Re: CR2032 external battery holder?

Posted on 2022-07-11, 15:19

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Before you do this, I would warn you that I made some myself, and the CR2032 is sufficient to run the clock on a PCI Pentium board I have, but on the 386 and 486 boards, it only maintains settings in CMOS overnight (so it's definitely connected right) and the clock doesn't advance.

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Re: Help me finish this build

Posted on 2022-07-11, 02:52

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For an ISA sound card how about trying one of these new ones right here from vogons? MK8330 : new soundcard based on the CMI 8330 chipset

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Re: Help! Motherboard CMOS barrel battery!

Posted on 2022-07-11, 01:39

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

After checking to make sure that the BC12 header doesn't try to charge (it shouldn't) you could get one of those 3xAA alkaline holders for 4.5V, or a CR2032 holder on a header (3 volts). I've found on some boards the CR2032 works fine, while on others it's only enough voltage to hold the CMOS …

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Re: Question to INSIGHT DOS Debugger

Posted on 2022-07-11, 00:45

by

by jakethompson1

in DOS

in DOS

The dump memory window likely intentionally shows a different region of memory depending on whatever you tell it (0E6F:0000 or DS:0000 defaulted to the start of your data segment in this case) and isn't intended to be synchronized with cs:ip. For example, if the current instruction were rep cmpsw, …

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Re: Shuttle Hot 433 won't POST

Posted on 2022-07-09, 20:06

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Runs reliably at 133 MHz, occasional freeze at 150Mhz and hardly at all at 160Mhz Have fitted a 2-pin fan to the heatsink but am unsure where to power it from ? There seems to be no documented fan pins on the motherboard so a 2-pin adapter from a Molex PSU connector ? Correct. Many of the CPUs used …

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Re: 486DX2 SX955 and compatibility problem

Posted on 2022-07-08, 23:59

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I did another test: I came into possession of a DX4 WB, well, with this CPU the computer does not start, exactly as it happens with the DX2 WB. At this point I am thinking of an incompatibility with this memory scheme, in fact the DX4 with which IBM has released this computer and WT (I did not know …

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Re: 486DX2 SX955 and compatibility problem

Posted on 2022-07-08, 21:30

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I did another test: I came into possession of a DX4 WB, well, with this CPU the computer does not start, exactly as it happens with the DX2 WB. At this point I am thinking of an incompatibility with this memory scheme, in fact the DX4 with which IBM has released this computer and WT (I did not know …

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Re: How did you get started on retro computing?

Posted on 2022-07-08, 01:21

by

by jakethompson1

in Milliways

in Milliways

When I was very young and getting "into computers" in the mid to late 90s I was given a bunch of cast-off 386 and 486 systems by relatives/neighbors/etc. and also had a lot of the computing "for Dummies" books with DOS and other things I would play with on them. So I guess another "it was modern …

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Re: Load DOS games from scsi Zip/Jaz drive?

Posted on 2022-07-07, 00:04

by

by jakethompson1

in DOS

in DOS

I don't see why it wouldn't work, other than the drives would be slower than a hard drive and the drivers would gobble up (conventional, unless you're using emm386) memory which tends to be in short supply.

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

Posted on 2022-07-06, 23:50

by

by jakethompson1

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Fascinating info all, did not know that thing about most games including their own drivers. I definitely did find out the hard way, you can wreck the world by messing with the win95 config.sys last night, but it was pretty easy to unwreck. At some point I'll probably do something similar to what …

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

Posted on 2022-07-05, 04:46

by

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 2022-07-05, 02:29

by

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 2022-07-05, 02:22

by

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 2022-07-04, 22:47

by

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 2022-07-04, 19:20

by

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

by

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

by

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

by

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

by

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

by

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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