Re: My new baby - 486 DX4 100MHz with GUS.

Posted on 2013-08-25, 01:19

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Before MSCDEX you need to load some device driver from config.sys - you can use any "generic" driver for ATAPI CD-ROMs (Mitsumi, Oak, ...). You can get this one as it has the smallest memory footprint (5kb) - VIDE-CDD.ZIP I have an ISA ATA controller from 1993 that loads CD-ROM just fine. For those …

---

Re: My new baby - 486 DX4 100MHz with GUS.

Posted on 2013-08-25, 00:59

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Seeing you have PCI I would be on the lookout for a PCI storage controller. This solves all the LBA and ATAPI issues. Something from promise should do the trick. With CF cards you can use puppy linux is has a utility that allows you to set CF storage flags like removable and so on. Compare the …

---

Re: My new baby - 486 DX4 100MHz with GUS.

Posted on 2013-08-24, 23:12

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

If you just want to use a CD-ROM, it is irrelevant whether the BIOS knows about it or not. At which stage are your CD-ROM drives not detected? If the BIOS, or rather, the IDE controller, doesn't detect that there is a device connected, how would DOS be able to access the device. It's just like when …

---

Re: My new baby - 486 DX4 100MHz with GUS.

Posted on 2013-08-24, 12:47

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Problem isn't that I wanna boot from it. I want it to simply detect the CD-ROM. It doesn't even sense that it's there. I've tried with 4 different units now and none of them are detected by the controller.

---

Re: My new baby - 486 DX4 100MHz with GUS.

Posted on 2013-08-24, 11:42

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Another issue I've run into is the turbo header. It's a three pin header, which I though normally worked as follows: Pin1+2 shorted = Low speed, Pin2+3 shorted = high speed. But with pins 2+3 shorted, Speedsys says that I've got a 15MHz CPU, an with 1+2 shorted, it reports 34MHz. Not sure if it's a …

---

Re: My new baby - 486 DX4 100MHz with GUS.

Posted on 2013-08-24, 11:35

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Neither gets picked up by the BIOS. Any chance the CD-ROM interfaces on my GUS conflicting with my BIOS's ability to detect ATAPI devices? If not, does anyone have any experience with CD-ROM detection problems on SiS496/497 chipset motherboards? Most probably the BIOS does not detect ATAPI devices …

---

Re: My new baby - 486 DX4 100MHz with GUS.

Posted on 2013-08-24, 08:18

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Searching through boxes of old parts, I finally found a proper 40-pin/40-wire IDE cable. This works just fine with my CF/IDE adapter, and it makes the BIOS manage to finish searching for slave device, where as the single plug IDE cables makes me have to manually skip searching for slave. Problem is, …

---

Re: My new baby - 486 DX4 100MHz with GUS.

Posted on 2013-08-22, 22:17

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

YES!! Stupid Sandisk and their incompatible products :P Swapped my Sandisk Ultra card for a slower Kingston card, installed DOS and it boots :D Looks like I'll be spending some time getting drivers and software installed :P EDIT: Installed drivers for my GUS and lo and behold, it plays lovely midi …

---

Re: My new baby - 486 DX4 100MHz with GUS.

Posted on 2013-08-22, 21:41

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

My motherboard does indeed support LBA. It actually detects my CF card by name, as in "SanDisk..." and so on, and I can access it just fine and partition it, and install DOS. It's just booting that is a problem. The I/O shield I got from Evercase via Ebay. To be fair, I expect the IDE cables I'm …

---

Re: My new baby - 486 DX4 100MHz with GUS.

Posted on 2013-08-22, 20:40

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Damn! For some reason, I can install DOS on my CF card, but I can't boot from the CF. It simply doesn't even seem to try. Just stops after POST. If I boot from a floppy drive, then I can access C: and find that DOS was installed successfully on it. Not sure what's wrong. My CF adapter is a Hexin …

---

Re: My new baby - 486 DX4 100MHz with GUS.

Posted on 2013-08-22, 17:03

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Not really. I only had to remove the lower HDD cage, because my GUS is so long it would be in the way. Unfortunately the motherboard tray didn't have all the holes needed, so I've had to rely on those old fashioned white plastic support things (that you used to "slide" AT motherboards into AT cases …

---

Re: My new baby - 486 DX4 100MHz with GUS.

Posted on 2013-08-22, 15:02

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Installed my "It's ST" 486 DX4 100. Turns out the BIOS ID's it as a Cx486DX4, so ST must have licensed it from Cyrix I guess. Hopefully I'll find time to install DOS tonight, and if so, I'll probably take a few more pictures.

---

My new baby - 486 DX4 100MHz with GUS.

Posted on 2013-08-21, 21:44

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Heya Vogoners. Just spent a day prepping my stupid ATX case and finding a way to safely mount my AT motherboard into it. The motherboard is now installed, and I'm working on getting all motherboard headers (LEDs, Reset button and so on) hooked up. I just had to give it a go though, to see if it …

---

Re: Help getting a sound card to work in DOS

Posted on 2013-08-16, 17:00

by

by LunarG

in DOS

in DOS

From what I can find on Google, this seems like a SB Live! card. I take it that it's a PCI card? If so, I believe it would be better to get an ISA based sound card.

---

Re: Technically & artistically impressive games

Posted on 2013-08-16, 13:40

by

by LunarG

in Console & Arcade Emulation

in Console & Arcade Emulation

Yeah the PSX Duke port is painfully slow at times. PAL version is even worse than NTSC I think. Still I played through all of it :lol: some interesting spoofs in those exclusive levels. Also I doubt Build ran great on a 133 MHz Pentium in 800x600. Here it runs on a 233MMX and you can see some …

---

Re: Vintage hardware lovers - do you really love vintage hardware or simply pragmatism?

Posted on 2013-08-16, 13:19

by

by LunarG

in Milliways

in Milliways

Also, if there is an LED monitor that can play typical DOS resolutions and refresh rates without problems (and the correct 4:3 aspect ratio - the one with horizontal black bars), I'd rather choose it instead of a "real thing" (vintage CRT, I mean), because I like LED colors (although, when compared …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2013-08-16, 11:15

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, I just wonder though. We're spending our money buying sound generators like MT-32 or SC-55, but we (gamers) don't seem to bother much about loudspeakers. So far, Malik is the only fellow Vogoners I know who connect his gaming setup to a dedicated HT receiver. Imagine playing WarCraft III …

---

Re: Twoquickcapri's 386sx16 Build - Turbo Button Included

Posted on 2013-08-16, 09:03

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Looks good 😀 Ahh, those days were funny, when the computer manufacturers though that 3.5" drive bay covers should look like a floppy drive 😁

---

Re: Vintage hardware lovers - do you really love vintage hardware or simply pragmatism?

Posted on 2013-08-15, 15:05

by

by LunarG

in Milliways

in Milliways

Although I do want to play the games, the hardware itself is definitely a big factor. I'm probably starting to show signs of getting "old", with becoming increasingly nostalgic, but I still do think that a lot of the games from back in the late 80's to mid 90's were better than what's being released …

---

Re: Radeon Cards and Win98SE Legacy Builds

Posted on 2013-08-15, 12:59

by

by LunarG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This may seem like a stupid question, but have you tried just running with less ram? Surely you'd manage just as well with 512MB in Win98se. Just thinking it's Win98SE and the memory limit mods that are causing the problems rather than the board.

---