VOGONS


Reply 2840 of 3172, by Sunoo

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Shponglefan wrote on 2022-04-24, 18:54:

They still show up for me: https://www.utsource.net/itm/p/457141.html

Just got a response from UTSource. They're gone:

UTSource wrote:

Thanks for your inquiry , we checked our stock, but regret to let you know so sorry no parts.If any other new inquiries, you can browse our website : www.utsource.net

Reply 2841 of 3172, by Shponglefan

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Sunoo wrote on 2022-04-25, 10:19:

Just got a response from UTSource. They're gone:

UTSource wrote:

Thanks for your inquiry , we checked our stock, but regret to let you know so sorry no parts.If any other new inquiries, you can browse our website : www.utsource.net

Well, shoot.

Guess I won't count on getting my order either, giving that it's been a few weeks and still hasn't been shipped.

Pentium 4 Multi-OS Build
486 DX4-100 with 6 sound cards
486 DX-33 with 5 sound cards

Reply 2842 of 3172, by Shponglefan

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640K!enough wrote on 2022-04-25, 03:54:

I would also strongly urge all involved to end the open discussions of dumping and sharing the ROM content. This is not the place for that, and greatly increases the likelihood of this thread being locked or deleted. One of the rights-holders is aware of this project, and has been known to stop in and follow the discussion from time to time. I'm sure he wouldn't be too thrilled with the nature of this discussion of late, and I'm sure nobody wants to invite legal trouble.

If the rights holders are aware, has there been any thought about licensing the ROM content for this project?

Now that it looks like getting W78C21M1 chips is a non-starter.

Pentium 4 Multi-OS Build
486 DX4-100 with 6 sound cards
486 DX-33 with 5 sound cards

Reply 2843 of 3172, by Shponglefan

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MJay99 wrote on 2022-04-24, 19:48:
Shponglefan wrote on 2022-04-24, 19:25:

How long is shipping time typically?

To Europe and on their cheapest service: Sometimes it takes up to a week for the packet to get picked up, after their internal 'collection' from external shops is done (which is the stage your order seems to still be in, otherwise you'd see a tracking number listed in their backend). After pickup, it usually took about 7-10 days, with my last order being from April, 8th.

My order does list a tracking number.

The current status (as of April 8th) is: "Packing has been completed, waiting for shipment."

Though at this point I'm not putting too much stock into that status...

Pentium 4 Multi-OS Build
486 DX4-100 with 6 sound cards
486 DX-33 with 5 sound cards

Reply 2844 of 3172, by TheMobRules

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Shponglefan wrote on 2022-04-25, 14:01:

My order does list a tracking number.

The current status (as of April 8th) is: "Packing has been completed, waiting for shipment."

Though at this point I'm not putting too much stock into that status...

I wouldn't worry too much, I've had some shipments that were in "Waiting..." status for a while. utsource is pretty reliable, it's not like AliExpress. Though, as you may have found out, their "Inquiry" service is pretty much useless, I've tried several times and it was always a complete waste of time, just "we don't have any stock".

Regarding the IW chips, I'd guess most of the remaining stock was bought when the russian ARGUS clone was released.

Reply 2845 of 3172, by Sunoo

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TheMobRules wrote on 2022-04-25, 15:15:

Though, as you may have found out, their "Inquiry" service is pretty much useless, I've tried several times and it was always a complete waste of time, just "we don't have any stock".

That’s my experience with everyone’s inquiry service. Either no response, or “sorry we have none”, but then they don’t take it off their site.

Reply 2846 of 3172, by Sunoo

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IcySon55 wrote on 2022-04-25, 04:35:

Alright, here we go.

This CSV BOM includes everything minus the IW78C21M1 chip, the DRAM chips, the optional components, and whatever the NotConnected resistors /would/ be.

I took a quick look, and it seems decent so far (will do a real 1-1 matching after work). However, looks like most of the Panasonic caps are sold out with 28 week lead time, and the SIMM slot is back ordered until September. Might be worth finding alternatives for those. This seems a good starting point if nothing else though.

Reply 2847 of 3172, by IcySon55

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Sunoo wrote on 2022-04-25, 15:58:

I took a quick look, and it seems decent so far (will do a real 1-1 matching after work). However, looks like most of the Panasonic caps are sold out with 28 week lead time, and the SIMM slot is back ordered until September. Might be worth finding alternatives for those. This seems a good starting point if nothing else though.

Thanks for the input! I'm not too miffed about the lead times personally as my own learning journey (and equipment acquisition) will easily exceed 28 weeks. >.>;

Reply 2848 of 3172, by 640K!enough

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Shponglefan wrote on 2022-04-25, 12:22:

If the rights holders are aware, has there been any thought about licensing the ROM content for this project?

If you read through a little more of the thread, you'll have the answers to those questions. Firstly, there were no less than three companies holding copyrights on the data in the ROM; one may no longer exist, one is a large corporation that would have no interest in even reading what we have to say, and the last was the one who is aware of this project. That last guy is the one who arguably owns the most important part of the ROM. However, he can't license the entire content of the original ROM, as he doesn't own all of it himself, either. So, legal options for the entire content of the ROM, as originally released, are few to non-existent.

I was personally in touch with the above-mentioned company-owner, and he was relatively receptive to putting some sort of deal together. I had done quite a bit of work getting up to the point of even being ready to ask him, but was met with heavy indifference here, and that was before the stock of the original chips was discovered. It seems that people are thrilled with the idea of it, until you tell them that they will actually have to pay something for it. Many didn't respond at all, some were thrilled with the idea as long as it didn't add anything to the cost, some explicitly said "I don't care", and a few expressed some level of interest. Given the response, I couldn't bring myself to make an arrangement with the guy, for us to spend the time in development and testing, only to find out that almost nobody would want to pay when it was ready. There was a real possibility that he would be insulted and insufficiently compensated, or that I might be left with the majority of the bill for his services. That was enough of a deterrent for me, and I never signed the NDA, nor got into the specific details of how much it might cost or how it would be paid.

Knowing now how the project has progressed, and that people are still making pronouncements about how much it should cost and squabbling over a few dollars, it looks like I made the right decision.

Last edited by 640K!enough on 2022-04-25, 18:15. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 2849 of 3172, by elfoam

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Shponglefan wrote on 2022-04-25, 12:22:
640K!enough wrote on 2022-04-25, 03:54:

I would also strongly urge all involved to end the open discussions of dumping and sharing the ROM content. This is not the place for that, and greatly increases the likelihood of this thread being locked or deleted. One of the rights-holders is aware of this project, and has been known to stop in and follow the discussion from time to time. I'm sure he wouldn't be too thrilled with the nature of this discussion of late, and I'm sure nobody wants to invite legal trouble.

If the rights holders are aware, has there been any thought about licensing the ROM content for this project?

Now that it looks like getting W78C21M1 chips is a non-starter.

You don't need the IW78C21M1 at all, just burn an eprom, people have been fixing these cards with eproms for years.

Last edited by elfoam on 2022-04-25, 19:07. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 2850 of 3172, by Stevogamer

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elfoam wrote on 2022-04-25, 17:37:
Shponglefan wrote on 2022-04-25, 12:22:
640K!enough wrote on 2022-04-25, 03:54:

I would also strongly urge all involved to end the open discussions of dumping and sharing the ROM content. This is not the place for that, and greatly increases the likelihood of this thread being locked or deleted. One of the rights-holders is aware of this project, and has been known to stop in and follow the discussion from time to time. I'm sure he wouldn't be too thrilled with the nature of this discussion of late, and I'm sure nobody wants to invite legal trouble.

If the rights holders are aware, has there been any thought about licensing the ROM content for this project?

Now that it looks like getting W78C21M1 chips is a non-starter.

You don't need the IW78C21M1 at all, just burn an eprom, people have been fixing these cards with eproms for years. Some info here for people with original cards https://guspnp.livejournal.com/5568.html

I deleted my original link to this article in a previous post on purpose due to the above concerns. Since yes it can be done and actually that article is related to the project it seems. If you read through the posts you'll know what I mean.

Reply 2851 of 3172, by elfoam

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Do you want me to delete the post? I will anyway if there's concern and worry about these kind of things, this isn't the kind of thing I worry about in my life but I understand not everyone has my life policy :p I've been burning eproms flat out for 20 years. I'm addicted to the smell of ozone ;p

Reply 2853 of 3172, by Sunoo

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terryfi wrote on 2022-04-25, 19:28:

If we were to use the 29F800 eeproms; will 70ns, 90ns speed variants work?

Pretty sure somewhere in this thread it’s mentioned that it needs to be 70ns or faster.

Reply 2855 of 3172, by Shponglefan

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SIMM connectors can be purchased from Digikey. They still have stock: https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/detail/te- … 2486-2/14815614

Pentium 4 Multi-OS Build
486 DX4-100 with 6 sound cards
486 DX-33 with 5 sound cards

Reply 2856 of 3172, by Shponglefan

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640K!enough wrote on 2022-04-25, 17:31:

If you read through a little more of the thread, you'll have the answers to those questions. Firstly, there were no less than three companies holding copyrights on the data in the ROM; one may no longer exist, one is a large corporation that would have no interest in even reading what we have to say, and the last was the one who is aware of this project. That last guy is the one who arguably owns the most important part of the ROM. However, he can't license the entire content of the original ROM, as he doesn't own all of it himself, either. So, legal options for the entire content of the ROM, as originally released, are few to non-existent.

I was personally in touch with the above-mentioned company-owner, and he was relatively receptive to putting some sort of deal together. I had done quite a bit of work getting up to the point of even being ready to ask him, but was met with heavy indifference here, and that was before the stock of the original chips was discovered. It seems that people are thrilled with the idea of it, until you tell them that they will actually have to pay something for it. Many didn't respond at all, some were thrilled with the idea as long as it didn't add anything to the cost, some explicitly said "I don't care", and a few expressed some level of interest. Given the response, I couldn't bring myself to make an arrangement with the guy, for us to spend the time in development and testing, only to find out that almost nobody would want to pay when it was ready. There was a real possibility that he would be insulted and insufficiently compensated, or that I might be left with the majority of the bill for his services. That was enough of a deterrent for me, and I never signed the NDA, nor got into the specific details of how much it might cost or how it would be paid.

Knowing now how the project has progressed, and that people are still making pronouncements about how much it should cost and squabbling over a few dollars, it looks like I made the right decision.

Thanks for the details. Sounds like a lot of effort was made as it is. Too bad the level of interest wasn't there. 🙁

Pentium 4 Multi-OS Build
486 DX4-100 with 6 sound cards
486 DX-33 with 5 sound cards

Reply 2857 of 3172, by terryfi

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Shponglefan wrote on 2022-04-25, 20:41:

SIMM connectors can be purchased from Digikey. They still have stock: https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/detail/te- … 2486-2/14815614

Yes but if someone was helping with distributing this guys' lot it would have been one fifth of digikey price.

Reply 2858 of 3172, by Synoptic

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IcySon55 wrote on 2022-04-25, 04:35:

Synoptic, if you don't mind verifying that I've not made any horrible fire-starting mistakes. 😅;

Here's the list of material I used to assemble my Arguses : https://www.micronick.com/argus/argus_synoptic_bom.pdf

Reply 2859 of 3172, by Synoptic

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gerwin wrote on 2016-03-01, 22:18:
This folder in the SDK mentions ROM making: IWSDK20.ZIP\960214.SRC\TOOLS\ROMMAKER Some Snippets: "now combine .FFF and .DAT int […]
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shock__ wrote:

How they arranged the data ... no idea. The "newfff.txt" from the SDK might be of help there. Personally I haven't checked into that yet - just confirmed the IW78C21M1 can be substituted with a 29F800

This folder in the SDK mentions ROM making:
IWSDK20.ZIP\960214.SRC\TOOLS\ROMMAKER
Some Snippets:
"now combine .FFF and .DAT into ROMx.BIN files"
FFF=SBOS waves Patch Information
DAT=SBOS waves Sample Data
prepare rom header: strncpy(rh.iwave, "INTRWAVE", 😎;

The SDK is there : http://dk.toastednet.org/GUS/SOURCE%20CODE/IWSDK20.ZIP
and a bunch of useful stuff in there too : http://dk.toastednet.org/GUS/SOURCE%20CODE/
Maybe someone could make a ROM out of the .PAT files from the GUS installation files ?

Last edited by Synoptic on 2022-04-25, 22:25. Edited 1 time in total.