Re: Which Voodoo with Matrox Millenium II and PPro 200 ?

Posted on 2020-02-06, 21:50

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

[....] Clock for clock comparisons are usually irrelevant because the whole purpose of a "new" architecture is to allow much higher frequency's. And thus easilly offsetting any IPC losses. "Usually" - yes. But not in this case. The 32b core of the P2 is for all intents and purposes identical to the …

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

Posted on 2020-02-06, 21:11

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you can't upgrade the wireless card in the iMac what about using a WiFi to Ethernet bridge ? That's an option, as is using a Powerline adapter - but I prefer the challenge of getting WiFi working natively. I've tried quite a few USB dongles already, many of which were supposed to be MacOS- …

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

Posted on 2020-02-06, 20:52

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Resurrected my iMac G4 this evening. I got it for free as it supposedly wasn't booting, but it booted the first time I tried. Once. All time&date settings lost of course - yep, dead PRAM battery, which on a Mac doesn't only store settings but also provides Vsb for soft power-on. A new lithium …

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Re: Article about the history of Creative Labs / interview with its founder/CEO: The Sound Blaster Story

Posted on 2020-02-06, 16:12

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

[...] I think the original SB deserves more credit here.. Hey, I called it a seminal product, that's about the highest praise one can give. It was a complete game-changer. It's the one thing Creative did that no one could (should...) argue with. As for the Live!, did it really set the benchmark in …

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Re: Article about the history of Creative Labs / interview with its founder/CEO: The Sound Blaster Story

Posted on 2020-02-06, 07:59

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Sort of interesting interview, but totally uncritical interviewer. AdLib is mentioned only in passing, the PAS (almost certainly the driver behind SBPro and SB16) not at all. Still, the 'our customers didn't give a shit about feature X so it wasn't a priority to us' rings depressingly true. Well …

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Re: Pentium 66 MHz vs 75 MHz shoot out (on a level field)

Posted on 2020-02-05, 15:25

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Actually if I was prepared to put my money where my mouth was, I could do this 'level playing field' comparison too - I have an Asus SiS501-based So4 board and someone is locally selling its So5 twin (together with a nice P3C-E and some relatively uninteresting cards). Unfortunately he isn't …

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Re: Pentium 66 MHz vs 75 MHz shoot out (on a level field)

Posted on 2020-02-05, 14:13

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I did not believe you so I went ahead and looked at the Quake results on thandor.net.. https://thandor.net/benchmark/33 And yeah, you are right, the P75's result falls right in line with where you would extrapolate for a 60MHz FSB processor. ...except that P75 is benchmarked on an i430VX board with …

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Re: Which Voodoo with Matrox Millenium II and PPro 200 ?

Posted on 2020-02-04, 23:20

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Voodoo 1 would be a good match, Voodoo 2 too, although the CPU would be a big limit there. Anything over that would be overkill (and would replace the Millennium II as they are all standalone cards)..

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Re: Article about the history of Creative Labs / interview with its founder/CEO: The Sound Blaster Story

Posted on 2020-02-04, 23:18

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Sort of interesting interview, but totally uncritical interviewer. AdLib is mentioned only in passing, the PAS (almost certainly the driver behind SBPro and SB16) not at all. Still, the 'our customers didn't give a shit about feature X so it wasn't a priority to us' rings depressingly true.

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Re: Finally!!! I found my childhood system!

Posted on 2020-02-04, 23:02

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got an ID on the P2 motherboard - it's a DTK PRM-0080i E1, probably RB revision. DTK was a big player in the late 1980s, but by the time this board came out they were on their last legs. Lots of dead links to manuals & stuff for it. Assume it can only do Klamath and Deschutes P2, maybe Katmai P3 and …

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Re: Finally!!! I found my childhood system!

Posted on 2020-02-04, 21:48

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Looks like awful shipping, but that black ABS (? - or some similar plastic) just crumbles after a few decades. I have a Sun Sparcstation 20 - generally built like the proverbial brick outhouse and in near mint condition, but it has similar wavy plastic that simply disintegrates even under a light …

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Re: Upgrading Socket 4 L2 cache to 2048k (ECS SI5PI MB)

Posted on 2020-02-04, 07:03

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Agreed that asynch L2 was underwhelming on So5/7, but negative impact? I don't have an i430FX system with asynch L2 atm, but I benchmarked one in the past, a Biostar 8500TEC. L2 disabled gave FLOATmem performance of 56.66, L2 enabled 59.44. Small difference, but definitely slower without cache. …

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Re: Best graphics card for my PB 233Mhz and DOS sound card

Posted on 2020-02-03, 18:08

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Will the Aztech 16C / 2320 sound card work well in DOS? It's definitely ISA but will i run into issues? Is it work getting another card? I'm not worried about actual sound quality or MIDI quality i just want it to work. Er, didn't you read the various comments in your first topic about this …

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Re: Replacing my Pentium 75 - what's the worst that could happen?

Posted on 2020-02-01, 15:13

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

All you need to do is swap out the CPU and change the relevant jumpers. Currently bus speed is set to 50MHz, that needs to go up to 66MHz. Theoretically you also need to change the multiplier jumper from the position for 1.5 to the position for 2.0, but in this case it won't matter as the SY022 …

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Re: Dimensions for Packard Bell Pulsar Desktop?

Posted on 2020-02-01, 15:11

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Somebody recently posted finding one of these. He should be able to measure it for you. Let's see if I can find the posts... Edit: Hang on, that somebody was you. Why not just wait until it arrives and measure it then?

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Re: Spec me a sound card to replace the Turtle Beach Fiji (Keeping the DB50XG daughterboard)

Posted on 2020-01-31, 13:37

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I'd second the Aztech 2316-based suggestion. An I38-MMSN824 Sound Galaxy Pro 16 II has the wavetable header in the upper right of the board and is large enough to support the DB50XG. Bug-free MIDI, real OPL3 and full hardware SBPro2.0 compatibility without TSRs make these boards a pleasure to work …

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Re: Until what date is a pc with ISA bus needed?

Posted on 2020-01-31, 12:36

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] I don't know of any post 1996 DOS game that does not run under Windows 9x and all PCI cards with SB Pro compatibility in Win9x should run those games flawlessly. The only games you really need ISA cards for are those that require Real MS-DOS and they don't exist beyond 1996 AFAIK. True, but …

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Re: Replacing my Pentium 75 - what's the worst that could happen?

Posted on 2020-01-31, 07:22

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Whenever somebody designs something to be more idiot-proof, we just get better idiots...

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Re: Until what date is a pc with ISA bus needed?

Posted on 2020-01-31, 07:19

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Yea, you hit the point, is exactly what mean. So there are DOS games (which require an ISA card) but at the same time they require a Pentium class CPU ... if they were very few it would not be worth spending a lot of money to get a DOS compatible pci card . You should have a list, or at least …

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Re: Replacing my Pentium 75 - what's the worst that could happen?

Posted on 2020-01-30, 22:01

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The worst that could happen would probably involve wounding yourself or a loved one on a pin of the old CPU, the wound getting septic and dying in slow agony. However that isn't exactly very likely ;) All you need to do is swap out the CPU and change the relevant jumpers. Currently bus speed is set …

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