Re: What is your dream computer?

Posted on 2010-07-15, 22:45

by

by Anonymous Freak

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

To stay within the bounds of reality... Socket 3 motherboard with VLB, and PCI slots. Preferably Micro ATX, but baby AT would work in a pinch. Am5x86-133 OCed to 150 MHz on a 50 MHz bus. (Or one of the rare 150 Mhz chips.) 64 MB RAM, EDO or SDRAM Tseng ET4000/W32p VLB video card Obsidian 2 X24 dual- …

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Re: Here's a beastly motherboard

Posted on 2010-07-15, 05:44

by

by Anonymous Freak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I worked at a company that used one as a massive I/O server. Ran SCO Unixware, IIRC. (Before SCO became "the devil".) Was full of serial port cards, handling communication between a few hundred serial terminals and a mainframe. Didn't need all the RAM or disks, but the CPUs and PCI slots were what …

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Re: Here's a beastly motherboard

Posted on 2010-07-15, 02:32

by

by Anonymous Freak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What you really want is the NCR WorldMark 4380 . Eight Pentium Pros, up to 8 GB of RAM (may support 16 GB with 512 MB DIMMs; they didn't exist when it came out,) 12 hot-swap 3.5" SCSI drive bays, 4 5.25" drive bays, 2-3 625W power supplies. (Yup, this puppy used less power than some ultra-high-end …

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Re: 7th Guest I try to install

Posted on 2010-07-13, 04:25

by

by Anonymous Freak

in DOSBox Games/Apps

in DOSBox Games/Apps

Just to make sure, are you installing from Disc 2 or Disc 1?

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Re: Bring my (vibrant) colors back

Posted on 2010-07-12, 06:10

by

by Anonymous Freak

in Milliways

in Milliways

Except I would agree, as the parent of a 5 year old, with the "go play a game made for a 5+ year old" comment. There are many games made for youngsters that use bright colors to draw the kid in; but which are halfway decent games in their own right. (Don't know of any PC games like that at the …

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Re: Double score: CMS and prototype SB1.0

Posted on 2010-07-09, 05:34

by

by Anonymous Freak

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Yup! That's the puppy! Mine's in an AMD 5x86P75, though. :-P In a small-form-factor desktop, even. From the labels, it was obviously meant to be pretty much a "thin client". 486 socket, two 72-pin SIMMs, onboard CL-GD5430 VGA, three ISA slots on a riser. Right now, I have a generic NE2000 card plus …

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Re: Need to get my 5.25" drive installed in something!

Posted on 2010-07-08, 02:50

by

by Anonymous Freak

in DOS

in DOS

*sniffle*. As documented in another thread, my 5.25" drive is kaput...

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Re: Double score: CMS and prototype SB1.0

Posted on 2010-07-08, 02:47

by

by Anonymous Freak

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Well, not going to get any disk images any time soon. My one-and-only 5.25" drive appears to be toast. It's an old Teac "dual-drive", the one that houses both a 3.5" and a 5.25" HD drive in one 5.25" drive bay. The 3.5" half works fine. The 5.25" half does well enough to get a directory listing of a …

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Re: Post your retro computer superpi results here!

Posted on 2010-07-07, 02:55

by

by Anonymous Freak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Interesting. The window above says Pi calculation is done but how can calculation of an irrational number ever be "done"? The last time I checked it has been calculated to several hundred billion places with no end yet in sight. Obviously, one can never "finish calculating Pi". What SuperPi does is …

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Re: Calling all luddites (this means YOU!)

Posted on 2010-07-07, 02:39

by

by Anonymous Freak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just played "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" on my Apple IIgs yesterday. Regularly play some old Atari arcade games on my Apple IIc, as well.

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Re: Which computer did you first play Doom on?

Posted on 2010-07-05, 21:30

by

by Anonymous Freak

in Milliways

in Milliways

Leading Edge branded 486, upgraded. Originally a 486-33, I upgraded it to a DX2-66; 24 MB RAM (yes, a positively insane amount of RAM back then,) VLB Genoa VGA/Super IO card, 540 MB hard drive (I was amazed that I paid less than $1/MB for it,) and either a Sound Blaster PRO or Sound Blaster AWE32. …

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Re: Multiple VL Bus slots??

Posted on 2010-07-03, 20:39

by

by Anonymous Freak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

EISA was a much more expensive "managed bus", more akin to PCI or Microchannel than to ISA or VLB. It was just designed so that the cards physically fit in the same sockets, with electrical backward compatibility in the slot intact. EISA was essentially perfectly compatible with ISA. EISA cards were …

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Re: Multiple VL Bus slots??

Posted on 2010-06-27, 19:50

by

by Anonymous Freak

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There were also multi I/O cards (for which, the ATA controller was the part that benefited from VLB,) as well as SCSI cards and network cards. I had three VLB cards in one system, and remember wanting a fourth.

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Re: Is it possible to extract fonts from old DOS games?

Posted on 2010-06-22, 05:56

by

by Anonymous Freak

in Milliways

in Milliways

It all depends on the game. Most old DOS games use their own custom fonts, where each letter is a bitmap. Who knows how they store it? How big is each file? Have you tried opening them in a hex editor to see what's in them?

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Re: Rambus box

Posted on 2010-06-19, 07:32

by

by Anonymous Freak

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

For me, the funny thing about the NetBurst line (Pentium 4 through Pentium D,) is just how insanely inefficient (per clock cycle) they really were. I got a Core Duo (2.0 GHz, 667 MHz bus,) notebook when they first came out. I then got handed down to me a Pentium Extreme Edition 965 (Basically a dual …

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Re: Sound cards - from best to worst

Posted on 2010-06-19, 07:23

by

by Anonymous Freak

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Well, first off, "Microsoft Windows Sound System" is Windows' generic sound card driver, not really any particular card. Yeah, I know, I'm replying to a five-year-old post, but... I beg to differ. While "Windows Sound System" was meant to be a standard that many sound cards could adhere to; …

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Re: Need to get my 5.25" drive installed in something!

Posted on 2010-06-19, 00:04

by

by Anonymous Freak

in DOS

in DOS

Second post: All boxed and apparently complete: CD-ROM: The Simpsons Virtual Springfield Discovery Channel Multimedia - Evolution Star Control 3 (The box is *REALLY* ratty and falling apart, though.) Sam and Max Hit the Road (Lucasarts, doesn't have a box, just a still-sealed bag containing a small …

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Re: Need to get my 5.25" drive installed in something!

Posted on 2010-06-18, 22:53

by

by Anonymous Freak

in DOS

in DOS

Alright, here is the list of games and software. First post, shrinkwrapped. First, shrinkwrapped games: Return to Zork (CD jewel case shrinkwrapped, not full size box.) Neuromancer (by Interplay copyright 1988, "SOUND TRACK BY DEVO", woo-hoo! 3.5" and 5.25" disks.) I think this one is getting opened …

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Re: MSDOS statement 'copy con'

Posted on 2010-06-18, 20:05

by

by Anonymous Freak

in DOSBox General

in DOSBox General

I still use copy con on a very regular basis when I just need to make a 1-3 line batch file from a command prompt. Copy con: The only text entry method crazier than edlin.

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Re: Dual P233 MMX DOS/Win98/XP machine

Posted on 2010-06-18, 06:06

by

by Anonymous Freak

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

XP will run just fine with enough RAM. When it first came out, I ran it on an ultra-portable Sony "PictureBook" (something that would pass for a "netbook" now,) with a Pentium MMX 266 MHz and 64 MB RAM. Keep the third-party software to a minimum (i.e. no AV,) and it'll run just fine.

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