HanJammer wrote on 2020-10-27, 08:03:

Robin4 wrote on 2020-10-27, 03:04:

HanJammer wrote on 2020-10-27, 00:05:

Yeah, exactly - multi I/O with RTC. Graphics card is CGA (very nice to have for debugging older hardware as it has composite out and works fine with Landmark Diagnostics) and the little card - MFM controller.

Iam guessing that longer ISA card is having dual floppy connectors.

Yeah, seems so, but some of the logic chips are not populated so it may not work with 4 FDDs is not populated (also second UART socket is not populated as well)

Yes, thats possible. This will also require some BIOS support. There are 2 ROMs on the Mainboard, maybe one is for this purpose? Will check this...

Predator99 wrote on 2020-10-27, 08:50:

Yes, thats possible. This will also require some BIOS support. There are 2 ROMs on the Mainboard, maybe one is for this purpose? Will check this...

Both the original PC and XT BIOS and XT clone BIOSes support 4 FDDs out of the box... also taking a second look at the board I may be wrong about the missing logic chips (they may be for a second UART chip which would make a more sense, as this card uses the same NEC FDD IC as the original IBM controller). Hard to tell without looking at the back side of the controller.

OK 4 FDDs as standard on a XT is new to me. Didnt see many controllers with 2 connectors so far.

I dumped the BIOS and would say ROM1 is System-ROM and ROM2 is a BASIC....

HanJammer wrote on 2020-10-27, 00:06:

I have one like this as well - it has dual-coloured MHz display (green + red). […]
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slimblin wrote on 2020-10-26, 20:16:

One more ugly-beautiful pc for cleaning.

I have one like this as well - it has dual-coloured MHz display (green + red).

And make sure to post the speaker case here: Re: The AT cases with built-in stereo speakers thread! (along with the pics of it inside!)

Both excellent finds anyway!

Hi! Thanks for the info on this topic. I will definitely post information there.

Predator99 wrote on 2020-10-27, 11:00:

OK 4 FDDs as standard on a XT is new to me. Didnt see many controllers with 2 connectors so far.

I dumped the BIOS and would say ROM1 is System-ROM and ROM2 is a BASIC....

BIOS.rar

Yeah, most cheap controllers have a single connector (usually dedicated for the clone machines), but original IBM PC and XT BIOSes supported 4 floppies and so did the clone BIOSes (on "XT switches" there is always a compination to select 1/2/3 or 4 FDDs (sw1/7 and sw1/8). The original IBM FDD controller had internal and external connector (both supporting 2 FDDs) and some "n-pak" cards dedicated for IBM uprades also retained 2 connectors (to not upset the users which used external FDDs) - in this case both are internal, but I guess this card originally may had come with a piece of a ribbon cable and additional bracket with external connector (it's just an assumption though). Cards like these were a blessing for 5150 users which only had 5 ISA slots (when you had a display adapter, parallel port card, async serial port card and FDD controller - you basically were left with a single ISA slot... if you had MFM controller - then the only option was to buy expensive expansion unit).

As for the ROMS - yeah, that would seem right. Originally the IBM machines had 4 ROM sockets for Basic (beside the 1 ROM with BIOS) but on clone motherboards I've seen anything between 1 and 5 (or 6 - I don't remember correctly) additional ROM sockets.
Also IBM Basic is fun!

This card intreagued me, so couldn't let it pass:

Disassembled:

Nice Dream wavetable and some very re-marked (OPTi 929?) Chip on the card...

dionb wrote on 2020-10-27, 17:41:

This card intreagued me, so couldn't let it pass: IMG_20201027_182526.jpg […]
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This card intreagued me, so couldn't let it pass:
IMG_20201027_182526.jpg

Disassembled:
16038204309220.jpg

Nice Dream wavetable and some very re-marked (OPTi 924?) Chip on the card...

What was it advertised as? "Mystery sound card with large mystery daughterboard attached"?

kolderman wrote on 2020-10-27, 17:43:

dionb wrote on 2020-10-27, 17:41:

This card intreagued me, so couldn't let it pass: IMG_20201027_182526.jpg […]
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This card intreagued me, so couldn't let it pass:
IMG_20201027_182526.jpg

Disassembled:
16038204309220.jpg

Nice Dream wavetable and some very re-marked (OPTi 929?) Chip on the card...

What was it advertised as? "Mystery sound card with large mystery daughterboard attached"?

"Retro / Vintage 16 bit ISA Sound card with wavetable"

With a description saying: "Terratec Promedia 16" (a non-existent card).

It looks more like a Terratec ProfiMedia Maestro 16 SE, but the only pic I can find of that card is on a long-gone eBay listing from Switzerland.

The wavetable is a Terratec Dream GSWave. 4MB sample ROM. Have high hopes for it.

Some highlights from the last weeks:

This just arrived.
Got it for very cheap too.

Salient wrote on 2020-10-27, 20:34:

This just arrived.
Got it for very cheap too.

Just how good is that capture device? It looks good.

kolderman wrote on 2020-10-27, 21:08:

Salient wrote on 2020-10-27, 20:34:

This just arrived.
Got it for very cheap too.

Just how good is that capture device? It looks good.

Basic but decent audio interface, much better than most built-in sound cards and has proper balanced XLR inputs for connecting a guitar, condenser mic and so on (has built in preamps and supports phantom power for condenser microphones). Perfect for recording youtube videos and such. I'm using similar audio interface for connecting MT-32 and other devices to my modern wireless headphones. Edirol is cheaper/less professional Roland brand BTW.

This Voodoo3 2000 AGP just arrived today. Got it for a fair price. It's missing two of the three caps(C101 from the bottom and C98 from the top) from nearby the memory chips, but it's working just fine. Should I worry about the missing caps?

I have officially entered the Pentium Era, this time with a Sony Branded AG430HX. It's pictured here with my 233 MMX, and 16MB of FPRAM. I didn't know it was 16MB or FPM until I got this baby booted up. I have since switched to the 24MB of EDO that I have on hand

I have since replaced the battery on the motherboard, and have soldered a header on to the empty fan spot. I also found out that having a PCI GPU automatically disables the onboard ATI-264GT, which is always a bonus. The question is, should I use the integrated Yamaha YMF-701 or my YMF-719 ISA card for OPL duties? I will be using my AWE 64 for games that can benefit from it, but for older games where OPL is a better choice, What's better?

dionb wrote on 2020-10-27, 18:42:

"Retro / Vintage 16 bit ISA Sound card with wavetable" […]
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kolderman wrote on 2020-10-27, 17:43:

dionb wrote on 2020-10-27, 17:41:

This card intreagued me, so couldn't let it pass: IMG_20201027_182526.jpg […]
Show full quote

This card intreagued me, so couldn't let it pass:
IMG_20201027_182526.jpg

Disassembled:
16038204309220.jpg

Nice Dream wavetable and some very re-marked (OPTi 930?) Chip on the card...

What was it advertised as? "Mystery sound card with large mystery daughterboard attached"?

"Retro / Vintage 16 bit ISA Sound card with wavetable"

With a description saying: "Terratec Promedia 16" (a non-existent card).

It looks more like a Terratec ProfiMedia Maestro 16 SE, but the only pic I can find of that card is on a long-gone eBay listing from Switzerland.

The wavetable is a Terratec Dream GSWave. 4MB sample ROM. Have high hopes for it.

I have one of those cards too with a description of "Terratec Profimedia" on the board itself.
If I am correct it was a complete other card renamed with a Breve chip somewhere on the daughterboard..

Nvm1 wrote on 2020-10-28, 08:20:

[...]

I have one of those cards too with a description of "Terratec Profimedia" on the board itself.
If I am correct it was a complete other card renamed with a Breve chip somewhere on the daughterboard..

Haven't gotten around to installing it yet (some bad deadlines this week in the real world...), but it's the same as the card in this topic:
Reveal TM V1.10 Sound Card

Still looks like an OPTi 929 to me, but apparently generic OPTi drivers don't work and the Terratec Maestro 32 drivers do. The Maestro 32 definitely has an OPTi 929 on it. Supposedly the analog section of the card is quite good - which is what I'd expect from Terratec even if they were pretty shady with chip relabeling at this stage in their history.

BetaC wrote on 2020-10-28, 04:01:

I have officially entered the Pentium Era, this time with a Sony Branded AG430HX. It's pictured here with my 233 MMX, and 16MB of FPRAM. I didn't know it was 16MB or FPM until I got this baby booted up. I have since switched to the 24MB of EDO that I have on hand
image0.jpg
I have since replaced the battery on the motherboard, and have soldered a header on to the empty fan spot. I also found out that having a PCI GPU automatically disables the onboard ATI-264GT, which is always a bonus. The question is, should I use the integrated Yamaha YMF-701 or my YMF-719 ISA card for OPL duties? I will be using my AWE 64 for games that can benefit from it, but for older games where OPL is a better choice, What's better?

I'm not so sure about the on-board audio, but the YMF-719 ISA is pretty much perfect if all your looking for is a OPL duty card.

VERY good Sound Blaster Pro and bug-free-midi compatibility too, for anything the AWE might choke with.

Found a "rareish" CGA card from a CNC machine, it has a Paradise PVC4 common in commodore pc and ..... Schneider EuroPC, but never as a standalone card.

Also some bigbox games to play and admire to my hart content :

BetaC wrote on 2020-10-28, 04:01:

I have since replaced the battery on the motherboard, and have soldered a header on to the empty fan spot. I also found out that having a PCI GPU automatically disables the onboard ATI-264GT, which is always a bonus. The question is, should I use the integrated Yamaha YMF-701 or my YMF-719 ISA card for OPL duties? I will be using my AWE 64 for games that can benefit from it, but for older games where OPL is a better choice, What's better?

There may be no difference in the OPL(FM) portion of the YMF-701 and -719 controllers, as they are both from the broader OPL3-SAx line.

Depending upon the components used, the ISA card may have a cleaner signal path than the onboard. That depends upon which manufacturer cut which costs, and where! - usually one will find that it's the motherboard/integrated solutions which are more cost-cut-centric (than dedicated expansion cards), but only specific testing will provide the final tasting.

Still it's pretty cool to have a Socket7 system with any kind of OPL3-SAx integrated. 😀 Not a bad fall-back solution, at all!!

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-10-28, 10:03:

I'm not so sure about the on-board audio, but the YMF-719 ISA is pretty much perfect if all your looking for is a OPL duty card.

VERY good Sound Blaster Pro and bug-free-midi compatibility too, for anything the AWE might choke with.

I am aware, don't worry. It was what I used for damn near everything up until I figured out the configuration issues that were making my AWE act up.

Shreddoc wrote on 2020-10-28, 13:32:

There may be no difference in the OPL(FM) portion of the YMF-701 and -719 controllers, as they are both from the broader OPL3-SAx line.

Depending upon the components used, the ISA card may have a cleaner signal path than the onboard. That depends upon which manufacturer cut which costs, and where! - usually one will find that it's the motherboard/integrated solutions which are more cost-cut-centric (than dedicated expansion cards), but only specific testing will provide the final tasting.

Still it's pretty cool to have a Socket7 system with any kind of OPL3-SAx integrated. 😀 Not a bad fall-back solution, at all!!

I am willing to bet that you're right, but this seems to have been one of the more expensive boards made for Sony at the time. It seems to have had every option in the manual installed, barring the fan header. It even has SRS built in.