Re: Fleet Defender Video Cards

Posted on 2021-07-14, 00:57

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

If you've got unloved Rage PCI cards around try those as the 2D part is Mach64 compatible. It only specifies VGA, wouldn't think you need anything too special, try your least bad trident or something.

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

Posted on 2021-07-13, 22:36

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yah, dis what I wanted to see.... AV11 recap project alive, PCChips M717 alive, 2 outa 4 ain't bad, the others I dunno what's going on throw different codes all the time. Gonna try a different PSU on them in case they seriously object to not having -5V or something. Might be hope for 19" monitor, …

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Re: Industrial PC

Posted on 2021-07-13, 19:30

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think you're asking an ISA system to speak through an ISA bus to a PCI card, which doesn't sound likely. An ISA VGA card may be a better bet.

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

Posted on 2021-07-13, 18:48

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Damn! DamndamndamndamndamndamnDAMN! Got some major monitor suckery going on. So I was testing a load of PII/III boards and wondering why not one came to life, and how come the POST codes all seemed to translate to errors that should be shown on screen, no KB, no boot device, POST finished, without …

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Re: Looking for advice: How to begin fixing a dead ISA sound card

Posted on 2021-07-13, 15:39

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

also try to take the card and bake it in the oven. It re flows the old soldering connections. There are few YouTube videos with how to. First, it will pop all the electrolytics, (Which might need replacement anyhoo, but don't destroy them first and wonder about the values later, document.) and …

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Re: PMMX-OD Jumper Settings for AST Advantage 824

Posted on 2021-07-13, 14:58

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As far as I am aware, you only need to set the best supported bus speed, i.e. 66Mhz the overdrive does the rest. So if it had a P100, P133, P166, P200, just stick it in.

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Re: Looking for a unicorn

Posted on 2021-07-13, 14:16

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Your perfect board is...... (drum roll) ..... http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/show/6001

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Re: Easy Win-95 era gaming PC.

Posted on 2021-07-13, 13:38

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Top CPU of a generation often goes for twice to four times the price of the next one down, so there's a case of "just not worth it". 200MMX will still be fast on MMX required software and 233MMX will still be too slow on PII required software. However, there were some boards top out at 200 for power …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-07-13, 02:25

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I am now the (honestly ambivalent) owner of a $1 Bigfoot 9.6a. It was sold to me as "BAD AS IS", and I am pleasantly surprised that the disk not only spins, but passed the Mac OS9 full disk test. That's the only system I had on hand that both supports more than 8GB drives, and had an available IDE …

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Re: A "broad spectrum" 90s build?

Posted on 2021-07-13, 00:42

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well the Asus ought to be the nice one and the PC Chips ought to be the horrible one, but 80% of my PC Chips boards are working and 80% of my Asus boards are playing dead, so make of that what you will.

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Re: Flying Dutchmen, White Whales, the ghost HW that eludes you, lost & found.

Posted on 2021-07-12, 22:19

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hmmm there's definitely some stuff that hasn't seen light of day between move #1 and now... I recall playing around with a PODP, possibly it was a 63Mhz one, I was not very impressed with IIRC, however, that could have been frustrated with it. It came to me without the fan module, so I was trying …

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Re: Which of these cards do you all recommend for 97-01 gaming?

Posted on 2021-07-12, 16:58

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Supposedly, nvidia drivers never uninstall cleanly whether you're upgrading or downgrading, causing various problems in "staying broken" as the version of a file that you wanted to replace is staying intact. Therefore it was usually recommended to run "detonator destroyer" between installations on …

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Re: 286 mobo cpu upgrades (386sx+) , opinions?

Posted on 2021-07-12, 03:09

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Seemed to me that in those days computer journos were jobless regular journos who if they'd used wordstar or something had enough PC experience to get hired. At least a bunch of them would spell wait states, waite states, bus, buss, and cache with an accent like they were trying to say cafe, or …

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Re: What do you regret throwing out?

Posted on 2021-07-12, 02:49

by

by BitWrangler

in Milliways

in Milliways

Due to a long distance move, I had to leave a lot of stuff behind. It was stored with a willing relative, and I hoped "someday" to get some of it, but they had to move before "someday" happened, and while some pieces might have gone to interested parties, I think in the main it was all scrapped. 2 …

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Re: Possible to display DOS/Win95 PC on a PVM?

Posted on 2021-07-12, 02:05

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's possible, easier if you've got a video card with TV out, still maybe doable with the tricks on Tomi Engdahls VGA to TV pages https://www.epanorama.net/circuits/vga2tv/cindex.html if you don't... However, there's some variance in behaviour with TV out cards, some don't put it out until it's …

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Re: My Windows 95 486 build

Posted on 2021-07-12, 02:00

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Everyone is really saying "stick a heatsink on it and see if your problems go away." because nobody really wants to put in troubleshooting time on something where there seems to be a glaringly obvious problem unaddressed. The use of a heatsink compound, thermal paste, wasn't actually terribly common …

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

Posted on 2021-07-12, 01:45

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This random piece of WTF??? comes courtesy of Mrs BitWrangler, who brought it home when they were throwing it out at work... okay, that was a while ago, but it just resurfaced at the back of a closet, so now you get to see it...

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

Posted on 2021-07-12, 01:37

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

No progress on Av11 today, my thinker is deturboed with the L1 and L2 turned off. Ppl been saying to me, "What you want for organizing your vintage PC stuff is a good old fashioned card file.." ... so I thunk, alright, I'll give it a go... Now the first page seems okay and all but I think it's just …

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Re: Documentation repository

Posted on 2021-07-11, 20:40

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

also bitsavers.org and retroarchive.org would be good for extra insurance, not sure if minuszerodegrees.net wants extra stuff to host or not.

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Re: Trying to find the right PS/2 Bracket for Baby AT system.

Posted on 2021-07-11, 14:32

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

See those little gold bits in the connector? Those are the latching tabs of the contacts, you press those with a jewelers screwdriver, pull the contacts out of the shell and arrange them however you want.

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