Re: Modern Keyboards on Win 98

Posted on 2023-07-20, 19:26

by

by Ryccardo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I do believe that some USB give a PS2 signal as device, and thus work because PS2 is supported immediately. This is where I'm 99% sure I'm wrong :) Elszgenza is right if taken literally (about the keyboard not working in PS/2 mode when connected to an actual USB interface) but there's the …

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Re: First MIDI compatible sound card?

Posted on 2023-07-15, 14:06

by

by Ryccardo

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

either via hardware support, by converting MIDI-data to native chip data for an AdLib or OPL3 or such on-the-fly, Thank you, I think this is what I was missing :) I'm pretty sure onboard audio won't actually interpret MIDI data. At least, your average AC'97 won't. Yeah, in most other contemporary- …

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Re: 8086 (vs 80286) Popularity in DIY/Clone Systems in the late 80s

Posted on 2023-07-10, 20:45

by

by Ryccardo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

…and, to add to the confusion, the most desirable features of the AT (all but the key switch and the larger mobo + case + super-height cards) were put in previous generation cases, creating the XT 286 - which is what generic ATs (then more commonly called Baby AT for clarification) really are!

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First MIDI compatible sound card?

Posted on 2023-07-10, 12:02

by

by Ryccardo

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I'll attempt to write a short history of PC sound, which I'm sure is missing something which in turn is related to my ultimate question: - First (ignoring the PC Speaker, PCjr sound, and the parallel port DACs) was the Roland MPU series, a subset of which (dumb mode) became the de facto standard for …

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Re: Windows XP: is there an AC97 version for Windows XP?

Posted on 2023-07-08, 18:30

by

by Ryccardo

in Windows

in Windows

Doubt it and I don't even think it's possible… I'm not sure I understand the point of AC97 & HDAudio (please explain!) when you need codec-specific drivers anyway, but even when you do have them (and some OSes go a long way here), you still get the fun of "pins", ie the mapping of physical I/O …

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Re: Win98 Start-up screens: have some, want more

Posted on 2023-07-08, 17:54

by

by Ryccardo

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Mcafee Utilities (which I found, back in 2002, on a magazine CD) comes with a handful, because it includes a Tweak UI like program that includes a point and click logo converter - wouldn't recommend you to install it without a backup or a snapshot-based "uninstaller" though 😀

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Re: Capacity of standard CD-R

Posted on 2023-07-08, 16:44

by

by Ryccardo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Remember, the CD was invented as an audio-only format ( which, despite being without doubt digital, is in many ways closer to a cassette or LP than a bunch of files in the codec of your choice ), so read the Red Book first (you can skip every 2nd page as that's the French translation, and the many …

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Re: 3Dfx Quantum3D Quicksilver II password recovery

Posted on 2023-06-28, 17:05

by

by Ryccardo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Never used it, but I suspect NTPasswd is the most practical approach 😀

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Re: Help identifying this Socket 370 HP OEM motherboard please

Posted on 2023-06-28, 17:01

by

by Ryccardo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Brio, IIRC, is the "low end professional" line from HP, and the board does vaguely resemble (while having tons of differences, mind you) the later and higher-class Vectra VL400 ; As for the SGRAM card, the only thing that immediately comes to mind is the trayloader iMac G3 :) Said Vectra does have …

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Re: school text books "Try it in BASIC"

Posted on 2023-06-25, 21:08

by

by Ryccardo

in Milliways

in Milliways

In 2003, when I was 8, my uncle gave me "Fisica" by someone called Paride Nobel (a complete unknown, apart from apparently having continued to write until at least 2012), that being a late 80s high school physics textbook (not too good for learning, IMO - topics are very rushed despite being a thick …

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Re: Thinkpad 486 NiMH battery buy or refurbish?

Posted on 2023-06-25, 20:13

by

by Ryccardo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

According to ThinkWiki the 370 series does have active electronics (unlike even its direct successor...) but it's probably old enough to not do "safety" aka profit optimizing anti-replacement tricks :) I'm afraid there's no real alternative to recelling either - too old and too niche to have 3rd …

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Re: The Intel CD-ROM for Retailers Volume 1

Posted on 2023-06-25, 19:32

by

by Ryccardo

in Milliways

in Milliways

advise potential customers in the shop (ie. buy Intel, only Intel ;) ). Ha! A way newer version (RXT 2021) was on my ex-demo Huawei MateStation S and, while being a bit less enthusiast on the processor merely calling it "AMD", it did call it a "Notebook" and my Flatron 776FM a "31.5 inch Full HD" …

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Re: CD/DVD

Posted on 2023-06-25, 19:25

by

by Ryccardo

in Milliways

in Milliways

At home - not too much, as above I too have a stack of the good Verbatim DVD- and CD-Rs with about 20 left out of 50 each of both, my new car replaced CD with SD, I did buy a 5-pack of Philips DVD-RWs for the ludicrous price of 10 € (wanted to install Leopard the traditional way on my Mac Mini G4) …

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Re: ST506 to CF or IDE or anything

Posted on 2023-06-25, 14:15

by

by Ryccardo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I had no idea what it meant but I guess everything was in LBA mode already back then Generally the opposite, most contemporary operating systems (= MS-DOS 6.22 and earlier, and Win16 + 9x without "32 bit disk access") and bootloaders only support "traditional" int13 disk access, which is CHS only …

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Re: Difference Between MicroDrive from iPod and Retail Version?

Posted on 2023-06-25, 14:02

by

by Ryccardo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There are indeed some crippled OEM microdrives from when an iPod Mini (yes, the one by Apple!!!) and comparable products were cheaper than a retail disk, but IIRC the difference is that they got rid of CF modes - full IDE mode used by mechanical adapters works fine since, well, that's what the HDD …

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Re: Did you create maps for games?

Posted on 2023-06-20, 15:45

by

by Ryccardo

in Milliways

in Milliways

Thought I already replied to this? Anyway - summer 2007, when my laptop would alternate between Lunar Magic (the Super Mario World editor), Openoffice Draw (the beach marble track editor), pre-downloaded websites, and magazine CDs :D A friend of mine, then a big Blizzard fan and collaborator on the …

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Re: 386 does not boot from compact flash

Posted on 2023-06-20, 15:35

by

by Ryccardo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes but it will be somewhat wasted (XT-IDE the card is designed for 8-bit slots after all), the controller is usually not the cause of size limits (especially if it's a traditional non-accelerated not-really-controller) and you can get better value by using only the XTIDE Universal Bios using a ROM …

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Re: Apple Imac (Intel Imac)...my first IMAC encouter ...How to >>>

Posted on 2023-06-20, 15:00

by

by Ryccardo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I read that the process involved starting the G5 with the command and R keys pressed.. ..which would start up in recovery mode...? That came with Lion (utility partition on disk), and/or the firmware update which launched shortly after and probably only for later models (utility partition in …

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Re: Devel and Gaming on Dell Dimension L500R with Radeon 7000 64MB PCI

Posted on 2023-06-20, 14:27

by

by Ryccardo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'd also like to know if it's better to get a CRT or if a 4:3 LCD could do the trick, or even offer more comfort. I'm used to playing on older consoles and prefer a CRT, but PCs generally use a higher resolution, so an LCD might be a good thing. Richtige Monitoren habe Roehren! That said, I …

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Re: What is the purpose of that 7.2V built in battery in most notebooks?

Posted on 2023-06-20, 14:01

by

by Ryccardo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What is that inner 7.2V battery supposed to do in most laptops? Isn't that for powering RAM in sleep mode? I think the PSU in these early laptops was not efficient enough at low power draw to use the main battery and not drain it too quickly Not sure if that's a thing and covering it up is a Nice …

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