Re: Restoring a Packard Bell Retro machine to original condition

Posted on 2021-02-03, 21:48

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

[...] Soo0... not so much for gaming reasons (because then it'd be way easier to pick the best parts and leave it at that) but more for nostalgia's sake (it was my first full time job and I was so proud wearing a shirt and tie selling this stuff) I would very much like to restore this set. Problem …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-02-03, 18:43

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got hold of a card near the top of my 'must find'-list: 16123768354990.jpg Terratec EWS64XL - with a 16MB SIMM Friend of mine bought one in ~2000. He was intending to use it under Win2k for music production for his black metal group (er, except you weren't allowed to call it black metal despite …

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Re: If you have multiple PCs set up, how do you handle your sound output?

Posted on 2021-02-03, 16:46

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I've gone a bit mad recently, but here's my old setup: https://tweakers.net/i/TyJPTLCGuM4quNHAo2IYoz5pjvI=/full-fit-in/4920x3264/filters:max_bytes(3145728):no_upscale():strip_icc():fill(white):strip_exif()/f/image/ELuyV55OClyGgcAM5OaLxVij.jpg?f=user_large Audio is on the right-hand side. Behringer …

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Re: Help dumping a wavetable ROM from a Cardinal DSP16 / MPC700plus

Posted on 2021-02-02, 09:52

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Would be very interested to see how it compares to these ROMs from another AD Echo card: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=1557&menustate=38,0 I used those on my Beethoven ADSP-16 , concatenated to a single file. It works, but is the worst-sounding native MIDI I have heard (lots of …

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Re: Please help to identify this module

Posted on 2021-02-02, 07:46

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The PCB is pretty clear: this is a 1MB memory module. The 8 256kx4 FP DRAM chips indicate it works with a 32b wide bus, which would correspond to a 386DX or 486 if this were system memory for a PC. 4x 256kx1 chips are for parity, and the 74ACT244 chips are indeed buffers. Essentially this is a 72p …

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Re: Inherited Pentium 75 questions

Posted on 2021-02-01, 21:57

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

BIOS limits aren't like OS limits, you can't just use a smaller partition and ignore the rest of the drive - BIOS won't either. Exactly what goes wrong depends on the BIOS, but at best it crashes without losing your data, at worst the data gets fully corrupted. If your BIOS can't handle >2GB (very …

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Re: What microprocessor is in my 486? (The answer might surprise me)

Posted on 2021-02-01, 07:49

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Those pictures don't even remotely look like a Kingston Turbochip: Filename 300px-Turbochip1.jpg File size 22.34 KiB Views 828 views That does sort of raise the question: what leads you to believe that there's a Kingston CPU in that system?

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Re: CHiLL II : high current waveblaster interface board - development thread

Posted on 2021-02-01, 00:28

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Nice! Is that ChillXL enclosure also nearing completion? I have two daughterboards that stick waaaay out from the regular Chill 😉

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Re: Socket 7 and mmx

Posted on 2021-01-30, 19:50

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Socket 7 has *optional* dual voltage planes, the fundamental required difference between So5 and So7 is the presence of the BF1 pin for 2.5x and 3x multipliers. So a lot of early So7 boards do not offer split voltage, only that extra multiplier to be able to use P54C CPUs above 133MHz. And as for …

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Re: Dell OEM S150 TX2 BIOS

Posted on 2021-01-30, 10:57

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Maybe worth giving Uniflash a try...

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Re: What should I know about building my first ever Windows 98 Retro Gaming PC?

Posted on 2021-01-30, 10:48

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If your BIOS doesn't support >40GB you're going to need to do something to use that 120GB HDD. I'd recommend a PCI SATA controller (with its own BIOS) as opposed to that SATA PATA adapter that doesn't solve it. Now, most SATA cards require PCI2.2 and/or don't have Win9x support, but the Promise …

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Re: What is the Best driver to use with the CT2890 ?

Posted on 2021-01-30, 10:41

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This one is supposedly good: https://www.os2site.com/sw/drivers/sound/crea … ve/vib16os2.zip Or maybe: http://testou.free.fr/www.beatjapan.org/mirro … l%20Driver.html

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Re: Asus P2B and Adaptec AHA-1542B floppy controller problem

Posted on 2021-01-28, 12:17

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] I don't mention that but I checked that all the settings (IRQ, DMA, ...) are ok. I think that is a motherboard problem, when I remove the Adaptec ISA controller and disable fdc in bios the pc doesn't boot. Eh, that's weird, but clear enough: if it still fails to boot with AHA-1542B removed, …

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Re: Definitive list of all socket 5/7/SS7 cpus

Posted on 2021-01-28, 11:11

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Pentium 60 and 66 are all socket 4. First socket 5 cpus were 75 and 90. PS. Never seen any info on a Pentium 50, if it existed, then only some internal Socket 4 engineering sample that nobody has in the wild. I'll have to check. I swear my friend has a socket 7 60 I'll remove the 50 Nope. What he …

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Re: Asus P2B and Adaptec AHA-1542B floppy controller problem

Posted on 2021-01-28, 11:08

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Also don't see the added value of using the AHA-1542B FDC... However I do see what the problem might be: the AHA-1542B is non-PnP. You've set default jumpers on the card, but the BIOS has no way of knowing what they are. That will only work if you reserve the resources (particularly IRQ) in BIOS for …

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Re: Bad 2D performance

Posted on 2021-01-28, 11:02

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So, two different OS on same hardware give very different results. That means it's almost certainly driver related. Trying a completely different card (and VGA drivers) didn't help, so that's ruled out VGA as cause. One thing missing from specs: which chipset does this system have? Have the chipset …

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Re: Received a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k. Bad membrane?

Posted on 2021-01-27, 21:08

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Thanks so much for the reply. The startup screen does disappear pretty quickly. It varies between almost solid black and black stripes with coloured artifacts, but it disappears very quickly so I guess that's normal? After that the standard Sinclair Research prompt shows up. If it's …

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Re: Quest for the most compatible DOS audio chip setup.

Posted on 2021-01-27, 18:35

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

8830? Well, it's the best typo so far 😉

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Re: Quest for the most compatible DOS audio chip setup.

Posted on 2021-01-27, 07:45

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

WSS is technically the best DOS sound standard - but I'm not aware of any game that actually uses its 48kHz vs SB16 44kHz (hell, there are precious few that actually do 16b 44kHz and not just 8b 22kHz). Fundamental question is: are we looking at best compatibility for Soundblaster (Pro/16)- …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-01-26, 14:20

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] I see no reason why it wouldn't be effective. Some of us (myself included) clean stuff in a hot shower, the only difference being a higher temp in many dishwashers. Personally I hang things close to a radiator for drying (after shaking off excess water, of course), and give them at least 3 …

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