Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2017-03-14, 20:33

by

by creepingnet

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Finished setting up the 486's new DOS 6.22/WFWG311 drive last night. - installed win32s - got a newer version than the outdated version I've been using for years - used cutemouse instead of AMOUSE.EXE which I've had since I bought a Radio Shack serial mouse in 2001 - installed all of the SIM games - …

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Re: Your old CD-ROMs are probably rotting

Posted on 2017-03-13, 17:52

by

by creepingnet

in Milliways

in Milliways

Never an issue, my CD's get destroyed well before they have a chance to get bitrot 🤣 I think the oldest CD-R's I have are from my wife, and they are all music I've been backing up and putting back into the on-computer collection for years. Most of my retro-PC stuff is on my LAN.

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Re: Recommend me my next retro RPG

Posted on 2017-03-13, 17:51

by

by creepingnet

in Milliways

in Milliways

You mentioned Ultima VI: The False Prophet - I can vouch that that one does not take too long if you focus on the main quest and don't veer off into too many of the side quests and other things. This one is actually a little more open ended than U7 is, but all in all, the main quest is pretty simple …

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Re: Good emulators in DOS

Posted on 2017-03-13, 17:42

by

by creepingnet

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

everyone buys new PC hardware every year. This is not true. Yeah, I'll second that one. I usually get 7-10 years out of a system before it's time to retire it, and then all I do is swap out the motherboard if I have a good case, and upgrade everything else as it wears out/breaks. And it looks like …

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Re: Tandy 3-Voice Emulation for Sound Blaster or Windows Sound System?

Posted on 2017-03-13, 17:36

by

by creepingnet

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Nothing I know of yet but I know keenerb on VCFED is working on a expansion board that would allow that capability to more than just PC Jr. and the Tandy 1K series.... http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?546 … -Compatible-PCB

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Re: Good emulators in DOS

Posted on 2017-03-13, 17:30

by

by creepingnet

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Saying you need a 300MHz PC just to emulate an 8-bit or 16-bit machine is B.S., sorry but I'm being brutally honest here, I've been using emulators since 1995 - when all that stuff was new, and the fastest PC one could get was a 100 MHz Pentium. There is a massive difference between emulators for …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2017-03-13, 15:32

by

by creepingnet

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Started the replacement and recovery of the 486's failed/failing 8GB HDD. Last night put a 15GB Quantum Fireball into the sled the Maxtor was living in, most trouble free install ever, plus read/write speed has improved greatly (it's the first time I've seen a 486 DX4-100 totally skip the Windows …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2017-03-09, 21:08

by

by creepingnet

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Spent last night trying to figure out why the old 7.2GB Maxtor my DOS/WFWG311 install was on for all these years was going slower - turns out I have a LOT of failed Allocation units on the C partition, I think I'm going to Junk it since it's struggling to even manage to read/write at all (goes " …

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Re: She's gonna freakin' die ! Help me !

Posted on 2017-03-08, 17:17

by

by creepingnet

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The post about the processor slot makes me wonder if the OP is experiencing something I did a time ago when I tried to use Superglue as a thermal compound (I was inspired by this idiotic practice done by gluing a fan right to a overdrive chip) - got some of that superglue in the socket, used Acetone …

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Re: Good emulators in DOS

Posted on 2017-03-08, 17:07

by

by creepingnet

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

NES - NESticle X.XX is my main choice here. The reason being, NESticle was a THE go-to, must have, can-do-it-all NES emulator, and the in-numbered X.XX version is the most compatible, Dragon Warrior IV runs on it, which is my litmus test as Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest IV is the biggest, trickiest …

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Re: Good emulators in DOS

Posted on 2017-03-08, 15:57

by

by creepingnet

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Saying you need a 300MHz PC just to emulate an 8-bit or 16-bit machine is B.S., sorry but I'm being brutally honest here, I've been using emulators since 1995 - when all that stuff was new, and the fastest PC one could get was a 100 MHz Pentium. I'm going to expand on my initial post a little more …

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Re: Good emulators in DOS

Posted on 2017-03-08, 03:21

by

by creepingnet

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

NES is pretty much the only one, your best bet is NESTICLE x.xx for DOS or LoopyNES 0.59 Beta - which is what I have on my DX4-100 (which was a DX2-66 up until a month ago). On a DX2-66 you will experience some lag on larger games. With NES you might have some trouble with certain dumps of DRagon …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2017-03-08, 03:16

by

by creepingnet

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

More 486 fun today..... - took out 2 of the 32MB SIMMS, was just getting too many errors and lag-issues with 128MB in there, so I'm bumping it down to 64, I can feel the difference already.....massively. - Registered N-Track 1.1.3 to get the full version - can you believe that a 486 DX4-100 with VLB …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2017-03-03, 16:09

by

by creepingnet

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

- I upgraded the driver for the HDD controller under Windows 95, it was noticeably missing and using a generic driver, so I put the Winbond VL-EIDE driver on there found through much web surfing, Windows 95's load time has gone down considerably (<20 seconds), transferring files over the network is …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2017-03-03, 04:13

by

by creepingnet

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well.....I just started testing the things I've been wanting to for quite awhile on the 486 DX4-100 system now...... Behold - I have apparently created the first DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) capable 486 that I've ever heard about. I'm running N-Track Studio on Windows 95 OSR2 - and recording …

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Re: Weird color glitches in some games

Posted on 2017-02-28, 17:58

by

by creepingnet

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Weirdest by far I ever have seen was playing Ultima VI on my old Frankenstein Creeping Net 1 486 back in 2001 - ZEOS motherboard, 486 DX-33, 8MB of RAM, and a Western Digital PVGA1A VGA card (ISA) - used to get a Stuck NMI error and then the color palette would go all "Acid Trip Vomit" on me, yet …

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Re: Best use for old hard drives?

Posted on 2017-02-28, 17:52

by

by creepingnet

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I still use old Hard Disks in my retro-setups, just too much of a hassle to go buying DOM, plus I like the extra capacity for my stuff. Anything that's on it's way to dying becomes a disk for experiments with O/S and whatnot. That way if I do something stupid with it, no loss. Good working drives …

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Re: Your worst selling experience on ebay?

Posted on 2017-02-28, 17:47

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by creepingnet

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Errius wrote: Yeah, you need to assume the parcel will be tossed about in transit. Consider using a wooden crate or even a pallet for large and fragile items. Or an FAA approved Anvil Flight Case with a Parchute!

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Re: SUNTAC 80286 Mainboard help

Posted on 2017-02-28, 17:45

by

by creepingnet

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The diagnostics card arrived from China - I am very surprised how fast and cheap this was :-) So the quest can go on.... The diagnostics card is working properly and shows the correct codes in a working PC. However, in the 286, the tests do not even start and the display shows "----". All Status- …

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Re: Retro phone Nokia 3310

Posted on 2017-02-28, 17:34

by

by creepingnet

in Milliways

in Milliways

Honestly, with all the data-plan eating bullshit going on with my Droid Turbo 2, not to mention the jack problems, and what would have happened had I gotten the next Samsung Galaxy model after the 3 or 4 and the battery fires, I'm almost looking into this, not as retro, but just to rid the bullshit …

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