Re: Who knows more about the AMI Video BIOS?

Posted on 2014-12-24, 20:52

by

by CelGen

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's just the laserdisc player and not the actual computer. By the looks of it someone salvaged the player and junked the rest so they could use it an LD arcade cabinet (the serial protocol is pretty standardized. IMHO these players are terrible. Not only is the main drawer mechanism belt driven …

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Re: Who knows more about the AMI Video BIOS?

Posted on 2014-12-24, 08:52

by

by CelGen

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well as a mod has given an OK, here's the rar file containing the one kinda-dumped image of the video ROM, plus the two verified dumps of the SBC's AMI BIOS. >>LINK<< an old family friend did tell me it looks like something that was probably made as part of a special order, maybe for a large …

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Re: Who knows more about the AMI Video BIOS?

Posted on 2014-12-22, 15:48

by

by CelGen

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

27513? Don't you mean 27512? Nope. Intel D27513 . http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/IMG_7549.jpg Guessing video card has bad RAM, which isn't super hard to fix, assuming it doesn't use something obscure. Closest thing I see to memory on the video board is eight …

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Re: Who knows more about the AMI Video BIOS?

Posted on 2014-12-22, 06:02

by

by CelGen

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Everything up to location 0x008000 checks out but the other half fails with random bits. Again , it's probably because of the oddball chip and I was reading it back in 27512 mode but 'll try digging a 27128 up and see what happens.

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Re: Who knows more about the AMI Video BIOS?

Posted on 2014-12-22, 05:44

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by CelGen

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

All the memory managers I got on hand need at least a 386. What do you recommend I go find? It also occurs to me the CMOS battery is flat so give me a day or two to source a replacement and try to get into the CMOS again. I currently can't boot from the hard disk as the parameters can't be retained …

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Re: Who knows more about the AMI Video BIOS?

Posted on 2014-12-22, 04:41

by

by CelGen

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does the BIOS have any options for shadowing the video ROM? I'm still fighting to enter the BIOS. So far all the usual keypresses have not worked (DEL, CTRL+DEL, F1, CTRL+ F1, ESC, ESC on reboot, slamming head into keyboard....) I would hope that Matrox put the VGA BIOS in the "fail safe" bank 0, …

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Re: Who knows more about the AMI Video BIOS?

Posted on 2014-12-22, 02:41

by

by CelGen

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What's a bit more amusing is that for some reason I already owned the digitizer option for this machine. Matrox's MVP-AT. A full length two slot, three board monster. http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/IMG_7583.jpg http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/ …

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Who knows more about the AMI Video BIOS?

Posted on 2014-12-21, 05:42

by

by CelGen

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So I have this really bizarre Matrox E-VDP machine. It's basically a laserdisc player strapped to the top of a massive case with a hard drive, two floppy drives, an amplified front speaker and a passive ISA backplane. The computer itself consists of a 286 SBC board and two specialty ISA cards for …

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Re: Case restoration

Posted on 2014-11-26, 19:21

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by CelGen

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

JB weld worked miracles when the front bezel of my model 95 arrived shattered. It took a few days to tack all the little pieces together and then the two halves were joined, set in a jig and left to set for two more days. http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/CGS_0536. …

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

Posted on 2014-11-26, 11:28

by

by CelGen

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

After several weeks talking to someone on #VC about dialing my terminal controller into their AS/400 system we decided to give it a go today after he assisted in finding me an image of the microcode boot disk and partially configuring everything. http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/ …

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Re: Forte VFX1 Beige Box (and dev unit!)

Posted on 2014-11-18, 21:16

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by CelGen

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Someone sent me an image the the day actually, so I'm good with the disc image but thanks for the offer.

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Re: Best Printers for 90's computers.

Posted on 2014-11-11, 16:38

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by CelGen

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

How much does a toner refill generally cost? I mean if I find one that works for cheap am I going to be paying through the nose for ink? Also swaaye why do you keep deleting your posts. lol Used (and they all are at this point), an LJ4M+'s is never worth more than $50 for the base machine with 4mb …

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Re: Best Printers for 90's computers.

Posted on 2014-11-11, 01:38

by

by CelGen

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

LaserJet 4M's are bombproof and everything STILL supports it.

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Re: Forte VFX1 Beige Box (and dev unit!)

Posted on 2014-11-11, 01:03

by

by CelGen

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Over the last few days the biggest issue so far was getting whatever support you could find to make games work with the VFX1. There's a fair number of games that supported it but finding the correct patches and drivers is no fun task (and by no means are all the enablers and patches on that page). …

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Re: Forte VFX1 Beige Box (and dev unit!)

Posted on 2014-11-09, 06:07

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by CelGen

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

The thing is that they are not actually WAV files. I've seen a similar flaw once before. I have a boxed copy of Fly! 2K for mac but it was one of the early versions where they shipped the discs with no resource forks. Everyone who received the flawed discs were mailed out new discs shortly after but …

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Re: Forte VFX1 Beige Box (and dev unit!)

Posted on 2014-11-09, 03:34

by

by CelGen

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I don't appear to have any more AGP cards with a feature connector. I can snag a Voodoo5 5500 if I wanted to dump on a card that might not work but that would take a few days. I have one more Rage Pro which is essentially the same thing but fixed at 4mb. I could potentially drop down to PCI at the …

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Forte VFX1 Beige Box (and dev unit!)

Posted on 2014-11-08, 17:42

by

by CelGen

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Eight years in the making. Completed just in time to see the commercial release of the Oculus Rift. http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/VFX1/IMG_7196.jpg CPU: Intel Celeron (tualatin core) 1400mhz Motherboard: Aopen AX34-U Ram: 1.5gb PC100 SDRAM Hard Drive: Samsung …

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Re: Maybe a small tip to fix some 3dfx cards

Posted on 2014-11-07, 06:14

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by CelGen

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I ran into the same problem with an Intergraph card. I also used a very fine tipped sewing needle to carefully bend the pins back.

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Re: Nvidia drivers under 95

Posted on 2014-11-06, 15:50

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by CelGen

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nevermind. While trying to pass the time I discovered that the VESA Feature Connector was not playing nice with my Forte VFX1. Ended up having to switch cards repeatedly until a nasty 8mb ATI Rage Pro Turbo would work.... 😒

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Nvidia drivers under 95

Posted on 2014-11-06, 09:54

by

by CelGen

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm trying to get my Geforce 2 GTS to behave under windows 95 but the drivers are not behaving. I grabbed the 71.84 drivers which supposedly work under 95, 98 and ME. This same machine is multibooting and under 98SE at least the drivers were fine. Under 95 OSR2 however they're broken. Color depth …

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