Re: What are you eating/drinking? (the vogons food thread)

Posted on 2019-03-14, 07:50

by

by henryVK

in Milliways

in Milliways

I'm doing intermittent fasting, so I'm not allowed to eat my prosciutto and arugola sandwich until 11:30 or so. Which is when I'll probably still be in a meeting :blah: I don't technically have to fast, since I only weigh something like 74 kg at 177 cm (5'10) but I it helps to "give my stomach a …

---

Re: Late DOS/early Windows 3D 640x480 flight sims

Posted on 2019-03-13, 15:28

by

by henryVK

in Milliways

in Milliways

Das Hexagon Kartell This one's by German developer Ascaron. I remember it as a bit of a mixed bag, but then, I'm not a flightsim guy. Now, here's an obscure one by developer Axisim: Flight Action I got this off some shareware disk and played it a bunch back when. It had a bunch of different game …

---

Re: Ambra (IBM) 486SLC slimline desktop "restoration"

Posted on 2019-03-08, 07:20

by

by henryVK

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Nice job on the front plate! That Rust-oleum paint sure makes it look like new. You didn't want to go for the two-tone thing it had going on originally?

---

Re: AMD 486 dx4 100Mhz thoughts

Posted on 2019-03-07, 10:20

by

by henryVK

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My friend's P60 could play mp3s under Windows at least, something which my current DX4 can't do. At least not without turning down the quality a lot. Turning down the quality (and ditching stereo) might have the advantage of making a whole song fit on a floppy disk ;-) https://www.youtube.com/watch …

---

Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2019-03-07, 09:36

by

by henryVK

in Milliways

in Milliways

Mechwarrior 3 is one of those games that I bought when it came out but never finished. Will definitely go back sometime! In other news, I finished Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games last night. It was a fun little romp for a kind of "afterthought" of a single-player campaign. There is decent variety …

---

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

Posted on 2019-03-06, 08:13

by

by henryVK

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I spend at least an hour looking for just a regular-ass, white (or beige) drive bay cover for my portable. Either I'm really dense, or they don't sell them anymore here in Germany. Didn't this use to be a really commonplace item to buy? Anyway, I finally found some locally, but the guy's not going …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-03-05, 07:45

by

by henryVK

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I still have the first Opti 930 based sound card I bought back in the early to mid 90's. Mine has onboard wavetable but I never had an issue with it with any games. You just have to have the correct driver/initialization program for it. I think some of the earlier drivers were not as good. Cool! …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-03-03, 19:34

by

by henryVK

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bought this Opti 82C930A on a whim. It has an OPL3 clone and wavetable header, but there are some reports of potential driver issues. It was so cheap though, that I was willing to chance it.

---

Re: LCD Portable PC clone, display replacement

Posted on 2019-03-03, 12:39

by

by henryVK

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Well, because I still didn't know whether this thing would actually POST correctly, I went ahead and picked up an S3 Trio32 graphics card by Spea for a couple of bucks: https://i.imgur.com/etCM0eQ.jpg?2 Mhh, messy. https://i.imgur.com/1JaUTDc.jpg Bios can't remember that it doesn't in fact have a B: …

---

Re: What Would You Pay for These Computers?

Posted on 2019-02-28, 10:03

by

by henryVK

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Do you know whether you'll be able to test these when you go see them? If you don't get any opportunity to test them before purchasing, I think I'd be perfectly reasonable to lowball it.

---

LCD Portable PC clone, display replacement

Posted on 2019-02-28, 09:57

by

by henryVK

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Howdy, friends and neighbours, now, I've been trying to identify the best solution of swapping the monochrome LCD panel on this little luggable clone for a colour TFT. Well, usually these portable machines (Dolch PAC etc.) have some kind of dedicated PCI card or controller board that drives the TFT. …

---

Re: the world how I would have wanted it: Pentium's name

Posted on 2019-02-27, 09:50

by

by henryVK

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nprod wrote: Well it is still called Pentium. Now why weren't the PII and PIII called Hexium and Septium... Like... whoa, dude! 😳

---

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

Posted on 2019-02-18, 08:14

by

by henryVK

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's actually a Pentium - note the 82430VX string on the POST screen. Thanks, you are totally right, I just hadn't had a proper look at the mainboard and I don't know anything about BIOSes. Someone must have upgraded this machine to a Pentium 133! That's not at all what I expected, but I'll just …

---

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

Posted on 2019-02-15, 08:48

by

by henryVK

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My Portable PC clone thing arrived yesterday. I only had a brief moment to look at it and so far it tries to boot (most of the time), and the CMOS battery is of course empty. I've had just one quick look inside and it's quite dust free, likely from just having sat tucked away in its carrying bag. As …

---

Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2019-02-14, 08:19

by

by henryVK

in Milliways

in Milliways

in australia we have a store called "Harvey Norman" which is a retail chain of tech stores to get TVs/computers/audio/whitegoods etc. We have an exhibition called "ekka" every year, and at the ekka we see performances, eat fair food, watch fireworks and get showbags full of candy/toys/magazines/ …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-02-13, 14:33

by

by henryVK

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Oh, I also have those same black Logitech speakers. Very decent sound plus very good weight!

---

Re: The best 4:3 monitor?

Posted on 2019-02-08, 12:19

by

by henryVK

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I was going to say: I'm at work, so maybe the monitor here is to sucky for me to fully appreciate this. I'll try it out at home and compare when I get a chance. Anyway, thanks for the heads-up!

---

Re: The best 4:3 monitor?

Posted on 2019-02-08, 11:51

by

by henryVK

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Okay, thanks for the screenshot. Hmmm, that looks like scanlines to me! Interesting, though. I'll admit that I'm not using my CRT much right now, but I'll try to take some pictures to illustrate and compare.

---

Re: The best 4:3 monitor?

Posted on 2019-02-08, 09:24

by

by henryVK

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Amusingly, modern 4K display can now emulate the CRT look rather well using pixels (I use the shaders in DOSBOX for example and it looks amazingly authentic when I compared it to my actual CRT monitors) but good luck finding an old PC that outputs 4K :lol: Is this the shader you are referring to or …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-02-06, 10:43

by

by henryVK

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The..uhh... nice big bath towel?

---