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?

FioGermi wrote on 2022-04-20, 16:22:

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?

No. That game works fine with a real SBPro2.

The sound card has a low pass filter (that causes higher sample rates to be muffled) that many SBPro compatibles clones lacks which can be disabled with the mixer program that comes with the DOS drivers.

Later Creative ISA sound cards uses a brickwall filter which prevents aliasing much better with higher sample rates.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-04-20, 17:02:

No. That game works fine with a real SBPro2. […]
Show full quote

FioGermi wrote on 2022-04-20, 16:22:

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

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?

No. That game works fine with a real SBPro2.

The sound card has a low pass filter (that causes higher sample rates to be muffled) that many SBPro compatibles clones lacks which can be disabled with the mixer program that comes with the DOS drivers.

Later Creative ISA sound cards uses a brickwall filter which prevents aliasing much better with higher sample rates.

Duke Nukem 2 digital audio was garbled for me. I'll give it another go here

EDIT: My ears must be dying. I disabled the filter and messed around with the mixer and now i sounds fine. A little loud, low quality and boom-y, but it sounds like Duke Nukem 2!

My Pentium M laptop is showing its age a bit these days. It has a column of discolored pixels on the screen, and today while I was browsing vogons the left mouse button stopped working. I clicked on a thread and nothing happened. Browser freeze? OS freeze? No, keyboard still working and so is the right mouse button. But tapping also doesn't work, so I guess the left button is shorted out. I right-clicked on the NX PAD icon in the system tray and got this configuration dialog.

It's funny because after all these years I don't recall ever seeing this before. I disabled the left button and reassigned the center button. Problem solved, until I get around to doing a real repair at least. I have some spare parts for this machine, so while I am checking out the touch pad maybe I can also figure out why the cardbus slot seems to have gone dead.

Setup the DOS Multiboot Menus on the BSI. Also managed to wrangle some extra clarity out of the DSTN screen by ever-so-slightly twisting the panel....it must have lined up the layers.

Really odd thing is this DSTN panel does not really "smear" very much at all. It's a Sanyo LCM-533 series panel IIRC. Played a some DOS games on it last night, Wacky Wheels and Doom do really well on this laptop.

Also enabled the fn+ key pop-up drivers so now I can do all the usual wacky STN adjustments (bold text, stretch, etc.).

Looks like this one will be a keeper. Planning to put in one of those WiFi Modems (basically an Arduino AP that connects to the COM port), and that LPT Adlib card.