Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-03-26, 14:01

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's been a while since I bought a scrap lot, but this went within my price range and actually contains something I want - the cards on the right being the most interesting, with the pile of laptop fans being the least interesting :D Highlights: Matrox MGA with memory expansion Medion 9800XL Voodoo …

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Re: Unofficial Soundbanks for Dreamblaster X2/X3M

Posted on 2019-03-20, 10:29

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

It definitely did! It didn't detect via USB at all with that bit missing; definintely a good lesson to take better care of uncased electronics

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Re: 486 SBCs galore! What to do?

Posted on 2019-03-18, 00:22

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You can use a regular riser board from an LPX system or connect two ISA ports together to make a hacky backplane. I have a similar SBC, the Advantech 6145, with onboard graphics as well. I got a Yamaha YMF719 working on mine by connecting both the SBC and the soundcard into each ISA slot on a …

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Re: Unofficial Soundbanks for Dreamblaster X2/X3M

Posted on 2019-03-17, 23:47

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Just tried both soundbanks out on my X2, very nice :D Playing some doom midis with all the instruments set to pianos sounds excellent, though I had forgotten how long it takes to get a big soundbank loaded up on the X2 It looks like I need to store my Dreamblaster X2 better - it wasn't detecting …

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Re: Unofficial Soundbanks for Dreamblaster X2/X3M

Posted on 2019-03-14, 22:23

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Very nice, I really enjoyed the sample piano track, and the roland inspired soundbank sounds very well balanced, I like it 😁 I'll have to try them out on mine when I get around to reinstalling it in a PC (or I guess, the X2 can do USB?)

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

Posted on 2019-03-10, 01:19

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The last couple of days, I've been making new bezels for things, as part of a larger project. My LS120 drives, the ones that came from external caddies, they have the button and the cover flap but of course since the bezel is part of the caddy, they've been left faceless for a while. I made up a …

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

Posted on 2019-03-09, 20:59

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Repairing a Packard Bell 800AU today. Specs: Pentium 3 Coppermine - 800mhz MS-6168 V2 motherboard 128meg (shipped size 64meg, but upgraded) Onboard Voodoo 3-2000 8meg graphics. 20gig hard drive PCI modem (winmodem anyone) 1.44meg floppy drive CD-RW drive. Repairs done: * Popped off the old heatsink …

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Re: Newly made Gravis Ultrasound compatible cards ... what's the degree of interest?

Posted on 2019-03-01, 00:59

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I missed out on the whole beta test thing by about 1-2 years, but I'd be interested in helping with production? It seems like the whole project has gone quite well from my perspective with what I've read so far...

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Re: USB to serial mouse adapter - Raspberry Pi

Posted on 2019-02-21, 23:37

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Should work fine, but using a raspberry pi for this is kind of overkill, but hey, it is up to you. There's a high probability that an RPi would cause enough of a delay to get annoying after a while. Might be OK for a proof of concept, but by the time you've mucked around with the RPi you might as …

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Re: Packard bell PB450 repair / mods / upgrade

Posted on 2019-02-20, 06:05

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's brilliant 😀 What did you use for the 64kx1 cache chip? Did it require doing anything differently? Mine still won't boot with the cache fitted or won't recognise it.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-02-18, 22:55

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I got a slightly mis-labeled M919, which appears to have a pretty nice CPU stuck to it :D This looks like 1996 / 1997's serious budget PC build, since it looks like it wasn't upgraded during its lifetime and the chips all say they're from mid 1996. I mostly got it because it actually has the cache …

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Re: ATX I/O shield models for 3D printing

Posted on 2019-02-18, 22:16

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've been trying to use this to replace a weird Daewoo motherboard's ATX backplate (CB644M-EX, a 440EX chipset Micro ATX board). I've only got PLA filament which I think is less flexible and more brittle than ABS or PETG filaments, however re-reading your post about your blank backplate, I see you …

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Re: Guys, proud to present my projects. First time here.

Posted on 2019-02-18, 13:44

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This is some very cool stuff, welcome to the forum 😁 I was just thinking the other day that some of the chips for things like Western Digital ISA video cards are available, but the cards are not, so seeing a similar thing done with a realtek VGA card is wonderful.

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Re: Need help fixing a GeForce 7600GS AGP (capacitors)

Posted on 2019-02-16, 22:47

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a 6600GT AGP which is based on the same design, raindog1975 is probably correct that it's best to desolder one of the caps and check that. Here's what I get when I check mine for those two caps, which are still attached so it's probably not too accurate: left: 97nf right: 101nf

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Re: Drunk'en eBay'ing

Posted on 2019-02-14, 23:20

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by Thermalwrong

in Milliways

in Milliways

It's happened to me - I ended up buying an SBC that while sober I considered it to be not worth the trouble. Fortunately / Unfortunately, 'drunk me' thinks differently and saw it as a challenge. It did eventually work though (after buying an EEPROM programmer) and it did come with an AMD x5 133 chip …

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

Posted on 2019-02-12, 21:23

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Didn't turn out too bad after all :) IMG_20190212_211604.jpg That's excellent :D Well done making that so accurately and thank you for sharing the STL files for it, I have a couple of boards I need to make something similar for, that I'd rather 3D print than try to make myself. Some of the designs …

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Re: Do you know this old cases model or brand?

Posted on 2019-02-10, 13:46

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here's where your last picture came from: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154026 which has some other pictures of the same case, but it's not the same metal case, just the same front panel - notice that it's really cheap steel? Your case is nicer quality, but with poorer …

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Re: What is he least cpu dependant Network card for a win98 on super socket 7 system?

Posted on 2019-02-09, 13:14

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The 3Com cards were always highly regarded, I think the 3C905B / 3C905C cards are quite easy to get and have good CPU offloading. Intel cards are pretty good too, they also have offloading. I think both have good DOS drivers? Ideally, just stay away from realtek cards, or no-name cards. They're all …

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Re: FIC 486-VIP-IO2 CPU support

Posted on 2019-02-07, 23:59

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The printed / PDF manual is incorrect, this is the more correct guide in that the CPU is able to boot with the settings specified here. But I have the same problem as you - I can only get it to boot at 100MHz and can't see a way to get it to 133MHz. Does anyone else have experience with getting the …

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Re: Best motherboard for a retro build?

Posted on 2019-02-07, 00:58

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

ISA slot is the easiest way to get working sound with a PC playing old games, otherwise, the Yamaha YMF744 cards are a great way to get working sound in DOS with just PCI. I recommend not worrying about the DDR RAM and just use some SDRAM instead. Pretty much if it has DDR, it won't have ISA. If it …

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