Re: Who has a Fic VA-503+ ? im trying to add usb support

Posted on 2022-03-19, 15:22

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I took more pictures and made some measurements. USB D+ and D- pins just seem to be directly connected to USB ports. So it looks like all the components are for power supply filtering and fuses. There are many SMD capacitors so do correct me if I'm wrong.

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Re: Who has a Fic VA-503+ ? im trying to add usb support

Posted on 2022-03-19, 08:32

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I managed to find VA-503+ couple of days ago and it came with the USB riser card. I wouldn't have guessed that the riser card is rare. I just assumed it was included with every motherboard. I took couple of pictures. IMG_19032022_103009_(4000_x_1200_pixel).jpg IMG_19032022_102901_(4000_x_1200_pixel …

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Re: Building a 486DX4-100 but what sound card?

Posted on 2022-03-12, 12:06

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

If your CT2940 has real OPL3, then use it with GUS. But if you need bug free MPU for the Dreamblaster, go with ESS 1688 or 1869 or YMF719 instead. I think you should try both ESS and YMF and keep the one you like better.

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Re: CF card is detected but FDISK won't even run

Posted on 2022-03-08, 16:05

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Try "FDISK /MBR" to re-create valid MBR. Reboot, then try FDISK again.

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Re: Ultimate Retro board submissions thread: suggest board edits and/or add new boards here

Posted on 2022-03-04, 18:03

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have something for Digital DECpc LP : Here is BIOS image and pictures from front and back . Those are from DECpc 466D2LP, model PC746-BB. These are not yet added to the DECpc LP page but it seems someone has uploaded some pictures with later BIOS than I have. To whoever uploaded those pictures, …

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Re: Sound Blaster CT2800 IDE interface

Posted on 2022-02-21, 07:59

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Control block address is indeed another thing to suspect since there is Device Control Register at control block base + 6h. It is used for controller reset and enabling/disabling IRQ so it could also explain IRQ related issues. If, for some reason, control block is not at IDE base + 200h on this …

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Re: Sound Blaster CT2800 IDE interface

Posted on 2022-02-21, 07:49

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

So HDD detection works for the drive connected to CT2800 but after that it fails? Could be interrupt related since IRQ is not used for drive detection. When you disabled IRQ did you disable it from XTIDE Universal BIOS and from CT2800. Both needs to be disabled. And if you enable it, both needs to …

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Re: Change MIDI address in Hand of Fate.

Posted on 2022-02-20, 10:27

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Or use Midito. It was originally made just for those situations.

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Re: 17" Orion CRT G2 voltage

Posted on 2022-02-18, 14:07

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I started to experiment. I first tried to change resistance of R252 (on the schematics. It was actually R265 on this CRT neck board). It is between G2 wire and CRT socket on the CRT neck board. The neck board was glued well and I didn't want to risk breaking it so I soldered new resistors in …

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Cannot find UMB driver? Make your own script for HiRAM!

Posted on 2022-02-14, 17:52

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I'm setting up a DECpc LP. It has a OPTi 496 chipset and I was able to find only one UMB driver for it, The Last Byte Memory Manager, but I don't like it that much (I also use it on my 286 with HT12 chipset) and on this DECpc it has a problem: CTRL+ALT+DEL locks the system and reset button must be …

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17" Orion CRT G2 voltage

Posted on 2022-02-14, 15:48

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have this 17" Orion 7E750BT9 that has too dim picture just like most old CRTs. But this one does not have G2 adjustment on the flyback transformer. I found schematics only for some closely related model, 7A750 and those look very similar. Schematics show that there should be some kind of G2 …

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Re: My Emerson Elite SX386/16 Needs a New BIOS, But I Have Incomplete and Confusing Information About the Chipset and BI

Posted on 2022-02-10, 05:39

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Have you tried with different VGA card? Maybe the VGA BIOS reports wrong size or does something strange. Very unlikely but something to try.

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Re: My Emerson Elite SX386/16 Needs a New BIOS, But I Have Incomplete and Confusing Information About the Chipset and BI

Posted on 2022-02-09, 09:44

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I had to try myself (with PCem) and true, if the 4kB Y2K ROM is copied after XTIDE ROM then both will work! The checksum byte could be somewhere else and not at the end of the ROM and it just expects those FFhs until 16k (that would likely be there if no ROMs found after the Y2K ROM). Possible but …

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Re: My Emerson Elite SX386/16 Needs a New BIOS, But I Have Incomplete and Confusing Information About the Chipset and BI

Posted on 2022-02-09, 08:24

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have another possible explanation. I took a look at that Y2K ROM and there are some problems with it. First it is a 4k binary but only less than 2k is used. That does not cause problems but the ROM identifies to be 16k and that can cause problems. If it gets executed before XTIDE BIOS, then the …

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Re: My Emerson Elite SX386/16 Needs a New BIOS, But I Have Incomplete and Confusing Information About the Chipset and BI

Posted on 2022-02-09, 06:15

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Those images in xtide386.zip looks good meaning they have the checksum byte and they start with pcem. You should, however, use standard 16-bit IDE controller since you have a 386. Any 16-bit multi-I/O card or non-PnP sound card with IDE will be fine. Then configure the XTIDE ROM for that device. The …

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Re: Building a 486 - Need Help

Posted on 2022-02-04, 09:11

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does the power supply fan start to spin? If not, the motherboard is shorted, PSU is broken or you have wrong type of switch (and make sure the power switch on back of the PSU is also turned on). First thing is to get the PSU to work.

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Re: Sound Blaster CT2800 IDE interface

Posted on 2022-02-04, 09:01

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

IDE hard disks do work with that card. It is a non PnP card so the IDE is enabled with jumpers and not by software. That is a good thing. But the problem is that BIOS needs to support the IDE address and since you have 486DX-33 it is very likely limited to only support primary IDE (at address 1F0h). …

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Re: Ultimate Retro board submissions thread: suggest board edits and/or add new boards here

Posted on 2022-01-27, 18:56

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have something for Digital DECpc LP: Here is BIOS image and pictures from front and back. Those are from DECpc 466D2LP, model PC746-BB.

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Re: MIDIto - relocate hardcoded port 330h to somewhere else

Posted on 2022-01-25, 08:03

by

by aitotat

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

I'm trying to think what is needed from the OPL redirecting feature and here are some things. I haven't started yet so nothing is set. There are much more things to consider than just map one OPL over another. First, what kinds of multi sound card configurations you might have and why is the OPL …

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Re: MIDIto - relocate hardcoded port 330h to somewhere else

Posted on 2022-01-24, 06:42

by

by aitotat

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

I'm already planning OPL redirect for next version so hopefully it will help with PCI cards as well. I've been trying to avoid PCI sound cards on DOS so I have very little experience with them. I'm wondering how much port redirection will help. If PCI I/O range has the OPL ports available it might …

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