Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-05-01, 22:13

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Nothing wrong with having some luck :cool: [...] On the other hand Asus boards are the ones I collect and use the most in my builds but none of my s7 and ss7 Asus boards boot with a tillamook with working cache, even after the mod. So it wouldbe awesome to have that board and even greater if …

---

Re: Can I install MS-DOS 6.22 onto CF using USB to CF adapter on modern pc ?

Posted on 2019-05-01, 13:02

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My solution to this dilemma when I got back into retro computers a year and a half ago: use an in-between step: Win98SE The Win98SE installer boots from CD and can work on some relatively recent systems. But it's also based on DOS, so you can format the CF in a way that will boot on really old …

---

Re: Media vision Pro audio spectrum 16 compatibility List

Posted on 2019-05-01, 08:22

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

[...] But i think PAS16 would sound different compared to a SB16. some tones must not be the same (thats what i think, maybe im wrong) Afraid you're wrong. It's just a difference in filtering and potentially (but rarely actually) effects such as the surround3d. Maybe I was wrong after all. I've …

---

Re: 5-card build - resource considerations

Posted on 2019-05-01, 06:44

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

388 is hardwired on most non PnP cards and cannot be easily changed or disabled outside physically removing parts from the card to prevent bus conflicts etc. Grumble... this is very much a non-PnP card. What's the point of "Card ID" then? It doesn't seem to alter anything of import... Oh well, if I …

---

Re: 5-card build - resource considerations

Posted on 2019-04-30, 23:23

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Right, fortunately is was the PSU. Less fortunately that means out of four possible units, only one AT PSU here actually works, and it has *awful* coil whine :( That let me progress on the rest too. Turns out there's something fundamentally wrong with my CT2950. Even with a clean install and no …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-04-30, 22:55

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Very nice! Been searching high and low for a SiS ss7 board with agp slot... if it works and you want to sell it, let me know. I found one version (forgot the brand) and it is in storage right now because it is missing some parts and hopefully I get it working one day. But the Asus version I …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-04-30, 17:03

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Picked up two mystery boxes today. Was quite far out in my guess as to what was in them, but not unhappy in the end. See what you would expect in these two: https://tweakers.net/ext/f/koN9CLwKnuUUE6FShaJhtjTP/full.jpg Sort of looks like an early 486 tower doesn't it? In retrospect the CDRom drive …

---

Re: Need P3 CPU to replace Celeron ?

Posted on 2019-04-29, 22:44

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Probably a Ryzen 7... If you want a serious answer for something that will run on your motherboard, make the effort to find out what it is and let us know.

---

Re: 5-card build - resource considerations

Posted on 2019-04-29, 22:35

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Made good progress, but disaster struck. Project now postponed. I was able to get the GUS, NXPro and MusicQuest working fully and the SB16 and PAS16 partially, and even load a mouse driver (on COM1, PS/2 gave conflicts) with a slightly modified resource setup: NXPro: A220 I7 D1 SB16: A240 I5 D3 H7 …

---

Re: TARGET X-1448 - settings identification / what it is

Posted on 2019-04-29, 17:50

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

VGA. Possibly mono. Max refresh: you'd need to find specs, can't tell from pictures alone - but don't expect too much. 640x480@60Hz might be the best it can do.

---

Re: Video memory upgrade question for Pentium system

Posted on 2019-04-29, 14:39

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Aah I see, can I split an 8GB into 2+6 for DOS and Windows respectively? I haven't looked into boot managers or anything yet so not sure if it's possible. Is it not a good idea to just use the DOS that's baked into Windows 98? DOS 7.x as supplied with Windows isn't a full DOS environment like 6.22 …

---

Re: How safe is it to store hardware that has Tantalum caps?

Posted on 2019-04-29, 14:27

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Tantalum caps fail short and explode only when current is applied. So they will never explode in storage. Electrolytic caps fail open, and can bulge and explode due to gas buildup resulting from the decomposition of the electrolyte. That can happen in storage, although generally the degredation is …

---

Re: Video memory upgrade question for Pentium system

Posted on 2019-04-29, 12:23

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In that case you should be set, just don't expect too much from the CPU - it will be the limiting factor under Windows, particularly in anything actually using the Voodoo2. Re the CF, remember that DOS 6.22 is FAT16 only, so supports max partition size of 2GB.

---

Re: Video memory upgrade question for Pentium system

Posted on 2019-04-29, 11:42

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Mid 1990s? That straddles the border between DOS and firmly 2D (or at least: no 3D acceleration) and Windows supporting acceleration. This Deskpro 2000 would be excellent at the former and pretty crap at the latter. How crap depends on the motherboard chipset. Later Deskpro 2000 used the quite …

---

Re: Media vision Pro audio spectrum 16 compatibility List

Posted on 2019-04-29, 06:18

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

It's the same card. The Studio was bundled with extra software and a microphone, that's all.

---

5-card build - resource considerations

Posted on 2019-04-28, 23:36

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Right, the spare room is finally cleared up to the point where someone can sleep there again. That means I get time to actually do stuff with my retro computers rather than just having to sell surplus & tidy up what's left. One thing I've been wanting to do for a long time is a multi-sound card …

---

Re: Socket 4 motherboards/ Chipset comparison benchmarks Pentium 60 and 66Mhz (6 motherboards)

Posted on 2019-04-28, 20:43

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Depends on the chipsets. My guess would be that PODP133 performance on i430LX would be very similar to a P133 on an i430NX chipset (as unlike with So3 overdrives the So4 bus is basically the same as the So5/7 bus), but the i430NX was slooow, at least in memory performance - a 30% slower than i430FX …

---

Re: Can someone identify these cards?

Posted on 2019-04-28, 17:50

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

depending on the price, that could be an interesting load. Bottom right is a some or other SB16, above and to the right of that is a card with the interesting (if not great) Oak Mozart chip. Just like the Mediavision Jazz it's more than just a faceless clone. Top left is a HP OEM card with Aztech …

---

Re: Socket 4 motherboards/ Chipset comparison benchmarks Pentium 60 and 66Mhz (6 motherboards)

Posted on 2019-04-28, 15:59

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] I might have to investigate theses low level tests. From memory on paper the other chipsets looked quite competitive - the memory bandwith speedsys returns looked comparable to the Intel. Even the bandwidth to the VGA memory looked decent. Despite this the results speak for themselves. I have …

---

Re: Can someone identify these cards?

Posted on 2019-04-28, 11:22

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Two 2.5 or 3.5mm jacks, isn't this uncommon for modems? No, modem cards ("hard" modems, not the ones that relied on CPU for processing) often had plugs for microphone and speaker. Indeed: https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/143107200602_/Rockwell-56K-ISA-Modem-And-Sound-Card-retro.jpg Not …

---