Well that's the way it is ... But if we could do it in a year, we can do it again. For now google may not like that we have exactly the same content, but when it'll disappear, if the ai even though of this, it'll forget about that.

For stason it might be harder than you think because the th99 IDs have been erased from what I know. However all the other th99 clones could be replaced eventually. But it's up to vogons' staff choice. Unlike win3x.org/uh19, they won't go away.

We've got a neat trick now. If you go to ultimateretro.net/en/th99/m/<th99 id>, it'll redirect to the matching motherboard 😉

Will the site eventually also host the hard disk data ?

Probably. Hard disk data shouldn't be too hard to implement *, but we are busy finishing the motherboard part and then jumping on the expansion card part which will probably be one of the largest part of the site (which I want to make right this time, unlike motherboards where I wish I did it right the first time). We're currently upgrading the frontend to make it slightly more modern code-wise.
For the boards, we should be nearly done. The remaining things I want to change is the way expansion slots and Io connectors are handled because it's not really efficient and it makes the search rather bloated with connectors having the same look but different signals. You can differentiate connectors by looks. But you can't expect people to know what they do if they don't even know the name of their motherboard.

Think of eisa vs opti local bus. Or vlb and ecs' thing. Or the many variants of AGP. Or even usb 1 Vs usb2 (usb 3 is distinguishable). Instead I'll use the connector's name and that'll be it.

Another thing that I'd like to add *someday* is a way to let people create their own account, submit their content with our interface and then let it be reviewed by admins, and also let people make changes to existing boards if they think there was a mistake, and have a way to let admins accept or rejected the proposal.

* Words I might regret later

Deksor wrote on 2021-11-25, 15:25:

Another thing that I'd like to add *someday* is a way to let people create their own account, submit their content with our interface and then let it be reviewed by admins, and also let people make changes to existing boards if they think there was a mistake, and have a way to let admins accept or rejected the proposal.

Great idea, that would make general admin of the site much easier for you guys and also make it easier for the contributor.

posting in a bread

Any way I could get upload and edit privleages? I’ve been trying to get some info for some motherboards uploaded but it’s kinda difficult doing it by proxy

It hasn't been programmed yet so, no, sorry

You guys know what would be absolutely amazing? If you hosting PDFs of chipset datasheets linked on the motherboards' pages

maxtherabbit wrote on 2021-12-17, 15:25:

You guys know what would be absolutely amazing? If you hosting PDFs of chipset datasheets linked on the motherboards' pages

Agreed. Some are really hard to find, and it would be great to see members who have them share them in this sort of resource.

I think a lot of them can already be found on bitsavers.org.

At the moment, the chipset links for each board point to the relative pages in Mr. Slug's chipset encyclopedia, there are some datasheets in there.

zago27 wrote on 2021-12-17, 18:30:

At the moment, the chipset links for each board point to the relative pages in Mr. Slug's chipset encyclopedia, there are some datasheets in there.

are there? I've always found that page to be almost completely useless. Seems like it's literally just a list of chipsets with nothing else of value

debs3759 wrote on 2021-12-17, 17:49:

maxtherabbit wrote on 2021-12-17, 15:25:

You guys know what would be absolutely amazing? If you hosting PDFs of chipset datasheets linked on the motherboards' pages

Agreed. Some are really hard to find, and it would be great to see members who have them share them in this sort of resource.

Agree ! There are many that members have found that are not easily found else where !
Some (Many) would take extracting from the rare Data books from certain manufactures as there is no plain data sheets released for many of the chipsets.

All the datasheets I have are here:
http://66.113.161.23/~mR_Slug/pub/datasheets/chipsets/

It's a bit more than just a list of chipsets, for example:
http://66.113.161.23/~mR_Slug/chipset/chipset … ,4625,4558#4612

Do people not realize you can click on info, configurations and features? Is that not clear?

Some chipsets are just listed though. These are ones I can't find any info on, or are too new. My site only covers chipsets up to the Pentium era in any detail. I thought the later chipset datasheets are easy to find.

The purpose on my site was to extract the key text from the datasheets and have it in a searchable form. I had to OCR hundreds of them, and in many cases basically copy the text by hand, the OCR had too many errors. This was phase 1. I had hoped to make the specifications easy to compare from chip to chip. But my attempts lead to having a table with hundreds of columns of empty data. The problem was that different datasheets specify different things. E.g. some specify if they have hidden memory refresh, others max ram supported. What do you put in the fields when the datasheet doesn't specify? It's safe to assume that all 486 chipsets support hidden memory refresh, but then I would be introducing assumptions. Again it's safe to assume that all 286 chipsets that don't specify the max ram, can't support more than 16MB. But many may not support more than 8 or 4MB. What do you put? Avoiding assumptions, nothing. There were hundreds more features to document, with thousands of fields left empty. So i had to abandon this. Therefore info and features are listed as they are in the datasheet.

We are working on having a chipset page for each chipset within UR. This will include a link to the datasheet (if available). And some kind of synopsis of of the chipset. Also photos! Welcome to take some constructive criticism on the encyclopedia. Perhaps we can use this to improve the UR chipset pages.

I had no idea those were hyperlinks tbh. That said when I want information on a chipset it's almost always more than some bullet points or a feature summary. I usually go looking for datasheets for register programming guides, pinouts, application notes, etc.

Yes i can understand you being frustrated if you are looking for register listings. That was never the intention of my site. Maybe some far off future thing, but I always worry if it copy something from a datasheet, I will make a mistake. Some 'datasheets' contain less than whats in the example link. They are just a list of features. Some include numbered pins but no indication of their function. It's a real Hodge-poge in some of them.

Another thing that people may find underwhelming is that they are looking for some very rare chip, find my site and don't find much info. This unfortunately will still be true on UR because there just isn't the info out there.

PCchips is one example. We have found a little more info on some of them (due in the next update) but it's dribs and drabs for the most part.

If you are looking for early intel pentium datasheets and are totally confused then you are not alone! Different versions state different things! Congratulations you've found hell:-) I have read the beginning of the datasheets and made the differences obvious on my site. E.g:
http://66.113.161.23/~mR_Slug/chipset/chipset … 478,22725#21379

The notes section gives you an overview of the chaos, the info and features section is broken down into sections like 'all' and Oct'93, etc. If you want to read the Oct'93 version open 'all' and Oct'93 subsections, likewise for the Dec'94 version. It will at least indicate the major differences in the datasheet versions. I couldn't do this for the entire datasheet though, it would have killed me. Hope this is helpful to someone. But as always consult the different versions of the original datasheets.

To make things clear, a proper chipset database is now on the to-do list for UR, with images and documentation.

When will it be ready?, hard to say. We have lots of other things which have a higher priority to implement right now, but it will be coming eventually.

mR_Slug wrote on 2021-12-20, 01:12:

Yes i can understand you being frustrated if you are looking for register listings. That was never the intention of my site. May […]
Show full quote

Yes i can understand you being frustrated if you are looking for register listings. That was never the intention of my site. Maybe some far off future thing, but I always worry if it copy something from a datasheet, I will make a mistake. Some 'datasheets' contain less than whats in the example link. They are just a list of features. Some include numbered pins but no indication of their function. It's a real Hodge-poge in some of them.

Another thing that people may find underwhelming is that they are looking for some very rare chip, find my site and don't find much info. This unfortunately will still be true on UR because there just isn't the info out there.

PCchips is one example. We have found a little more info on some of them (due in the next update) but it's dribs and drabs for the most part.

If you are looking for early intel pentium datasheets and are totally confused then you are not alone! Different versions state different things! Congratulations you've found hell:-) I have read the beginning of the datasheets and made the differences obvious on my site. E.g:
http://66.113.161.23/~mR_Slug/chipset/chipset … 478,22725#21379

The notes section gives you an overview of the chaos, the info and features section is broken down into sections like 'all' and Oct'93, etc. If you want to read the Oct'93 version open 'all' and Oct'93 subsections, likewise for the Dec'94 version. It will at least indicate the major differences in the datasheet versions. I couldn't do this for the entire datasheet though, it would have killed me. Hope this is helpful to someone. But as always consult the different versions of the original datasheets.

Yeah what I'm really trying to say is that a single, searchable repository of datasheet PDF files is far more useful than trying to scrape the datasheets and build some type of database out of it.

While using this amazing page, i did feel one thing missing.

In addition to supported amount of cache on boards, it could be nice, if it also marks, in which mode this cache can work: WriteThrough and WriteBack.
Quick examples of 2 boards, where chipset supports WriteBack in addition to WriteThrough, but only one board supports WriteBack:
https://www.ultimateretro.net/en/motherboards/1389 - Only WriteThrough, even though chipset supports WriteBack. ( Re: What retro activity did you get up to today? )
https://www.ultimateretro.net/en/motherboards/3059 - Fully working WriteBack feature present.

On search terms, it would also be nice to maybe add a little different algorithm into the mix:
When i search by name, split my search term by whitespace characters and then give me results that all have the "words" present i typed.

For example, take the first board mentioned here: It's name contains "MS-3131". I would like to see it, when i search "ms 3131" or even "3131 ms".

UR received another update recently!

It doesn't contain new features, its more of a user interface polish: new SVG icons, tab system for the board pages, etc.

We have as well turned all the images in the right orientation (no longer upside down).