Re: Which Hdd for this setup? SA486P AIO Rev:1.0

Posted on 2023-04-29, 22:43

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hello guys, I bought this board with Intel DX4 overdrive and 32GB ram, all socketed 😎 and also bought a nice AT case with PSU. I don’t have a HDD and I am interested if a 10Gb hdd will work with this board? I found a narely used, 28days total working time Seagate ST310014ACE with 100% health. What …

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Re: Running DOS games in a real hardware. What issues am I going to encounter?

Posted on 2023-04-28, 05:04

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It was a side-effect of the Voodoo Memory Manager: Ultima 7 uses the unreal memory addressing mode. Unfortunately, it seems that a side-effect of the game's way of entering this mode is the resetting of certain unrelated CPU flags, among them the one that controls whether L1 cache is enabled. Seems …

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Re: Running DOS games in a real hardware. What issues am I going to encounter?

Posted on 2023-04-27, 11:04

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I will be clearly playing mostly Middle DOS games and screamer (mostly nostalgia). I dont think I would play any other late dos game. In that case the Intel 430TX chipset might be more suitable than SS7 chipsets: cheaper, plentiful, and more compatible. Benefits of SS7, like AGP and 100 MHz FSB, …

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Re: Running DOS games in a real hardware. What issues am I going to encounter?

Posted on 2023-04-26, 20:47

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Guess I'm being late for the party. :sweat_smile: I agree with most replies in this thread so I'd just add my two cents of personal experience and viewpoints. IMHO DOS games can be separated into three eras: early, middle, and late, with different (typical) system requirements: Early DOS games: CPU: …

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Re: Help identifying an ISA TV Card

Posted on 2023-04-20, 19:02

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The address raised my attention; the location is now an unrelated packaging company, but "Essex Monitor" was also known as "Proview" or 唯冠 and was quite active in digital TV business back in mid-2000's but declined a decade later. The brand/company is still alive in mainland China, targeting budget …

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Re: My Dell Dimension XPS 1997/1998 Build

Posted on 2023-04-19, 19:19

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Isn’t Intel MMX CPU mainly a Win98 CPU ?……Most Win95 computers were not MMX. All P55C (i.e. Pentium-MMX) models were announced in 1997; Windows 98 was released to manufacturing on May 15, 1998 and to retail on June 25, 1998, respectively. Therefore, it was very reasonable for early adopters of …

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Re: What's the value of a socket 423 P4 system?

Posted on 2023-04-19, 16:43

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Socket 423 was limited to Willamette P4 with 180 nm lithography, the same as Coppermine P3; even Tualatin P3 had the newer 130 nm lithography. If Tualatin P3 is too rare and costly for you, then Socket 478 Northwood (130 nm) and Prescott (90 nm) P4 were cheap and plenty, plus you could still find …

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

Posted on 2023-04-19, 16:31

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

WD40 will leave a really gross film of its own. It's meant for mechanical parts to prevent corrosion. I don't know why it's abused so much for other things that it's not even good at. Just use soap. For the record, you might want to specify the "original" WD-40 as the brand also has "specialist …

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SBP2 (CT1600) made in Taiwan with "Avid Technology" label

Posted on 2023-04-16, 08:30

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

We all know Creative is a Singaporean company and most Sound Blaster cards were made in Singapore, but mine was different: Avid_SBP2_CT1600.jpg Searching the web gave me very limited info about Avid rebadging Sound Blaster cards (namely, here and here on VOGONS, followed by discussions between …

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Re: DOS-based computer: where to get?

Posted on 2023-04-14, 15:21

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I am familiar with FDISK and FORMAT but don't want to kill the current partition, as it has stuff on it. Just use another HDD or flash card for DOS unless its spec is too new for DOS. If so, you can: 1. Ask around friends and relatives; sometimes they have retired old computers that can give you …

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Re: DOS 6.22 and Windows 98SE on one machine

Posted on 2023-04-14, 01:29

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Omarkoman wrote on 2023-04-13, 23:52: Nvm, did fdisk /mbr and sys a: c: and all working Strange DOS install didnt do it automatically In addtion to /mbr, have you checked if the primary partition is set active?

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Re: DOS 6.22 and Windows 98SE on one machine

Posted on 2023-04-13, 21:40

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

ok thanks, I saw that actually on one youtube. but was worried if I install windows 98SE it will get rid of my autoexec and conig.sys setup ... No, they'll be renamed as *.DOS under Win98SE. swapping SD cards might be easiest though ? or not really? Having multiple systems would be easier. ;-)

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Re: DOS 6.22 and Windows 98SE on one machine

Posted on 2023-04-13, 21:15

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

yeah maybe I can use this as I dont have spare 3.5" slot : https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/402599142993 still gives easy access. This is what I have on my two DOS/Win9x builds. ;-) Much cheaper than StarTech's. You are saying I can install windows 98SE, yes I can but wont it then boot into Windows ? …

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Re: DOS 6.22 and Windows 98SE on one machine

Posted on 2023-04-13, 21:08

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I installed Windows 98SE but when I click start and restart in DOS it hangs on black blinking cursor so cant get to DOS environment. I dont want to run games in Command prompt window. What's the size of your HDD, C drive, and the file system you installed Win98SE on? DOS can only handle 2GB under …

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Re: Period correct 1996 Pentium system

Posted on 2023-04-12, 06:50

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

aitotat wrote on 2023-04-12, 05:43: That is too much trouble. I thought people who don't like "troubles" wouldn't even visit this site or call retro computing as a hobby. 😅

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Re: Super slow super socket 7 IBM

Posted on 2023-04-11, 05:47

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Brought home another K6-II/400 for comparison. Asus 430VX board, 64MB EDO, and an inferior Matrox Millennium II 4MB (vs Rage Pro 8MB) 430VX MB with K6-2-400? AFAIK K6-2-400 is achieved by 66x6 or 100x4, but (correct me if I were wrong) no 430VX board could support either 100MHz FSB or 6.0 …

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Re: Bought this (Modern) hardware today

Posted on 2023-04-11, 05:25

by

by dormcat

in Milliways

in Milliways

I have about 100 tabs and heavy web user, youtube and facebook. Well that explains. :sweat_smile: For almost three decades I've witnessed and assisted many people around me claiming "my computer/smartphone is slowing down and/or running out of storage space." Most situations were mixtures of …

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Re: Vintage Athlon XP 'gaming' laptops

Posted on 2023-04-10, 18:56

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Back in 2003 I had an HP Pavilion ZE4000 series (probably ZE4315US) with Athlon XP-M 1800+ (1.53 GHz), 256MB RAM, 20GB HDD, DVD/CD-RW combo. Can't remember the spec of video chip, though.

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

Posted on 2023-04-10, 15:23

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

HWiNFO for DOS provides a lot of hardware information. None of the diagnostic tools will tell about the Mainboard. Therefor I actually think CPU-z will also not achieve that anyway. The BIOS strings will tell Unisys pw² 500 16A, I guess. I wonder how many 386-era motherboards had make and model …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-04-10, 04:55

by

by dormcat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Picked this up for £5 today at a car boot sale. Seems to work just fine! Although it boots into a chinese install of windows XP SP2. These small laptops dont have batteries or floppy/cd drives so installing windows 98se will be fun. Pentioum 3 500mhz 320mb ram Unsure yet on VGA but google says 4mb …

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