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

Posted on 2023-09-14, 22:07

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Works really quick - in less than 5min chips are empty. That is really deceptive, because the way things work is not when the chip programmer says the cells look blank but when appropriate dose has been absorbed. These things are fully analog inside and an analog comparator type deal determines if …

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Re: VGA mode 13 no signal on real hardware

Posted on 2023-09-13, 22:39

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I would have thought it is the VGA to HDMI adapter is at fault here, many of the old video cards do not output timings that digitization processes of such adaptors (and LCD monitors etc.) expect, leading to issues like this but sinec it works with games etc. and when you omit some stuff it has to be …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-09-12, 10:27

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Goes a little bit offtopic, but I’m actually curious, how would you measure this kind of high voltage damper diode to find out if it is indeed genuine and what the stamping says? I’ve never had to do this, so I haven’t never needed to find information how. Oscilloscope, high voltage power supply …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-09-12, 00:51

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Fake diodes? Just a pin/lead with some sort of package around it? Ha! Or just random ones, that do not have say 1500V breakdown voltage, specific recovery profile and other features required to do the task of where they're going to, failing on the spot and in worst case taking other parts with them …

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Re: CRT “crack” sound + picture flicker

Posted on 2023-09-11, 18:12

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There's a label on the flyback itself, it has some numbers on it and one of them is the transformer type/model and replacemet needs to have the same on it. It is quite unlikely it will turn up any matches but it is always worth trying.

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

Posted on 2023-09-09, 05:35

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a decent Nokia 445ZA monitor here that I rescued from a recycling container years ago. It didn't work and needed some effort to get back to operation but it got done and since then it has seen 15k hours of use (with 17k on it before I got it). There has always been the problem that …

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Re: CVX4 : high quality covox adapter

Posted on 2023-09-08, 19:57

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

My experience has shown that a vanilla LPT port (at least on on 486 and newer hardware) tops out at more or less exactly 1MB/sec (1µs cycle time for data and control ports access) so having 6x 8bit channels is able to give 1000000 / 6 * 2(one data and one select write) = 83.333kHz but of course all …

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Re: dISAppointment - LPC to ISA adapter - ISA on modern motherboards

Posted on 2023-09-07, 21:22

by

by Tiido

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

Can more than one LPC device share the same register? By the way, does LPC-based TPM use 4E/4F? Sharing should not be possible, except maybe for reads and then it is sorta not a LPC spec compliant device. 2E+F and 4E+F are supposed to be safe haven ports for mobo things (chipsets I have looked at …

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Re: dISAppointment - LPC to ISA adapter - ISA on modern motherboards

Posted on 2023-09-07, 03:33

by

by Tiido

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

One thing you can try is make the chip react to 2E+2F instead, by pulling pin 128 low, perhaps 4E+4F are indeed blocked by something... Assuming it is available. Both of these addresses are used by SuperIO components from what I have seen.

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Re: The million dollar question on retrocomputing

Posted on 2023-09-06, 21:14

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I do want stuff for the old machines but not the old parts with all the old part problems, but some modern compatibles levelaging all the progress that has been had since such as sound chips with excellent analog performance instead of relatively terrible offerings of the past. Spinning new silicon …

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Re: CRT “crack” sound + picture flicker

Posted on 2023-09-05, 18:56

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You may be lucky and there is a replacement available somewhere, although I have found it is near impossible to find ones for random computer monitors. Every machine has their own unique transformer in them pretty much, you cannot just take any random one although if you really are desperate and …

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Re: No sound using a waveblaster with an ALS120

Posted on 2023-09-03, 22:34

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

This card needs it pointing up, away from the ISA connector side.

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-08-28, 01:36

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Mixer is basically another ISA device (like OPL2/3) and gets read/writes directly to it, and DSP will not be able to see that traffic. Curiously the mixer chip on SB16+ has an unused 8bit connection and some other signals that perhaps are meant for connection to the DSP and exactly for this kind of …

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Re: Questions on running/testing a Japanese 100v sound module (Roland SC-D70) on a North American 120V power grid .

Posted on 2023-08-27, 02:58

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Yeah, very much so. Switching supply is not a guarantee of full rangeness on input side of things. It also goes for opposite, the currents need to be twice as high for 100...120V range so using 220...240V stuff there may lead to a boom too as the transformer or the switching element isn't meant to …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-08-26, 12:32

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That TSR relies on CPU being in protected mode so that hardware writes etc. can be trapped and dealth with even before they reach the hardware. This allows to do things that otherwise are impossible although it comes with its own problems which may or may not be an issue (i.e there are games that …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-08-25, 07:08

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Finding the fault and fixing it is one thing, but is it actually possible to reprogram the DSP on these cards or replace it with something cost effective? There are modern chips that can be used so it won't be a problem but you got to remove the original part as it has a mask-ROM and cannot be …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-08-25, 02:06

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

SBpro requires catching the stereo bit from mixer and I don't think the DSP can know when this is being done. The rest should be doable though. I'll be honest, before this project, I didn't know anything about 8051, ahaha.. part of my post here is a call for advice or even assistance from anyone who …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-08-24, 16:28

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This sounds exciting ~

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Re: Which USB 2.0 cards for old motherboards

Posted on 2023-08-23, 00:10

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's still the kind of device that I'd like to see eventually. A USB 2.0 (or 3.0?) controller that presents devices of certain device classes in a way that older DOS systems support well natively, with compatibility with existing software from the original DOS era. So for instance: a USB sound …

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Re: Found a curious Cirrus Logic GD5428 VLB or GD5426... can it be upgraded?

Posted on 2023-08-22, 22:59

by

by Tiido

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

5426 and 8 share pinout and will work in place of each other. Only difference is in way how some stuff is accessed but it only concerns the windows driver pretty much and is irrelevant to gaming. There is little point giving one of the cards that extra 1MB of memory, you only gain access to some …

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