Re: Connecting 2 soundcards to one speaker

Posted on 2020-03-10, 19:40

by

by SirNickity

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

^ Do that. Don't connect multiple outputs directly to each other. For line-level outs, it's... probably... okay... most of the time... since the outputs normally have a 100R resistor or such in series with the output, to protect it from shorts, but if you have card A driving a full positive signal …

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Re: Bootdisk MS-DOS 6.22

Posted on 2020-03-10, 19:19

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by SirNickity

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The primary and extended partitions aren't reliant on each other. DOS has a weird requirement that it won't create a second primary partition, and it won't create an extended partition without an existing primary, but it doesn't need those both to be CHS FAT16. You can create LBA and/or FAT32 …

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Re: VIA EPIA-M mITX build attempt for retrogaming

Posted on 2020-03-10, 18:47

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by SirNickity

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A very important note is that on the EPIA-800 (and V6000 etc), the C3-Ezra process does NOT have PAE or CMOV support. From what I read this makes it strictly a 586 class CPU. Just ran into that a couple weeks ago trying to boot any of my recent (very liberal use of the term 'recent' here) Linux …

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Re: Just a warning, bad memory modules can get you!

Posted on 2020-03-10, 18:31

by

by SirNickity

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a process for any new hardware that enters my home for wayward computers: Clean it, replace fans, replace caps, run memtest. No CPU, motherboard, or RAM -- nothing -- goes into my inventory until it passes at least one round of memtest. 😀

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Re: Replacement AT Case turbo display

Posted on 2020-03-10, 18:27

by

by SirNickity

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Make sure to check dimensions on any 3-digit modules. Most of them are too wide to fit in the display cutouts. My guess is those cases were tooled for 2-digit displays, and rather than spinning up a new case mold, they just contracted narrower display modules. None that I found had an appropriate …

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Re: Tech Support. Wish me luck, guys.

Posted on 2020-03-10, 18:10

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by SirNickity

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

No worries... I needed this info for myself anyway, since I didn't realize there wasn't a standard pinout for these things. Here's the adapter I use with mine: Fantastic. Thank you! Ahh ok I thought it backwards :D. Then a PS/2 mouse that is serial compatible and a adapter like xjas shows Uh, no. …

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Re: Tech Support. Wish me luck, guys.

Posted on 2020-03-09, 23:06

by

by SirNickity

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you should feel inclined to continuity test the pins, that would be awesome, but don't go to too much trouble on my account. I'll just give it a try. They're fairly cheap, so the biggest loss will be having to re-cable everything if I blow something up.

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Re: Tech Support. Wish me luck, guys.

Posted on 2020-03-09, 21:28

by

by SirNickity

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah, I would bet my cat that it's the same box. AFAIK, ATEN is the OEM for (some / much / all?) of their stuff, and based on an image search, they could be twins. I was hoping to get one genuine adapter so I could verify the pinout before making some custom cables, since there wasn't ever a …

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Re: DOS 6.22 vs DOS7.0 compatibility difference

Posted on 2020-03-09, 20:22

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by SirNickity

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

90% of all issues I had with Windows 95/98 PCs running DOS were caused by ... [..] b) having too much memory or other memory issues That is one thing that has definitely changed this go-around. I had to patch Duke 3D to install with 64MB RAM. Back in the day, I was happy when I had enough RAM for …

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Re: HDD Backup software FAILED: tried Acronis True Image & Norton Ghost

Posted on 2020-03-09, 20:06

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by SirNickity

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

That's a pretty helpful error message it gives there.. pff. "Somethin's up with your FAT, bro." Yeah, thanks.

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Re: My thought on integrated video chipsets

Posted on 2020-03-09, 19:58

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by SirNickity

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

You may call Intel GPUs of the time lacking, but you can't argue with the price. And that is why Intel is now the biggest GPU vendor (and AMD is on its platform), and there is no market anymore for low-end to mid-range GPUs. Nor audio cards, network cards, I/O cards... Integration of video was kind …

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Re: Tech Support. Wish me luck, guys.

Posted on 2020-03-09, 19:40

by

by SirNickity

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Other way. It uses PS/2 mice and can allow you to control serial computers. I thought that might be particularly interesting 'round here. So far, though, I've gotten a suggestion to use an AT keyboard adapter, and a comment saying "the serial adapter is not included". From tech support. sigh.

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Re: Burned PSU diagnostics/where is the faulty component?

Posted on 2020-03-09, 19:36

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by SirNickity

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I use plain old white vinegar to clean some things. It's good for removing battery acid, for example. It smells a bit when you apply it, but it also washes off really easily. I use it in laundry sometimes too, and you can't tell after the wash. I don't think you would add a vinegar smell long-term …

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Re: Iomega ZIP drives

Posted on 2020-03-09, 19:31

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by SirNickity

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If your USB drive isn't detected as new hardware, there's a hardware problem. I'm not sure if you absolutely need drivers, or if recent (XP+) Windows versions would use the generic USB disk class drivers. Assuming the drive works... Either way, it should at least be detected by the OS, if not …

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Re: PSU Power Supply, will it work on Pentium 1/2...

Posted on 2020-03-09, 19:06

by

by SirNickity

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well you've debugged it now! :-) haha That is QUITE the little critter. Sheesh! So yeah, you've got an older ATX supply with -12v and -5v. That's good, although by this point (Slot 1 era), -5v wasn't quite mandatory anymore. The -12v rail stuck around for a while longer though. This is obviously not …

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Re: What is it with Win95/98 killing my CF cards?

Posted on 2020-03-09, 18:52

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by SirNickity

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If formatting on another PC "revives" the CF card, I'm not sure that's wear. For what it's worth, I used Compact Flash cards in my Linux appliances for years. The #1 problem I had with them was poor-to-nonexistent DMA support. The Linux kernel would throw errors on I/O like mad until I added the …

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

Posted on 2020-03-06, 22:16

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by SirNickity

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwzHurzTNTY&t=929s read the comments. Right, so what you're citing there is a lot of anonymous enthusiasm for "a 486 version" of the NuXT. Here's the problem: For one, people don't actually know what they want. They would LOVE an all-in-one board with built-in video …

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

Posted on 2020-03-06, 19:07

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by SirNickity

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I mean... most of the stuff going on in a 486 is 25 or 33MHz. If you're an overclocker with Pentium envy, maybe 50MHz. That's not much to ask of modern FPGAs. The direction this project is going sounds to me a little more like scratching a personal itch than something that will fill a broader need. …

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Re: Sound Blaster Pro 1 (Dual OPL2-) Clone?

Posted on 2020-03-06, 18:55

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by SirNickity

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Isn't SB Pro's dual OPL2 support only relevant for like... the demo tune played by diagnose.exe and that's about it? Most of the software that actually used 2xOPL2 (all three games or whatever) seemed to prefer Media Vision's addressing. So if dual OPL2 is important to you, that's probably the …

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Re: IDE optical drive - how to get digital cd audio out (in pure DOS)?

Posted on 2020-03-06, 18:50

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by SirNickity

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

If you're talking about reading digital audio from the disc via the IDE interface (aka, ripping) then no, it doesn't require 98. There are DOS ripping tools. However, at least all those I have used are meant for extracting audio tracks to WAV files, not real-time playback, and obviously don't have …

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