Re: Tandy TL/2

Posted on 2015-10-11, 19:48

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Yes, I've seen your awesome TL/2! It's a beast :-) Not much to report on this, I opened it up and replaced the CMOS battery. It needs a good clean inside and out. I have quite a few parts either waiting or on the way: 128k Video RAM upgrade for the TGA Gotek SB Pro 2 80287 co-pro XT-IDE 512MB disk …

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Re: Retrofanatic's "8Mhz TURBO BOARD" NEC V20 XT Build

Posted on 2015-10-11, 19:32

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Lovely attention to detail on this build 😀

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Re: Any Buckling Springs Fans on Vogons?

Posted on 2015-10-10, 08:16

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Been using an IBM Model F recently. What a piece of machinery! I had it set up in the corner of the living room and it's too noisy for anyone to watch TV 😀 Can't imagine what an office full of them would be like. Quiet keyboards have their place!

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Re: IBM XT 5160

Posted on 2015-10-09, 12:56

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Can definitely see that, if you have a configuration that requires many drivers e.g. SCSI, network. A bare-bones DOS 5.0 config with keyb and cutemouse gives me ~580K free conventional memory. I haven't found any games that require more than that and would still run on an XT.

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Re: Best sites to buy and sell vintage computers

Posted on 2015-10-08, 18:51

by

by bjt

in Milliways

in Milliways

dosforum.de seems like a great place. I wish I could read German well enough to enjoy it!

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Re: Mounting AT power button in ATX case

Posted on 2015-10-07, 09:05

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think they want to use their existing AT PSU in an ATX case, rather than an ATX PSU with AT motherboard. The switch in the case will be a low-voltage momentary type. I haven't seen a ready-made adaptor for this, as you say it would require some timing logic and a relay. You may just have to mod …

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Re: HardMPU, anyone?

Posted on 2015-10-07, 06:27

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Thanks. This is where the position of the Version and ACK bytes get swapped, correct? I did actually implement this in my version as well, and it can be enabled and disabled with the config utility. I'm curious as to how you implemented enabling or disabling this, as I must have missed that part in …

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Re: Computer audio setup?

Posted on 2015-10-05, 10:29

by

by bjt

in Milliways

in Milliways

Sold the desktop system since I took this, I'm now using two reams of paper as a monitor stand 😎 Also swapped the SC-55ST for an early SC-55.

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Re: HardMPU, anyone?

Posted on 2015-10-02, 09:43

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I should also mention that SoftMPU has an open issue with Gateway: https://github.com/bjt42/softmpu/issues/13 Hopefully it won't affect you, but something to be aware of.

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Re: Music Quest MPU clone cards, anyone interested in them?

Posted on 2015-10-02, 09:39

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

These look really great, well done!

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Re: What wedge shaped computers like the C64c and Amiga 500 are out there?

Posted on 2015-10-01, 10:55

by

by bjt

in Milliways

in Milliways

Tandy 1000 HX/EX

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Re: Parallel port MIDI + DOS

Posted on 2015-10-01, 10:40

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I didn't know softMPU supported the serial port, thats's pretty awesome actually. Will try it out and see how it works. How does it handle the baud rate incompatibility? It doesn't, so you would need to use a module that supports serial input (various Roland/Yamaha/Korg), some other serial->midi …

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Re: HardMPU, anyone?

Posted on 2015-10-01, 10:25

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

For testing purposes, the most demanding games seem to be those that use interrupt-driven playback, e.g. Laser Squad, Gateway, Innocent Until Caught. If those work, everything should.

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Re: Tandy TL/2

Posted on 2015-09-30, 13:22

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

ftp://ftp.oldskool.org/pub/tvdog/tandy1000/utilities/vswitc01.zip That utility says it can switch between Tandy and VGA on the fly. However it also says it doesn't work with EGA. Maybe I could switch the EGA card into MDA mode with the dipswitches when I want to use Tandy graphics, and back to EGA …

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Re: Tandy TL/2

Posted on 2015-09-30, 12:26

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Any reason apart from speed? I was wondering if vswitch would allow switching between EGA and Tandy video on the fly.

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Re: Surviving the late 90's without 3Dfx

Posted on 2015-09-30, 09:39

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In 97 I bought a Matrox M3D and installled it in my Cyrix PR166. :depressed: Ultimate Race and a handful of others (POD, Nightmare Creatures, MDK) ran OK. Everything else ran like crap. In 99 I got a Voodoo1 & Cyrix 233 which improved things a lot. Yes, my PC purchases were heavily cost influenced …

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Re: IBM XT 5160

Posted on 2015-09-30, 09:31

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I've gone back to the IBM CGA for this machine. It's been an interesting experience finding out what makes sense and what doesn't for an original XT. While a lot of upgrades are possible, they don't necessarily make sense. Here's my conclusions: - EGA card: works fine and CGA compatibility is good …

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Re: Tandy TL/2

Posted on 2015-09-30, 09:27

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Your new house is massive Peter, you have plenty of space for a few old computers :-) So it begins... ordered some DRAM to bring it up to 786k, a YMF card to experiment with and hopefully get Adlib and a normal joystick port, and the obligatory Gotek with 5.25->3.5 bracket. Also ordered a few bits …

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Re: W9x Demo-Scene (DX6-Stuff)

Posted on 2015-09-30, 09:02

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not sure if any of these are DX7, but I liked them around that time Final Reality (ofcoz) Kasparov/Elitegroup 604/AND Codename Chinadoll/Katastro.Fi The first Mindcandy DVD has a lot of demos from around this period.

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Re: 486 Thinkpad with genuine Sound Blaster Pro 2

Posted on 2015-09-30, 08:50

by

by bjt

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Cool, that is a beast. It has a full-height 5.25 bay which will make it easier to install a CDROM. It took me a long time to find the strange 3/4 height CDROM for the Dock I... and I had to buy 3 to get 1 :lol: Will be interested to see if you mange to get the onboard SCSI in the Dock II working. I …

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