acl wrote on 2023-10-17, 21:00:

They take their job very seriously 😁
I googled a bit and i could not find any other Terratec package featuring animals.

The 512i just has a toy rocket racecar on the front and no explaination on the back...
Strange they only did this for the 128i.

There is this little mom and pop type computer shop near me. I generally have avoided them over the years because they're new inventory is generally overpriced and a lot of what they have on the shelves is 20 year old stock that they never bothered to mark down sticker prices on to clear out. The latter being the reason I went in today.

I found some old chipset heatsinks and things that will fit on old GPU's as I have a number that have dead fans and it's easier to replace the entire heatsink than just the fan. But then I spotted a white box on a shelf with a hand written A8N SLI on it and had to look inside. The mobo may not be that retro, but I was just kicking myself the other day wishing I still had my A8N SLI Premium because I still have the CPU, RAM, and Geforce 6800 GT's I had on it and just like that, there it was along with some bits to replace coolers on my old GPU's I'm aiming to use in some slot 1, socket 370 and socket A stuff I have. They gave me a good price on the lot of it too, much better than it would have been elsewhere and they were actually happy to clear out some old stock

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-10-17, 12:44:

These cards are generally very compatible, but I have also had the odd occasion where they didn't work. It's rare, but it does h […]
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These cards are generally very compatible, but I have also had the odd occasion where they didn't work. It's rare, but it does happen. It has to do with chipset incompatibility with how they are routing DMA over the PCI bus, I believe.

Here are instructions on how to use ESS drivers, along with the latest versions:

Guide for configuring ESS PCI Audio cards for DOS (Solo, Maestro, Allegro, etc.)

Note that these cards need to be configured from within Windows. You cannot just copy an INI file over from another machine, since it sets itself up based on what feature for DMA is most compatible with the hardware of your machine.

Thanks for the link. I think I tried a few things there, but haven’t tried the newer versions or the Windows driver, so I’ll leave it be for now, but keep the card around for some more trials in the future, proper hardware OPL-3 on PCI is still a nice feature.

Not all that retro, but definitely retro useful, I hope. Could not resist this thrift pickup of a Micro Solutions, Backpack CD-R... Now I've got a couple of USB externals and a cheapie generic parallel port case, but since this was a brand name in parallel port drives, I thought it would be great for compatibility with about everything that's hard to add an ODD to. I still like using CDs and reading old coverdisk and shareware CDs on period hardware. The manuals and cables were really mummified in multiple plastic bags, and all taped up, I could tell it had the PCMCIA card, and the parallel cable, I missed that it didn't have original CD or power adapter, I'll check back tomorrow in case those are there but separated to the CD and adapter racks, but I can probably make something work and find the drivers. This is supposed to work in DOS 95, 98, 2000, XP. Not sure about burning capability in DOS but wasn't expecting it. 3 way interfaces, USB, parallel AND PCMCIA (A parallel convertor card???)

Edit: good ole minus zero prolly has my ass covered... https://www.minuszerodegrees.net/backpack_cdr … kpack_cdrom.htm
EditII: possibly the model reviewed here.. https://www.cnet.com/reviews/micro-solutions- … 10x-40x-review/

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-10-18, 23:32:

Not all that retro, but definitely retro useful, I hope. Could not resist this thrift pickup of a Micro Solutions, Backpack CD-R... Now I've got a couple of USB externals and a cheapie generic parallel port case, but since this was a brand name in parallel port drives, I thought it would be great for compatibility with about everything that's hard to add an ODD to. I still like using CDs and reading old coverdisk and shareware CDs on period hardware. The manuals and cables were really mummified in multiple plastic bags, and all taped up, I could tell it had the PCMCIA card, and the parallel cable, I missed that it didn't have original CD or power adapter, I'll check back tomorrow in case those are there but separated to the CD and adapter racks, but I can probably make something work and find the drivers. This is supposed to work in DOS 95, 98, 2000, XP. Not sure about burning capability in DOS but wasn't expecting it. 3 way interfaces, USB, parallel AND PCMCIA (A parallel convertor card???)

Edit: good ole minus zero prolly has my ass covered... https://www.minuszerodegrees.net/backpack_cdr … kpack_cdrom.htm
EditII: possibly the model reviewed here.. https://www.cnet.com/reviews/micro-solutions- … 10x-40x-review/

I bought up a couple of the slim versions of these a few years ago. I haven't tried them yet but I have the same idea as you. They might be useful for something in the future for things without a CD drive, like vintage laptops.

My backup solution for attachable storage is an external parallel hard drive. I managed to get it to work with a CF card adapter and SD cards, so I have a clever solution for DOS if I really need it.

Yes, I'm expecting it to be tremendously useful in messing around with my Compaq Contura 433 and the AST Exec 325 ... and possibly just seeing if it will work on my Sharp PC4641 ... then theres's a couple of smaller format desktops that have limited free bays and slots to add extra interfaces (because they've only got a single IDE channel) which might be using it also.

Promise Fasttrack s150 tx2 for 20 quid. This ABIT AV8-3rd eye I've bought weirdly doesnt detect ssd sata on the bios... It has 2 sata ports on the board.. weird, good start for the K8T800 Pro chipset 😒

More goodies from my favourite recycler - a Leadtek Winfast T200(VLB) card (Tseng Labs ET4000/w32p) and a DataExpert Opti495SX 3/486 motherboard. Both are working with only minor repairs.

It's kind of funny, my quest to get one good Tseng VLB card has resulted now in three of them (2x ET4000/w32P cards, 1x ET4000/w32i motherboard) so I'm probably not going to keep all 3. The Genoa Phantom 32i card looks far rougher than this Leadtek following my repair attempts so I'll probably be holding on to it - kind of a shame since it's way easier to fit extra RAM onto this leadtek card.

As a bonus, here's a backup of the BIOS from the card:

The DataExpert Opti495SX motherboard is quite neat, the 386DX-40 works just fine but it can have a 486 fitted and that can then use a VLB video card. It originally wasn't working because the board had its jumpers set for the not-included 486 CPU 😀 A fair bit of battery corrosion cleaning was needed too, one of the big power traces fell off while cleaning and is now bolstered with a capacitor leg 😁
For some reason this Tseng card doesn't work on this board, but a Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 card does.
Of course when the motherboard is running from the 386 CPU, the VLB doesn't work at all since the chipset doesn't get involved with the VLB connections.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-19, 16:23:

More goodies from my favourite recycler - a Leadtek Winfast T200(VLB) card (Tseng Labs ET4000/w32p) and a DataExpert Opti495SX 3 […]
Show full quote

More goodies from my favourite recycler - a Leadtek Winfast T200(VLB) card (Tseng Labs ET4000/w32p) and a DataExpert Opti495SX 3/486 motherboard. Both are working with only minor repairs.
leadtek-winfast-t200vlb-&-dataexpert-opti495sx.jpg
It's kind of funny, my quest to get one good Tseng VLB card has resulted now in three of them (2x ET4000/w32P cards, 1x ET4000/w32i motherboard) so I'm probably not going to keep all 3. The Genoa Phantom 32i card looks far rougher than this Leadtek following my repair attempts so I'll probably be holding on to it - kind of a shame since it's way easier to fit extra RAM onto this leadtek card.
leadtek-winfast-t200vlb-bios-screen.jpg
As a bonus, here's a backup of the BIOS from the card:
WINBOND27F256@DIP28-LEADTEK-WINFAST-T200(VLB)-ET4000-W32P.zip

The DataExpert Opti495SX motherboard is quite neat, the 386DX-40 works just fine but it can have a 486 fitted and that can then use a VLB video card. It originally wasn't working because the board had its jumpers set for the not-included 486 CPU 😀 A fair bit of battery corrosion cleaning was needed too, one of the big power traces fell off while cleaning and is now bolstered with a capacitor leg 😁
For some reason this Tseng card doesn't work on this board, but a Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 card does.
Of course when the motherboard is running from the 386 CPU, the VLB doesn't work at all since the chipset doesn't get involved with the VLB connections.

Congrats, nice and good job + contribution to the community...
It was a good day I see 😀

On the VLB + 386 combo not working, I saw others' YT videos testing it successfully, not your case because of chipset limitations?

Nexxen wrote on 2023-10-19, 16:56:

Congrats, nice and good job + contribution to the community... It was a good day I see :) […]
Show full quote

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-19, 16:23:

More goodies from my favourite recycler - a Leadtek Winfast T200(VLB) card (Tseng Labs ET4000/w32p) and a DataExpert Opti495SX 3 […]
Show full quote

More goodies from my favourite recycler - a Leadtek Winfast T200(VLB) card (Tseng Labs ET4000/w32p) and a DataExpert Opti495SX 3/486 motherboard. Both are working with only minor repairs.
leadtek-winfast-t200vlb-&-dataexpert-opti495sx.jpg
It's kind of funny, my quest to get one good Tseng VLB card has resulted now in three of them (2x ET4000/w32P cards, 1x ET4000/w32i motherboard) so I'm probably not going to keep all 3. The Genoa Phantom 32i card looks far rougher than this Leadtek following my repair attempts so I'll probably be holding on to it - kind of a shame since it's way easier to fit extra RAM onto this leadtek card.
leadtek-winfast-t200vlb-bios-screen.jpg
As a bonus, here's a backup of the BIOS from the card:
WINBOND27F256@DIP28-LEADTEK-WINFAST-T200(VLB)-ET4000-W32P.zip

The DataExpert Opti495SX motherboard is quite neat, the 386DX-40 works just fine but it can have a 486 fitted and that can then use a VLB video card. It originally wasn't working because the board had its jumpers set for the not-included 486 CPU 😀 A fair bit of battery corrosion cleaning was needed too, one of the big power traces fell off while cleaning and is now bolstered with a capacitor leg 😁
For some reason this Tseng card doesn't work on this board, but a Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 card does.
Of course when the motherboard is running from the 386 CPU, the VLB doesn't work at all since the chipset doesn't get involved with the VLB connections.

Congrats, nice and good job + contribution to the community...
It was a good day I see 😀

On the VLB + 386 combo not working, I saw others' YT videos testing it successfully, not your case because of chipset limitations?

Huh, yeah CPU galaxy has a video on a similar board with the same OPTI495SX chipset which is actually running a 386DX and a VLB video card, weird. Maybe it's specific to this board though, gonna have to re-check the 386 with some more VLB video cards to see if it wants to work with those.

i'm done with K8t800 pro and socket 939 in general. sound card sb16 emulation issues. stick to kt400 for less headache. beyond that pita, which includes p4

gmaverick2k wrote on 2023-10-19, 18:09:

i'm done with K8t800 pro and socket 939 in general. sound card sb16 emulation issues. stick to kt400 for less headache. beyond that pita, which includes p4

Can you clarify if you mean that you've had problems with the Pentium 4 platform? What issues are you having with AMD's socket 939?

You can try the ESS Solo-1 for Sound Blaster and Adlib support, but I know that this card can have problems with some newer chipsets. I did not have any success with the Intel 945 chipset, but both Yamaha, Aureal, and Creative PCI cards all worked for SB emulation.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-10-19, 19:08:

gmaverick2k wrote on 2023-10-19, 18:09:

i'm done with K8t800 pro and socket 939 in general. sound card sb16 emulation issues. stick to kt400 for less headache. beyond that pita, which includes p4

Can you clarify if you mean that you've had problems with the Pentium 4 platform? What issues are you having with AMD's socket 939?

You can try the ESS Solo-1 for Sound Blaster and Adlib support, but I know that this card can have problems with some newer chipsets. I did not have any success with the Intel 945 chipset, but both Yamaha, Aureal, and Creative PCI cards all worked for SB emulation.

k8t800 pro, has sata ports but wants sata150 port connected w/ drives from way back when. ok i can forgive it for that as i have other stable options. where i draw the line is if the platform cant feed my sc-55 as a minimum. bonus points if it can feed the sc-55 and not leave a hanging note which can be reset by power cycling the sc-55. when i install the vortex, its clear in system properties but midi to sc-55 works for desktop midi files, not to doom or duke3d either with general midi or sound canvas setting @330. just a pain and time waste. same for the 775i65g, i'm done with that platform too. kt266, meh my voodoo3 agp can reside on the 440bx which has better sound options.
The main soundcards I have at hand for testing are : PCI128, vortex 2, sb live!, audigy 2zs
I've got a feel for the most compatible systems and they are as follows (for win98): 440bx for stable dos sound compatible 8bit + 16 bit + FM, kt400 for a little more kick even though i avoid sata ssd, and b75m vortex which surprised me as it only has one pci slot and has done something right, as in being able to feed the sc-55 even though it has hanging note issue and is very, very snappy
I have a super socket 7 board without agp which has ess solo-1 onboard, and a ga-5ax rev 4 but I'm not interested if what my 440bx 700mhz can do, why jump onto an ALi chipset with slower cpu.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-19, 17:28:

Nexxen wrote on 2023-10-19, 16:56:

Congrats, nice and good job + contribution to the community... It was a good day I see :) […]
Show full quote

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-19, 16:23:

More goodies from my favourite recycler - a Leadtek Winfast T200(VLB) card (Tseng Labs ET4000/w32p) and a DataExpert Opti495SX 3 […]
Show full quote

More goodies from my favourite recycler - a Leadtek Winfast T200(VLB) card (Tseng Labs ET4000/w32p) and a DataExpert Opti495SX 3/486 motherboard. Both are working with only minor repairs.
leadtek-winfast-t200vlb-&-dataexpert-opti495sx.jpg
It's kind of funny, my quest to get one good Tseng VLB card has resulted now in three of them (2x ET4000/w32P cards, 1x ET4000/w32i motherboard) so I'm probably not going to keep all 3. The Genoa Phantom 32i card looks far rougher than this Leadtek following my repair attempts so I'll probably be holding on to it - kind of a shame since it's way easier to fit extra RAM onto this leadtek card.
leadtek-winfast-t200vlb-bios-screen.jpg
As a bonus, here's a backup of the BIOS from the card:
WINBOND27F256@DIP28-LEADTEK-WINFAST-T200(VLB)-ET4000-W32P.zip

The DataExpert Opti495SX motherboard is quite neat, the 386DX-40 works just fine but it can have a 486 fitted and that can then use a VLB video card. It originally wasn't working because the board had its jumpers set for the not-included 486 CPU 😀 A fair bit of battery corrosion cleaning was needed too, one of the big power traces fell off while cleaning and is now bolstered with a capacitor leg 😁
For some reason this Tseng card doesn't work on this board, but a Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 card does.
Of course when the motherboard is running from the 386 CPU, the VLB doesn't work at all since the chipset doesn't get involved with the VLB connections.

Congrats, nice and good job + contribution to the community...
It was a good day I see 😀

On the VLB + 386 combo not working, I saw others' YT videos testing it successfully, not your case because of chipset limitations?

Huh, yeah CPU galaxy has a video on a similar board with the same OPTI495SX chipset which is actually running a 386DX and a VLB video card, weird. Maybe it's specific to this board though, gonna have to re-check the 386 with some more VLB video cards to see if it wants to work with those.

Maybe BIOS? IS there another bios from another board you could try to see if it allows VLB?
It would be awesome to have vlb on!!

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-19, 17:28:

Huh, yeah CPU galaxy has a video on a similar board with the same OPTI495SX chipset which is actually running a 386DX and a VLB video card, weird. Maybe it's specific to this board though, gonna have to re-check the 386 with some more VLB video cards to see if it wants to work with those.

Maybe try difderent BIOS to unlock VLB?

SX923 Pentium 90 (100 with no effort) with pentbug16 confirmed FDIV bug and two 233MMX'es with unlocked (?) multiplier.

vsharun wrote on 2023-10-20, 13:59:

SX923 Pentium 90 (100 with no effort) with pentbug16 confirmed FDIV bug and two 233MMX'es with unlocked (?) multiplier.

Cool CPU to have just for the curiosity factor, other than that likely not worth using in a rig as its better as a display piece due to the rarity of actually finding one int he wild.

Most got trashed by Intel with their return program.

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-10-20, 14:36:

Cool CPU to have just for the curiosity factor, other than that likely not worth using in a rig as its better as a display piece due to the rarity of actually finding one int he wild.
Most got trashed by Intel with their return program.

I was wrong for almost 30 years, considering only 60/66 Socket4 CPUs has FDIV div flaw at start. Spend last months looking for P60/66 Socket4 platform for acceptable price, found one (Intel Robin LPX w/P60 w/o FDIV bug, with dry Dallas RTC). Then suddenly realized there's whole revisions of Socket 5 ans Socket 7 with FDIV issue also, then three days digging local auctions and SX923 is mine for premium $35 because of "Golden dome".

acl wrote on 2023-10-17, 21:00:

(I personally consider Linux sound to be a total mess. ALSA, PulseAudio, PipeWire... )

+ JACK + OSS

No, it IS a mess.

It just works on my Ubuntu, but I didn't even register that PulseAudio was replaced by PipeWire, and I'm like "oh, here we go again..."

It's been solid so far, but I already encountered weird bugs on and off...

Another mess is bluetooth support. Having to dig out the terminal everytime I want to use my bluetooth mouse is NOT a good user experience.

vsharun wrote on 2023-10-20, 15:15:

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-10-20, 14:36:

Cool CPU to have just for the curiosity factor, other than that likely not worth using in a rig as its better as a display piece due to the rarity of actually finding one int he wild.
Most got trashed by Intel with their return program.

I was wrong for almost 30 years, considering only 60/66 Socket4 CPUs has FDIV div flaw at start. Spend last months looking for P60/66 Socket4 platform for acceptable price, found one (Intel Robin LPX w/P60 w/o FDIV bug, with dry Dallas RTC). Then suddenly realized there's whole revisions of Socket 5 ans Socket 7 with FDIV issue also, then three days digging local auctions and SX923 is mine for premium $35 because of "Golden dome".

I think the thing was that they were able to recover many more of the P54 FDIV bugged CPUs because they were still sitting in distribution channels, on retailers shelves etc, while many more P4/socket4 examples were in the wild when the bug was discovered. Some were sold prior still. I thought I had a bugged 90 around somewhere but it has not shown up recently. There is some problem with those early ones beyond FDIV, even the most immediate fixed replacements, in that they don't really implement a multiplier switch and some late motherboards might not know what to do with them. I think it might work that you can pull all the multi jumpers off, but it depends if they tied them high or low on a 2 pin per setting arrangement.