VOGONS


First post, by OldCat

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I have just bought Kontron IP Lite Color laptop, a powerful 486-based luggable built into magnesium alloy case, 10kg overall. Overall, the machine is in excellent shape, but the monitor behaves strangely: every now and then part of it will go grey. It does not depend on time, but it does depend on what is on the screen. So, some software will look good,but some will grey out parts. In the examples given below, the title screen for Lost Vikings will have a bar of grey, but in game - mostly not. It will reappear in some cases, then go away. It is easily reproducible, always happens in the same circumstances, but there is no clear rule as to why this happens. I suspect that some colour values will trigger this. Has anyone ever met with such behaviour of the computer screen? Help!

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Reply 1 of 13, by Rawit

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Do all DOS games give you this issue? I know Lost Vikings is Mode X and it doesn't play well with all hardware, so maybe it's timing/refresh rate related. I don't know if Dyna Blaster uses an exotic resolution.
A quick check can be done by running Doom Shareware and Heretic Shareware. If it's Mode X/Y related, Doom should give you greyed out parts and Heretic should run without issues.

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Reply 2 of 13, by OldCat

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Rawit wrote:

Do all DOS games give you this issue? I know Lost Vikings is Mode X and it doesn't play well with all hardware, so maybe it's timing/refresh rate related. I don't know if Dyna Blaster uses an exotic resolution.
A quick check can be done by running Doom Shareware and Heretic Shareware. If it's Mode X/Y related, Doom should give you greyed out parts and Heretic should run without issues.

Excellent, I will check these two games. Thanks!

Does anyone else have any other theories?

Reply 3 of 13, by OldCat

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I did check both Doom and Heretic. The monitor behaviour is the same in both of them, namely all good, but every now and then I would get greyed out bars depending on the screen content.

See for example how the bottom of the screen gets grey-ish when player turns in Doom. It is repeatable - if I move to the left, monitor contents gets grey, if I turn to the right, the effect disappears. Totally reproducible. Left - grey, right - clear, left - grey again, right - clear again.

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Reply 4 of 13, by Rawit

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Normally I would think this is normal behaviour for passive matrix/DSTN screens. But you mention the symptoms are related to movement in the game... Does it have to do with contrast perhaps? The first level of Doom is darkish to the left, outdoor area to the right... Otherwise I'm out of guesses.

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Reply 7 of 13, by BinaryDemon

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Does the laptop have vga output? Might help determine if it’s a lcd issue or gpu issue.

Check out DOSBox Distro:

https://sites.google.com/site/dosboxdistro/ [*]

a lightweight Linux distro (tinycore) which boots off a usb flash drive and goes straight to DOSBox.

Make your dos retrogaming experience portable!

Reply 8 of 13, by ConventionalMemories

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Hi, Do you have any of the original Kontron utilities on your IP Lite? would it be possible to make a copy of them and to send them to me? This would help me out a lot since they are not available anywhere online. and the manual keeps referring to them, "use ... utility from the diagnostics diskette"
I do however have a German copy of the original manual which i am scanning right now. if you want to i'll send you a PDF when i'm done.
Thanks

Reply 9 of 13, by OldCat

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ConventionalMemories wrote on 2020-03-24, 16:33:

Hi, Do you have any of the original Kontron utilities on your IP Lite? would it be possible to make a copy of them and to send them to me? This would help me out a lot since they are not available anywhere online. and the manual keeps referring to them, "use ... utility from the diagnostics diskette"
I do however have a German copy of the original manual which i am scanning right now. if you want to i'll send you a PDF when i'm done.
Thanks

I am very sorry, but since I couldn't resolve the problem and that thing was a beast (huge, heavey), I have sold it in the meantime. I will try to contact the person I sold it to - if they reply, I will let you know.

Reply 10 of 13, by ConventionalMemories

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OldCat wrote on 2020-05-05, 12:27:

I am very sorry, but since I couldn't resolve the problem and that thing was a beast (huge, heavey), I have sold it in the meantime. I will try to contact the person I sold it to - if they reply, I will let you know.

Thank you, I appreciate the effort. I was hoping you might have been able to reach them?
I’ve looked high and low for the files, like contacted every Kontron IP LITE owner I’ve found online, contacted several different Kontron offices, and some eBay sellers. And although I have found some of the original utilities the one I needed the most isn’t available anywhere. The “EISA configuration utility” and to be more precise the configuration file for my motherboard. Which should be something like “!TWE8309.CFG”. anyhow,
thank you again.

Reply 11 of 13, by OldCat

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I was, but they didn't find the files you requested. It's a guy, by the way. If he has time, he will copy the entire DOS and WINDOWS directories and share (but remember, it is someone I only met once when I sold them the computer, so...). However, he asked if you would be able to share the scans of original instruction booklet - he would be very grateful if you could.

Thanks!

Reply 12 of 13, by ConventionalMemories

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Great. Many thanks again.
I hope there are some files tucked away in one of those folders.
That's how I found some of the Kontron VGA utilities tucked away on my original HDD.

I've included those utilities together with the manual in a shared drive folder.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1OrtIc … sJU9dDesK5Pv0x1

The manual is in German but I've ran it through OCR so I'd be easier to select and translate.
More info about the included utilities and how to use them can be found in the manual.

Thanks again.

Reply 13 of 13, by matze79

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Does it feature C&T Video Chipset ?

https://drivers.dosreloaded.de/index.php?b=Gr … gies%2FNotebook

maybe vexpand will solve it.

https://www.retrokits.de - blog, retro projects, hdd clicker, diy soundcards etc
https://www.retroianer.de - german retro computer board