Re: Windows 95 OSR2.5 vs Windows 98 SE for a 486 build with 32MB of ram

Posted on 2020-09-02, 09:11

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes, Win95 seems to be the minimalist choice. Due to being a creature of habit I had used w98 for a long time, even on 486s, but w95 is more than enough.

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Re: AMD 5x86@160mhz., Media Vision PAS16.

Posted on 2020-09-01, 11:35

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

These speakers do look nice - do they sound good?

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Re: Dos 6.22 / Win3.11 + Win95 Midi ESCOM Big Tower 430TX 233MHz MMX

Posted on 2020-09-01, 08:17

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Beautiful case - Escom and Vobis were the bargain contenders of the mid 90ies in Europe.

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Re: What is the purpose of "Restart into MS-DOS mode" for you ?

Posted on 2020-08-31, 14:38

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Restart in MS Dos mode was the better option for me unless I used an AWE card that only worked in win9x "dos box". I'm not really experienced so using latter was the easiest option to make thing's "sing".

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Re: Programming on DOS/Windows 95/98

Posted on 2020-08-31, 14:32

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I use the 486s for programming using Open Watcom C and Tasm 5.0 under DOS. Albeit Watcom's inline assembler can serve you really well in most cases. Also fiddled around with the old DJGPP 2.3.x I think. May come in handy if you want to compile the original Quake. Other than that ease of use of …

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Re: S3 Virge DX 4MB vs Matrox Mystique 4MB

Posted on 2020-08-31, 09:45

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Matrox Mystique / Millenium is a beast quality wise with good driver support. As already stated, beware of the missing low res VESA modes and maybe get a Mystique220 if you're into high res "window"ing.

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Re: Finally building a Socket 7 PC.. motherboard advice needed

Posted on 2020-08-31, 09:39

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

With socket 7 you can't do that much wrong - if you ain't aiming for maximum performance than nearly any board, besides some duds, will do. Boards with intel TX chipsets are the obvious choice albeit I would go for an HX because it "feels more high end". On the other hand a board like the AOpen …

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Re: Most beautiful Dos-Games for a 486...what are your favorites?

Posted on 2020-08-29, 11:34

by

by amadeus777999

in DOS

in DOS

"Doom II" will always be my overall reference piece. Honorable mention... "Blackthorne" "Lost Files Of Sherlock Holmes" "Warcraft - Orcs and Humans" "X-Com" especially the second installment Many more good ones but these always have struck me as most impressive.

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Re: FastDoom 0.4. A new Doom port for DOS, optimized to be as fast as possible for 386/486 personal computers!

Posted on 2020-08-25, 09:10

by

by amadeus777999

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

Very interesting - I also did work on Nuke's source and it's such an awesome base. Props for enhancing the original Doom.

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Re: Is case modding a 90s retro thing?

Posted on 2020-08-24, 07:31

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The tacky prole stuff started in the later 2000s but less mainstream mods have existed like "forever".

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Re: Unisys CWD 486DX2 66mhz

Posted on 2020-08-22, 16:30

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

That's one nice system - beautiful.

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Re: Where did 83 MHz come from, and why didn't it catch on?

Posted on 2020-08-21, 12:23

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The "real" P75 also likely was a great competitor to the Am5x86-P75 (133 MHz), and helped getting those sales to Intel instead of AMD. I think it was the other way around. The 5x86 took sales away from Intel. For the record, the 5x86 came out more than a year after the P75. At the time of release, …

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Re: Where did 83 MHz come from, and why didn't it catch on?

Posted on 2020-08-21, 07:47

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If the board is able to stomach it 83mhz is nice booster.

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Re: Dual Pentium Pro Build Thread

Posted on 2020-08-20, 14:47

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Mentat-vvo wrote on 2020-08-20, 10:00: Got newly-made ones. E262C494-ED58-4209-AFAC-50A501CDBB30.jpeg 6BC6C695-E7B5-4608-B713-84E186C26ED1.jpeg Very nice!

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Re: 486dx/2 100MHz Test

Posted on 2020-08-17, 06:47

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sorry just saw that below the die there is nothing and the heartsink i won’t remove right now CTCM reports CPUID: Cx486??/ Typ:00 fam:04 mod:00 step:00 FPU i487 type L1 Cache 8KB 4-way WT Version 1.5. Update: system runs so far at 3,4V Update: System quite stable w/ 3,6V. But only with L2 disabled. …

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Re: Is Cache Tag size to be seen as minimum or exact value

Posted on 2020-08-02, 15:26

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi all, So I installed now 512 and 1024. Both sizes are being displayed correctly in the post boot screen but the system then hangs. It will in both cases only boot if external cache is disabled again. Question now is of course whether this is due to wrong Tag ram size or due to bad Chinese iss …

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Re: Intel DX4-100 write-back (&EW) won't post Edit: Probably a fake chip

Posted on 2020-07-31, 09:14

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If the cpu does not work in a system that did run with an "identical" one before then your cpu may be faulty. The write back / through mode issue should not stop the cpu from booting - this is a per board problem with some being pickier than others. Can't say too much about the look of the cpu but …

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Re: Long Wait before Computer posts? Can't remember if this is normal for a 486

Posted on 2020-07-31, 09:12

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's a bit odd - 3 to 5 seconds is normally the maximum interval I came across. The system battery being empty did not alter the boot up time on the old boards I tested(very few power on at all with an empty one).

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Re: Improving Quake performance on POD83.

Posted on 2020-07-29, 14:42

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just try setting everything to max speed / min latency - at normal bus speeds this should not be a problem. @Munx - there always needs to be a framebuffer - rasterization has to happen somewhere.

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Re: QUESTIONS ABOUT: Shipping a CRT

Posted on 2020-07-26, 08:13

by

by amadeus777999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Shipping and CRT in one sentence is not a good thing.

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