Re: Formatting drive after GRUB

Posted on 2021-06-21, 09:29

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Boot into Dos and do a "fdisk /mbr" Grub replaces the first 512 bytes on disk (normally the master boot record), if you don't intend to have a multi-boot Linux/Dos/Windows system, then just clear it using the Dos fdisk command which will install a clean, standard Dos mbr.

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Re: Would you be interested in an x86-based alternative to the Raspberry Pi, optimized for retro gaming?

Posted on 2021-06-21, 09:19

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

@WDStudios, you propose a custom, retro gaming SBC - yet you don't understand: 1. Why the need exists for ISA sockets. Hint: Try getting a Dos game to play Adlib music on an AC97 codec, or load a custom GUS patch bank into the same. 2. Why it isn't possible to get an accurate gaming experience with …

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Re: Multi-lane upgades for USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0 on PCIe 1.0a

Posted on 2021-06-18, 11:01

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Board is an Asus B85M-E, with i7 4790S. They're old ex-corporate stock that was getting liquidated on Ebay. PCIe 3.0 x16 - GTX1050 PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 electrical) - with the 3Ware 9650SE PCIe 2.0 x1 - Magewell HDMI capture Disks are 5x Seagate Exos 8TB - 7200rpm, 256MB cache. Individually using the ' …

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Re: Multi-lane upgades for USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0 on PCIe 1.0a

Posted on 2021-06-18, 09:01

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's pretty impressive performance. I've got a much older technology 3Ware/AMCC 9650SE (PCIe x4 interface) which is only SATA 2 compatible, running 5x 8TB drives and they sustain an average around ~300MB/sec. Peak throughput when measured with hdparm or bonnie is just over 500MB/sec. 3ware.png It …

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Re: Octek hippo vl+ and eeprom

Posted on 2021-06-17, 16:40

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The keyboard controller isn't a rom, but a microcontroller. You'll need to buy another keyboard controller - but there are multiple types and not all are compatible with all boards. If you can find an image of the original board it should show you the brand (AMIKey, Jetkey, Regional, etc).

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Re: How come none of my 3V 486 CPUs work at 3V?

Posted on 2021-06-17, 13:14

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Maybe your voltage regulator is broken and when jumpered for 3v the CPU is getting no power at all?

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Re: Show us your custom Physical mt32-pi Builds

Posted on 2021-06-17, 12:59

by

by megatron-uk

in MT-32 General

in MT-32 General

Every time a game starts I get a " Unexp. MIDI Status! " error message, no game text displayed on the MT-32 emulated display and all of the instruments are wrong and/or stuck. My other Uno works flawlessly :( I seems I'll need to get my hands on a Roland UM One mk2 or other reliable USB interface. …

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Re: Voodoo 1 with a 16-bit ISA VGA card? Dolch LPAC-486.

Posted on 2021-06-16, 17:19

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You can actually copy the rendered final frame in Voodoo framebuffer back over the PCI bus and window it, overlay it over content on the 2d display etc. The problem is that it's slow, it certainly won't be up to 60fps high speed content, but it was useful for more "productivity" purposes. This was …

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Re: IDE support for more than 8 GB HDD storage on Biostar MB-8433UUD

Posted on 2021-06-16, 14:35

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by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Do you also use CF cards on socket 5/7 era systems, or are you referring to much older DOS-only type systems? The system in question, an IBM 5x86c-133/2x, is mostly used to load late 90's 3D accelerated games. Of my dozens of systems, this one sees the most use because I use the 3D games on this …

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Re: IDE support for more than 8 GB HDD storage on Biostar MB-8433UUD

Posted on 2021-06-16, 14:08

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by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In Dos itself, the capabilities of the drive can be examined in nssi: nssi_drives.jpg That's an 8GB Transcend drive in my 286 (the one with DDO software, as I couldn't access the full capacity using XTIDE for some reason). You can see that it doesn't support multi sector transfers under the ' …

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Re: IDE support for more than 8 GB HDD storage on Biostar MB-8433UUD

Posted on 2021-06-16, 08:45

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A few observations from using CF cards over the years: - Most don't support multi sector transfers (maxmultsec is 1, on most of the cards I've got - most real IDE drives, unless they are ancient, can do 8, 16 or 32 sectors - so 4KB, 8KB or 16KB transfers with one command versus 512 bytes) - DMA …

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Re: Low RPM fan in PSU: good idea?

Posted on 2021-06-14, 22:35

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by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does the OEM fan not have a part number on that you can look up? A modern fan, even if it's the same voltage and rpm is likely to be measurably quieter and still shift the same volume of air.

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Re: I recently found this hardware, AKA the Dumpster find thread.

Posted on 2021-06-14, 18:28

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

snufkin wrote on 2021-06-14, 17:20: On the other hand, lemon drizzle cake. Lemon drizzle cake after fish and chips? Yes please.

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Re: DOS hard drive partitions question

Posted on 2021-06-14, 17:41

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes. You can split it into 1.6 and 1.6, or 2 and 1.2, or anything you want really, as long as you don't go over 2gb for any single partition. Without mods, Dos 6.22 can use drives up to 8gb in size. The biggest layout you could have in that case is 4x 2gb partitions. You can have up to 4 primary …

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Re: I recently found this hardware, AKA the Dumpster find thread.

Posted on 2021-06-14, 17:14

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Scored this working AWE 64 gold. 20210613_100655.jpg Its a bit rusty on the metal plate and connectors: 20210613_100702.jpg Do you have any idea how can I clean it easily? Citric acid. Dissolve some in hot water, put the bracket in. Observe how the rust disappear (spots where it was will be darker …

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Re: Looking for a good flightstick for Dos

Posted on 2021-06-14, 15:30

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by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, after being thoroughly cleaned and calibrated.... here's the evidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD18i0whLgU Looped the Wing Commander 'Dralthi' sim missions on the first go 😀 We can safely conclude that the joystick works perfectly.

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2021-06-14, 13:49

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

That's a really nice, clean and well laid out board. Also black simm sockets make it 3 times as cool!

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Re: Looking for a good flightstick for Dos

Posted on 2021-06-14, 13:09

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by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Tracked down a CH Flightstick Pro for not a lot of money. It arrived today, haven't had an opportunity to try it yet, but other than absolutely stinking of smoke (the whole thing has now been thoroughly doused in citrus antibacterial cleaner) its in good condition - moves freely, nice resistance on …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-06-14, 07:18

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by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Picked up an ESS 1868F to go in an Olivetti PCS 11 (single ISA slot!) which someone has put aside for me. Always used a real Soundblaster in all of my PC's (well, apart from those that were dual Soundblaster/GUS machines), so it will be interesting to see what this is like.

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Re: Intel Pro/1000 Uses Entire 'E' Segment of upper memory

Posted on 2021-06-13, 17:04

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by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The PXE client got fatter and fatter over the years - the initial versions had support for ipv4 via dhcp and a minimal tftp client and not much else. By the time you get to dual mode UEFI/legacy clients you've got ipv4 and ipv6 built in, http as well as tftp boot file support and a whole load of …

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