Re: Can someone identify these cards?

Posted on 2019-04-28, 09:22

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Those are some epically crap pictures... Still, the bottom card is clear enough: Rockwell modem chips and POTS transformers. Some kind of modem in other words. The sound card at upper left has a white smudge that could be a Mediavision logo, and small chips that aren't PAS, so I'd guess it's a …

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Re: Media vision Pro audio spectrum 16 compatibility List

Posted on 2019-04-27, 09:43

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. nobody ever did a video to compare …

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Re: Miro S3 Trio32 VLB opinions

Posted on 2019-04-26, 21:04

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

At that price: snap it up. If you like it, keep it. If not, you'll have no trouble at all recouping your EUR 35. Hell, I'd promise to buy it from you 😜

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Re: Media vision Pro audio spectrum 16 compatibility List

Posted on 2019-04-26, 21:01

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Why? Supply and demand. Supply is limited as it wasn't a huge commercial success. Demand is significant as it was one of the few non-Soundblaster standards with any degree of support. Moreover the quality of the cards was excellent, with far better filtering than contemporary Creative designs. The …

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Re: Reason to use Pentium Classic over MMX

Posted on 2019-04-26, 00:04

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I may be mistaken, but don't all the MMX CPUs run at a lower voltage? Or maybe that includes the later P54Cs as well. At any rate, less heat is a good thing. Yep, P55C was 2.8V/3.3V split voltage. The P54C(S) CPUs ran on 3.3V single voltage. That said, clock for clock, the TDP was only marginally …

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

Posted on 2019-04-25, 23:58

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Having done a *lot* of tidying up the spare room recently, I've at last found time to get working on my backlog of actual projects. First off, I have a nice So3 voltage interposer that lets me run an Am5x86 CPU on any regular 5V 486. That's exactly what my ECS EISA board wants. Unfortunately it was …

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Re: Sees 64mb SIMM (FPM) ram as 16mb (486 DX4 100MHZ)

Posted on 2019-04-25, 21:35

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The picture is much too blurry to make out the chips,but it looks like nine of them in any event, so I suspect 7 bit. That means max 32MB cacheable with 256kB cache like you have.

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Re: Help with olivetti M300-02

Posted on 2019-04-25, 18:51

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not really. The problem with IDE is in BIOS, not in the controller. If you want to expand that, you need something like XTIDE, a BIOS extension that you flash onto an E(E)PROM and stick into a suitable socket. The easiest place to do that is... on a network card. So just be sure to get a NIC with a …

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Re: Help with olivetti M300-02

Posted on 2019-04-25, 16:00

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Googling M300-02 dredged up some documentation: https://secure.corradoroberto.it/doc/olivetti/systems1/cap40.pdf It helps answer some questions. HDD/CF might be a problem. It looks like this machine has very, very limited BIOS options and you can basically only install a small number of pre-defined …

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Re: Reason to use Pentium Classic over MMX

Posted on 2019-04-25, 12:32

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you are targeting a 1995 build, then the P54C (the 133MHz in particular) is a great target. Also, the P54C is more closely related to DOS in my mind - it was actually the ultimate DOS CPU, whereas the MMX/PII were Win95 CPUs. Of course, that is just how I remember things. Eh? The P55C has the …

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Re: Reason to use Pentium Classic over MMX

Posted on 2019-04-25, 11:58

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's a Tekram P5T30-B4 motherboard Intel 430TX Not bad, those Tekram boards are a bit 'clunky' but very reliable in my experience. I have an MVP3 Tekram here in my son's retro gaming system. no idea on the PB board, but memtest nor any other utility i have identify's any L2 cache, its a multimedia …

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Re: WIN98SE with WPA2-PSK [AES]

Posted on 2019-04-25, 08:45

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Win98 doesn't natively support WiFi in any form, so you're completely dependent on the drivers of your card/adapter for WPA supplicant. No surprise given that Win98SE was from 1999, and WPA was defined in 802.11.i-2004, so is five years newer. CPU usage is dependent on both NIC design (does it …

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Re: Reason to use Pentium Classic over MMX

Posted on 2019-04-25, 08:30

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sort of missing the motherboards in this story. That might be relevant. Which PB board with no cache (PB630?) and which board did the P233MMX come on?

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Re: IBM MWave related

Posted on 2019-04-25, 06:27

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by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

One point where the mWave did live up to its promise - and that might be confusing here: modem speeds were upgraded in software. So the same card that was released with 14k4 support in 1992 could (with new drivers, if you could ever get them installed) do 33k6 in 1995. So don't try to distinguish …

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Re: Packard Bell iMedia M216

Posted on 2019-04-25, 06:20

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Unless you know someone with a list of system specs for your market (PB's model names were completely different between countries and sometimes even between shops within countries) you'll not get much info from the model name. Just open it up and identify the components. Most were pretty standard at …

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Re: 3 missing pins in FDD connector

Posted on 2019-04-24, 20:05

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Tip for next time: check the pinouts of a connector first, saves asking unnecessary questions: http://old.pinouts.ru/HD/InternalDisk_pinout.shtml Note: All Odd Numbered Pins Are GROUND see text Pin Name Dir Description 2 /REDWC --> Density Select 4 n/c Reserved 6 n/c Reserved 8 /INDEX <-- Index 10 / …

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Re: "Dial up" to computer in home network?

Posted on 2019-04-24, 18:43

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Could you use an Arduino or Raspberry Pi to act as an intermediary between the two modems? A kind of homebrew pbx? The point of the PBX isn't to route,it's to provide line voltage, not much more. It's just the cheapest, easiest device I know of to do so. A Pi can't do that on its own. [...] …

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Re: 16 bit ISA lan card for 386, 486?

Posted on 2019-04-24, 14:04

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The second is a 3C509B-C, which is a perfect choice. The first depends on what chip is under that sticker. All those jumpers look like it's very non-PnP, which I consider a good thing. Best-case it's a Realtek RTL8009, but it could be any (other) NE2000 clone too.

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Re: "Dial up" to computer in home network?

Posted on 2019-04-24, 14:01

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] This is a bit complicated and only for machines with real modems. The Wifi modem is cheap and convenient, my solution should be much easier to implement. You only miss the handshaking sound :P Also I am pretty sure if you have two modems, you can just jack the phone line cord between the two …

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Re: IBM MWave related

Posted on 2019-04-24, 12:18

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Thanks for info. What MIDI synth is used by 98SE built-in drivers? Internal Windows softsynth same as for all other cheap FM cards? Or mWave wabetable? You load seperate MIDI patches for mWave so I'm assuming mWave's own wavetable. Didn't actually try to use it beyond confirming it worked, so can't …

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