Re: Best ISA Soundblaster

Posted on 2015-04-08, 09:23

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bear in mind that most Sound Blaster 16's suffered from the so called MIDI bug, if you are planning on hooking up a MIDI daughterboard. There are some topics on this. Also refer to this link: http://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Hanging_note_bug

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Re: Win98SE or WinXP for Tualatin 1.4S+i815?

Posted on 2015-04-07, 19:19

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by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Depend on what type of games you want to play on your machine. If you want to stick with Windows XP, then you can disable Security Center (under Services) as this takes up a lot of resources. Also disable system restore. There are a couple of other tweaks that you can do to improve system …

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Re: Turbo switch functionality on high end 486 & early Pentium 1 systems

Posted on 2015-04-07, 18:55

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

After my last post, I acquired an AMD 5x86-133 CPU and tested it on my Asus PVI-486SP3 motherboard. With the motherboard's jumpers set in write back mode for the CPU, the turbo switch does work but, the slow down in CPU speed is negligible (so much that it still out performs a 486 DX4-100). However, …

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Re: Aztech Sound Galaxy Waverider 32+ not working

Posted on 2015-04-03, 10:24

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That was my initial thought too and I tried it. Unfortunately, no luck.

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Re: Aztech Sound Galaxy Waverider 32+ not working

Posted on 2015-03-31, 20:56

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

No, but a buddy of mine has. However, considering the general availability, it's probably easier to just replace it.

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Re: Aztech Sound Galaxy Waverider 32+ not working

Posted on 2015-03-31, 10:41

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The hot components on the card are the Amplifier components and they should be hot, not sure if they should always be hot, but they at least should be when reproducing sound! The TDA1517 is the amplifier, the 7805 or 7905 (on the left) is a voltage regulator, and it could very well be blown if it's …

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Re: Aztech Sound Galaxy Waverider 32+ not working

Posted on 2015-03-31, 08:35

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

gerwin wrote: OK, here is the manual. hope it helps. I got this card only last year, and never tried it. The drivers in the package are just the usual ones found on the internet. Thank you for this. Always useful to have a manual. If you ever want to part with your card, let me know 😀

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Re: Its all about the Pentium's!

Posted on 2015-03-30, 19:57

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by jesolo

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

How can you tell if a capacitor is blown? What must I look out for? I have a sound card that is not working (refer this post - http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=42846) The DOS utilities aren't picking up the card and I'm fearing that somewhere, something has blown. I'm new to this but, I'm …

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Re: Aztech Sound Galaxy Waverider 32+ not working

Posted on 2015-03-30, 19:50

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Attached is a pic of the sound card that I've mentioned in this post. The area that I've circled in red becomes very hot when the PC is turned on (so hot that I cannot hold my finger on it for very long). What could be the cause? Could it be a blown capacitor? How can you tell if a capacitor is …

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Re: Aztech Sound Galaxy Waverider 32+ not working

Posted on 2015-03-30, 11:12

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

No, I haven't. But, considering that this soundcard was developed before the era of Windows 95, it should work in DOS. I'll try the Windows route.

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Re: Barrel battery to coin-style battery, can it be done?

Posted on 2015-03-29, 18:57

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by jesolo

in Milliways

in Milliways

Some older motherboards had an external battery connector. If it doesn't, then you can actually still obtain replacement NiCd batteries which you can just solder back onto the motherboard where the original battery was. I've recently had to remove my 386 motherboard's NiCd 3.6V battery as it was …

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Aztech Sound Galaxy Waverider 32+ not working

Posted on 2015-03-29, 16:51

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I recently acquired an Aztech Sound Galaxy Waverider 32+ (I38-MMSN826). Problem I'm having is that, after installing the DOS drivers, the sound card utility doesn't pick up the card. It just says "sound card not detected". The diagnostics also doesn't detect the card. I'm pretty sure I have loaded …

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Re: Question: Why do you think retro computing is important?

Posted on 2015-03-25, 18:30

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by jesolo

in Milliways

in Milliways

For me there are two reasons: 1) As others have mentioned, preservation of software, knowledge, information and such. 2) As a programmer, these old machines challenge me in ways that a modern machine can not. I like the limitations of these old systems, because they challenge and inspire me to find …

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Re: Windows xp experiment

Posted on 2015-03-24, 06:55

by

by jesolo

in Milliways

in Milliways

You could try to install Windows Vista and disable Aero. I managed to install Windows Vista on an XP 2000+ with 1 GB of RAM and with a similar Radeon card (think it was an X800). It actually ran OK (so long as you just use it for normal tasks). Only problem with the "newer" Windows operating systems …

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Re: SoftMPU project needs your help! (game & sound card testing)

Posted on 2015-03-21, 21:05

by

by jesolo

in SoftMPU

in SoftMPU

Thanks for your feedback. That's two Aztech cards that have exhibited problems (AZT1605 and AZT2320). Maybe I'll get hold of one some day and get to the bottom of it. Unfortunately it's not possible to specify a separate MPU IRQ. SoftMPU uses an undocumented SB DSP command to trigger an interrupt, …

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Re: Run commands on MS-DOS mode start up?

Posted on 2015-03-20, 22:03

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Another alternative is to set up a boot menu that enables you to boot up straight into (real) DOS. To achieve ths, you need to edit your Autoexec.bat & Config.sys files to create a boot menu, as well as the Msdos.sys file (hidden in your root directory) in order to bypass the GUI. I have a guide …

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Re: MT-32 V 0 and V1

Posted on 2015-03-20, 20:27

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by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi ! Now that I have both MT-32, I would like to know of any games that were made for the Version 1 "only". For example, 4D boxing has issue with version 0 with semitones not being supported correctly on version 0 of the MT-32. Are there any other games you think of ? I will record the differences …

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Re: Outputing two sound cards to one set of speakers (hardware)

Posted on 2015-03-18, 20:50

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I bought a set of desktop speakers back in 2000 (Gateway 2000, made by Altec Lansing Multimedia) that has two line inputs at the back (Source A & Source B). It even has a subwoofer connection but, I never used it. That way, I can play back two audio (stereo) sources at the same time through the …

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Re: Aztech cards

Posted on 2015-03-18, 20:42

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by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Do you know if this model is compatible with Covox and Disney Sound System? I ask because I don't have my "retro boxes" with me right now in order to run testings. Only some of the first generation Aztech sound cards supported the Covox Speech Thing and Disney Sound Source. These cards normally had …

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Re: How do you store your old hardware?

Posted on 2015-03-17, 21:56

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by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I store most of my old PC parts in cardboard boxes in my garage under an old plastic cover which I got from a mattress I bought. This to prevent a heap of dust from settling on top of each box. The more valuable electronic parts I store in antistatic bags and/or within old motherboard boxes (for …

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