SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-07-06, 20:44:

Still fighting with my VLB IO controller. I think I finally have the beast tamed to where it's not forgetting my HDD every game launch.

Looks like it's jumpers where originally set for 50mhz bus speed. Changing that to 30mhz and one other jumper (1F0/170 to just 1F0 something like that? I forget already!) I *think* has tamed the beast.

I think... hopefully...

1FO/170 are I/O addresses:

• 1FOh: primary IDE controller
• 170h: secondary IDE controller

So that jumper either sets the address of the IDE controller to primary/secondary (if the card only has one IDE connector) or enables/disables the secondary IDE controller (if the card has 2 IDE connectors).

Mostly house maintenance. Ceiling repairs, wall painting etc. Not exactly today, rather the last 5 days. It was built in the early 70's, so I guess it counts 🤣
Also played a few DS games.

All circuit breakers went >poof< when I tried to start my Soyo 019R1 Ti 486DLC/E system. I hadn't tried it in ages, and when pressing the power button all went dark.

I did see the segmented LED light up and show "20", before darkness engulfed the house 😀

I'll need to change PSU's and hope nothing has been fried.

No typical smell tough, so I'm still in the dark (figuratively speaking) about what caused this.

[update] Just opened the power supply, seems to be visually ok, nothing bust or burnt. Even the glass fuse is still intact.

Replayed Dune II a lot, thanks to Dune Dynasty.

With modern controls, this game is amazing again. However, I still don't know how I got the patience back in the day (on the Amiga, with floppy disks) to win with the Atreides.

By the time I had won the final mission, its duration was off the charts (3 in-game days, total), and spice on the map was long gone for everyone. No one was sending units anymore, and I essentially fought with only Fremen (low level troopers) and infantry spawned (or not, thanks RNG !) from blown up harvesters. Which would make themselves go boom inside a building. It was so slow. I even built a windtrap with the 7 credits you get every time a harvester spawns. A wind trap costs 300. 320 if you put foundations first. And I did.

Now I don't give a f*ck, I'm playing with the Harkonnens and it's a lot more fun. THEIR special power is not totally useless (although it kind of is) like the Fremen are.

Tested out my new AWE64 in a bunch of games and tried to determine if it's affected by the Vibra distortion bug. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be too severe and can often be mitigated by simply lowering the in-game sound effect volume.

On the plus side, I'm kinda impressed how certain games sound in AWE32 mode. While Doom and Duke3D are fairly bland, other games like Tyrian, Descent and WarCraft 1 sound surprisingly pleasant.

flupke11 wrote on 2020-07-07, 20:59:

All circuit breakers went >poof< when I tried to start my Soyo 019R1 Ti 486DLC/E system. I hadn't tried it in ages, and when pre […]
Show full quote

All circuit breakers went >poof< when I tried to start my Soyo 019R1 Ti 486DLC/E system. I hadn't tried it in ages, and when pressing the power button all went dark.

I did see the segmented LED light up and show "20", before darkness engulfed the house 😀

I'll need to change PSU's and hope nothing has been fried.

No typical smell tough, so I'm still in the dark (figuratively speaking) about what caused this.

[update] Just opened the power supply, seems to be visually ok, nothing bust or burnt. Even the glass fuse is still intact.

I used to get that sort of thing happening to me a lot with old hardware, even though there was nothing actually wrong with it. Was always a gamble plugging something new in whether the power would go out or not. It doesn't happen often nowadays, mostly since I stopped using CRT monitors - those things combined with really old PC power supplies would always push the circuit over the edge.

However in saying that, last year a similar thing did happen when I pressed the power button on my Dreamcast. Nothing at all wrong with my Dreamcast either, just one of those freak events.

PTherapist wrote on 2020-07-07, 22:59:

flupke11 wrote on 2020-07-07, 20:59:

All circuit breakers went >poof< when I tried to start my Soyo 019R1 Ti 486DLC/E system. I hadn't tried it in ages, and when pre […]
Show full quote

All circuit breakers went >poof< when I tried to start my Soyo 019R1 Ti 486DLC/E system. I hadn't tried it in ages, and when pressing the power button all went dark.

I did see the segmented LED light up and show "20", before darkness engulfed the house 😀

I'll need to change PSU's and hope nothing has been fried.

No typical smell tough, so I'm still in the dark (figuratively speaking) about what caused this.

[update] Just opened the power supply, seems to be visually ok, nothing bust or burnt. Even the glass fuse is still intact.

I used to get that sort of thing happening to me a lot with old hardware, even though there was nothing actually wrong with it. Was always a gamble plugging something new in whether the power would go out or not. It doesn't happen often nowadays, mostly since I stopped using CRT monitors - those things combined with really old PC power supplies would always push the circuit over the edge.

However in saying that, last year a similar thing did happen when I pressed the power button on my Dreamcast. Nothing at all wrong with my Dreamcast either, just one of those freak events.

The wall of my computer room is shared with the kitchen. If I am running even just my modern PC 9900k with a 2080ti playing a game and the freezer and microwave happen to come on at the same time the breakers trip. It's really bad circuit wiring not the fault of how much power computers draw.

Shagittarius wrote on 2020-07-07, 23:11:

PTherapist wrote on 2020-07-07, 22:59:

flupke11 wrote on 2020-07-07, 20:59:

All circuit breakers went >poof< when I tried to start my Soyo 019R1 Ti 486DLC/E system. I hadn't tried it in ages, and when pre […]
Show full quote

All circuit breakers went >poof< when I tried to start my Soyo 019R1 Ti 486DLC/E system. I hadn't tried it in ages, and when pressing the power button all went dark.

I did see the segmented LED light up and show "20", before darkness engulfed the house 😀

I'll need to change PSU's and hope nothing has been fried.

No typical smell tough, so I'm still in the dark (figuratively speaking) about what caused this.

[update] Just opened the power supply, seems to be visually ok, nothing bust or burnt. Even the glass fuse is still intact.

I used to get that sort of thing happening to me a lot with old hardware, even though there was nothing actually wrong with it. Was always a gamble plugging something new in whether the power would go out or not. It doesn't happen often nowadays, mostly since I stopped using CRT monitors - those things combined with really old PC power supplies would always push the circuit over the edge.

However in saying that, last year a similar thing did happen when I pressed the power button on my Dreamcast. Nothing at all wrong with my Dreamcast either, just one of those freak events.

The wall of my computer room is shared with the kitchen. If I am running even just my modern PC 9900k with a 2080ti playing a game and the freezer and microwave happen to come on at the same time the breakers trip. It's really bad circuit wiring not the fault of how much power computers draw.

I don't know how the electrical code is where you are at but, where I am at, each two-plug electrical outlet in a kitchen MUST be on its own circuit and have its own breaker .

My house was built in the 30s, I'm just a renter and I doubt much has been updated since then. It also started out as a cabin in the woods, and as things evolved so did it.

But to speak to your point, when this breaker flips everything in the kitchen and two bedrooms goes out so its way more than 2 outlets per breaker, its almost half the house.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2020-07-07, 21:21:

Replayed Dune II a lot, thanks to Dune Dynasty. […]
Show full quote

Replayed Dune II a lot, thanks to Dune Dynasty.

With modern controls, this game is amazing again. However, I still don't know how I got the patience back in the day (on the Amiga, with floppy disks) to win with the Atreides.

By the time I had won the final mission, its duration was off the charts (3 in-game days, total), and spice on the map was long gone for everyone. No one was sending units anymore, and I essentially fought with only Fremen (low level troopers) and infantry spawned (or not, thanks RNG !) from blown up harvesters. Which would make themselves go boom inside a building. It was so slow. I even built a windtrap with the 7 credits you get every time a harvester spawns. A wind trap costs 300. 320 if you put foundations first. And I did.

Now I don't give a f*ck, I'm playing with the Harkonnens and it's a lot more fun. THEIR special power is not totally useless (although it kind of is) like the Fremen are.

You are responsible for me playing Dune II until the morning and going to work with zero hours of sleep today..

Ha ! 😀 Sorry !

Edit : I discovered last night that you can assign group numbers (Ctrl + 1 to 9) to buildings, not only units. This is unlike Command & Conquer. This changes the gameplay quite a lot.

Changed the CPU from the 486DLC-33GP Cyrix to an Intel i386 DX-33 SX366 and the himem.sys XMS driver went south. Says the memory is unreliable at address 00113884 and the driver isn't installed. Ran HWiNFO and found out the CPU has the POPAD bug (instruction set miscalculates), so I'm not sure if it's RAM related (tested the RAM using MemTest86+ v4.10 and passed with both the Cyrix CPU and Intel CPU) or if it's because of the bug that the driver won't load or throwing errors. Even QEMM 8.0 wasn't working either. So I'd say the bug is causing it, but if anyone has any ideas why that could be, feel free to provide more information.

Going to buy some RAM and another DX-33 that has the double-sigma (ΣΣ) characters on there and no bugs (SX211 i386 DX-33) soon and to play it safe, but I need info from anyone that has or had a 386 machine that has more knowledge about this than I do.

Found two Socket 775 mainboards, perfect status, one AM2 that needs changing capacitors (6,3v 3300uF all are gone, the mobo can't boot) and a Iomega ZIP 100 external floppy drive with cable but no power supply. I always thought this floppy drive was great for its capacity it its days, I wonder if floppies had the same problem of all the magnetic ones after a while when loosing data or being damaged. Does it has some sense to test it on a 386/Win3.1 machine?

Loading XP on the FragBox

Crystalfontz display is working 😀

386SX wrote on 2020-07-08, 10:00:

Iomega ZIP 100 external floppy drive with cable but no power supply. I always thought this floppy drive was great for its capacity it its days, I wonder if floppies had the same problem of all the magnetic ones after a while when loosing data or being damaged. Does it has some sense to test it on a 386/Win3.1 machine?

The Zip drives had a famous "click of death" issue, not sure whether that was a mechanical failure or a magnetic.
It's not representative, but my old backups on Zip100 drives are all still readable after 20 years. I still use zip drives frequently for transferring data from and to old machines and I have had little issues.

All 3 of my internal zip 100 and both of my internal zip 250 drives and all 50 disks work perfectly after all these years and I use them regularly as well

flupke11 wrote on 2020-07-08, 14:26:

386SX wrote on 2020-07-08, 10:00:

Iomega ZIP 100 external floppy drive with cable but no power supply. I always thought this floppy drive was great for its capacity it its days, I wonder if floppies had the same problem of all the magnetic ones after a while when loosing data or being damaged. Does it has some sense to test it on a 386/Win3.1 machine?

The Zip drives had a famous "click of death" issue, not sure whether that was a mechanical failure or a magnetic.
It's not representative, but my old backups on Zip100 drives are all still readable after 20 years. I still use zip drives frequently for transferring data from and to old machines and I have had little issues.

Interesting, but did it mean that the drive couldn't work anymore or it happened sometimes and ruined the disk? Also I'd like to ask about the power supply. Does anyone has the diagram of the connector? I've seen is a 5V 1.0A one but which is the polarity?

386SX wrote on 2020-07-08, 14:48:

Interesting, but did it mean that the drive couldn't work anymore or it happened sometimes and ruined the disk? Also I'd like to ask about the power supply. Does anyone has the diagram of the connector? I've seen is a 5V 1.0A one but which is the polarity?

Just got a multimeter out, positive inside.

Spend most of my “retro” time today grinding a 286 board out of a case with a Dremel. The board had the Varta disease.

After neutralizing the damage with ethanoic acid I put the board into the dishwasher and gave it a good scrub with isopropyl alcohol afterwards. I replaced a few traces with bodge wire and reseated the chips … lo and behold, it does post.

Time to put it into temporary storage - without a battery of course.

Nice glad to hear you were able to save it.