Thanks

Posted on 2015-01-03, 23:52

by

by Matth79

in Milliways

in Milliways

Having spotted DOSBOX and ScummVM for my new Android, was going to ask if there were any legit free games to try it with. Lo and behold - the Free game list here! Any special recommendations, given the limitations of a 7 inch tablet ... I've got to see if those emulators are actually usable!

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Re: My junkpile, and what to do with it.

Posted on 2015-01-01, 17:31

by

by Matth79

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The 4MX is my best AGP card - Though it seems that Geforce 4 4200's turn up for not too much money - for a classic DX8 card - which would be an advance on the MX (a glorified Geforce 2). The Matrox, surprisingly, was a computer fair cheap bin pick - looked and thought hey, that's a big name. I'm …

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My junkpile, and what to do with it.

Posted on 2015-01-01, 01:45

by

by Matth79

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

1. The weakest a 486DX4-100 VLB - with Cirrus (5428 I think) graphics (alternative card available Diamond Stealth 64 Video VRAM) In it's previous life, a local computer club machine with - I think it was win98 - haven't run it for ages. Guess it might make a passable DOS machine, though too fast for …

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Re: The end of the road?

Posted on 2014-12-28, 22:57

by

by Matth79

in Milliways

in Milliways

For Linux snappiness on weaker hardware, a lightweight window manger is probably better. Lubuntu - with the very light LXDE Xubuntu - with XFCE Or Linux Mint XFCE - Linux Mint has several variations - Cinnamon is the heaviest, followed by Mate, then XFCE. Mint also has KDE (heavy) and Debian (based …

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Re: PCI IDE controller for DOS?

Posted on 2014-12-28, 22:34

by

by Matth79

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Is it properly aligned, if misaligned, that would degrade random writes, as a 4k write becomes 8k of read modify write.

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Re: The end of the road?

Posted on 2014-12-27, 21:13

by

by Matth79

in Milliways

in Milliways

I'd say the risks of XP are overplayed, so long as you DO NOT USE INTERNET EXPLORER, which by now will be a huge gaping security hole. Also, with Linux, it probably needs the tweak to reduce "swappiness"

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2014-12-26, 17:25

by

by Matth79

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Memory is perhaps the best example of the trend.... New kind of memory - EXPENSIVE - this happened with pretty much every type. New becomes the standard, and bulk makes it cheaper, the older memory may be more expensive. The older type gets cheap, as it become outdated and is cleared, there's more …

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Re: 14 CPUs, 17 years, one benchmark suite

Posted on 2014-12-25, 15:54

by

by Matth79

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Wow, does the Atom CPU have a built-in encryption engine - it makes up a lot of ground in MD5, SHA1 & Blowfish

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Re: SB Live! Applications bundle Including "Cubasis AV"

Posted on 2014-12-23, 00:35

by

by Matth79

in Windows

in Windows

There is one Cubasis AV on Amazon UK at the moment

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Re: Who knows more about the AMI Video BIOS?

Posted on 2014-12-22, 15:58

by

by Matth79

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1276912 - article referencing bank switching EPROMS - might be some clues Datasheet here http://www.cpu-galaxy.at/CPU/Ram%20Rom%20Epro … intel_erpom.htm

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Re: Dos 6 conventional memory tricks

Posted on 2014-12-20, 00:14

by

by Matth79

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I saw another DOS emulator mentioned here a few days ago... http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdos/ It's targeted more at "serious" applications

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Re: Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo E, the (not so retro) late 2006 90s VHS look-alike media PC

Posted on 2014-12-19, 23:52

by

by Matth79

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

That seems a nice change in specs to find - other than the tuner(s) - unless it went from dual analog to single digital. If it doesn't already have one, really needs a remote

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2014-12-14, 18:42

by

by Matth79

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I bought a Pentium 4 Prescott system today, not really that retro but its a really nice system. I did my P4/Vista test a few weeks back and found it less of a pain than I would have thought. Fujitsu SCALEO E, 43 Euro (With Vista key and disc). The system I bought has a Nvidia Geforce 6600 as Video …

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Re: I'm using onboard audio and the sky has not fallen

Posted on 2014-12-10, 00:23

by

by Matth79

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My first... SB16 ASP MCD - later equipped with a cheap wavetable addon - that rode along with my ISA slot systems, though I think the in the last one, it had to give up the space, replaced by a PCI128 - lovely card, especially with the 8MB Ensoniq sound set. Later, a SB Live. But the last two have …

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Re: What is a good audio codec for Android devices that doesn't mangle the sound too much?

Posted on 2014-12-08, 18:35

by

by Matth79

in Milliways

in Milliways

I've been considering going with OGG Vorbis. How would OGG at 192kbps compare to say MP3 at 320kbps? Also, is it true that VBR delivers better results than CBR? http://nigelcoldwell.co.uk/audio/ - the examples I was looking at, particularly 32k MP3 CBR vs VBR. CBR - Constant bitrate - encodes at …

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Re: VLB Graphics recommendation

Posted on 2014-12-08, 17:59

by

by Matth79

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Had a CL5428 in my old machine, was a decent enough Windows accelerator, never really explored its DOS performance. Somewhere in my junkbox, there is a Diamond Stealth 64 video Vram - recognized it as a classic - in the days of setting graphics for DOS programs, EVERTHING had an option for S3. One …

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Re: Iomega ZIP drives

Posted on 2014-12-08, 17:32

by

by Matth79

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Never owned a ZIP - did have an Iomega Ditto tape - plus Ditto Dash accelerator. Kicking myself for not grabbing a very interesting drive, a CD / MO cartridge drive some time back - I forget what the model was

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Re: What is a good audio codec for Android devices that doesn't mangle the sound too much?

Posted on 2014-12-07, 17:40

by

by Matth79

in Milliways

in Milliways

I've always followed hydrogenaudio's recommendations, the LAME MP3 encoder, and with the latest, the VBR presets are pretty much optimum. Lame is tuned to get good results at higher bitrate, while many others are tuned for passable results at lower. If you want a set bitrate, then LAME abr (average …

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Re: Eliandas ISA VGA card roundup

Posted on 2014-12-07, 00:57

by

by Matth79

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Some peculiar results, how does a CL5422 beat a CL5428 on some. or are they dependent on the raw CPU to card memory performance which may not reflect advances in the Windows accelerator ... a 5428 is significantly more advanced than a 5422

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Re: frankenstein parts-bin P4 box

Posted on 2014-12-06, 00:20

by

by Matth79

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

For 98 on >512MB http://www.thpc.info/ram/vcache98.html My own recollection is that the total of AGP window and Vcache must not exceed 512MB - so with a 256MB AGP aperture (typical max setting) the Vcache must be limited to a maximum of 256MB

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