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Inexpensive PCI/ISA Synthesis in MS-DOS/Win 9x

Posted on 2015-02-20, 14:26

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This is a topic I know has been done to death on the forums, but I wanted to see if I could get something specific to my situation here and none of my searching turned up a scenario close enough to what I'm working with, so let's give it a whirl (and, by all means, if there's a thread that covers …

Re: Sound Blaster 16 No Midi In Windows 3.1 Or Dos

Posted on 2015-02-04, 03:03

in DOS

in DOS

I had been using a Yamaha Audician 32 Plus, which works in a pinch, but has really nasty audio artifacts on playback. I managed to score a relatively inexpensive SB16 Wave Effects (CT4520) card, but I'm having the above issues. Actually, in Wolf3d, I'm getting no sound playback whatsoever with other …

Re: ISA Graphics Card Display Distortion

Posted on 2015-01-31, 16:12

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Once again, thanks to all of you for the great info. As it stands, I think I'll wait to test this card further (after cleaning the pins) until the 486 is ready for some real software testing. Given that it sounds like an Optiplex's onboard graphics adapter (mine is an Optiplex Gn+ if that helps) is …

Re: ISA Graphics Card Display Distortion

Posted on 2015-01-29, 04:43

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here is the card itself in all of its full-frontal glory. The removable chip I mentioned is installed. 20150128_215608.jpg The same card from the back. 20150128_215629.jpg And here is the chip on its own, with the "glop" on top of it plain to see. Like I said earlier, it looks like some kind of …

Re: ISA Graphics Card Display Distortion

Posted on 2015-01-29, 04:39

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Then why not use a PCI card? Even a slow PCI graphics card is faster than the fastest ISA card. Well, the short answer at the moment is that I don't have one - so onboard graphics it is. Since I had this ISA card floating around, I figured I'd give it a whirl and it was a dead end. I'll cast around …

Re: Retro Build for small living space/laptop?

Posted on 2015-01-28, 17:01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm sure you'll get a wave of good responses here, but I can speak rather highly of the old (beige) Dell Optiplex models. I have one running a Pentium 200 that is pretty solid (and cost me 25 or thereabouts) that easily fits under the monitor of my primary machine. Granted, I'm mostly doing DOS …

Re: ISA Graphics Card Display Distortion

Posted on 2015-01-28, 16:35

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks again for the great feedback. I'll see about getting pictures of the offending card tonight when I get home. As for getting pictures of the display anomalies, I could attempt to photograph the screen while it's acting up, but I don't know if that'll get the issue across properly. Given that I …

Re: ISA Graphics Card Display Distortion

Posted on 2015-01-28, 04:24

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I appreciate the link, but the effect I'm getting is... less sophisticated than what they're picturing. It's white, blocky pixels that refuse to change (another graphics adapter and a second computer on the same screen won't yield this effect) even while the rest of the image loads more or less …

ISA Graphics Card Display Distortion

Posted on 2015-01-27, 18:59

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This seems a little specialized, so I apologize if this has been covered in another thread. Just toss me a link if so. So, I was "given" an ATI ISA graphics card for the Dell Optiplex Pentium 200 I'm using as my more stable first foray into vintage hardware. I don't have it in front of me, so I …

Re: Old Laser 486 - Treasure or Trash?

Posted on 2015-01-21, 04:11

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Am I likely to have a problem with 4 AA batteries in the new enclosure when compared to the 3 battery original, or is an excess of voltage a non-issue? If I'm remembering how this stuff is tallied correctly, at 1.5 volts each, 3 AA batteries would be 4.5 volts in total for the purpose of the …

Re: Old Laser 486 - Treasure or Trash?

Posted on 2015-01-21, 02:12

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I can't take too much credit. I think this task was about as easy as a beginner could have hoped for. It was gratifying to see it work though when all was said and done. The original battery WAS an external box containing 3 AA batteries that had exploded and corroded all over the front of the …

Re: Old Laser 486 - Treasure or Trash?

Posted on 2015-01-21, 01:45

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

And we have life! It purred to life with the transplant guts in the original PSU chassis. As it happened, the soldering iron wasn't even necessary as both boards used a three pin header to connect to the AC outlets and switches. The color coding of the wiring was different, but there were no …

Re: Old Laser 486 - Treasure or Trash?

Posted on 2015-01-20, 21:08

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Fortunately, I was given a spare AT power supply, with the only issue being that it was a standard "external power switch" unit and would have required case surgery to be mounted. This offers some promise. I'll give it a whirl tonight and report back with the results. Thanks very much for the info. …

Re: Old Laser 486 - Treasure or Trash?

Posted on 2015-01-20, 19:52

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sorry to keep spamming my own thread, but I encountered something elsewhere on a thread regarding IBM 5150 power supplies. Is it possible to just take the guts from another power supply and transplant them into the chassis of the original Laser PS? I'd have to reconnect the board to the Laser PS …

Re: Old Laser 486 - Treasure or Trash?

Posted on 2015-01-19, 08:26

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Apologies for the late reply. Also, apologies to PeterLI because, if I had the slightest idea of what I would do with a PS/1, I'd be all over that. As is, I've only become aware of their existence through your mention of the one you're trying to give away. :lol: So, here are the pictures of the …

Re: Old Laser 486 - Treasure or Trash?

Posted on 2015-01-18, 18:52

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hmm... Point taken. Well, what are the odds of me finding an AT power supply that wouldn't require serious case modification to mount (i.e. the power switch is built on to the PS chassis instead of at the end of a cord)? Also, what are my odds on finding the drive mounting rails (or does anyone know …

Re: Old Laser 486 - Treasure or Trash?

Posted on 2015-01-18, 17:07

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Phew... Well, so much for easy answers. I was able to track down a used AT power supply for the cost of a thrift store flat-screen in trade and the 486 will post. Unfortunately, I'm having some difficulty getting a hard drive to mount on the ISA controller card (I'm assuming this is down to size …

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2015-01-06, 17:18

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm sorry to hear that I missed a halcyon era for collecting vintage gear. And yes, it does sound like the EU is a better place for this than the US. At this point, I'm a bit resigned to either shelling out or hoping that something like Craigslist yields some treasure I can make use of. I just …

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2015-01-06, 12:17

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This may be a tremendously stupid question, but I've seen mention all over the board of people going to "recycling centers" or dumpster diving and finding all of this amazing gear. Is this a primarily urban or European thing? I'm in Pennsylvania in the US and pretty much the only option out here …

Re: Old Laser 486 - Treasure or Trash?

Posted on 2015-01-03, 03:40

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Point. I think I will follow up some of these leads and see if I can't get this bad boy back into service. And I got to see a small sample of what that battery corrosion would have been capable of because the board containing the status LEDs and reset switch was mounted just below it. It only …

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