Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-10-03, 05:57

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Caching Tech Corporation C386MX revision 1.0 based on Macronix MX83C306FC/MX83C395FC chipset. ... with a bit of contradiction between the company name and the L2 cache-less nature of the motherboard. https://www.petershipkov.com/temp/retro_pc_images/components_lo/motherboard_386_caching_tech_corp_ …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-10-03, 02:05

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Hold on. It just occurred to me - i have POD100 in the VLI computer while you are running Am5x86 i think. Can this be the difference ? Worth checking ... --- @WJG6260 When i got into the retro hobby i was quite period correct, but over time that was kind of forgotten. It is good you guys brought it …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-10-03, 00:07

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

search online for Phil' benchmark suite or something like that. you can do it for the fun of it, but you wont see much performance difference, if any. your computer is hard cpu limited. also, good chance the card is set by default to the optimal config.

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-10-02, 21:15

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I looked at enough Trident ISA cards to see the pattern from your low-res image. The DIP-28 RAMDACs are 90% 8-bit, or less. In your particular case the RAMDAC is actually 6-bit, but that still results to maximum of 256 colors on screen. Many CL models come with 8-bit DACs. Some with 16-bit. The D …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-10-02, 18:48

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

You picked a card with 8-bit RAMDAC which means maximum 256 colors on screen. Not ideal, but not the end of the world really. Look at the jumpers on the card - some of them control "wait states" of the video card. It is probably JP1. You can check this by running some of the simple DOS interactive …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-10-01, 23:26

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Updated the above post with 2 more "exceptional" tags. Had to remove them yesterday for some reason. 8900D is a bugfix variant of CL. Many D cards come with 24-bit DAC, while the CL come with 8 or 16-bit ones. The description about CL/D supporting up to 2Mb of RAM is incorrect. Fixed it. The 9000 …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-10-01, 06:57

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

@bitwrangler I admire Cyrix for what they did back then, but the other side of the coin is that no kid at the time was bragging about having a Cyrix CPU.

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-10-01, 06:50

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

The recent chat about Trident video cards here and few more conversations in private prompted me to share a list that i got long ago from somewhere. Ended up testing most of the ISA/VLB and some of the very late PCI models before the 3D series. Marked the ones i liked best. This was not a targeted …

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Re: PowerLeap PL-370/T

Posted on 2022-09-30, 23:36

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

is the request about exact brand/model for collecting, or you need a solution to get stuff working ? Basically a practical reason.

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-09-30, 08:23

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Cy6x86. Some fun memories with it. My neighbor bought a preassembled PC with top of the line Cyrix 6x86 around 1998-1999. Remember how disappointed he was with it. Everything stuttered. I spent quite a bit of time on it trying to squeeze the most out of it. It was a good experience and a reminder …

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Re: Socket-8 Gaming Build

Posted on 2022-09-30, 03:46

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Excellent SGI stuff in your signature link. Flipping the pics over and over again. +1 Bonus points awarded for Blender, Maya and Catia on Irix. Warm Motiff memories.

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-09-28, 22:35

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Excellent write-up. Batman's Revenge Bold and mouthful. Did DC even permit Intel to use the word "Batman" in the name of the motherboard ? Never liked much Intel motherboards - they are too rigid in my opinion. This guy seems to exhibit some of these characteristics. Drive size locks. Lack of …

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Re: Old hardware giveaway thread.

Posted on 2022-09-28, 02:55

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

this kboard is a rock - sturdy, solid. pass me your address.

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-09-27, 18:06

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

This thread: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=37589&start=20 (you participated there as well) It shows Forex 300 based motherboard. The more interesting part is towards the end where user 386_junkie runs his Forex 421A motherboard at 50MHz with 386DX CPU and most relaxed BIOS timings. …

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Re: Old hardware giveaway thread.

Posted on 2022-09-27, 16:29

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

USB keyboard has to go. Cooler master, storm quickfire rapid (mouthful stuff !) Brown keys.

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Re: Old hardware giveaway thread.

Posted on 2022-09-27, 05:36

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Of course. If one is after retro gaming and some apps - there is absolutely no point of dealing with the hardware side of it. That hardware side is a journey of its own for the sake of it.

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Re: Old hardware giveaway thread.

Posted on 2022-09-26, 22:34

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There was a third batch of stuff with more "modern" items, but not quite V5 grade junk tbh. Somebody picked it before i was able to post here. : D

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Re: Old hardware giveaway thread.

Posted on 2022-09-26, 19:11

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Done

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Re: Old hardware giveaway thread.

Posted on 2022-09-26, 18:49

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

sirotkaslo -> + Riva128 Meatball -> confirmed

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-09-26, 18:19

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Agreed. Earlier boards based on Forex 46C402 chipset version are wide PCBs with CPU sockets. Later boards tend to be more on the budget side with surface mounted 386DX CPUs. Have seen only one or two FRX84C421 based ones that have CPU socket. The single FRX46C521 one i know of has surface mounted …

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