Re: The dream magazine about vintage computing: Super-quick, 4-questions survey

Posted on 2023-09-21, 10:25

by

by jheronimus

in Milliways

in Milliways

It would be like a revival of the old times… For example: starting from January 1986, every month, it would re-cover products, hardware and software, comments, articles that would have been covered if we truly were living in that month of that year, almost as if we were in a time machine. It would …

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Last version of MediaGX drivers?

Posted on 2023-09-17, 12:32

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi, all I'm waiting for my CS5530-based motherboard (ECS P5GX-M) to arrive, and in preparation I'm trying to trace the last full package of drivers for it. For one, I'm trying to figure out if there's anything newer than the drivers posted on Phil's website. Also, I'm trying to figure out if there …

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Re: VLB with newer chipsets

Posted on 2023-09-09, 22:22

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

VLB is not tied to 486 specifically, it is tied to FSB which was present on 386DX and 486 platform. Socket 4/5 motherboards most likely routed it through PCI. Funnily enough, it's the other way around, PCI worked using a bridge 82C822 chip to VLB (at least on Opti boards, not sure if the Toshiba …

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Re: Most stable plattform/chipset for pentium 3 gaming

Posted on 2023-08-08, 09:32

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

@all but in general besides Asus mobos from Abit and Gigabyte should also be save to recommend the 440bx line I guess? I think Abit kinda has a reputation for bad caps in this period. Personally, I've had good experience with Chaintech. But generally with 440BX boards the brand doesn't matter too …

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Re: Evergreen 5x86 Question

Posted on 2023-07-06, 12:32

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Mine comes with some cut wires that were soldered directly to the C22 capacitor Evergreen part G1 rev 1, copyright 1996, the datecode on the AMD chip is from 1997. Filename IMG_0410.png File size 734.27 KiB Views 532 views Can't seem to find an image of a chip that had the fan connected like that …

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Re: which specs would you recommend for a gaming rig that can cover the whole DOS area

Posted on 2023-07-05, 10:53

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Maybe a 486 build with a ZIF CPU socket? Then you could get a few common chips (like DX-33 and a DX2-66), maybe find a DX4 overdrive later on. Any 486 board will fit this profile, it's a very common configuration. A lot of 386-specific games will work using turbo. This way, your main P3 build will …

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Re: Picking a Sound Card for a 286-12/16 (Targeting 1987-89 Games)

Posted on 2023-06-14, 11:36

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I've used SB 2.0 with CMS chips on my 286 build. 286 feels like a nice opportunity to mess with CMS stuff, and also pre-SB16 Creative cards sound very nice for my taste. So out of your list I'd pick a Snark Blaster. One big limitation of the pre-SB Pro cards is that they use line-in only for …

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Re: How about a MR-BIOS ROM file repository?

Posted on 2023-05-13, 13:22

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

But I wonder how I can enable L2 cache . There is jumper setting on the mainboard and installed 256kB (9 KM68257CP-15 32K*8 Bit, including tag ram) but it was not working originally and still no option to enable it. Have you tried external tools to check L2 cache? Attached cachechk, pretty much the …

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Re: How about a MR-BIOS ROM file repository?

Posted on 2023-05-10, 12:33

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

ychh0 wrote on 2023-05-10, 11:56: Here is the bios, I could read bios with setting chip as AT27C010 and its 128kB Please check if it is valid or not. Do you know the name of the system this board came with? Is it Hyundai Solomon?

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Re: How about a MR-BIOS ROM file repository?

Posted on 2023-05-10, 12:22

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Here is the bios, I could read bios with setting chip as AT27C010 and its 128kB Please check if it is valid or not. Yes, seems like it's a proper image and it does contain the video BIOS. Thanks!: File: AMIBIOS_Hyundai_Solomon_486SX33HMz_ORG.zip:/AMIBIOS_Hyundai_Solomon_486SX33HMz_ORG.bin Vendor: …

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Re: How about a MR-BIOS ROM file repository?

Posted on 2023-05-10, 12:17

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

ychh0 wrote on 2023-05-10, 11:56: BTW, I couldn't access MR BIOS folder of dropbox that you attached. Could you check it? My bad, I posted a wrong link. Try this

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Re: How about a MR-BIOS ROM file repository?

Posted on 2023-05-10, 11:08

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Hello Thanks for the reply. Could you let me know where the bios is? I have chip programmer for bios flashing and think worth trying. As for video, I plan to use VLB video card and it does not matter if onboard video is not working. Thanks. All the images are here . The folders already correspond …

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Re: How about a MR-BIOS ROM file repository?

Posted on 2023-05-10, 09:09

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Hello. I wonder if there is MR BIOS for OPTi 82C802/82C601 486 mainboard. Hi! Well you seem to have a very tricky case. First, I don't think I ever saw any mentions of OPTi 82C802 in MR BIOS docs. In fact, it seems to be a pretty rare chipset — on TRW there is only one board with it . We do have …

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Re: How about a MR-BIOS ROM file repository?

Posted on 2023-05-05, 16:19

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

A bit of a heads-up for the person maintaining the Unicore BIOS repository, and anyone with a Tekram P5V30-B4 motherboard. The Unicore 2A59GTG9 BIOS is actually broken: it doesn't correctly assign PCI IRQs beyond the first detected PCI device, so everything past the first PCI device gets 'NA' IRQ. …

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Re: VIDEO BENCHMARKS (Original title: Settling the VIA C3 performance debate once and for all)

Posted on 2023-03-31, 10:52

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My turn to test a C3 Nehemiah 1200 with a C5P core. It's running on an Asus TUSL2-C, 512MB PC133 and Windows XP. I first used an eBay IDE to SATA converter (as you see on the photo) but it's really an unstable piece of junk, so I switched to a Promise SATA300 card. Interesting! I'm using a C5P core …

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Re: How about a MR-BIOS ROM file repository?

Posted on 2023-03-28, 13:55

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I've been able to find four names so far: Mike/Michael Meisner — mentioned as "the sole proprietor of Microid Research" in some sources from mid-90s (probably prior to their sale/merge with Unicore) Jason Raza — often listed as "contact at MR BIOS" on Usenet Rhod Williams (?) — mentioned as working …

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Re: microATX and AGP

Posted on 2023-03-16, 15:07

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Someone might correct me, but I think a lot of Pentium 4 motherboards with SIS chipsets have universal AGP. This one in particular is pretty common. The trick is that people often installed these motherboards in full ATX cases, so you might want to check for old office computers in your area. Of …

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Re: Were you ever hurt by a computer?

Posted on 2023-03-07, 14:34

by

by jheronimus

in Milliways

in Milliways

Oh yeah, if your AT build doesn't involve a little blood sacrifice, you're not doing it right

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Re: "Period correct" as a practical problem

Posted on 2023-03-05, 14:37

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Had an issue with an Elsa Gloria L videocard (somewhat early OpenGL card for workstations). I got it from a recycler and it apparently was lying under something with a leaky battery, so the acid covered several legs on the main chip. When I tried to clean it and run on a 440BX motherboard, it didn't …

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Re: My dream come true Windows 95/DOS machine.

Posted on 2023-02-01, 12:59

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Nice build! How are you liking the EWS64XL so far? Don't see people using that card too often lately. I own one, and it's a pretty cool card, but damn my headphone jack is noisy 😀 Maybe I'll give it another go after shielding the cables with tinfoil or something.

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