Re: Help with Pro Audio Spectrum CD-ROM

Posted on 2019-02-15, 07:46

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a SoundBlaster AWE32 card in there right now. I wanted to go to the PAS because the 286 can't really take advantage of some of the advanced features that the AWE32 has to offer, and it would be more at home in a 386/486 system. Also, I wanted a partially period-correct CD-ROM drive to go in …

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Re: Help with Pro Audio Spectrum CD-ROM

Posted on 2019-02-15, 03:15

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, I tried installing the PAS, and no drivers will detect it. I'm starting to think it and the 286 machine just hate each other or something. I've had it working in multiple computers before this with no problems, but never the 286.

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Help with Pro Audio Spectrum CD-ROM

Posted on 2019-02-15, 00:37

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have what appears to be an early revision of a MediaVision Pro AudioSpectrum 16. It does not have the standard SCSI interface, and instead has a 24-pin IDC connector. I also found a CD-ROM drive in the attic with the same size connector, and I believe it is the correct one for this card. Can …

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Re: Old platforms with 3.5" disks

Posted on 2019-02-14, 19:25

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a Commodore 1581 drive, which is a 3.5 inch 720k drive for the commodore systems.

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Re: Would you Retrobright?

Posted on 2019-02-14, 15:32

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by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

meh, it's all a matter of personal taste. I, personally, value appearance pretty high, so I do like retrobrite. However, the current processes do have the potential to cause damage, so I am refraining from retrobriting everything at the moment until the process is refined a little further. I believe …

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

Posted on 2019-02-14, 15:27

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm curious, why do you have a win 95 style taskbar and desktop, and a win 3.x style window system? Am I missing something here?

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Re: Compaq Portable - Help

Posted on 2019-02-13, 18:50

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It looks like some kind of a power transistor. It's definitely a motorola, and it's a TO-126 package, if that helps. I didn't find any info on the numbers. Could you post a high res picture of the back of the board as well? Maybe we could trace it back and deduce what it does and find a suitable …

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Re: My ongoing 386 build (aka The Disasterpiece, aka Phoenix) - it's alive!

Posted on 2019-02-13, 06:28

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by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Please tell me your case has a transparent side panel so you will be able to see the plant when it's finished. That would make my day. Also, it wouldn't be a real PC build if you didn't add RGB lighting to the plant. I should design an ISA RGB lighting controller just for kicks and giggles when I'm …

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

Posted on 2019-02-13, 06:25

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I installed Windows 3.0a on my IBM 5155 (portable 5150) today. Why? I have no idea. It is so painfully slow. I can't even play solitaire because it's monochrome. Edit: Fixed broken image imbed links

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

Posted on 2019-02-13, 06:24

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Is it a good idea to do that? However, I'd watch a video about that. Probably not. But that won't stop me from doing it! (IMHO, it probably won't do much other than make noise and take up space in the case. The 8088 doesn't produce enough heat to even warrant using a passive cooler, let alone a …

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Re: My ongoing 386 build (aka The Disasterpiece, aka Phoenix)

Posted on 2019-02-13, 05:36

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

novasilisko wrote: The first thing you probably noticed is that the VGA card has no bracket. Nope, the first thing I noticed is the absolutely delightful plastic plant that is living in your case. Please promise to never remove it. 🤣

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Re: Best way to test 5.25" drives

Posted on 2019-02-13, 05:32

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A lot of newer motherboards don't like the 5.25 inch drives, they only are meant for 1.44 Mb drives. That doesn't go for all motherboards, just mostly the ones that only give you an option for one drive. However, If you don't want to mess with it, I have a 286 machine in good working order with a 5. …

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Re: Retro-file server?

Posted on 2019-02-13, 05:29

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You should check out mTCP for MS-DOS. It provides DHCP support, along with a lot of other things like telnet, ftp client, ftp server, and other neat stuff. It runs on pretty much everything all the way back to an 8088. http://www.brutman.com/mTCP/ You can also use it to make a DOS machine into a …

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

Posted on 2019-02-13, 05:26

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

seeing that gives me the strange desire to watercool my IBM PC-XT...

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Re: 286 Motherboard with Keyboard error/Keyboard interface error

Posted on 2019-02-11, 21:17

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

286 boards don't normally have cmos clear jumpers. Does the keyboard really not work, or is it just a random error? Also, have you tried another keyboard? Most 286 motherboards will throw a keyboard error if they detect a key is held down during power up. I would check to see if your keyboard has a …

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Re: Show us your retro computer cases

Posted on 2019-02-11, 21:08

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by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here's my 286 case. I found it brand new NOS at a surplus electronics store for 5 USD. I particularly enjoy the compactness of the case, and the fact that it has the cutouts for the serial and parallel ports. Also, it even has a removable motherboard backing plate! There's not many places for fans, …

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Re: Compaq Presario 425 CRT screen not working.

Posted on 2019-02-11, 18:42

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

🤣 with that said, I would see if you could introduce a test signal into the crt circuitry. I bet it's VGA. Maybe the video connector on the board is labeled?

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Re: Compaq Presario 425 CRT screen not working.

Posted on 2019-02-11, 02:57

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm going to warn you, unless you know exactly what you're doing, DO NOT MESS WITH CRTs . They are EXTREMELY dangerous when you don't know what you're doing. The voltage across a CRT is enough to kill you instantly if you are not careful. CRTs operate on thousands of volts, and they store that …

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Re: NOTICE FOR IBM XT OWNERS

Posted on 2019-02-11, 02:46

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have actually had 2 tantalum failures in this particular machine, one was shorted when I got it, but it didn't explode. The machine just refused to power up. This one is the first one that I've had go bang on me.

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Re: NOTICE FOR IBM XT OWNERS

Posted on 2019-02-11, 02:44

by

by dkarguth

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I use the XT occasionally, normally for typing up small documents on Word 5.0 and for testing programs for 8088 compatibility. This particular incident occurred during a file transfer between my 286 machine across parallel, it had been running for about 10 minutes. All of a sudden, I heard crackling …

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