Re: Live-booting a HDD-less Pentium4 laptop to backup floppy disks.

Posted on 2024-02-17, 23:36

by

by elszgensa

in DOS

in DOS

Use a Linux LiveCD/-USB, then 'dd' those floppies straight onto an USB stick. Or, if you prefer, some kind of live Windows disc (I recall people raving about BartPE, no idea whether that's still the case), then WinImage. But if you insist on making life unnecessarily hard for yourself, I can at …

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Re: Have you opened your SC-55 to check the battery inside?

Posted on 2024-02-17, 06:01

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Not a synth but semi-related because batteries: Heads up to my fellow Tiger Telematics Gizmondo owners - I recently learned that these, too, have a tiny backup battery besides the obvious main one. Take care of that before it's too late.

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Re: Zortech C++ 3.1 - request for information

Posted on 2024-02-16, 14:28

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

> DOS ide (...) zed.exe but I am not sure this is the right name I think their attempt at an IDE is zwb.exe, the Zortech Workbench. Lmk how that goes for you, because I'm having a bad time with it - either this thing doesn't like DOSbox, or someone (their installer or me) messed up. I cannot fathom …

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Re: Zortech C++ 3.1 - request for information

Posted on 2024-02-15, 13:56

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Ah yes, that compiler changed names a couple times. These days it's known as the Digital Mars compiler - maybe the current documentation is still somewhat relevant to your version? Fwiw DOS and Win16 support is all still in there even today.

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Re: What could this be?

Posted on 2024-02-15, 09:13

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It looks like two PCs in one case because that's what it is. You'll notice (from the installed cards' ports) that one of them's upside down, that's because they're mounted back to back to a plate down the middle. I've seen a (very) few "enthusiast" cases like that (e.g. Nanoxia Dual System ), but …

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Re: Which Mac for retro gaming?

Posted on 2024-02-15, 07:53

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't think [graphites] can run OSX Think again. Officially they run up to Tiger, and apparently with some hacking also Leopard. Hell, Tiger's officially supported even on G3 iMacs - which are ~1/2 as powerful as a base model PM G4! It does a pretty bad job there (maybe a SSD would help, haven't …

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Re: Which Mac for retro gaming?

Posted on 2024-02-15, 01:51

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you care about a speedy (instead of a "good enuff") OS X experience, wouldn't it make more sense to forget about native PPC and go with the fastest machine (that still support Rosetta (i.e. Snow Leopard) for PPC things)? i.e. a second machine? The polycarb Minis are still somewhat affordable rn. …

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Re: Looking for source code of the 3dnow patch for Quake 2.

Posted on 2024-02-15, 01:26

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I didn't keep it, sorry. In fact it never even left the Linux box I cross compiled on, i.e. I have no idea whether it starts cleanly - examining the generated assembly was enough for me. I'll attach my Makefiles and changes though so you can do it yourself.

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Re: Looking for source code of the 3dnow patch for Quake 2.

Posted on 2024-02-14, 01:26

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

So... I took a minute to compile Q2, using gcc 12.3, targeting k6-2, with heavy optimizations. The result was... underwhelming, to say the least. It emitted barely any 3dnow instructions at all - a handful of femms and prefetch here and there, and a single instance each of pfrcpit2, pi2fd, pfcmpge …

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Re: Is there anyone in the UK that can recap old PC motherboards?

Posted on 2024-02-12, 06:38

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A small phone/camera PCB with miniscule components and a PC mainboard with massive ground planes sucking up large amounts of heat need very different tools. Can't hurt to ask around though - just don't be surprised if they say they're not equipped for it.

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Re: Dev C++ resulting in black/white/multicoloured screen on Windows 98

Posted on 2024-02-11, 22:18

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Working fine here, on a stock 98SE - starts up with a splash screen, tip-of-the-day windows and first-time-setup wizard all at once. Had a quick glance at the code, and it seems to be a bog standard Delphi 6 application that doesn't try to do anything fancy whatsoever... Do you feel like verifying …

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Re: Compact Flash IDE interface - writing works, but reading doesn't

Posted on 2024-02-11, 05:39

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Interesting failure mode. Have you tried rebooting after creating some files, then listing them? Since the directory contents might be coming from cache instead of the card. That'd at least confirm things are properly broken, instead of only kinda-sorta... Though, that still wouldn't explain fdisk …

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Re: Looking for source code of the 3dnow patch for Quake 2.

Posted on 2024-02-10, 18:39

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Well, Cygwin includes a gcc, but you'll end up with dependencies you don't want/need, and I'm not sure about 3D API SDK support either... So I'd recommend getting yourself a MinGW compiler instead (e.g. TDM-GCC ). You'll probably also need to convert your VS project into sth else (makefiles, CMake- …

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Re: Same wire from PSU has a sata connector and molex one - can I use for both SSD and GPU?

Posted on 2024-02-10, 05:40

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

SSDs usually draw from the 5V line (...at least I haven't encountered one that didn't). Now, if your GPU wants 12V then you can stop right there and just do it, since they're using entirely different wires (that just happen to be stuck in the same plugs). If it wants 5, then... well, what choice do …

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Re: Looking for source code of the 3dnow patch for Quake 2.

Posted on 2024-02-09, 00:22

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

the built executables requires the Visual C++ 2005 Redist unless the runtime library is changed to "Multi-Threaded" (without the DLL part) If you want to get nerdy about dependencies... You can also link with certain object files from a WDK to avoid bloating your binaries by statically linking in …

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Re: What do the letters at the end of the AMD k6-2 model mean?

Posted on 2024-02-07, 23:03

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

They might be similar to Intel's "S-Spec" number, to keep track of processor revisions? Not 100% sure either. Anyways, they're not in the model designation at all but part of the order part number.

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Re: A Reasonable DOS 6.22 / Windows 3.x Retro Build - Blog & Build Feedback

Posted on 2024-02-06, 18:33

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Good read, and your philosophy is right up my alley too. I've always found it much more fun to choose from a number of quite good components than to pay through the nose for the one very best model . If you're ever in need of writing prompts - I'd love a followup going into periphery, e.g. how to …

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Re: Some GOG offline installers not executing under Windows XP

Posted on 2024-02-06, 04:04

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

DosFreak wrote on 2024-02-05, 22:37: You can install the games on another computer and copy the files over. And if no computer with a later Windows on it is available, then innoextract should do the trick.

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Re: Different Windows eras

Posted on 2024-02-05, 02:39

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

> 2012-202X? - Microsoft prioritizes designers over engineers while they enshittify windows era Steve "DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!" Ballmer didn't step down until early '14, so that's where I'd start that era. Edit: OK, 8.1 was earlier than I remembered (2013), so I can't chalk W8's shitty …

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Re: Continuous humming noise after installing sound card

Posted on 2024-02-03, 16:29

by

by elszgensa

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

> both USB powered Did you power them from the PC's USB ports, or from some external PSU? And were you consistent with where everything was plugged in (including the outlet in case of external power)?

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