You here ?! 😉

(I think you can put the spreadsheet's content into your post directly).

Jeff_HxC2001 wrote on 2020-04-22, 09:47:

You here ?! 😉

(I think you can put the spreadsheet's content into your post directly).

I'm here, you too my old friend 😉
Haha i like to have it on a easily editable form on Google Drive 😀

Prez

Nice work! I have a few thin clients, but AFAIK the only one with a compatible sound chip is a Termtek TK-3350, which you already have listed. I'll double check this when I get the chance though.

Expecting a Wyse WT9450XE to show up at my doorstep within the next few days - will try and provide feedback once it arrives.

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-05-11, 15:56:

Expecting a Wyse WT9450XE to show up at my doorstep within the next few days - will try and provide feedback once it arrives.

Ok, great ! 😀

Prez wrote on 2020-05-11, 18:48:

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-05-11, 15:56:

Expecting a Wyse WT9450XE to show up at my doorstep within the next few days - will try and provide feedback once it arrives.

Ok, great ! 😀

Oh yeah. I am pretty sure that the WTxxxxXL/XE (9455XL, 9650XE) series all use the same Via Epia motherboard underneath. Also, the t6720 is not a DOS friendly thin client - it's based on the ADI Soundmax which is an AC97 chip with no fallback silicon on pure DOS.

Prez wrote on 2020-04-22, 08:29:

Hi there ! […]
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Hi there !

I did work some weeks on compiling a list of known Thin clients i know about and searched over internet.
Here it is :
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18X3ux … dit?usp=sharing

All these machines should have sound in pure MS-DOS games thanks to the use of a VIA southbridge chipset and soundblaster emulation.

Please feel free to comment, add or ask for modifications of this document, that i hope will be useful for people like me who were wondering what cheap thin client to buy to play MS-DOS games natively with sound 😉

ps: Thanks a lot to David Parkinson for his excellent website on the matter !

Best regards
Philippe Dubois.

Jeez could you link to the website you lauded?

Parkytowers. It's linked in the Google Spreadsheets, but here's the URL -> https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/

I have a bit of a mixed-bag relationship with the site -
On some thin clients he provides concise and detailed photos of the interiors (with annotations) and actual lspci so you know what you are getting into.
On others it's a short summary with not much details. He also haven't bought any recent hardware so an entire generation of Igel and 2 generations of HP thin client hardware are missing.
The summary page could use some improvement (i.e. the inclusion of Northbridge/Southbridge chips and the presence of RAM sockets and expansion slots would have been easier to navigate through when trying to figure out what hardware they can run).

It's also more linux oriented so retrogamers interested in Win98/DOS hardware doesn't really get much info out of it.

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-05-12, 01:42:

Parkytowers. It's linked in the Google Spreadsheets, but here's the URL -> https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/ […]
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Parkytowers. It's linked in the Google Spreadsheets, but here's the URL -> https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/

I have a bit of a mixed-bag relationship with the site -
On some thin clients he provides concise and detailed photos of the interiors (with annotations) and actual lspci so you know what you are getting into.
On others it's a short summary with not much details. He also haven't bought any recent hardware so an entire generation of Igel and 2 generations of HP thin client hardware are missing.
The summary page could use some improvement (i.e. the inclusion of Northbridge/Southbridge chips and the presence of RAM sockets and expansion slots would have been easier to navigate through when trying to figure out what hardware they can run).

It's also more linux oriented so retrogamers interested in Win98/DOS hardware doesn't really get much info out of it.

That's the idea, at least a little, to give a more gamer view to this thin client list, for now oriented on ones using a via Sb Pro compatible southbridge that can be activated either by Bios, or using VIASBCFG !

Best regards
Philippe

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-05-12, 00:32:

Prez wrote on 2020-05-11, 18:48:

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-05-11, 15:56:

Expecting a Wyse WT9450XE to show up at my doorstep within the next few days - will try and provide feedback once it arrives.

Ok, great ! 😀

Oh yeah. I am pretty sure that the WTxxxxXL/XE (9455XL, 9650XE) series all use the same Via Epia motherboard underneath. Also, the t6720 is not a DOS friendly thin client - it's based on the ADI Soundmax which is an AC97 chip with no fallback silicon on pure DOS.

Hi !
The official specs says :
'ADI1981HD High Definition CODEC; Integrated 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro compatible audio; 24-bit DAC; Integrated stereo speakers; External volume up, volume down, and mute buttons; Stereo headphone/line out; Stereo microphone in'
But you're right, we don't know yet, i'm moving the T6720 so the "we don't know" section 😉

Best regards
Philippe

The "HP Compaq T5300 Thin Client" does work with VIASBCFG, but it has no serial ports, no printer port, and no PS/2 ports, basically all the "HP Compaq T5300 Thin Client" has is sound, VGA, LAN, and USB ports, the other bad thing is that the RAM is not upgradable and is only 64MB, and the RAM is soldered to the system-board, thankfully you can remove HP Compaq T5300 Thin Client's "disk on a module" and use a SD to IDE adapter, or boot from USB.

BTW I was able to get Sound Blaster Pro drivers working in Windows 3.11 using the drivers from this post:

Having trouble installing Soundblaster pro 2.0 on my Windows 3.1 VM on PCem.

the driver is called "win31_upd_audio.zip" "Windows 3.1 Driver Library - Audio Disk"

will1384 wrote on 2020-05-12, 09:10:

The "HP Compaq T5300 Thin Client" does work with VIASBCFG, but it has no serial ports, no printer port, and no PS/2 ports, basic […]
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The "HP Compaq T5300 Thin Client" does work with VIASBCFG, but it has no serial ports, no printer port, and no PS/2 ports, basically all the "HP Compaq T5300 Thin Client" has is sound, VGA, LAN, and USB ports, the other bad thing is that the RAM is not upgradable and is only 64MB, and the RAM is soldered to the system-board, thankfully you can remove HP Compaq T5300 Thin Client's "disk on a module" and use a SD to IDE adapter, or boot from USB.

BTW I was able to get Sound Blaster Pro drivers working in Windows 3.11 using the drivers from this post:

Having trouble installing Soundblaster pro 2.0 on my Windows 3.1 VM on PCem.

the driver is called "win31_upd_audio.zip" "Windows 3.1 Driver Library - Audio Disk"

Nice, thanks ! I updated the file.
Still its a nice and cheap choice to play msdos games only. W98 might still work on it with 64MB.

best regards
Philippe

I haven't actually tested it, but my ComputerLab International (CLi) ST5500 has the VT8237A, so I'm guessing VIASBCFG won't work. Which is a shame, as it's a neat little box otherwise.

It seems like devices with a VIA chipset & SDRAM will likely have the SB-compatible southbridge, DDR1 is hit-or-miss, and DDR2+ definitely won't. Might make it easier to search for.

xjas wrote on 2020-05-12, 09:35:

I haven't actually tested it, but my ComputerLab International (CLi) ST5500 has the VT8237A, so I'm guessing VIASBCFG won't work. Which is a shame, as it's a neat little box otherwise.

It seems like devices with a VIA chipset & SDRAM will likely have the SB-compatible southbridge, DDR1 is hit-or-miss, and DDR2+ definitely won't. Might make it easier to search for.

Yes ! Exactly. The best ways to know are to search for official specifications, maybe on internet, on ParkyTowers and to check for motherboards pictures, if you see actually a compatible VIA southbridge 😉

Best regards
Philippe.

No FM support though?

dr.zeissler wrote on 2020-05-12, 11:37:

No FM support though?

What do you mean ?

These chips play digital-music in games like SFX, MOD-Files, etc., but no FM music, or am I wrong here.

dr.zeissler wrote on 2020-05-12, 15:58:

These chips play digital-music in games like SFX, MOD-Files, etc., but no FM music, or am I wrong here.

You're wrong 😉 They play FM while loading the special TSR made by VIA, VIAFMTSR.COM !
FM is emulated, its not perfect, but its nice and far more okay than nothing 😉

Please have a look to this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Fv2DwlldI&t=1239s

Best regards
Philippe

Prez wrote on 2020-05-12, 16:00:

You're wrong ;) They play FM while loading the special TSR made by VIA, VIAFMTSR.COM ! FM is emulated, its not perfect, but its […]
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dr.zeissler wrote on 2020-05-12, 15:58:

These chips play digital-music in games like SFX, MOD-Files, etc., but no FM music, or am I wrong here.

You're wrong 😉 They play FM while loading the special TSR made by VIA, VIAFMTSR.COM !
FM is emulated, its not perfect, but its nice and far more okay than nothing 😉

Please have a look to this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Fv2DwlldI&t=1239s

Best regards
Philippe

So if such a thin client also has a parallel port, you could hook up an OPL3LPT to it, load the ADLIPT TSR instead of VIAFMTSR.COM, and have the best of both worlds: Sound Blaster Pro compatible digital audio handled by the on-board sound chip, and actual OPL3 FM music by the OPL3LPT. All what's left to do then is to get or make a simple circuit like this one to combine both line-outs into one single line-out (or just run the OPL3LPT's line-out to the line-in port of the thin client), and you're golden. 🙂

ADLIPT actually supports coexistence and cooperation with Sound Blaster cards since version 0.8.0:

Sound Blaster FM emulation […]
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Sound Blaster FM emulation

The TSR can now also intercept the Sound Blaster FM ports in addition to the standard Adlib ports. It won't however fake enough of a Sound Blaster to pass installation checks (that might happen in a future releast), so for now this is mostly useful if you already have a Sound Blaster.

For OPL2LPT this helps with games that use Creative's SBFMDRV and thus don't support Adlib cards.

For OPL3LPT this will often be necessary to get games to use their OPL3 sound track.

[emphasis added]