386

Posted on 2018-11-23, 11:49

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If there's less intensity it typically means the connections are wrong and it's being powered by accident. So if it works and doesn't both you that's fine, but if you keep poking around you'll hopefully find the right way to make it light properly.

---

Re: AT Hardware in ATX Case: Show Me Your Power/Turbo Switch Mods

Posted on 2018-11-21, 13:02

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Trying to use an AT PSU in an ATX case could be tricky because many of them only have small power switches so there's no room to replace them with the larger version you'd need. If it were me I'd either sell the AT PSUs or keep them until an AT case comes along, and use an ATX supply in the ATX case …

---

Re: Pure DOS gaming system with 100% digital audio output

Posted on 2018-11-20, 23:43

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

FYI there is a Linux driver for the YMF754 which means you can look at the source code . It seems to enable the SPDIF output with a single register write . The hard part (I guess - I've never done it) would be to figure out how to find the PCI card and talk to it in native DOS, but once you've done …

---

Re: MT-32 and power adapter question?

Posted on 2018-11-20, 23:26

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

If you get one of those really heavy ones (like the originals) then they will have an isolation transformer in them and they are pretty robust. If they fail they tend to either cut power completely or put too much ripple on the line which is not too much of an issue as Roland usually include …

---

Re: Configuring case display on a 386

Posted on 2018-11-20, 12:06

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sorry that was a brainfart, you are right in that the switch goes straight to the motherboard. I was thinking that the turbo *LED* plugs into the display (not the turbo switch). So turbo LED connector on mobo plugs into the display, and the original turbo LED itself also plugs into the display, as …

---

Re: Configuring case display on a 386

Posted on 2018-11-20, 11:22

by

by Malvineous

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Can't see from the pic but some of them had the turbo switch plug into the display, then the display plugged into the turbo connector on the motherboard, that way you didn't need a special turbo switch with two connectors on it. Maybe IN is where the switch plugs in, and TL H/L is where the turbo …

---