Re: OPL2LPT

Posted on 2017-12-24, 17:02

by

by derSammler

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

The idea that Yamaha is still making these chips defies logic and common sense. Which won't change the fact that this is all still based on assumptions. Just remember how long Sony produced 3.5" floppy disks. There are niche markets that we don't know about. Anyway, that blog post just makes …

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Re: Affordable external MIDI devices

Posted on 2017-12-24, 15:13

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

In Germany, all these are very cheap on ebay. I've got an SC-7 for 30€, SC-55 and MU80 for ~50€ each, and most expensive was a SC-88 Pro for 90€. So I recommend looking on ebay.de or ebay.co.uk for sellers that offer international shipping.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-12-24, 14:19

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Also an unusual PCI-IDE cache controller. Isnt that SIMM memory slower than the PCI bus? The point is that the SIMMs are used for caching and are faster then the connected IDE hard disk drives. I own that controller too, incl. the legacy ISA board. DOS and Windows 3.x are blazing fast with it. When …

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Re: OPL2LPT

Posted on 2017-12-24, 10:03

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I believe that calling these chips as "authentic" chips may be a bit of a stretch. For the reasons given at the end of this blog post, http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2017/12/parallel-serial-sound-card-emulation.html, I believe these could be remarked clone chips, used pulls or factory rejects. …

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Re: New DreamBlaster S2 !

Posted on 2017-12-24, 09:58

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Nice, but still not even using half of the memory. Why? The quality of the samples could be doubled . :) And where should these samples are coming from? That bank was made from already existing samples. Feel free to sample the 128 GM instruments with higher sample rate and provide them to the …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2017-12-23, 21:01

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just repaired a Diamond Multimedia Stealth 3D 2000 (ViRGE 325). Not sure if it was worth the effort... 😊 IMG_20171223_215823149.jpg

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Re: Most frustrating part of working on old computers?

Posted on 2017-12-23, 15:06

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For the same reason, I use Zip100. They exist as IDE, SCSI, USB, and parallel port versions, working on PC and Mac. Not even drivers are required. For DOS, you just start GUEST.EXE which will assign a drive letter to whatever Zip drive is found.

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2017-12-23, 14:44

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Asrock K7S41 and K7S41GX brings back memories. I must have build like 8 machines with those boards, each day during 2005. The worst part of them are the dreaded low quality cap's. Else they are kind of the boards, used for budget machines during that time period. Caps on that one are still good, …

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Re: Impossible to solve SCSI problem

Posted on 2017-12-23, 10:02

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What drives, how are they connected? Give some more details and post pictures of the hardware. Also, this confuses me: "Moving cable from LVD to SE port". If your devices are LVD, then they must be connected to the LVD port. You also need LVD terminator(s) then. It's very important to understand …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2017-12-22, 22:06

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's because the bug was mainly a big hype and as written, not many PCs really suffering from it.

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Re: Looking for a Quadtel 40 Pin Keyboard/Mouse Controller Chip

Posted on 2017-12-22, 21:22

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes, they are 8042 and should all work the same. However, it will probably not help you. That chip has absolutely nothing to do with the mouse. If the mouse behaves strange, the problem lies elsewhere.

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2017-12-22, 21:00

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's not correct. Y2K bug means that the RTC can only store 2 digits instead of 4. So everything 20xx becomes 19xx. But who cares anyway. I haven't seen many PCs really suffering from that problem.

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2017-12-22, 20:03

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote: Did any of the other mobo's survive? Seems so. I did not test all of them yet, for many I don't even have a fitting CPU. From 3 tested, 2 worked, which is a good rate so far. 5 were beyond repair (not even tested due to severe physical damage).

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Re: OPL2LPT

Posted on 2017-12-22, 18:13

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Just noticed that the OPL2LPT is also a great tool for testing the parallel port. 😎 IMG_20171222_190904163.jpg IMG_20171222_190854890.jpg System is an AMD Duron 800 running MS-DOS 6.22 from a DOM.

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Re: Cache Module CA256K FOR 486 M919 USE ONLY

Posted on 2017-12-22, 14:34

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

PC CHIPS is crap anyway, this won't ever gain value in the future.

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2017-12-22, 12:59

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Restored an ASRock K7S41GX Socket A mainboard from the pile of scrap mainboards I got lately. Has a Duron 800 now, 512 MB DDR RAM, new coolers etc. May use it in the future for a ME/XP build. IMG_20171222_134851763.jpg

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Re: Problem with ESS Solo-1 DOS Emulation

Posted on 2017-12-22, 12:23

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

But SB Pro has no high DMA. You must be confusing something. What are your settings exactly?

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WDC VGA 16 (WD90C00-JK)

Posted on 2017-12-22, 10:25

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Got this card together with a 286 mainboard from an old Peacock PC. Seems to be the same card as the Paradise PVGA1A-JK after WD bought them. Even the FCC ID is the same... Is that card any good? Would it provide enough speed for something faster than a 286? IMG_20171222_111731450.jpg

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Re: Problem with ESS Solo-1 DOS Emulation

Posted on 2017-12-22, 10:13

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

dr.zeissler wrote: But there are some Problem remaining. My card does not seem to work in games that use the high-dma for SB. E.g. Rampage, Duke3d, Rott, ShadowWarrior etc. Probably because it doesn't do SB16 emulation..?

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Re: Antistatic tape - do you use and where to buy?

Posted on 2017-12-22, 09:37

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by derSammler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just do a google search. There are lots of (technical) articles explaining why ESD is a big problem, even if many people think it isn't, since "they never had any ESD damaged". Problem is, most articles are long and not easy to understand. Those two blog entries are, no matter the source.

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