Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-01-19, 22:01

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I didn't buy any of these but found a seller offering these for around $30 each. I don't know if any of them are worth the money, so let me know if there's something special here? He also sent me photos of Socket 3 and 7 boards that are definitely now in working state (lacking BIOS chips and other …

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Re: What specs to look for to play DOS Quake, Diablo II, Warcraft III, etc. at HIGH native resolutions?

Posted on 2020-01-19, 18:45

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Good advice, and I think my problem (until recently), is I couldn't comprehend that something on a computer wasn't plug and play hardware-wise (i.e. having to physically mod hardware to get it to work - never, ever, heard of that in 30+ years since my first IBM PS/2 in 1988!). So I think …

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Re: AGP Card for MVP3 motherboard

Posted on 2020-01-19, 15:19

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Watch out that the FIC PA-2013 was the very first MVP3 board and had quite a few (electrical) compatibility issues. The rev 2.0 should be better, but there are reports of bad voltage regulators frying more demanding cards like Voodoo3 or TNT2 on this board. Note that these really are specific PA- …

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Re: ECS P6EXP-Me CPU Support?

Posted on 2020-01-19, 15:12

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hang on... if the Super I/O chip is short-circuiting, you have bigger problems than an incompatible CPU. In any event this is the i440EX chipset, so max 66MHz FSB in-spec and if you're lucky 83MHz OC. Also max 512MB RAM in total (or rather: 2 double-sided DIMMs, or 1 double+2 single-sided - if the …

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Re: Pentium 60/66 retrogaming use

Posted on 2020-01-19, 12:53

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Win98SE is wotking on a P60 with a pci usb card? Just for transferring files. It will run, but ensure enough RAM. <32MB and you're going to have to be very patient. I decided against running Win98 or even Win95 on my P60 to keep it fast and snappy. Remember, this is a 1993 CPU - that's 6 years …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-01-19, 12:48

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/VsgAAOSwC5RcW6vi/s-l1600.jpg 2x Unkown earlier socket 5 motherboards with aladdin chipset. Doesnt not have the i/o on the board (exeption seems to by one COM header?) Dont know the brand. Maybe an industrial embedded board or something?) Unlikely. At a guess I'd …

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Re: What specs to look for to play DOS Quake, Diablo II, Warcraft III, etc. at HIGH native resolutions?

Posted on 2020-01-19, 11:20

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

dionb, I would LOVE to buy my way out of this...but I can't find a way too lol. And Max, yeah, the kicker is that 100mhz bus speed - just don't seem to be easily/currently available. Well, no, they were niche 20 years ago and haven't exactly gotten any more common. But my main point is you seem to …

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Re: What specs to look for to play DOS Quake, Diablo II, Warcraft III, etc. at HIGH native resolutions?

Posted on 2020-01-19, 00:59

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There are both. The thing to look for with slockets is FC-PGA compatibility. There are three types of So370 pinout: PPGA (for Mendocino Celeron CPUs up to 533MHz only), FC-PGA (for Coppermine Celeron and P3 CPUs, and backwards compatible with PPGA) and FC-PGA2 (for Tualatin Celeron and P3 CPUs, …

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Re: What specs to look for to play DOS Quake, Diablo II, Warcraft III, etc. at HIGH native resolutions?

Posted on 2020-01-18, 22:44

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Then onto the hard part of getting it to boot-up and install Windows 98 SE....which went, if I'm to be blunt, pretty horrible. The Asus Slot 1 to 370 adapter doesn't work with a Coppermine. The jumpers aren't able to be set for 1.75v manually either, only 1.8v at the lowest, and the "CPU Def …

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Re: Gravis Gamepad

Posted on 2020-01-18, 22:38

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] I never actually used a Model M to figure out if it's the bad kind of 2KRO as on Thinkpads, or a reasonable kind, like on their later desktop keyboards. It's just as bad: IBM Model M: 2KRO. Fails ASX, WDE, WAQ, and many others. Ctrl-Shift-pretty much anything else too. I notice it in single- …

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Re: Should I Upgrade from Celeron to Pentium 3?

Posted on 2020-01-18, 19:26

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

While FC-PGA CPUs are flip-chips just like the Athlons, they are far, far more robust. Yes, it's possible to crack them, but no, unless you are utterly reckless, it's not going to happen accidentally. As for the speed boost, 256kB L2 cache beats 128kB, but the big drawback of the Celeron Coppermines …

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Re: Gravis Gamepad

Posted on 2020-01-18, 19:08

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sorry, I forgot to mention that my first gaming rig was a ZX Spectrum+ (bought circa 1985) and it didn't has joystick. My first console was a Gameboy Color, bought when I had a Pentium II. So I used keyboard for more than ten years before having a game pad... Of course, your keyboard was arguably …

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Re: Anyone use a 8"-10" TFT VGA monitor?

Posted on 2020-01-18, 13:55

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

An update to my old thread on this great little monitor. The only thing I disliked about it was its laughably short stand, which made plugging and unplugging the VGA cable a chore, not to mention how the low clearance meant that the VGA cord itself could tip the monitor. I always meant to rig a new …

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Re: Weird idea: 83mhz overdrive for 386 sx.

Posted on 2020-01-18, 13:49

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] This is interesting. So you swapped out a 386SX-20 for an IBM 486SLC2? I was always told that SLC2 is bus compatible, but not pin compatible with the 386SX. I guess this proves everyone wrong. Still, cache coherency is going to be a big mess. Given how many pins have been raised up and …

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Re: Counterfeit 287 FPUs on Ebay

Posted on 2020-01-18, 13:39

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Wow. I wonder when the counterfeiting occurred (recent or 25+years ago?). 287 chips seem like a pretty low volume, low cost item to be worth the effort. Maybe the seller was fooled as well. Indeed. Can't imagine it's even worth the paint job to fake these... OP, did you contact seller and/or eBay? …

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Re: Ultima VI Adlib vs Roland

Posted on 2020-01-18, 10:49

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

U6's music is great, period. I'd put it in my top 5 favorites for both AdLib and MT-32, despite lack of flair on the latter. Certainly when seen in its own time, it was groundbreaking, particularly how music was contextual - what you were doing in the game influenced the music. Of course that was …

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Re: Weird idea: 83mhz overdrive for 386 sx.

Posted on 2020-01-18, 09:36

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

No idea if this is possible, but I'd love to see it happen if it is. Unless you have an 060 in there, the x86 side would be like two orders of magnitude more powerful than the host system. You might even be able to run Fellow or an early version of UAE on the bridgeboard. :P The obvious - pointless …

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Re: Gravis Gamepad

Posted on 2020-01-18, 09:30

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Every single DOS game is better to play with the keyboard than with a digital gamepad. If you disagree, just spend some time practicing playing the keyboard - it's a much better investment of your time than trying to fiddle with the crappy controllers. *If* you have a good keyboard with NKRO, …

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Re: Pentium 60/66 retrogaming use

Posted on 2020-01-17, 18:32

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

P60 in 1999 i think was a "little bit" slow for anything past 1996 I was very relieved to upgrade to a Celeron 366 - but if you're a poor student, you can't buy a new system every year... and after I upgraded to 16MB RAM in 1996, it was current enough. Don't forget around 1996 the high-end might …

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Re: MB recommendation for P3 Tualatin 1.4GHz with on-chip socket adapter

Posted on 2020-01-17, 18:22

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thank you, guys! @dionb: Thank you very much for the suggestions. I'll take them into account. Yeah, it's a socket adapter soldered on the chip :-) Oh no it's not, it's soldered onto the package. The chip itself is the small rectangular thing under the heatspreader. Regarding the BIOS update, …

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