That heatsink looks like a peanut butter cup wrapper

just wanted to put that out there

vetz wrote:

Please do, I've been looking into these KVM options, but haven't heard any user reports you see. Since I fried my KVM switch the […]
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RacoonRider wrote:

I've got an "administrator series" Belkin KVM switch that features both PS/2 and COM connectivity and I've heard that they have a solid active PS/2 to COM converter. I'm currently waiting for the cables to arrive (damn this Russian post). I'll let you know if it is any good.

Please do, I've been looking into these KVM options, but haven't heard any user reports you see. Since I fried my KVM switch the other day this may turn out to be a good thing.

EDIT: I found this in the manual for one of the Belkin's KVM (model nr: F1D066):

How do I control several computers if some use serial mice and others use PS/2? • The OmniView PS/2 supports either PS/2- or AT- […]
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How do I control several computers if some use serial mice and others use PS/2?
• The OmniView PS/2 supports either PS/2- or AT-style (serial) mice. Note that the OmniView does
not convert from one type to the other. If you wish to use PS/2 mice on some PCs and serial mice
on others, you must attach two mice, one of each type, to the console port on the top-level
OmniView. This allows control of multiple computers from one monitor, one keyboard, and two
mice.

Just look for higher-grade equipment. Mine is F1D108-OSD, here's what the manual states:

Really interested in your results RacoonRider, please post your findings as soon as you get the cables 😀

Or if you could somehow just test the mouse conversion without VGA and just one computer connected. Should work as long as the keyboard & mouses are connected.

vetz wrote:

Really interested in your results RacoonRider, please post your findings as soon as you get the cables 😀

Or if you could somehow just test the mouse conversion without VGA and just one computer connected. Should work as long as the keyboard & mouses are connected.

I'll see what I can do 😀

Just got the cables, can't wait to test the setup 😀

Update: The VGA cables I purchased turned out to be male-male, not female-male as I expected... At least the PS/2 part is good enough. Then, it turns out, the only 110 to 220V transformer I have does not fit any of my wall sockets. Bought an adapter and found a VGA cable, now it seems that my COM male-female cables are incomplete and feature only 3 wires out of 9... Bad luck, I can not catch a break 🙁

Nice build, vetz. Good to see my old cabinet again! 😀
This would have been top notch back in the day.

This seagate cheetah 10k7 is a very hot drive. Without active cooling it's temp may reach 50 C.
Dallas rtc is socketed?

Havent noticed the harddrive gets insane hot so far.

Dallas RTC is not socketed, so when it wears out I'll have to use the solder iron (and make a socket)

Nice mini tower. Looks like the model for ESCOM 80486 DX4 100 back in the day. At least in NL that is.

Technically the Hercules is upgradeable; just solder in two more SGRAMs on the unused pads and presto. I'm assuming they used the same BIOS for both variants.

I have a similiar Belkin KVM, which I sourced specifically to test the serial-to-ps/2 protocal conversion. If you don't care for a serial mouse's tracking quality, you really won't like the tracking quality found with KVM protocal converters. While the conversion does work, it was about 3x crummier than using an ordinary serial mouse. I have tried an Belkin F1D102 KVM, some Cybex KVM, and 3 different stand-alone converters (Vetra systems and Raritan). I have given up on this conversion being a success. You might not mind if you are running at 320xwhatever resolution. The higher the resolution the more obvious the delay is. Of all converters, the least bad was probably the Belkin KVM.

I still have a glimmer of hope that the ground-up assembly-programmed protocal converter is the way to go, however, I was unable to get it working. The author of the code said it worked fine for him though. PS/2 to Serial Mouse protocol converter

Better late than never... I just got the remaining cables (shipping to Russia is a b***), found a 220V power supply (it came with a 110V), bought and soldered a fitting connector and assembled a test bench.

First of all, system specs:

KVM switch: FD108-OSD "Administrator Pro Series"

Console:
A pretty generic Samsung 940N 19" LCD
Logitech MX310 USB mouse through PS/2 adapter
Genius GM-6000 serial mouse
generic Defender serial mouse
Chicony AT keyboard.

PC#1: My main rig
Core Quad Q6700;
ASUS P5K;
HD4870;
Windows 7/64
Connectivity: PS/2 for keyboard only

PC #2:IBM PC-300PL
Pentium II-450
Windows 98 SE
Connectivity: PS/2 for both mouse and keyboard, tested with COM for mouse

PC#3:
Athlon XP 3200+
Gigabyte GA-7n400s
Radeon 9800Pro
Windows XP SP2
Connectivity: PS/2 for both mouse and keyboard

PC#4:
AMD 5x86-133
Acer AP43
Matrox Mystique
OS/2 Warp 3
Connectivity: COM, DIN5

Keyboard
On all setups keyboard is detected and very responsive.

Video
On resolutions 1024x768 and below the picture is perfect. On 1280x1024 there is slight patterining in dark areas, as if the picture went through slight JPEG compression.

Mouse
1) PS/2 mouse with PS/2 systems:
Pentium II and W98 acted like the mouse was connected directly to PS/2. No quirks, no delays.
Athlon XP worked really well until XP found a "suitable" driver and asked for reboot. Now it does not boot at all 🙁

2) PS/2 mouse with COM port systems:
On PC-300PL the mouse acts weird: it does not react on small moves and has what seems to be non-linear sensitivity: the longer the move the faster it goes. This results in low precision.
On 5x86 powered by OS/2 the mouse acts better, but even maximum sensitivity is barely enough for comfortable use. "Small moves" issue is gone, non-linear sensitivity issue is not noticeable (but is still should be there).
However, I did not notice any delay. I should probably try some FPS game to check it out.

3) Serial mouse with COM port systems:
Surprisingly, none of the serial mice I tested worked through KVM. And it's not the cable length issue (I tried connecting the cables directly, it worked fine). With the older Genius mouse you can only move it left and only 4-5 pixels at a time. The later Defender mouse can move in any direction except for down and even click, but only one thing at a time. F.E. it can not move diagonally, it can not drag and drop, etc.

As a conclusion, I think that FD108-OSD is only suitable for pre-1995 machines. It does not work well with high resolutions, its Mouse Conversion tech is a pain to use in Windows due to precision issues. I have not yet tested it in pure DOS, but I'm sure it will prove a good solution for playing mouse-active games like Ultima Underworld, Dune II, etc with a PS/2 mouse.

So you are using a USB mouse with a passive USB-to-PS/2 converter, then connecting this USB mouse to the KVM's PS/2 port? Were the results with a native PS/2 mouse any better? Your results are similar to what my testing revealed about all these protocal converters. Was the tracking quality of the mouse pointer better in OS/2 Warp 3 compared to Windows 9x?

The poor tracking quality of all these active protocal converters is the reason I started modifying all my motherboards for native PS/2 mouse support. Some are easier to convert than others. I would like to spend some time and figure out how to adapt the Shuttle HOT-433 v4 motherboard for native PS/2 mouse support. It has the PS/2 mouse header, but it is wired incorrectly. UM8886BF-based motherboards have the PS/2 mouse controller built into the chipset, which complicates things.

feipoa wrote:

So you are using a USB mouse with a passive USB-to-PS/2 converter, then connecting this USB mouse to the KVM's PS/2 port? Were the results with a native PS/2 mouse any better? Your results are similar to what my testing revealed about all these protocal converters. Was the tracking quality of the mouse pointer better in OS/2 Warp 3 compared to Windows 9x?

The poor tracking quality of all these active protocal converters is the reason I started modifying all my motherboards for native PS/2 mouse support. Some are easier to convert than others. I would like to spend some time and figure out how to adapt the Shuttle HOT-433 v4 motherboard for native PS/2 mouse support. It has the PS/2 mouse header, but it is wired incorrectly. UM8886BF-based motherboards have the PS/2 mouse controller built into the chipset, which complicates things.

Yes, the only quality PS/2 capable mouse I have is MX310 😀 I've got a PS/2 only Defender mouse I got for $1 new, I'll try that as well.

OS/2 has better tracking quality, I'm capable of pointing at buttons with a single move, while in Windows 98 it takes two. It may improve once you get used to the unusual sensitivity. Btw, long and jerky moves make the pointer go right to the edge of the screen in Windows 98, I have not noticed that in OS/2.

Good luck with your modifications! That seems a very difficult task to me. Do you use backplate headers like the ones that come with some Socket 7 boards?

-

But what can you use OS/2 Warp 3 for? Can you run Quake in OS2?

For the motherboard headers, I either epoxy on a header or use an existing PS/2 header that was never wired up by the manufacturer.

I would be surprised if there was no source port of Quake for OS/2. A quick search returns some stuff, I'd have to look into it to say more.
Also OS/2 Warp 3 is excellent for DOS games, VGA games running in a window with great multi-tasking.

Quake does not run in OS/2 DOS shell.

As other benchmarks from phil's pack suggest, OS/2 DOS shells offer only marginally slower performance than real DOS on the same machine.

vetz wrote:

Yes, another build to show of with a new case I recently acquired from a fellow Vogoner here in Norway :) https://dl.dropboxuser […]
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Yes, another build to show of with a new case I recently acquired from a fellow Vogoner here in Norway 😀

Canopus Pure3D 6MB Voodoo Graphics. Yes I have the cable as well 😀 Not so much you can use a Voodoo card in a system like this, but there are some early supported games that run fine like Descent 2, Whiplash, Hellbender, etc. I've not connected the fan as I don't believe the card will see much heavy use. The case fan will provide adequate cooling.

I'm not sure if the I/O DATA voodoo2 cards use the same cable as the canopus pure 3D. Since I've lost the cable for mine I may try the canopus cable... uses a same mini DIN connector, not sure if the pinout is the same.

The canopus voodoos are kind of odd-- they sold those fans as a separate option!

idspispopd wrote:

I would be surprised if there was no source port of Quake for OS/2. A quick search returns some stuff, I'd have to look into it to say more.
Also OS/2 Warp 3 is excellent for DOS games, VGA games running in a window with great multi-tasking.

Back in the 90's, OS/2 Warp 3.0 was my day-to-day OS. I did some "stopwatch benchmarks" back then, of everyday tasks in MS-DOS (file copying, floppy formatting, and similar) and they were consistently faster in OS/2 shell than they were in MS-DOS. This is not even considering the improvements to drive performance you could get from HPFS, as I used FAT for dual-booting.
I could also run a number of games in windowed mode as you mention. Things like A-train played wonderfully in windowed mode, and seemed to run more stable under OS/2 than under native MS-DOS.
Aside from some games not working under OS/2, I actually don't see any disadvantages of it. As an OS, it was way ahead of its time, perhaps too much so, which might be part of the reason it didn't catch on big. Too bad really, because if it had done, we might have had an OS similar to today's Windows NT versions many years sooner. I mean, OS/2 was far better than Windows 95, and it wasn't until NT4 really that Windows could compare.