You know. I'm gonna be honest with you all: The more i spend time with the Sound Blaster Pro 2, the more I'm happy i didn't pay anywhere near what people on Ebay want.

This card is actually underwhelming. I think some of the Aztech clones iv had previously sounded better! Everything with the pro is just....muffled and uncomfortable. Just a tad bit sad sounding compared to how clear the FM and digital effects quality was on the Aztech. Could be bad caps too ofc.

I must say, I'm very satisfied with Vibra16s/OPL3 [CT2890] in a config few posts back 😀. Ordered another one, they are cheap as chips.

How does one start reading this thread? From the beginning or the end? 😁

Swapped the case on my Amiga1200 with the new one. And realised that I need to find a better case-badge/label for this machine. It has a serial number and sticker on the back, so it is just the one on the top-left of the keyboard that I need to find. There are a number of nice metal badges on eBay from a Polish seller that I might look into.

Right now the machine is recapped. It has kickstart 3.1 and a Tsunami-1230 accelerator (64mb Ram). There is an IndivisionAGA-MK3 installed that gives HDMI output and I have one of them 90 degree angled CF/IDE adaptor with an extra 40-pin IDE port installed as well. HDD storage is a 16gb Sandisk Ultra card, that I have installed Zeb's HDD-Image on. The keyboard membrane is also changed for a brand new one. As it was recapped with solid state caps (the ones without electrolytic fluid), then I have an Amiga1200 for the next many many years to come. I had it recapped at a person in Copenhagen, and it was a bit more expensive than the person from Finland, however I did get my machine back faster.

Now I am only missing the new keycaps and that case badge. I have asked the makers of this case, when they will make them avaliable in shops, and they answered that it will happen once all kickstarter supporters have recieved their set's. So I am guessing it will happen late 2022 or early 2023.

Somehow changed the vibe from Amiga to Atari

My BE6-II build was building itself 🤣

Just kidding. The BE6-II just arrived today, and I recapped it with 2x Sanyo WF, 6x Panasonic FL, and the rest are Rubycon MBZ. Originally had Tayeh caps that I wouldn't have trusted in running at all.

Temporary specs:

500MHz P3 Katmai
ABIT BE6-II w/ latest BIOS (fun fact - the HPT366 BIOS is just three versions apart from the one found on the latest Soyo 6BA +IV BIOS)
384MB RAM
15GB Quantum LCT15 HDD (originally was a 20GB Maxtor that just decided to not get detected anymore, so RIP.)
Palit Daytona MX440 64MB AGP
RTL8139 NIC
NEC USB2 card
IBM Infinity speakers
ANS LC-B400ATX PSU (rebuilt)
Linkworld 3130 case
98SE w/ KernelEX 4.52.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-04-19, 21:37:

Somehow changed the vibe from Amiga to Atari

Actually yes. Now you mention it, it kind of looks like Falcon and 1200 had a child.

Jura Tastatura wrote on 2022-04-19, 21:21:

How does one start reading this thread? From the beginning or the end? 😁

If you've got a weekend to spare 😀

debs3759 wrote on 2022-04-19, 21:57:

Jura Tastatura wrote on 2022-04-19, 21:21:

How does one start reading this thread? From the beginning or the end? 😁

If you've got a weekend to spare 😀

If we count boredom, you could reduce that to around 5-6 hours, IMO.

We could use one of those robot readers to make podcasts of the first thousand pages of popular Vogon threads 🤣

Jura Tastatura wrote on 2022-04-19, 21:21:

How does one start reading this thread? From the beginning or the end? 😁

I've been posting here for years and have never actually read this thread from the start. It's too intimidating.

Jura Tastatura wrote on 2022-04-19, 21:21:

How does one start reading this thread? From the beginning or the end? 😁

Yes.

I actually have one open on current events and one I started at the beginning and I'm halfway through. I kind of forgot current events for months and had to play catch-up.

But at least I finally have internet service back. For the moment.

Edit: I got thrown off by losing my service for the day (and it was a busy day before that with blood tests and doctors and such), but I have to work on mounting a lot of drives in a case now, printing drive rails. I am wondering if I can combine ISA backplanes, AGP and PCI extenders and such into very compact retro and vintage systems in new compact cases. Ideally I would have several compact cases the same size and shape for easy storage but easy to customize with colors and what-have-you.

I also need to put a little time into replication labels and case badges for some of my favorite oddball computer manufacturers from the 70s and 80s like Altos, Cromemco, IMSAI, Sord, Soroc, Zobex, etc. Actually I should probably relabel that old Sony laptop to Osborne for the fun of it. It's retro, it's not special except the screen is GREAT so I plan to use it for CLI writing stuff.

Mind you, I'd almost rather build one of these:

But that would be silly.

Modded an ABSOLUTELY NO-NAME slotket I got for free. Would only run Mendocino-based Celerons and nothing else.

15 minutes, a wire and lots of patience later, I am running a 1GHz P3 Coppermine (1000/256/133) on my BE6-II with no issues.

Here's some photos. I applied some tape on the back to insulate an wire that I had to solder for Coppermines to work.

How do you modify these slotkets for coppermine? I didn't know that was a thing.

The capacitors in the right are also looking pretty bad.

PcBytes wrote on 2022-04-20, 05:08:

Modded an ABSOLUTELY NO-NAME slotket I got for free. Would only run Mendocino-based Celerons and nothing else.

15 minutes, a wire and lots of patience later, I am running a 1GHz P3 Coppermine (1000/256/133) on my BE6-II with no issues.

Here's some photos. I applied some tape on the back to insulate an wire that I had to solder for Coppermines to work.

Absolutely gorgeous.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-04-20, 07:29:

How do you modify these slotkets for coppermine? I didn't know that was a thing.

The capacitors in the right are also looking pretty bad.

Remove pin AM2 (one of the corners), bridge AH4 and X4.
http://krick.3feetunder.com/370mod/

Also this mentions another wire connected for SMP though I didn't exactly understand.
Simple passive slotket on 694X dual cpu board for Coppermine/Tualatin?

As for the caps, they're on my to do list right now. I have a dead FX5200 and a dead USB card to pull some fresh Rubycons for the slotket.

Removing the corner pin looks quite tricky. I've been successful removing the top of these sockets before and unsuccessful other times.

Thank you for the link.

Merovign wrote on 2022-04-20, 04:15:

Yes. […]
Show full quote

Jura Tastatura wrote on 2022-04-19, 21:21:

How does one start reading this thread? From the beginning or the end? 😁

Yes.

I actually have one open on current events and one I started at the beginning and I'm halfway through. I kind of forgot current events for months and had to play catch-up.

But at least I finally have internet service back. For the moment.

Edit: I got thrown off by losing my service for the day (and it was a busy day before that with blood tests and doctors and such), but I have to work on mounting a lot of drives in a case now, printing drive rails. I am wondering if I can combine ISA backplanes, AGP and PCI extenders and such into very compact retro and vintage systems in new compact cases. Ideally I would have several compact cases the same size and shape for easy storage but easy to customize with colors and what-have-you.

I also need to put a little time into replication labels and case badges for some of my favorite oddball computer manufacturers from the 70s and 80s like Altos, Cromemco, IMSAI, Sord, Soroc, Zobex, etc. Actually I should probably relabel that old Sony laptop to Osborne for the fun of it. It's retro, it's not special except the screen is GREAT so I plan to use it for CLI writing stuff.

Mind you, I'd almost rather build one of these:

BMC 800.jpg

But that would be silly.

Hell no! If you want to conspire to create 1 I'm all game. That's 1 of the offshoot IBM incompatible units I (briefly, all too briefly) went on the hunt for years ago. Iirc it was released under a few different names. A true thing of beauty.

FioGermi wrote on 2022-04-19, 20:35:

You know. I'm gonna be honest with you all: The more i spend time with the Sound Blaster Pro 2, the more I'm happy i didn't pay anywhere near what people on Ebay want.

This card is actually underwhelming. I think some of the Aztech clones iv had previously sounded better! Everything with the pro is just....muffled and uncomfortable. Just a tad bit sad sounding compared to how clear the FM and digital effects quality was on the Aztech. Could be bad caps too ofc.

Sounds like bad caps to me. PCM I can understand but FM should be pretty punchy and clean on a Pro 2.

appiah4 wrote on 2022-04-20, 11:31:

FioGermi wrote on 2022-04-19, 20:35:

You know. I'm gonna be honest with you all: The more i spend time with the Sound Blaster Pro 2, the more I'm happy i didn't pay anywhere near what people on Ebay want.

This card is actually underwhelming. I think some of the Aztech clones iv had previously sounded better! Everything with the pro is just....muffled and uncomfortable. Just a tad bit sad sounding compared to how clear the FM and digital effects quality was on the Aztech. Could be bad caps too ofc.

Sounds like bad caps to me. PCM I can understand but FM should be pretty punchy and clean on a Pro 2.

The FM isn't distorted or anything. Its just a little quieter and a tiny bit muffled sounding compared to my memory of a previous Aztech clone card i hard. Granted i probably played with the mixer on that one (and i was using headphones then) so maybe that's why. Or caps. That probably too. Its been how many years? Beyond the expected life span of the card, that is for sure

Is the Pro 2 suppose to have issues with Duke Nukem 2?