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

Posted on Yesterday, 04:20

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I did a double take at a CPU, dunno how long I've been ignoring this. It just fired a neuron that this DX2 66 doesn't have an S-Spec on it, and looking that up, I realised IBM made some straight intel 386 and 486 under license for a short while. However, other examples have the clue "MFG BY IBM" in …

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Re: Creating a voltage regulated 386 BL3 module from existing parts

Posted on 2023-03-20, 19:07

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Intriguing... I notice on my SL4100 BL3 cobalt lpx board, IBM stuck the VRM right next to the CPU to keep down the transients. I am not seeing it looking super "cappy" around the CPU though, so there may be potential for improvement. I feel like I'd kinda be in caveman mode on that 5khz though. "Who …

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Re: I recently found this hardware, AKA the Dumpster find thread.

Posted on 2023-03-20, 18:32

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The buses all use the same pins but the chip select and addressing go to different places. On some 8 bits, crippled chips were used for economy in that half the chip was unused due to die errors, so twice the apparent capacity was installed. Thus in some of those instances, a full chip soldered on …

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

Posted on 2023-03-20, 03:40

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I just want to say inventory management when you own 150 plus graphics cards is a real fucking nightmare. I'm sitting here looking at my spreadsheet and I've already thought of at least 3 graphics cards that I know I own, that I know work that aren't listed. Apparently just adding the card make, …

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

Posted on 2023-03-20, 02:59

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My DOS prompt was looking too flat and unmystical, so I pulled out the first fishbowl CRT I could see, which was a GoldStar 1430 plus... Fired right up, seemed to be doing well apart from only about 95% vertical height... was noodling around on it a bit, then after it had warmed right up it suddenly …

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Re: I recently found this hardware, AKA the Dumpster find thread.

Posted on 2023-03-19, 20:21

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Is it young enough to be in the era of large chain store special purchases, where they'd get a deal from the manufacturer on a large order with a slightly different model number so their regular channels wouldn't have to price match?

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-03-19, 20:15

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Low capacity hard drives are such a nightmare to find. I have like maybe 3 working drives under 2GB, the absolute smallest of which is the 500MB drive in my 486. I've noticed there are considerable jumps in reliability at the 2GB, 20GB and 80GB marks in terms of when that become the common hard …

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Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga

Posted on 2023-03-19, 15:13

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've heard about a scaler or screenmode utility specifically for Chips and Technology VGA, but can't remember enough to track it down easily, maybe the brains in this thread know what I'm talking about.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-03-19, 03:59

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Dang, you're gonna need earplugs, some tiedown bolts and ratchet straps to keep the system unit in the same room and a spare calendar to track the spinup time. 🤣 I hope it's a real slow 386 you're putting it in.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-03-18, 22:53

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There was a lot of talk about it in 94 or so and a lot of companies kicked off a project then I think. Hell, even I started designing a geometry and physics engine, broad strokes wise, it quickly became apparent that the proof of concept would fill enough boards to fill a filing cabinet sized rack. …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-03-18, 03:52

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My issue is that my muscle memory for entering backslash commands in DOS is totally destroyed by anything without a "normal" horizontal enter key. I have no muscle memory for doing backslash on keyboards with a big fat enter key or an ISO shaped enter key. Really limits my desire to use retro …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2023-03-18, 03:44

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I been having a "slow" week, if it isn't 5 minute tasks turning into all day games of phone tag, it's feeling like someone switched out all my coffee for decaf. I don't know if it's the daylight savings "jet lag" or early maple tree pollen or something. Anyway, discovered one more thing about that …

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Re: Informal poll on anecdotal failures of blank floppy media, specifically for documents needed for school or work

Posted on 2023-03-18, 01:44

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hah, a pox on Memorex, thought their translucent Neony colors were the crappy ones, but just found a solid color Memorex that won't read, memorex now gonna get called Alzheimerex round here.

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Re: SBEMU: Sound Blaster emulation on AC97

Posted on 2023-03-17, 19:58

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Did you read that? I'll quote directly from it.. "Those ignorant of copyright law have incorrectly taken this to mean that abandonware is legal to distribute, although no software written since 1964 is old enough for copyright to have expired in the US."

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Re: Oscilloscope advice

Posted on 2023-03-17, 19:51

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by BitWrangler

in Milliways

in Milliways

ADB with an Owon review, using it on C64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ec1n9ScGTw I'd definitely go with a USB scope btw on limited funds, all the money is in the critical parts rather than cheapass LCDs and SOCs

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-03-17, 17:25

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Dudes, stop prodding the monster lol .. I have a 7900GS I haven't put to use, so think I'll skip on the headliner, got some good stuff cheap though, could get yourself a hella lot of redundant storage with his HDD prices... I'm favouriting him for later though... when I fill up 6TB when I've got my …

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Re: Informal poll on anecdotal failures of blank floppy media, specifically for documents needed for school or work

Posted on 2023-03-17, 16:03

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I guess I'm gonna find out how good Sony DSDD (720) are quicker than anything else, I've only got 8, and been using them to transfer to XT portable, and I wanna get my turbo XT out which also needs DSDD. HD I've got the remains of a 50 box, and 2 sealed boxes of 10... though I feel cheated, my …

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Re: post up pics of your "computing area"

Posted on 2023-03-17, 03:25

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I'm sensing a slight theme there... you're a Compaq fan right? 🤣

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Re: Informal poll on anecdotal failures of blank floppy media, specifically for documents needed for school or work

Posted on 2023-03-17, 02:08

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hmmm, didn't happen to me in unrecoverable fashion until post 2000 when we got a box of extremely crappy Memorex in neon colors. Nearly all of those went bad in months. However copies were still on HDD. Prior to that, retail purchased disks seemed quite reliable and took some abuse. If there was …

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Re: FastDoom. A new Doom port for DOS, optimized to be as fast as possible for 386/486 personal computers!

Posted on 2023-03-16, 21:45

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by BitWrangler

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

I understand the argument but ... Since this is effectively a cheat You can't possibly be serious? The non-VGA versions are so difficult to see compared to anything higher resolution that it's already insanely more difficult to make out what's going on no matter how "bright" it appears. Your own …

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