Re: 60hz boot is possible?

Posted on 2019-05-02, 10:33

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I will keep digging into BIOS hacking, although with these old video cards (cirrus VLB,trident 9000i is what I have at hand) the information is scarce. It's not going to be easy. Each VGA card has its own BIOS. You'd have to dump the VGA BIOS, then reverse-engineer it to find the video mode setup. …

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Re: Commodore Bankruptcy Anniversary

Posted on 2019-05-02, 10:28

by

by Scali

in Milliways

in Milliways

As for the irony part, the CBM decided to name the card "AGA". It gave it the name of an advanced future Amiga chipset, technology aside. IBM did the same thing with the PCjr in 1983. They named the enhanced onboard CGA adapter the "Video Gate Array", or VGA. My point was: Commodore had the know- …

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Re: Commodore Bankruptcy Anniversary

Posted on 2019-05-02, 07:23

by

by Scali

in Milliways

in Milliways

brostenen wrote: The page states that it is made by ATI, for the Commodore PC 10/20 line of x86 machines. Yea, it's a rebranded ATi Small Wonder (the PCB is marked 'GSSC' which stands for Graphics Solution Single Chip). Later PC10/20 models used a Paradise PVC4 instead, which is very similar, …

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Re: Windows 95, 3Dnow, and SSE

Posted on 2019-05-02, 07:18

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

jmarsh wrote: I said it doesn't work, didn't I? That can be an assumption.

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Re: Windows 95, 3Dnow, and SSE

Posted on 2019-05-01, 18:54

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

jmarsh wrote: With a warning like that do you really think it works when run inside windows? (Hint: it doesn't.) You tried?

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Re: Windows 95, 3Dnow, and SSE

Posted on 2019-05-01, 18:47

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

jmarsh wrote: Give me a win95 program that uses SSE then. I can make a proof-of-concept for you sometime. But right now I'm too busy with other projects. Perhaps you can ask Falcosoft, as he has this tool on his website. He's probably used it.

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Re: Windows 95, 3Dnow, and SSE

Posted on 2019-05-01, 18:43

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I said it was incorrect to say it would work with only one program. Under regular Win95 (i.e. no hacky patching or whatever) it will not work at all. But then I explained that it is possible to enable the flag in CR4, after which the 'one program' scenario takes effect. And then you still denied it …

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Re: Windows 95, 3Dnow, and SSE

Posted on 2019-05-01, 18:34

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Using a kernel exploit to fiddle with control registers is not "the right way." Now you are moving the goalposts. You never said "the right way" before, nor did I. You were arguing that it was categorically impossible, which it isn't. Also, it's just a DOS .com file, so I wonder how that works... …

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Re: Windows 95, 3Dnow, and SSE

Posted on 2019-05-01, 18:20

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Maybe jmarsh is speaking from a "practical" perspective - like "No programs/games/drivers (to date) use SSE under Win95" rather than "it's theoretically possible and could happen in the future". In that case he is phrasing it very poorly: "regardless of whether multiple or single program(s) attempt …

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Re: Windows 95, 3Dnow, and SSE

Posted on 2019-05-01, 17:19

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

To prevent misinformation. SSE is not usable on win95 regardless of whether multiple or single program(s) attempt to use it. Firstly, we disagree on that point, as my previous posts have already made clear: it is possible for a program to use a ring0-hack to enable SSE by manipulating CR4 (assuming …

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Re: Windows 95, 3Dnow, and SSE

Posted on 2019-05-01, 14:41

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

"Could" be possible, but the reality is it simply never happened. It didn't? Did you research this? Configuration register bits that are undefined are routinely declared as "must be zero" and trying to set them often causes a fault, precisely to safeguard forward compatibility. Did you research …

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Re: Windows 95, 3Dnow, and SSE

Posted on 2019-05-01, 13:20

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The theory that SSE would be usable for only one program is incorrect; It is not. I think you are confusing two things here: 1) Enabling/disabling SSE at CPU-level. 2) Handling support of SSE in the OS and application levels. Assuming 1) is enabled, and 2) is false, then only one program will be …

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Re: Commodore Bankruptcy Anniversary

Posted on 2019-05-01, 09:26

by

by Scali

in Milliways

in Milliways

The way I understand it, there were a number of problems: The Commodore 64 sold very well, but the cost-cutting that Jack Tramiel did to get there, meant it wasn't all that profitable. A good short-term strategy to gain marketshare, and eliminate competitors, but not sustainable. The Amiga was a …

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Re: MIDI adapter cable DIN5-DB15

Posted on 2019-04-23, 11:07

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Yes, they do.

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Re: IBM Music Feature Card/Yamaha FB-01

Posted on 2019-04-22, 15:57

by

by Scali

in DOSBox Development

in DOSBox Development

I released a simple music disk for the IBM Music Feature Card at Revision this weekend: https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=81106 I made sure that my code is compatible with the DOSBox and AMAME setup that I posted a few weeks ago. Let's say it was fun to hear that IMFC blasting through the huge …

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Re: GLX Player the only XT player ? Check Mod Master...

Posted on 2019-04-21, 08:53

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

matze79 wrote: Is SETDAC only possible on Tandy or will it also allow to modify Bios Table on Standard PC ? If it indeed just changes the value that the BIOS stores for the LPT1 address, then it should work on any PC or compatible machine. It's a standard BIOS feature.

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

Posted on 2019-04-17, 20:43

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Finished a simple music disk release for the Revision demoparty this weekend.

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Re: general colour depth queston

Posted on 2019-04-16, 09:00

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

You'll probably notice that 24-bit results in a massive drop in framerates, and might even make your system go out-of-memory.

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Re: general colour depth queston

Posted on 2019-04-16, 08:52

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Basically true colour was a 'luxury' back in the early days of 3D acceleration. The extra processing power, memory and bandwidth requirements meant that it was not practical to use these modes, so gamers generally used 16-bit modes. PowerVR is an exception here, because its unique TBDR architecture …

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Re: Sound Blaster Pro 1.0 vs. 2.0

Posted on 2019-04-14, 05:53

by

by Scali

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

A "Sound Blaster Pro 1.0 - Dual OPL2" will correctly play "single OPL2" but not single "SBPro2 OPL3"? A "Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 - OPL3" will correctly play "single OPL2" but not "Sound Blaster Pro 1.0 Dual OPL2"? Yes, basically the stereo option between the two is not entirely compatible (you could …

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