Re: Let's improve video output quality of VGA ISA/VLB cards (First success !)

Posted on 2021-05-15, 05:35

by

by canthearu

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I think SVGA cards that use a PLL to generate the clocks will look bad on a modern digital display. My theory: the sampling clock in your display is *more accurate* than the card's PLL. So the digital display is expecting VGA pixels to arrive at exactly 25.175Mhz but the card's PLL is producing …

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Re: Windows 3.1 max requirements

Posted on 2021-05-14, 23:50

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hmmm, I've never seen my windows 10 barf when formatting a floppy .... even my IBM USB one. Actually don't notice any system performance impact at all! I've seen plenty of Floppy disks barf on themselves, but I still have lots more, so that isn't a problem for today 😀

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

Posted on 2021-05-08, 12:44

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What would you know, I was also recapping a SiS 630T board today to revive it (Jetway 630-TCF). Was not posting at all yesterday. Not nearly as nice a board as that one, but again, I replaced the old GSC 6.3V 2200 and 1500uf capacitors with top quality Panasonic FS series 2200uf 16V capacitors. I …

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Re: VOGONS Driver Library

Posted on 2021-05-08, 02:42

by

by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Anyone got the DOS drivers for the Smart and Friendly SCSI adaptor 3510A in ISA format? Seems to be a clone of the DTC 3520 card. Not having any luck finding a copy of these drivers to test one of these cards I got out of an old Build I bought (no HDD to copy original drivers from).

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Re: Restoring a Packard Bell Retro machine to original condition

Posted on 2021-05-05, 22:14

by

by canthearu

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Try hooking up the HDD to an IDE controller card. It might deal with the HDD type a little better. Alternatively you could try some overlay software like OnTrack disc manager. Color me purple and call me a vogon :-) even though format reported 60gb, windows now shows 200gb available after install. …

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Re: Let's improve video output quality of VGA ISA/VLB cards

Posted on 2021-05-03, 10:42

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I looked a little into that on a S3 VLB 964 graphics card. It looks like the RAMDAC on this one produced it's own ramdac Vref. I was hoping to boost the signal slightly to maybe allow LCDs to get a better lock on the signal to reduce the jailbar effects, but I'd have to mangle the card considerably …

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Re: I recently found this hardware, AKA the Dumpster find thread.

Posted on 2021-05-03, 10:37

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Rescued this little gem at work after one of our long-time biology professors retired. In the process of cleaning out his storage room behind a classroom I came across this Dell Optiplex XM575 sitting on a counter buried behind a bunch of other items (the guy was a hoarder). Nothing of real …

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Re: Show us your custom Physical mt32-pi Builds

Posted on 2021-05-02, 02:05

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by canthearu

in MT-32 General

in MT-32 General

Either way it's a win - first world luxuries, to worry about which exact flavour of rare retro synth we're privileged enough to enjoy! :) I'm loving it. So true. In the old days, you had Adlib, noisy sound blaster, and by golly you liked it or get nothing. As I say I'd like a real LA-synth hardware …

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Re: Help with reviving an old computer

Posted on 2021-05-02, 01:25

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

CF to IDE should be relatively problem free as long as you choose a good CF card. CF uses the IDE interface so it the CF-> IDE converters are only passive converters. A good 4-8gb CF industrial card would be best, with multiple 2gb partitions.

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Re: Show us your custom Physical mt32-pi Builds

Posted on 2021-05-02, 00:56

by

by canthearu

in MT-32 General

in MT-32 General

Ah, judging by this and your other post, you're obviously OCAU's rugger! Feared wielder of the ZD-915! Yep, sometimes I wonder if the price of all the tools will ever get paid back with the stuff I do .... but the journey is half the fun and saving hardware is worth it. Well, as the buyer of the …

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

Posted on 2021-05-01, 03:00

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The ZD-915 is a specific model I have seen one of our peers (at another forum) successfully using in such a manner, specifically for motherboard slot removal and such. After reading his saga (can't easily find/link it sorry - it's buried / distributed across many pages of random_forum_thread_ …

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Re: Show us your custom Physical mt32-pi Builds

Posted on 2021-05-01, 02:47

by

by canthearu

in MT-32 General

in MT-32 General

IMG_1190.JPG My getto MT32-PI hat. MIDI In and DAC output only, built cheap using components from rsonline, altronics, ebay and jaycar. Because it is really easy to spend more money making a cool MT32-PI then it to just buy an original MT-32. In fact, I have a RA-50 in the mail (basically a CM-32L …

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Re: Connecting Roland MT-32 to Modern PC?

Posted on 2021-04-18, 04:10

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I also built the MT32-PI hat: https://forums.overclockers.com.au/posts/18874951/ MIDI specifications actually say you need to use an optocoupler in the input circuitry. Having a cable with builtin optocoupler is a workaround for devices which do not follow the specifications. I mean, optocoupled …

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Re: Why DOS died...

Posted on 2021-04-17, 12:45

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by canthearu

in Milliways

in Milliways

DOS died because it's time had come. It had a good run and served the world admirably for 2 decades, yet it's limitations eventually spelled it's doom. So you are totally justified in having a drink to DOS, may it be remembered for bringing open computing to the masses ... and less for being the …

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Re: Connecting Roland MT-32 to Modern PC?

Posted on 2021-04-17, 12:35

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Jo22 wrote on 2021-04-17, 10:06: That's utter nonsense and contradicts the MIDI specs. The better cables do have opto-couplers, at least on MIDI-IN. Just use a genuine Roland USB to MIDI converter 🤣. Then you will be fine.

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Re: Recommended Gameport -> Midi cables? Joystick passthru? Quality?

Posted on 2021-04-12, 10:17

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by canthearu

in MT-32 General

in MT-32 General

If you want full compatibility you'll need a smart cable with additional hardware such as resistors. Here is a schematic of how to properly build one: http://midi.teragonaudio.com/hardware/pc_intfc.htm Totally unsurprisingly, this is just replicating the hardware that already should be in each of …

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Re: Recommended Gameport -> Midi cables? Joystick passthru? Quality?

Posted on 2021-04-11, 15:32

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by canthearu

in MT-32 General

in MT-32 General

I have been using a couple of the chinese sourced cables off ebay. They work fine. After all, these joystick to MIDI cables are really simple and not at all demanding, requiring 30khz at 5V, which the whole thing could be done by a couple of loose wires in a pinch. The important part is in the …

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Re: Are Slot-A mobos good for DOS gaming?

Posted on 2021-04-07, 14:40

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by canthearu

in Milliways

in Milliways

I went to the trouble of replacing 3 faulty PCI slots in my Asus K7V Slot-A board .... that was a LOT of desoldering and resoldering. I'll probably never easy access to another Slot-A board, so it was worth it.

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Re: Running an Am5x86 at 5v?

Posted on 2021-04-07, 14:36

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You can always use XT-IDE bios on an ethernet card to bypass any BIOS limitations. Also Disk overlay software tends to work OK, but I dislike it because it often prevents you accessing the drive safely on other systems.

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Re: vintage budget cards instead of 'good' cards

Posted on 2021-04-07, 14:10

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

For cheap but pretty good DX7 gaming, you can't really go past a decent Geforce 4 MX graphics card ... just try to avoid any 64bit, SDR or SE versions. For Windows XP, a Core 2 Duo or Quad with a Geforce GTX 260 will go a LONG way to cheaply scratching your retro itch in a vastly superior …

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