Re: IBM PC AT BIOS hangs on UniPCemu's 286 emulation?

Posted on 2016-09-21, 12:15

by

by Scali

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

It finally gives two errors: 06144 KB OK 301-Keyboard Error 161-System Options Not Set-(Run SETUP) (RESUME = "F1" KEY) The keyboard error could be because you are only emulating an XT style interface? The AT had a bidirectional keyboard bus, and probably sends some diagnostics stuff to the keyboard …

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Re: PC compatibility cards

Posted on 2016-09-21, 12:10

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Jo22 wrote: (Btw, just look at this computer's keyboard. Like that of a 70s terminal or 80s home computer.) And the archetypal rebadged Philips monitor 😀 So many 80s computers used monitors from these series.

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Re: FM and PCM Volume Balance of SB Cards

Posted on 2016-09-21, 11:25

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

That is why I asked for a recording of the game GODS where the music consists of the WAV and OPL combined so we can tweak the balance by ear even though the subject sound card has improper lowpass filter. You might also want to try some of the Renaissance demos then, eg this: http://www.pouet.net/ …

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Re: Most reliable hardware eras?

Posted on 2016-09-21, 11:19

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think it depends on what hardware you look at. Eg, early PCs were expensive and generally of good build quality. However, the very early ones had under-specced and unreliable PSUs. Replace the PSU though, and it can last a long time. In the late 286 era/386/486 era, cheap Taiwanese clone hardware …

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Re: FM and PCM Volume Balance of SB Cards

Posted on 2016-09-21, 10:30

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

EDIT: The smaller the delta db value, the louder the OPL is. I'd say that 8.5db to 7.5db should do fine, as 1db considered a typical volume change that people can begin to hear. To what extent would the frequency response affect this measurement? I mean, early SB cards had quite a 'bassy' sound to …

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Re: i486 DX2 66 vs Am486 DX2 66 and the winner is...

Posted on 2016-09-20, 11:16

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It seems the cost in real estate and power is worth it for a more powerful, flexible execution front end. This statement lacks the context and detail to give it any meaningful interpretation. The whole point of EPIC was to simplify the front end and repurpose the silicon real estate and power …

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Re: i486 DX2 66 vs Am486 DX2 66 and the winner is...

Posted on 2016-09-20, 10:53

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Itanium (VLIW in general) has been by and large a failed experiment. Instruction packing by the compiler seems to work well in some execution patterns (LINPACK does well as you noted), not so well in others. So? I sense a complete lack of vision, comprehension or historical awareness. Do you think …

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Re: i486 DX2 66 vs Am486 DX2 66 and the winner is...

Posted on 2016-09-20, 07:40

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Go on. I really laughed at your characterization of the Itanium saga. How is that? The Itanium may not have been the most successful architecture ever, but it certainly was forward-thinking compared to x64, and had some serious potential in various areas (Itanium-based systems were often at or near …

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Re: i486 DX2 66 vs Am486 DX2 66 and the winner is...

Posted on 2016-09-20, 07:12

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Okay, I'm done. You certainly are entitled to your perspective, but I don't and will never agree with what I consider to be such a heavily biased interpretation of history. You don't have to agree, but I don't see why you would call it heavily biased, when I'm stating facts. It is a fact that Intel …

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Re: i486 DX2 66 vs Am486 DX2 66 and the winner is...

Posted on 2016-09-19, 21:36

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The SCC felt that Intel should have found a way to make the negotiations work had they acted in good faith. That's not how I read it. How I read it was: 1) Intel may not have put in much effort in trying to make the negotiations work 2) However, AMD didn't really have much to negotiate with, and …

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Re: i486 DX2 66 vs Am486 DX2 66 and the winner is...

Posted on 2016-09-19, 19:57

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ultimately the Supreme Court of California disagreed. There's a difference between entering into negotiations with an open mind and entering with the objective of torpedoing everything. No, that's not what I meant. I meant that the subject is the same. Please re-read what I wrote more carefully. …

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Re: i486 DX2 66 vs Am486 DX2 66 and the winner is...

Posted on 2016-09-19, 12:54

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I figured that anything derived from the CPU clock would drift "in sync", but anything that's measured versus actual time would be measured against the RTC, which is potentially using a separate 32.768kHz crystal oscillator. (Or is that only in use when the system is powered down?) The RTC wasn't …

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Re: i486 DX2 66 vs Am486 DX2 66 and the winner is...

Posted on 2016-09-19, 12:15

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The variations you're talking about don't change the number of cycles a given instruction takes to execute. Indeed. If that were true, then cycle-exact code would be impossible. But cycle-exact code is possible, regardless of the age of the machine (we're still doing it on 30+ years old machines). …

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Re: Pipeline Burst Cache (Pentium COASt Module era)

Posted on 2016-09-19, 10:17

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

stamasd wrote: In the W95 era I used a little-known audio player called Kjofol for my mp3 needs. Yes, I also used that for a while.

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Re: Pipeline Burst Cache (Pentium COASt Module era)

Posted on 2016-09-19, 07:51

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

WOW, 50% of a cacheless Pentium 200 is used up playing a single 256kb mp3!!?? I had no idea these computers were so underpowered they can't even play a simple audio file efficiently... Hehe. Did WAV files take any less cpu power? Depends on the player you use as well. On my P133, I could play a 128 …

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Re: i486 DX2 66 vs Am486 DX2 66 and the winner is...

Posted on 2016-09-19, 07:38

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Unusual, maybe, but entirely within their rights. I never said it wasn't. I'm just saying it is quite unique, and placed Intel in a unique situation. Hence, all the unpredecented licensing, stretching of license agreement terms and court cases that followed. However you want to view it, bottom line …

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Re: What happened to software rendering?

Posted on 2016-09-19, 07:17

by

by Scali

in Windows

in Windows

Bottom line is that GPUs developed too quickly for CPUs and software rendering to keep up. Initially, the same game could be played in software and with hardware acceleration. Eg Quake. The hardware acceleration would give you higher resolution, texture filtering, but other than that it was …

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Re: i486 DX2 66 vs Am486 DX2 66 and the winner is...

Posted on 2016-09-18, 22:03

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There's nothing specific about IP. That same article has sections on patent and non patent cross licensing. ... Not every cross license is for patents. I'm not interested in some kind of useless debate about semantics. As I said generally 'cross-licensing' is about IP, not specifically about …

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Re: i486 DX2 66 vs Am486 DX2 66 and the winner is...

Posted on 2016-09-18, 19:29

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The term you used, IP, is a blanket term often used to encompass (not exclusively) patent rights, trademark, trade dress, and copyright. Specific designs usually fall under copyright law and sometimes trade dress. The underlying technology falls under patent law (unless it's kept as a trade secret …

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Re: i486 DX2 66 vs Am486 DX2 66 and the winner is...

Posted on 2016-09-18, 18:40

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

To be precise, it was a patent cross license (extending the agreement of 1976) and technology transfer arrangement. In exchange for royalties and access to their semiconductor designs, Intel was in fact obligated to provide access to AMD under the terms of the 1982 agreement. This was the basis on …

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