Re: BIOS image collection - requests, discussion etc

Posted on 2020-04-04, 16:21

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Larger BIOSes often are not easily dumpable via software because what is on the BIOS chip and what ends up in BIOS area that DOS sees do not match (BIOS decompresses itself and only puts some stuff in the BIOS area through shadow RAM feature). Easiest way is to dump the chip using a dedicated memory …

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Re: ISA VGA card with DVI port, could one be made?

Posted on 2020-04-04, 09:24

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Yeah, that looks pretty much like what I had in mind. Would it require VLB, or would it also work in ISA slots, both 16-bit and 8-bit? One card to rule them all, so to speak? 😉 Between this, the PCI(e)/ISA converter and other stuff, you sure are working on some impressive and much-desired projects. …

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Re: ISA VGA card with DVI port, could one be made?

Posted on 2020-04-04, 07:42

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I have something started that can do that but there's plenty of time until it actually gets finished. Some other things are in the way and once I have time I probably lack money and things get delayed even more 🤣. http://www.tmeeco.eu/TKAVIVC/T-01VIVC-A.png

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Re: SMD Capacitor weird residue like toothpaste ?

Posted on 2020-04-03, 13:21

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

These capacitors don't have anything that can leak out of them. Could be some flux residue or some foreign dirt that has deposited itself on the card over time.

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Re: ISA PATA/IDE adapter vs HBA vs ? for larger drive, ISA-only PC

Posted on 2020-04-03, 08:07

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

ISA DMA is slower than PIO for the HDDs and no regular ISA IO card connects HDD DMA lines to the ISA ones anyway (and there's no software support on BIOS level anyway even if they were connected). I'm not aware of any IDE controller that can do bus mastering except maybe some of the caching …

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Re: Purpose of pots (potentiometers) on old motherboards.

Posted on 2020-03-29, 05:31

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Those are not potentiometers but trimmer caps. They are used to tune the relevant freq exact at a given temperature.

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Re: Mobility radeon x700 and win9x.

Posted on 2020-03-28, 04:25

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I added my ID's to [mfg] section in C8.INF file in the Catalyst 6.2 drivers : "ATI RADEON XPRESS 200" = RS480_ENU, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5955&SUBSYS_308B103C "ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 " = RS400_ENU, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5A41 "ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 Series" = RS482_ENU, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5974 You'll probably have …

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Re: Mobility radeon x700 and win9x.

Posted on 2020-03-28, 02:14

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

It probably isn't supported by the existing drivers as is, but after adding the device IDs to the driver INF files it will probably work as it did with Xpress200 chipset's integrated video that I was using on my HP NX6125 laptop.

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Re: Monitor color issue.

Posted on 2020-03-25, 21:59

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If any of the colors lines were not connected there wouldn't be gray tones possible. This most probably is the video card identifying the monitor as something "not color" and a fix is setting ID pins to something that tells the video card "color monitor". I have modified several video cards into …

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Re: PCI Bus Mastering in DOS

Posted on 2020-03-25, 03:15

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Card can most probably move data faster than CPU can in its tightest loop when doing GUI acceleration operation such as scrolling which is where bus mastering probably comes in on those video cards. In DOS there's gonna be no interface for such a thing to be used and nothing will even know such a …

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Re: Micro ATX 486 - what's the degree of interest?

Posted on 2020-03-22, 19:41

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have one of the Elan520 based PC104 boards, and the main problem is lack of cache which hurts performance a lot. PCI bus will allow all other things to be taken care of though.

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Re: Which soundcard for late 486 windows 95 build.

Posted on 2020-03-20, 20:16

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My vote goes for the Yamaha too (notbiasedatall lol). It is a much better Windows card than the others and works great in DOS, plus it will let you use MPU401/MIDI music in pure DOS without needing an external MIDI device (although YMF704 isn't particularly great sounding compared to most external …

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Re: What is the purpose of having a high DMA channel on SB16 etc.

Posted on 2020-03-18, 13:35

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

High DMA channels let you transfer 16bits in one cycle rather than two. That is pretty much the only reason these channels exist and why they are used. WSS cards only use 8bit DMA channels and do twice as many DMA cycles compared if they used 16bit DMA that SB16 and few others can do.

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Re: Help with fixing Creative TNT2 Ultra

Posted on 2020-03-18, 12:13

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Yes, remove inductor and connect the two pads together (or put a wire across the inductor, but that won't look as neat usually). Those inductors and capacitors form a peaking network that relies on resonances to boost transitions of signals that makes some resolution (say 1024x768) look little …

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Re: dos 7.10 on an xt?

Posted on 2020-03-17, 20:59

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah, 7.x needs 386 or higher to function.

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Re: Help with fixing Creative TNT2 Ultra

Posted on 2020-03-17, 12:24

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Short out those inductors and you get a sharper image (and remove the little capacitors sitting between video signal and ground).

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Re: PCie-to PCI, PCI to ISA, # of slots multipliers - bridges, risers, backplanes, research, especially for DOS, WIP.

Posted on 2020-03-17, 12:04

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Lack of LDRQ means that DMA controller should be finally deleted from the chipset, which means it should be possible to create your own over PCI or PCI-E and no longer need LPC for anything except for SERIRQ signal. FPGA will be necessary though, CPLD will be too small for such a stunt. PCI-E puts …

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Re: PCie-to PCI, PCI to ISA, # of slots multipliers - bridges, risers, backplanes, research, especially for DOS, WIP.

Posted on 2020-03-16, 21:24

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

LPC bus has everything necessary, what does matter is IO ports configuration and a custom utility will be needed for that. DMAs aren't used by anything on the board though IRQ assignments may be on the arbitrary side by the BIOS but that can still be fixed by reprogramming the chipset. EDIT: …

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Re: MS-98L9 V2.0 , a new 1151MB with an ISA slot

Posted on 2020-03-16, 19:55

by

by Tiido

in Milliways

in Milliways

Turns out this board has LPC to ISA bridge, same chip as one on my C2D board so it will be able to support at least some ISA sound cards ~ Southbirdge chip has no LDRQ signal on the LPC bus, so DMA is not possible even though the bridge chip can support DMA... bummer.

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Re: PCie-to PCI, PCI to ISA, # of slots multipliers - bridges, risers, backplanes, research, especially for DOS, WIP.

Posted on 2020-03-16, 19:54

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ok, nice, same bridge as my C2D board. This is exciting as the bridge definitely supports ISA DMA, as long as LDRQ is connected ~ My pockets are empty though, but if I am gonna upgrade, that's a board I would want to get 🤣.

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