Re: When did you purchase your first 386 / 486 Computer? Availability vs the early 90's affordability norm.

Posted on 2020-12-31, 16:07

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My first pre-built computer was a Gateway 2000 386Sx-25 that I purchased new in early 1993 (basically the end of the 386 era). I still love the Gateway 2000 aesthetic from the early 90s! I bought a Compuadd 486 DX2-50 (Cyrix processor) for college in the summer of 1994. After that, I built my own …

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Re: Windows XP - Wide Screen Monitor or Not? Am I missing anything?

Posted on 2020-12-30, 16:48

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think it's a personal preference. I prefer widescreen resolutions even on older operating systems (such as OS/2 Warp, NT 3.51, and Win9x). My 27" Widescreen monitor handles VGA and SVGA resolutions just fine with letter boxing and pretty good pixel scaling, so I can use the screen in many DOS and …

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

Posted on 2020-12-23, 00:25

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A few months back, I restored a Gateway 2000 low-profile 486 DX2-50 desktop PC. It came with an 83 MHz Pentium Overdrive processor, and I added a few upgrades as well. Below are the new specs: Intel 486 LPX Motherboard with ISA Riser (5 slots); 33 MHz Bus Speed; Integrated CL GD-5428 VLB Video (1 MB …

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Re: New Retro PC. Need help with some hardware decisions.... (Aptiva)

Posted on 2020-12-17, 03:14

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Be careful with USB 2.0 cards.They tend to take up three separate IRQs. This can be a problem for sound cards as they don't like to share those. And on some platforms, a USB 2.0 card can reduce performance by 10-20% just by being in the system. You're right on both counts, but I find that Via USB …

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Re: New Retro PC. Need help with some hardware decisions.... (Aptiva)

Posted on 2020-12-16, 16:02

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

BTW, the IBM manual for the 2176 says it has a P54C Pentium socket. It can host up to a 200 MHz Pentium P54C. You'll need a Pentium Overdrive MMX if you want to run software optimized for MMX (even in DOS).

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Re: New Retro PC. Need help with some hardware decisions.... (Aptiva)

Posted on 2020-12-16, 15:39

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

2 PCI slots will limit your upgrade options quite a bit. You'll have to prioritize. I would recommend upgrading the video with one of your ATI cards and reserve the remaining PCI slot for either a 10/100 network card or a VIA-based USB 2.0 adapter (UHCI/EHCI). You can certainly use USB 2.0 with …

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Re: Recommendations for overkill Win 98 build for mid DOS to late 9X games

Posted on 2020-12-14, 22:06

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Generally speaking, if you plan to play a DOS game that requires a 386 or 486 to run properly for timing, you're going to have difficulty using any processor in the 1 GHz+ range. Even with slow-down utilities, you won't have a good experience. One the other hand, CPU timing doesn't matter as much if …

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Re: Recommendations for overkill Win 98 build for mid DOS to late 9X games

Posted on 2020-12-14, 18:51

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You could also pair a PCI Aureal Vortex or Vortex 2 with a MIDI daughter board. I sometimes pair a Vortex with a Dreamblaster S2 for some light DOS gaming. Decent SB emulation in DOS with very good general MIDI. You would also get A3D in Win98 if you want surround sound effects in supported games.

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Re: Recommendations for overkill Win 98 build for mid DOS to late 9X games

Posted on 2020-12-14, 16:03

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you're truly going for overkill, I'd bias the build toward high-end Win98 components. If you're good with PCI sound only, than try a board with LGA775 and Intel ICH 5 like the Asus P5PE-VM. The latest BIOS supports Conroe Core2 processors as well as the last Pentium 4 processors (so you'll have …

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Re: Real hardware DOS gaming console for HDMI displays

Posted on 2020-12-08, 19:39

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Your desire for HDMI will limit your options quite a bit. First, you'll need a video card (or built-in video on the motherboard) that has either an HDMI port or DVI-D port (you would then need a DVI-to-HDMI adapter). Most recent PCI-E cards have HDMI, and you can go back as far as AGP cards that …

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Re: What are the best retro ISA and PCI slot network cards?

Posted on 2020-12-08, 16:58

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Beluga wrote on 2020-12-02, 01:47: Thanks for pointing that out! The DEC DE500 seems to be a bit more on the expensive side, but I was able to buy a DFE-500TX for less than five bucks shipped on eBay. Now I am really curious if it will work 😀 You'll have to let us know if and how it works with the …

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

Posted on 2020-12-04, 22:48

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Many Matrox cards have a software programable RAMDAC that allow the user to specify custom resolutions by adjusting the signal properties in the MGA.MON file that comes with the drivers. That's how I managed to set 1080p resolutions in Windows NT 3.51 and OS/2 Warp. In those OS's, simply selecting a …

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

Posted on 2020-12-04, 18:12

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It should be noted that Windows 3.0 was shipped with a CGA 640x200 driver, ie. 3.2:1 - much wider than modern 21:9 (2.333:1) "Ultra Wide" stuff. What kind of monitor do you suppose would have displayed that resolution natively? Did anyone make picture tubes that wide back in the CGA era? Correction …

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

Posted on 2020-12-04, 17:18

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I decided to install Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on my Core i5 experimental system. I had to rearrange my PCI cards due to a weird IRQ conflict between my network card and the motherboard's SATA controller. I eventually got it to work with my SATA SSD (32 GB), SATA DVD drives, Reatlek network card, …

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

Posted on 2020-12-03, 21:08

by

by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I decided to install Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on my Core i5 experimental system. I had to rearrange my PCI cards due to a weird IRQ conflict between my network card and the motherboard's SATA controller. I eventually got it to work with my SATA SSD (32 GB), SATA DVD drives, Reatlek network card, …

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Re: What are the best retro ISA and PCI slot network cards?

Posted on 2020-12-01, 23:13

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Can anyone recommend a Fast Ethernet card that is supported by NT4 Alpha? My AlphaStation 255 only has a 10MBit NIC onboard and I always wanted to upgrade. (Of course I would also take a Gigabit NIC, but I don't think that there are any with Alpha drivers...) I just looked at my NT4 CD, and it …

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

Posted on 2020-11-29, 16:54

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I decided to spend some time this morning testing out my “new to me” IBM-branded Matrox G200 PCI video card with Windows NT 3.51 on my Ivy Bridge Core i5-3570. The G200 has a programable RAMDAC which makes 2D-accelerated widescreen resolutions possible in these older operating systems. You just need …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-11-28, 21:21

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I just got an IBM branded Matrox G200 PCI graphics card (Model# 10L7131). I bought it to replace the obnoxiously huge G2+/DUAL PCI card that obstructs the SATA ports on my motherboard. I could not find an image of it anywhere on the internet prior to purchase, but I'm pleasantly surprised with what …

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Re: Let's run Windows 98 on a really fast computer

Posted on 2020-11-21, 14:37

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

computerguy08 wrote on 2020-11-21, 08:58: Is there any advantage to having more than 512MB of RAM on a Windows 98 rig ? Bragging rights!

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Re: Let's run Windows 98 on a really fast computer

Posted on 2020-11-20, 23:23

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by fosterwj03

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm impressed you got Win98 to boot on a Haswell platform. My Core i5-4690 on an Asrock H97 Fatal1ty Performance refuses to boot into Win98 (it oddly will boot Win95, though). That's only one data point, though. Have you tried an Ivy Bridge processor on a B75 board? I've had really good luck using …

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