Re: EARLIEST CD-ROM Drives that could Read CD-R's ???

Posted on 2020-02-23, 05:38

by

by Plasma

in Milliways

in Milliways

FYI most older CD drives have a pot inside that adjusts the laser power. You can tweak this to improve compatibility with CD-R and CD-RWs. But sometimes you will find the setting needed for CD-RW makes CD-ROMs no longer work...

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Re: Reflashing the BIOS of a bricked Adaptec 29160?

Posted on 2020-01-14, 22:13

by

by Plasma

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think most BIOSes check the MBR. I believe the behavior stems from the IBM 5150/5160/5170 and trying to maintain compatibility. The 5150/5160 always load and execute the floppy boot sector if there is a disk in the drive. The 5170 checks that the first 16 bytes of the floppy boot sector aren't …

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Re: Reflashing the BIOS of a bricked Adaptec 29160?

Posted on 2020-01-14, 21:14

by

by Plasma

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Right. The issue raised was that if you change the wrong location then the MBR check will fail.

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Re: Reflashing the BIOS of a bricked Adaptec 29160?

Posted on 2020-01-14, 20:44

by

by Plasma

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Many BIOSes don't check for a signature in the floppy boot sector. Which is why every PC-formatted floppy contains an executable boot sector prompting you to insert another disk when the floppy is not "bootable." Even if this check exists it's not going to be in the option ROM code.

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Re: Reflashing the BIOS of a bricked Adaptec 29160?

Posted on 2020-01-14, 02:36

by

by Plasma

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Floppies don't have MBRs...

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Re: Reflashing the BIOS of a bricked Adaptec 29160?

Posted on 2020-01-13, 10:31

by

by Plasma

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Predator99 wrote on 2020-01-13, 10:27: If your Mainboard BIOS is not compressed it should be an easy modification. Search for 55 AA in it and change to AA 55 (or reverse?) After that the option ROM of the SCSI Adapter should not be detected anymore? You'll need a mono or CGA card if you do that …

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Re: Reflashing the BIOS of a bricked Adaptec 29160?

Posted on 2020-01-11, 08:31

by

by Plasma

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If your BIOS has the option to disable storage option ROMs you should be able to boot with it installed. From there you can boot from a floppy and reflash.

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Re: Xbox 360 USB controller under DOS?

Posted on 2020-01-10, 02:45

by

by Plasma

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think the old Logitech Wingman Software (LWS) worked with DOS games in Windows 9x. I don't know if it works with non-Logitech controllers though. With all the USB-enabled microcontrollers out there, an ISA game card with USB ports would be a cool project. You could make it appear to the PC like a …

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Re: Welcome to the updated VOGONS

Posted on 2020-01-06, 01:14

by

by Plasma

in Milliways

in Milliways

Calm down.

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Re: Welcome to the updated VOGONS

Posted on 2020-01-05, 20:59

by

by Plasma

in Milliways

in Milliways

A) Seems like you are from your replies B) Your interpretation of my timeline is off C) I wasn't referring to Snover D) It's pointless and counterproductive E) k

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Re: Welcome to the updated VOGONS

Posted on 2020-01-05, 20:37

by

by Plasma

in Milliways

in Milliways

I'm simply pointing out the irony in doing a modern redesign, telling everyone who complains to "get with the times", and then whacking in the Win95 mouse cursor. If that offends you, feel free to ignore me.

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Re: Welcome to the updated VOGONS

Posted on 2020-01-04, 21:33

by

by Plasma

in Milliways

in Milliways

Is it just me, or does the forum now hijack my mouse cursor? Instead of the mouse cursor I have set in my OS settings, it changes it to a weird, thin and very small mouse cursor. Something tells me you've never been to a retro computer site that changes the mouse cursor to look like the one from …

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Re: advice for DOS / Win3.11 / Win9x / WinXP multiboot

Posted on 2020-01-01, 17:01

by

by Plasma

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

XOSL works great for multibooting DOS/Win9x/XP. It supports partition hiding as well.

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Re: Welcome to the updated VOGONS

Posted on 2020-01-01, 13:59

by

by Plasma

in Milliways

in Milliways

I'd rather have the stock phpBB theme than this eyeball assault.

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Re: Game pads for DOS ?

Posted on 2019-03-05, 03:26

by

by Plasma

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't know about you guys, but after an hour or two of Warcraft / Starcraft, I would love to have ANYTHING other than a keyboard for directional input. Especially when I'm playing on a couch, with a keyboard in my lap, using my left hand to control the arrow keys on the right side of the keyboard …

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Re: Game pads for DOS ?

Posted on 2019-03-03, 19:13

by

by Plasma

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't agree with the Gravis Gamepad hate...they work fine and we were using them long before Playstation and XBox existed. Some games work better with gamepads than others. Platformers are great. Racing, not so much. I dont know about you. But I played Playstation in 1995. That's nice. Gravis …

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Re: Game pads for DOS ?

Posted on 2019-03-03, 15:40

by

by Plasma

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't agree with the Gravis Gamepad hate...they work fine and we were using them long before Playstation and XBox existed. Some games work better with gamepads than others. Platformers are great. Racing, not so much.

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Re: PCie-to PCI, PCI to ISA, # of slots multipliers - bridges, risers, backplanes, research, especially for DOS, WIP.

Posted on 2018-11-27, 02:04

by

by Plasma

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

http://arstech.com/install/ecom-catshow/usb2.0.html Thanks for link, could you just add some more info? If just googled it, or if you have some personal experience with it, or reference? More info about compatibility, if is working in DOS etc? Update: I just read description its XP+ / MacOS 10.7 / …

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Re: PCie-to PCI, PCI to ISA, # of slots multipliers - bridges, risers, backplanes, research, especially for DOS, WIP.

Posted on 2018-11-26, 10:13

by

by Plasma

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Realistically, the only way I can see that it is possible to get an ISA card working in a modern machine is if you produce your own device with an ISA slot on it, with your own custom translation protocol on it as well. You would then write a driver that speaks this translation protocol and makes …

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Re: Can you buy replacement internal VGA cables?

Posted on 2018-11-05, 10:15

by

by Plasma

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

If the internal connectors are the same style, you should be able to use a small screwdriver to release the pins and swap connectors. No soldering required. Make sure to match the pinout to the HD15 connector.

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