Re: Anyone have AT form factor specification?

Posted on 2022-07-26, 22:37

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Could someone maybe get out one of their AT motherboards and measure the distance from, say, the mounting hole at the corner where the keyboard connector is, to the center of the keyboard connector? I want to compare and determine if it's the case or MB that's off. Inches or cm are welcome lol. …

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Re: Anyone have AT form factor specification?

Posted on 2022-07-26, 22:23

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I got this NOS AT case and motherboard, and the keyboard connector is not centered in the case hole. It's strange, I've never expected this would even be a thing. From the case's perspective, the keyboard connector is too close to the expansion slots. The keyboard plug does fit into it without …

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Re: What do you drive?

Posted on 2022-07-19, 20:10

by

by kaputnik

in Milliways

in Milliways

Got a nasty old Peugeot 307 SW for transports. When it comes to actual driving, it's of course retro all the way: a10.jpg BSA A10 "Golden Flash" anno 1956. Fun fact. You'd think mostly old geezers would come up and talk whenever you stop, "used to have one of those back in the day" etc. That's never …

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Re: Company names with abbreviations

Posted on 2022-07-19, 17:27

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A few from mind, might not be 100% correct: MSI, Micro Star International IBM, International Business Machines DFI, Diamond Flower Incorporated ALi, Acer Labs incorporated AMD, Advanced Micro Devices NEC, Nippon Electric Company

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Re: What old hardware you own is yet not found a better modern equivalent ?

Posted on 2022-07-06, 14:19

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Haven't managed to find a trouble free PCIe parallell port card yet. There's always limitations, devices simply refusing to work with it, fiddling around with settings trying to get it working, etc. Not like the old ISA and to some extent PCI ones. which you just installed, and then they'd work with …

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Re: Restoring a small form factor 486

Posted on 2022-07-05, 20:01

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I have just been using isa backplane. They all seem to have quite capable vga integrated video. Ah of course. You'll miss out on Voodoo cards and have to live with 10Mb/s network speeds though. Have you considered respraying or modding the case? It's a nice form factor but I can't say it looks very …

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Re: Restoring a small form factor 486

Posted on 2022-07-05, 17:45

by

by kaputnik

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: Restoring a small form factor 486

Posted on 2022-07-05, 17:29

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Did you figure out whether your SIMMs are EDO? If you go by wikipedia part of the motivation of EDO was to close the gap between cacheless and having L2 cache... would be interesting to see some benchmarks vs. other cached 486DX-33s if yours is EDO and you can tune the BIOS to take advantage of it. …

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Re: Restoring a small form factor 486

Posted on 2022-07-04, 23:02

by

by kaputnik

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: Restoring a small form factor 486

Posted on 2022-07-04, 22:45

by

by kaputnik

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: Restoring a small form factor 486

Posted on 2022-07-04, 20:00

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Some notes from the former owner of the DX33 :) The cpu is from my Compaq Prosignia that I upgraded to a DX2 66 a while ago. Nice to see that it gets some more life out of it instead of filling my desk drawers. ISA graphics is limiting in newer games on a 486 but if you stay away from SVGA titles …

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Re: Restoring a small form factor 486

Posted on 2022-07-03, 08:22

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Indeed your board doesn't have an L2 cache or sockets for one that I would see. It would be pretty obvious as it would be nine DIP chips. Here is the datasheet for your chipset: http://66.113.161.23/~mR_Slug/pub/datasheets/chipsets/ALi/M1489-2.pdf Looks like on page 95 it gets into what fast/ …

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Re: 80486 BIOS image collection

Posted on 2022-07-02, 10:53

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

#: 120 Manufacturer/Identifier: IEI SSC-5X86H VER:C Chipset : ALi 1487/1489 BIOS : Award Modular BIOS v4.51G ID string : 06/28/96-ALI-1487/89-2A4KDD35C-00 Note that this image is a dump of the installed BIOS on my SBC, not an official update image from IEI. Edit: Removed BIOS file temporarily, will …

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Re: BIOS image collection - requests, discussion etc

Posted on 2022-07-02, 10:44

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Looking for an updated BIOS for the IEI SSC-5X86H VER:C ISA single board computer. Haven't been able to find any images online, but it seems like the SSC-5X86H was in production for years after mine was made in May 97 according to the QC sticker. Maybe later specimens shipped with newer BIOS …

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Re: Restoring a small form factor 486

Posted on 2022-06-30, 21:58

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Disabling the cache on my old 486/DX2 66 was how I made it run at 386 speeds. I'd bet thats your culprit on your speed issues. If you look at some of the old DOS game guides, you'll see disabling the cache as a recommended step on some games to slow them down. Also hi all :D That sounds more like …

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Re: Restoring a small form factor 486

Posted on 2022-06-30, 16:15

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I run my DX33 with no cooling at all and it's fine. L2 cache makes a BIG difference Would it be possible to to specify "big difference"? Is it 5%? 10%? 25%? You know how hardware folks are. Don't know how many reviews I've read where the object is said to completely obliterate the competition, but …

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Re: Restoring a small form factor 486

Posted on 2022-06-30, 12:26

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

So, got this baby up and running, it was the CPU :) Working on configuration and ironing out the details now. A couple of questions have arisen: - How much performance does external cache give a 486? Got the internal cache working, and the computer now performs as I remember the family's 486 DX33 …

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Re: Wireless networking under DOS?

Posted on 2022-06-26, 21:51

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

OpenWRT is also my favourite. The only weakness is they - for whatever reason - only offer ready compiled images for the US reglatory domain, so if you´re somewhere in Europe and need any of the extra channels you´re lost unless you compile everything yourself from scratch. Since for DOS systems …

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Re: Wireless networking under DOS?

Posted on 2022-06-26, 16:12

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You will probably find http://www.brutman.com/Wireless_for_Classics/Wireless_for_Classics.html helpful. Short story: Many routers can do this, and travel size routers are particularly good because of their small size. Using an old Nexx WT3020 travel size router for this. Bought it almost ten years …

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Re: Help! PC won't power on with Slotket

Posted on 2022-06-25, 12:49

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I had a very good experience with the slot adapter from MSI 6905. Yeah, the MS-6905 Master is my goto slotket nowadays too, it never fails you. It can easily be modded for Tualatin aswell, since it has the necessary VID jumpers for voltages < 1.8 :) Bought a bunch of them some years ago when they …

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