Re: Default Behavior of DOS Mode on Win95 OSR2.1

Posted on Today, 04:46

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I've noticed a DOS box in Windows 9x often has BLASTER set even with no autoexec.bat, so not surprising DOS mode might have it too. I believe the sound driver would be doing that.

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Re: Wearnes Boldline 386-33, searching for additional information

Posted on Today, 02:29

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You could look at the pinout here: http://www.interfacebus.com/Memory_Modules_30 … IMM_PinOut.html and see if the Address 10 pin goes anywhere on your board. It would need to for it to take 4MB SIMMs.

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Re: Wearnes Boldline 386-33, searching for additional information

Posted on Today, 02:22

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Is it possible that 4MB is simply the most that board can take? BTW, that ISA-like connector underneath the DIP RAM is usually associated with proprietary RAM cards, so that could be another variable...

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Re: Restoring a small form factor 486

Posted on Yesterday, 22:47

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

For what it's worth I have switched over to sbc systems exclusively for my retro computing, and I have yet to see a 486 sbc with L2 cache, out of about a dozen I have gathered over the years. Ah, well, no need to grieve at not having any L2 cache on my board then at least :) Can see why you did …

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Re: Mapping ROM content to memory

Posted on Yesterday, 19:20

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I know about possible problems on non-original hardware, but I still want to experiment on 80286 motherboards. Before you map something at f600:000 it might be worth making sure there is nothing important there, right? You can boot a DOS floppy that has DEBUG on it, and in debug do: d f600:0000 If …

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Re: How important is having a turbo button?

Posted on 2022-07-03, 18:57

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are you sure your 486DX-33's BIOS doesn't provide turbo support from the keyboard? Control-Alt-Minus and Control-Alt-Plus? You're likely to get hooked and end up building a 286 anyway 😁

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Re: 386MAX source code released

Posted on 2022-07-03, 16:17

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Glancing at it, there is something about a custom C runtime library (qlib) that doesn't appear to be here so the C-based components may not be buildable. I can't find anything about qlib in the tree in commit 1edc33c, did you misread "qlink" (from the same author) or am I missing something? sorry, …

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Re: Help me choose compatible 30-pin SIMM memory for a 486

Posted on 2022-07-03, 02:01

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

OK now I am curious why it matters. Did Stason do something bad? Not really, just don't loike em simple as :) OK ok ok - got it - AND...I even contributed some pictures and a BIOS dump to: https://www.ultimateretro.net/en/motherboards/1041 Have any luck with the RAM? I believe the UM491 does not …

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Re: Wearnes Boldline 386-33, searching for additional information

Posted on 2022-07-03, 01:40

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It *could* be an ALR board, but I think it's unlikely. This board is quite clunky for 1990. It looks more like something designed for 1987. ALR was usually cutting edge. Yeah, it looks like it doesn't use an integrated chipset in the normal sense? I was wondering whether those DIP switches are read …

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Re: Dos memory woes

Posted on 2022-07-03, 00:51

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by jakethompson1

in DOS

in DOS

It deliberately doesn't include NOEMS because there are games that do require EMS. Two examples: The Incredible Machine 2 is one that refuses to run without it and Monster Bash needs it for digitized sound effects. Nevertheless, another configuration menu can be created using EMM386 with NOEMS …

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Re: Restoring a small form factor 486

Posted on 2022-07-03, 00:37

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

That datasheet actually seems to go into voluminous detail about EDO RAM. The usual consensus seems to be that 486 chipsets either don't support EDO at all or don't take maximum advantage of it. On page 95 that datasheet seems to claim it supports CP+5-1-1-1 and CP+1-1-1-1 read timing for page …

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Re: Restoring a small form factor 486

Posted on 2022-07-03, 00:28

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Wondered what further performance increase one could expect from L2 cache, which I believe my board isn't equipped with, or at least not enabled if present. I've of course read up on what every available jumper on the board does, there's nothing cache related :) Also tightened up the memory timings …

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Re: 386MAX source code released

Posted on 2022-07-02, 23:41

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

It looks like there are binaries under DISK/TMPOUT and LIB, and that those would now be presumably freely redistributable, so that's neat. Glancing at it, there is something about a custom C runtime library (qlib) that doesn't appear to be here so the C-based components may not be buildable. When …

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Re: CMOS battery for Gigabyte GA-686NX?

Posted on 2022-07-02, 18:25

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's inside the Dallas chip. You could buy a new DS12887+ chip ($11.28 at DigiKey), buy a GlitchWorks one with a replaceable battery, or get out your files/dremel and soldering iron and modify your existing chip to use an external battery. Hopefully the chip is in a socket and not soldered on...

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Re: Dos memory woes

Posted on 2022-06-30, 16:31

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by jakethompson1

in DOS

in DOS

I recommend picking up the book Running MS-DOS which among other things explains DOS memory configuration. I'm more of a KISS person rather than configuring such menus. Looks like you're in a situation without emm386. I would rename config.sys to config.bak and autoexec.bat to autoexec.bak, and c:\ …

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Re: Rare 386/486 VLB Motherboard: Unstable in 386 Mode

Posted on 2022-06-29, 20:11

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hmm is it actually ok to jumper the board for 128K cache yet have all 8 chips in? I would make the jumpers match that it's 256K double bank...

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Re: Rare 386/486 VLB Motherboard: Unstable in 386 Mode

Posted on 2022-06-29, 19:51

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

AT bus clock CLK2IN/6 is too fast I believe. CLK2 would be 66 or 80 MHz for a 33 or 66 MHz 386, so 11 or 13 1/3 MHz. You want CLK2IN/8 or CLK2IN/10 if you have those... A 486 doesn't use the double-speed clock which might make a difference...

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Re: Help me choose compatible 30-pin SIMM memory for a 486

Posted on 2022-06-29, 16:14

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by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just so you're aware, no more than the first 32MB (or at most 64MB if write-through or always dirty write-back) of RAM would be cached, and Windows allocates from the top down, so the uncached memory would be used first. In addition, if you're using an SVGA VLB card with a linear framebuffer, you …

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Re: Install win98se on larger hdd?

Posted on 2022-06-28, 22:11

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by jakethompson1

in Windows

in Windows

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-06-28, 21:40: I use relatively inexpensive 120 gigabyte SSDs with my Windows 98 computers, but I have used one terabyte conventional drives with the size limited using Seatools and they worked fine. Ah yeah, I believe Seatools does the same Host Protected Area trick I …

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Re: Install win98se on larger hdd?

Posted on 2022-06-28, 22:10

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by jakethompson1

in Windows

in Windows

As you can see, I'm a bit confused! I'm not interested in having a big HDD. If I have a 500gb drive that only displays 137gb, I'll be happy. I know there's a patch for larger drives but I'd like to try and not patch my way to making my computers work with 98se. Big drives support a feature called a …

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