Re: Upgrade paths for the 386 - Yield?

Posted on 2018-05-16, 16:23

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Also I had a cool idea that I would make a RAM drive and run games from it, which would actually solve the other problem I have with my SCSI card being slow as shit (in my win95 machine, which I was going to swap into my 386). It still serves its purpose of offloading CPU overhead but being so slow …

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Re: Upgrade paths for the 386 - Yield?

Posted on 2018-05-16, 15:08

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Feipoa, if you're listening, you said you have this board too? Any comments on RAM specs? You will have to test for yourself if 8 MB (8 sticks) has any tangeable benefit to 16 MB (4 sticks). I didn't take notes on this, but sorta recall not seeing any difference. I remember doing these type of …

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Re: Anyone ever upgraded an HP Vectra 486/50N ?

Posted on 2018-04-16, 20:30

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If someone is going to be coming here to buy them and you don't want a mess up, I'd go with the electronics distributors since those would be new and under warranty. They might be more expensive, but it would be worth it since you wouldn't really be able to come back to the seller for an exchange.

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Re: Anyone ever upgraded an HP Vectra 486 ?

Posted on 2018-03-28, 01:25

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The sad thing is, when I attempted to install the l2 cache on my Packard Bell, it would lock up at the BIOS screen, and nothing would boot or run (memory errors according to the Windows 95 installation or the OS present on the HDD). Mine were either a hit and miss, or the system's BIOS has a big …

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Re: Need help finding data/fax modem driver for windows 3.1

Posted on 2018-02-14, 06:03

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

MichaelWeaser wrote: What I found out is, the modem is basically a winmodem, and only had drivers for windows 95 and up. How old is it though? Because I remember there were also winmodems that had dos and win3.1 drivers.

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Re: My first "retro" PC - overkill Win98/XP build

Posted on 2017-12-24, 08:01

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

q6600 is faster than anything I have so if you're ever going to part with it, let me know!

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Re: Convert USB keyboard to PS/2 or AT?

Posted on 2017-12-24, 08:00

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just an update. I received these the other day and they are brand new in original box. I'll post another update when I test. Please do. I'm interested in how these work since I have a few applications that could use it. Small world too. I spend a lot of time in the Huntsville area, especially in …

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Re: Need help finding data/fax modem driver for windows 3.1

Posted on 2017-12-19, 13:38

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm keeping this thread in mind for when I dig back into all of our legacy stuff that we've had to put away. It might be a few years, but I'll try to post back here with what I have. 😎

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Re: Need help finding data/fax modem driver for windows 3.1

Posted on 2017-12-19, 00:46

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Gotcha, and that does ring a bell as I used to stay on top of early PC tech like a hawk and recall something like that about the ESS modems. If you end up going another route, definitely go the route of a serial port as PCMCIA devices had their own set of challenges with card services and then …

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Re: Need help finding data/fax modem driver for windows 3.1

Posted on 2017-12-18, 15:33

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

From what I remember about these 'soft modems' (besides the fact that they were horrible), is that many of them didn't work in DOS--only Windows. I know either my brother's winbook xp5 or my original winbook may have had the same softmodem, but both systems haven't been powered on in many years and …

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Re: Convert USB keyboard to PS/2 or AT?

Posted on 2017-12-18, 05:24

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

p24t wrote: I feel fairly confident saying there are no good active converters out there. Why would you need an active converter for px2 to AT? There's only a connector difference, nothing more. 😕

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Re: Need help with connections/wiring for two pcs in one monitor, keyboard, speaker and mouse.

Posted on 2017-12-18, 05:21

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well i have one 4 Ports and one 2 ports KVM(cheap ones, usually from china) and i don't use it, idk if it is the cables included but the signal is GREATLY degraded,not sure if it is because of a cheap cable, or the kvm itself is cheaply made. Cheap KVMs will do that. I have one or two of those as …

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Re: Need help finding data/fax modem driver for windows 3.1

Posted on 2017-12-18, 05:08

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I somehow think I have this in a bunch of stuff I haven't touched in decades. :( Hopefully someone else has these more accessible for you. a few days ago I found a web archive of the ESS website, it only has the drivers for the card for windows 9x , and windows NT based, up to windows xp , But I …

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Re: Need help with connections/wiring for two pcs in one monitor, keyboard, speaker and mouse.

Posted on 2017-12-16, 21:43

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I know at least IOgear, (and I'm sure others) makes a kvm that includes audio. I have one. It's one of about half a dozen kvms I have. Let me see if I can find it...yep, lots of them and fairly cheap: https://www.ebay.com/itm/IOGear-GCS612A-MiniView-Micro-2-Port-PS-2-VGA-Audio-Cable-KVM-Switch-2- …

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Re: Storing your pc parts.

Posted on 2017-12-16, 21:34

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I try to put most things back into their original boxes for storage since the original boxes protected them in the first place. For things without their original boxes, I try to use whatever box they came in along with the packing material. Takes up a lot of space, but pretty much guarantees nothing …

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Re: Need help finding data/fax modem driver for windows 3.1

Posted on 2017-12-16, 20:32

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I somehow think I have this in a bunch of stuff I haven't touched in decades. 🙁 Hopefully someone else has these more accessible for you.

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Re: Anyone ever upgraded an HP Vectra 486 ?

Posted on 2017-12-16, 20:32

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

33MHz FSB for the 100MHz OverDrive (33MHz x 3). I bought a used one on eBay for a good price for my Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus (had the dreaded SX2-50, then DX2-66 <-- not bad, but Doom ran too slow), and received the rest of the L2 cache I special ordered on mouser.com (512KB) and I got the …

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Re: Upgrade paths for the 386 - Yield?

Posted on 2017-12-16, 20:29

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Great thread! I'll add some tidbits of what I remember of this era. The 486SLC/DLC chips were great for that they could do. Single biggest boost to a system for sure. Moving to SCSI would be the second biggest boost for your system since it would relieve the cpu from all the disk transfer activities …

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Re: A strange ISA Card?

Posted on 2017-12-16, 20:23

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As far as connecting that 30-286 to a network, if that card is already showing up and configured, I wouldn't touch it. The 30-286 could be quite particular with hardware and not play well. You'd have a much easier time just picking up a hub with a bnc. 😎

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Re: A strange ISA Card?

Posted on 2017-12-16, 20:20

by

by Samir

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As far as vintage networking gear goes, I kinda wonder if anyone here is still screwing around with the more exotic ones like Token Ring, ARCnet or TCNS There are, and I have 3 Token Ring MAUs as well as some cards and some systems that have cards in them that I plan to play with. The cool thing is …

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