bestemor wrote on 2022-01-15, 03:36:

Heh, sure... but I kinda wanted to keep the original look (and parts) if possible. Not often I get a retro card in full origin […]
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Heh, sure... but I kinda wanted to keep the original look (and parts) if possible.
Not often I get a retro card in full original box these days, so it would seem a sacriledge to chop it up.

Oh well, I could always macgyver on some better fans after removing the 'shroud' though.

The fans are why it got put on the shelf 🤣, I had a look at trying to replace them myself and quickly decided that trying to MacGyver new ones on might do more hard than good, the GPU still works so I decided to retire it to a display piece rather than butcher it trying to replace the fans, its possible the originals can be rebuilt but I haven't looked into that yet.

One day Ill take another crack at it when I can find some suitable replacements that wont require me to MacGyver it or I can get a second card to butcher for parts.

If you can find some nice replacement fans for it that fit the card drop me a message, I would be interested in getting some myself 😁

Its such a nice looking card and the pink looks great on my shelf !

I managed to get an ASRock AM2CPU upgrade card recently for my 939Dual-VSTA.

Today I had chance to install, using a modified bios. The original motherboard CPU was a s939 Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (running at 2.2Ghz) with 2GB DDR 400, it’s now an AM2 Athlon 64 X2 6400+ (at 3.2Ghz) with 4GB Geil DDR2 800.

Crysis benchmark averaged 30fps at 1280x1024 High settings with previous cpu, it’s now 40fps 😁

trixster wrote on 2022-01-15, 17:10:

I managed to get an ASRock AM2CPU upgrade card recently for my 939Dual-VSTA. […]
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I managed to get an ASRock AM2CPU upgrade card recently for my 939Dual-VSTA.

697A7C3B-96C6-49BF-A7E3-DE4113900378.jpeg

Today I had chance to install, using a modified bios. The original motherboard CPU was a s939 Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (running at 2.2Ghz) with 2GB DDR 400, it’s now an AM2 Athlon 64 X2 6400+ (at 3.2Ghz) with 4GB Geil DDR2 800.

7FC231A3-5CF0-4D51-9D3F-4D690043B73B.jpeg

BF90D347-2239-4EDA-B7D3-6733E3407756.jpeg

823AFC69-822C-4303-A660-4F1E137FC5F1.jpeg

BF0D7EED-3903-4BF0-AC63-DC06CCDE2503.jpeg

Crysis benchmark averaged 30fps at 1280x1024 High settings with previous cpu, it’s now 40fps 😁

I can feel your satisfaction. Having an AM2 mobo I never wondered how it could fare with that board.
There was a 754 to 939 board as well.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-15, 03:48:

The fans are why it got put on the shelf 🤣, I had a look at trying to replace them myself and quickly decided that trying to MacGyver new ones on might do more hard than good, the GPU still works so I decided to retire it to a display piece rather than butcher it trying to replace the fans, its possible the originals can be rebuilt but I haven't looked into that yet.
One day Ill take another crack at it when I can find some suitable replacements that wont require me to MacGyver it or I can get a second card to butcher for parts.
If you can find some nice replacement fans for it that fit the card drop me a message, I would be interested in getting some myself 😁

Done and done! 😆 Looks verry nais indeed.... Gotta love the brown-beige.

PS: the cardboard piece is just for temporary support, as my testbench does not have 'back' support.
And there is a second screw on the lower diagonal as well... (into the ram heat sink part, just as the top one)

I got these today from a guy nearby who is going through old boxes. Gonna keep in touch with him for sure as i need some parts for a coup[le 486 machines im working on . I was happy to grab these super, super cheap.

First is this 5.25 inch floppy which I want for my IBM PS/1 486 SX 25 im fixing. It has a CD rom drive in it and thats just wrong.

This Monster 3d 2 12 MB card is still sealed. It will pain me to open it up Ill put this into my pentium 2, though maybe its better to put this in my pentium 1, and put my voodoo 3 2000 into the pentium 2? What do you guys say?

Law212 wrote on 2022-01-15, 22:19:

I got these today from a guy nearby who is going through old boxes. Gonna keep in touch with him for sure as i need some parts f […]
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I got these today from a guy nearby who is going through old boxes. Gonna keep in touch with him for sure as i need some parts for a coup[le 486 machines im working on . I was happy to grab these super, super cheap.

First is this 5.25 inch floppy which I want for my IBM PS/1 486 SX 25 im fixing. It has a CD rom drive in it and thats just wrong.

This Monster 3d 2 12 MB card is still sealed. It will pain me to open it up Ill put this into my pentium 2, though maybe its better to put this in my pentium 1, and put my voodoo 3 2000 into the pentium 2? What do you guys say?

Awesome!

I don't have any problems opening old, sealed hardware. Open away! The Voodoo2 and Voodoo3 are mostly wasted in a Pentium, more so the Voodoo3, unless you don't have a primary 2D card for DOS (which the Voodoo3 excels). For games without heavy CPU utilization, you'll see a big boost, though. Check out this thread with a Voodoo1 vs. Voodoo2 by Phils Computer's Lab. Quake GL sees a nice jump in performance.

Voodoo 1 CPU & VGA Limitations (scroll down halfway to see Voodoo1 vs. Voodoo2 Socket 7 Chart)

Meatball wrote on 2022-01-15, 22:28:

Awesome!

I don't have any problems opening old, sealed hardware. Open away! The Voodoo2 and Voodoo3 are mostly wasted in a Pentium, more so the Voodoo3, unless you don't have a primary 2D card for DOS (which the Voodoo3 excels). For games without heavy CPU utilization, you'll see a big boost, though. Check out this thread with a Voodoo1 vs. Voodoo2 by Phils Computer's Lab. Quake GL sees a nice jump in performance.

Voodoo 1 CPU & VGA Limitations (scroll down halfway to see Voodoo1 vs. Voodoo2 Socket 7 Chart)

Ya you're right. Open away! , im that way with retro PC games too. sealed is a waste.
I have a voodoo 3 2000, I have this new moster 2 3d , and I have a vodoo 2 but i dont think it works, and i have a bunch of random agp cards . the voodoo 3 was a card i bought way back in the day when they were new and it still works today. I wish i could remember what kind of system I had it in before. Now its in my pentium 1 233 MMX machine and has been pretty great . I also had the voodoo 3 in my pentium 2 and it was good there too.
Quake GL ran amazing on both systems. I also have a pentium 3...

Ill have to look into what card makes more sense in what system. Im not a pro with retro hardware like so many of the people here.

I also found this at value village for 6 dollars.

Cant wait to try it out

So, I finally have the Disney Sound Source I won in an eBay auction last month.

Like Bondi, I'm interested in studying game compatibility with this device in further detail, particularly on newer PCs.

This particular piece of hardware has fascinated me for a long time, since it's the best supported DOS PC sound add-on that does not require ISA slots, making it compatible with much more modern PCs that don't support Sound Blaster ISA compatible sound cards, at least in theory. Let's see how well that works.

In addition to the reasonably long list of DOS games with out-of-the-box support, it should be possible to patch quite a few games that don't officially support it, using the DIGPAK driver.

The previous owner deliberately chipped a corner off the battery lid, so they could run it with an external AC adapter connected to it, instead of depending on a 9V battery. For the hard-core collectors and preservationists, that might be considered unacceptable, but it's not that bad, since you don't notice it when the speaker module is sitting upright.

Also, the original label came off of the driver floppy, but other than that, it still looks in tact and shouldn't be too hard to glue back on the floppy, after I've taken the opportunity to scan it. 🙂

I'll also make a scan of the manual, even though I likely won't be the first person to digitially preserve the manual of the Disney Sound Source.

If any of you would like me to test any particular game or application with it, feel free to send me a DM.

By the way, I principly never buy disposable batteries, so I went and bought a rechargeable 9V battery for it. It's precharged, so I should be good to go. This should be fun and interesting.

Got today a "Soyo SY-5VD" AT Socket 7 board (with a P-166 MX) for my 1997 Retro-PC "project in progress"
... and the Audigy 2 came with the board for free 😀

Any Idea what the fastest CPU is that this board will run?

digger wrote on 2022-01-16, 17:24:

So, I finally have the Disney Sound Source I won in an eBay auction last month. […]
Show full quote

So, I finally have the Disney Sound Source I won in an eBay auction last month.

IMG_20220116_173444_HDR_1_disney_sound_source.jpg

Like Bondi, I'm interested in studying game compatibility with this device in further detail, particularly on newer PCs.

This particular piece of hardware has fascinated me for a long time, since it's the best supported DOS PC sound add-on that does not require ISA slots, making it compatible with much more modern PCs that don't support Sound Blaster ISA compatible sound cards, at least in theory. Let's see how well that works.

In addition to the reasonably long list of DOS games with out-of-the-box support, it should be possible to patch quite a few games that don't officially support it, using the DIGPAK driver.

The previous owner deliberately chipped a corner off the battery lid, so they could run it with an external AC adapter connected to it, instead of depending on a 9V battery. For the hard-core collectors and preservationists, that might be considered unacceptable, but it's not that bad, since you don't notice it when the speaker module is sitting upright.

IMG_20220116_174516_HDR_1_disney_sound_source_closeup.jpg

Also, the original label came off of the driver floppy, but other than that, it still looks in tact and shouldn't be too hard to glue back on the floppy, after I've taken the opportunity to scan it. 🙂

I'll also make a scan of the manual, even though I likely won't be the first person to digitially preserve the manual of the Disney Sound Source.

If any of you would like me to test any particular game or application with it, feel free to send me a DM.

By the way, I principly never buy disposable batteries, so I went and bought a rechargeable 9V battery for it. It's precharged, so I should be good to go. This should be fun and interesting.

IMG_20220116_181306_HDR.jpg

Congrats on finally getting the DSS! Did you test it? Does it work?
I had to do a little troubleshooting before mine started working properly.
I also found that the list of supported games on mobygames is not quite accurate. Some of the games did not actuallt have the support. Maybe I tried the versiond that dropped the support at some point.
Anyways looking forward to seeng new experimantal data 😀

ildonaldo wrote on 2022-01-16, 17:51:

Got today a "Soyo SY-5VD" AT Socket 7 board (with a P-166 MX) for my 1997 Retro-PC "project in progress" ... and the Audigy 2 ca […]
Show full quote

Got today a "Soyo SY-5VD" AT Socket 7 board (with a P-166 MX) for my 1997 Retro-PC "project in progress"
... and the Audigy 2 came with the board for free 😀

Any Idea what the fastest CPU is that this board will run?

Soyo_Socket7.jpg

SY-5VD.jpg

Looks like a 430VX board so I'd say a K6-2 at 400mhz using 66 mhz fsb.

I had a K6-2+ running at 500mhz in my Asus VX97 (6x83 mhz fsb) and it was nice.

Grabbed this beautiful Proliant 1500 off eBay for $135 after finally saying heck with it and plunking down the coin.

even comes with the keys. has a few 4GB SCSI drives, 192MB RAM and a single pentium 166MHz CPU, dual capable.

hopefully it won't get destroyed in transit to Canada. seller's shipping quote was absurdly low for a system of this size and weight, like $48USD, I'm not sure how they can not be losing money...

More Soyo - with sketchy but apparently functional and visually OK Wendell caps. 12V shows +5,5% and 3,3V +8% in bios so it might need a closer inspection.

And a GF 2 Ti - needs a 40mm fan replacement.

Beautiful.

Urgh, bought a 3rd useless DB9 to RJ45 dongle... So I had one a decade or so back that was an honest to goodness RS-232 to Ethernet dongle, but it's been MIA. Bought one that looked similar a couple of years ago, but that turned out to be a RS-232 to RS-485 adapter, bought one earlier this year that was an RS-232 OVER ethernet adapter, i.e. proprietary link protocol in between two RS-232 dongles for serial OVER ethernet.. so one was useless.. find another in a bag of "dongles" today at a thrift... annnd it turns out it's probably just a physical/electrical adapter for a terminal server card, that has RJ45s on... okay maybe it's not totally useless, I might stick an RJ45 pigtail on a motherboard serial header and use it to connect the port for something. I was hoping it was at least the other half of a serial over ethernet setup or like I wanted a really real RS232 to Ethernet NIC.

Anyhoo, bag of bits has a couple of gender changers, a 9<>25 and a PURPLE USB to PS/2... wonder if I've got a keyboard that will work with that.

Bondi wrote on 2022-01-16, 18:55:

Congrats on finally getting the DSS! Did you test it? Does it work?

Yep, it gets detected and it works flawlessly, "out of the box". And this is on an Asrock J3710M motherboard from 2016. 🙂

Thanks again for pointing out the eBay offer by the way, Bondi. That's why I have this thing to play with now.

I had to do a little troubleshooting before mine started working properly.

Yeah, I read your thread about that. Mine seemed fine. All I did beforehand was pop in the rechargeable 9V battery. I did notice sound playing back at a somewhat lower pitch in some games, but nothing as bad as in that Doom sample you shared in your thread. I kind of expected this phenomenon to an extent , since DOS game developers mainly targeted Sound Blaster back in the day, so they usually recorded their samples at 11 kHz. And since the Disney Sound Source is hardwired to play back samples at 7 kHz, either the samples will sound slower, or they have to be resampled in software, which many (if not most?) games didn't bother to do.

Interestingly, I got Dune 2 to work with my Disney Sound Source, and although the sample playback quality (especially during the intro) was nothing to write home about, it did sound like it was being played back at its intended speed and pitch. This is likely because the DIGPAK driver performs resampling in software as-needed. I expect many more DOS games that don't support the DSS out of the box to be patchable in a similar way, at least real mode ones.

I also found that the list of supported games on mobygames is not quite accurate. Some of the games did not actuallt have the support. Maybe I tried the versiond that dropped the support at some point.
Anyways looking forward to seeng new experimantal data 😀

We need a topic where we can track the findings of our compatibility tests, and where we can build up a list of games that we have confirmed to be compatible, or we managed to get working through patching and such. (Those should be two distinct lists, actually.)

Let's continue this discussion in this existing topic.

Picked up a couple of 12MB Voodoo2 cards.

Paid lot for the pair of voodoo2 cards?

What I see out there is selling over priced.

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2022-01-16, 23:02:

Paid lot for the pair of voodoo2 cards?

What I see out there is selling over priced.

Cheers,

Paid through the nose, but that’s OK. I can always get more money.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-16, 21:46:

Urgh, bought a 3rd useless DB9 to RJ45 dongle... So I had one a decade or so back that was an honest to goodness RS-232 to Ethernet dongle, but it's been MIA. Bought one that looked similar a couple of years ago, but that turned out to be a RS-232 to RS-485 adapter, bought one earlier this year that was an RS-232 OVER ethernet adapter, i.e. proprietary link protocol in between two RS-232 dongles for serial OVER ethernet.. so one was useless.. find another in a bag of "dongles" today at a thrift... annnd it turns out it's probably just a physical/electrical adapter for a terminal server card, that has RJ45s on... okay maybe it's not totally useless, I might stick an RJ45 pigtail on a motherboard serial header and use it to connect the port for something. I was hoping it was at least the other half of a serial over ethernet setup or like I wanted a really real RS232 to Ethernet NIC.

Anyhoo, bag of bits has a couple of gender changers, a 9<>25 and a PURPLE USB to PS/2... wonder if I've got a keyboard that will work with that.

Most of those RS-232 to RJ-45 adapters are for console connections for managed switches. A real RS-232 to Ethernet adapter would be quite slow and would require the software that was made for it.

Check out this article... Looks like you can "make" one yourself.
https://medium.com/swlh/connecting-a-286-dos- … 19-b93a422ff094