Messed around with the new-to-me SC-88 Pro comparing to my sc55 mk1. The sc55 has really loud Fingered Bass in comparison (I would swag it at 50% louder than the sc88!) and in most tracks that use a lot of that instrument, I actually prefer the sc88. I know that makes me a godless heathen but there ya go. There's a few games where I think I prefer my jv-1010, but overall I suspect it shall rust from disuse now.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-01-03, 01:09:

The way you described your renovation plans sounds like you are leading a software development project.
That gave me a little laugh (-:

Yah the last project, "putting a bit of extra counter in the kitchen" had it all, scope shift, feature creep, first 90% taking 90% of scheduled time, last 410% taking the final 410% of schedule. Went from adding the spare bit of counter, to replacing entire countertop with new (and larger), replacing sink and faucets, adding 3 cupboards, 5 shelves in 3 locations, creating new microwave and recycling stations, and "I thought you said it would take a couple of days." .. that was a few years back and increased storage an extra 150% but I'm worried that I'm hearing "there's nowhere to put anything" again. Don't look at me, there is absolutely no retro parts stored in the kitchen.

i actually had a failed power supply on one old machine, doesn't happen often but the lights on the motherboard hinted at it - swapped for a saved old one and all's well so far. the value of collecting and keeping far too much stuff! 😀

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-01-03, 01:09:

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-01-02, 23:41:

Been caught up in the holiday grind one way or another since mid December, might get some free retro time now... Getting real ex […]
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Been caught up in the holiday grind one way or another since mid December, might get some free retro time now... Getting real excited that the office room is getting closer to reality, was on hold, now the relative's junk is gone and progress might happen. Needs some R&R doing to it while it's emptyish first. Wife keeps trying to add "while we are at it"s .. no love, that's a whole 'nother project, not an extra 5 mins, I want clearly defined scope that takes a week, not a rambling reno that you're asking me why haven't we finished yet 6 months later.

Anyway, the retro part of that is it looks like there will be room for an approx 5ft long 2ft deep retro desktop, with modern taking the "6ft" arm of the L but not getting the corner, so ~4ft ... and probably a decent amount of shelving against the wall, can probably have some laptops stored to quick swap there, media and reference etc.

Preliminary big box store desk selection seems to be too small or large, and too fussy or too flimsy... one said it had max load of 100lb, eek, can I even bend over that to write on? So I don't know if I'm gonna find something right or have to hew one from a block of oak or something. Wife is set on something crisp and modern or new looking, gotta have a matching pair. Might have to go look at business desk place, consumer stuff is pretty nasty at the moment. One HUGE frustration of desk browsing online is that very few of the sellers seem to understand that the depth of a desk is an important dimension in an L or corner shape, front to back of surface, yes we also need the maximum X and Y and Z height, but I don't want a narrow plank a chromebook barely perches on thank you very much.

So real exciting, proper setup for a few retro machines in prospect.

The way you described your renovation plans sounds like you are leading a software development project.
That gave me a little laugh (-:

Synthesizers are definitely up to personal taste. The SC-88 is going to be compatible with the widest range, simply because it has a much higher polyphony, but the original SC-55 has its own distinct sound that is not present even on late SC-55 firmware (capital tone fallback).

There is no "right" synthesizer, even if you pick the one that a particular track was composed on. Sometimes music sounds better on an SC-55, SC-88, Yamaha, etc.

I actually prefer FM tunes depending on the game.

This was my little project for this evening. Found this old laser cut Lian Li PC60/7 side panel in the clearance section of a computer site I used to use, I suspect they’d been trying to shift it for the past two decades. I’ve cleaned it up, swapped out the horrid green plexiglass for transparent, and added a strip of blue LEDs. A nice bit of period correct case modding.

Quad damage! 😎

Shadzilla wrote on 2024-01-04, 19:30:

This was my little project for this evening. Found this old laser cut Lian Li PC60/7 side panel in the clearance section of a computer site I used to use, I suspect they’d been trying to shift it for the past two decades. I’ve cleaned it up, swapped out the horrid green plexiglass for transparent, and added a strip of blue LEDs. A nice bit of period correct case modding.

Quad damage! 😎

That is frickin' awesome looking! 😁

Been having some more fun with ABITs. Took a break from both the BE6-II and BP6, and put up a IS7-E I had in store, along with 2GB of fine DDR (ADATA Vitesta and PQI Turbo) and a simple HD3450 from ASUS.

Other drives include a 160GB WD1600JB and a Samsung SH-216 SATA burner I had around.

I do like that HD3450 AGP. Never found one personally.

Thanks. I don't exactly know of many to be sold - most I've seen are PCI-E. Its model is AH3450/DI/512MB. The cooler to it isn't original in that regard - it came off a 3470 PCI-E that went belly up.
The backside bears a thin heatsink that came from a 775 mainboard over the bridge chip.

As for OS, I'm running XP SP3 with the drivers provided by ASUS (which identifies it as ASUS AH3450 Series in Device Manager) and some visual "eyecandy". (Embedded theme + ineXPerience Patcher's 2k/ME elements)

Drew and printed a quick and dirty mount for a 120mm fan on top of the 2 Coppermines in my P2B-DS. They were cooled only by power supply airflow in the system I got them in, but they're 667s clocked at 100MHz FSB, so probably pretty cool running. Hopefully the weekend will teach me 😀

debs3759 wrote on 2024-01-04, 20:49:

I do like that HD3450 AGP. Never found one personally.

Me either, but I wouldn't be looking, although might find one accidentally while looking for a HD4650 or something, but not really needing any HD line AGP radeons for boards I've got, I'd be better off with x1300 or something.

FWIW it does pretty well with a HT Northwood. I do have what I think is a Gecube Radeon X1300 but finding a heatsink for that is a royal pain in the ass. It isn't the standard hole placement that most GF4 Ti and some other Radeon cards also use.

I know Halloween is just behind us, but this is material for a Frankenstein themed rig.
256MB DDR2 modules, AGP+PCIe videocards, Windows Vista, this has potential.

Performed some repairs on this Reveal Sound FX Wave 32 (Ensoniq Soundscape) sound card.

This included reflowing the main IC since at least half the pins were loose, along with replacing a couple SMD caps (C48 and C72).

I opted to fix the main IC via drag soldering, but in hindsight wish I had just used hot air. Unfortunately one of the underlying pads lifted in the process of reflowing it. I was a bit surprised since I had my soldering iron at only 600F. But on the other hand I was using a large beveled tip for this which was probably too big for the job.

I added a bit of solder mask to secure the lifted pad. After testing all the pins, they are all soldered to their respective pads with no solder bridges.

The card does appear to work fine as it was detected in DOS and I get clean audio playback.

Repairing the 2$ original xbox i picked up some time ago. Did a recap and removed the clock capacitor. I was going to softmod it so I can play a game from an othwr region, but before I succeeded in softmodding it, the original hd started clicking and decided to go to silicon heaven. RIP.

If you know a little about Xboxes is that it only boots with harddrive that is locked and corresponds to the serial in the eeprom. You basically have a dead console.

So now i need to build an eeprom reader, dump it and lock an other drive to the Xbox. I have a 500 GB IDE drive looking for a new home somewhere. I'm not giving up and refuse to spend money on modchips I really don't need.

If you have a CH341A programmer around, you can read it with that. The EEPROM is stored in a 24C02 IC.

As for modding - TSOP it if it's one of the older models (1.0 through 1.4)

In setting up my latest multi-sound card build, I'm finding myself stymied by the lack of standard MIDI ports for different games.

I guess nobody anticipated needing over a half-dozen MIDI ports in one system, but better standardized options would have been nice.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-01-04, 22:06:

Drew and printed a quick and dirty mount for a 120mm fan on top of the 2 Coppermines in my P2B-DS. They were cooled only by power supply airflow in the system I got them in, but they're 667s clocked at 100MHz FSB, so probably pretty cool running. Hopefully the weekend will teach me 😀

Up and running now ...

Was actually pretty certain that the undocumented FSB clock setting would be the 133 MHz, but no luck - it was yet another 112?

My clock generator is ICS9150AF-08. Only datasheet I can find doesn't have the "A" in the part number - not sure if it matters or not. But that shows a 133 setting ... Mysterious. I may want to do the ICS9250 rebuild at some time, then ... Upgraded Asus P2B-D with 133MHz FSB

PcBytes wrote on 2024-01-05, 19:15:

If you have a CH341A programmer around, you can read it with that. The EEPROM is stored in a 24C02 IC.

As for modding - TSOP it if it's one of the older models (1.0 through 1.4)

I found some clever guy who solved it with a raspberry pi. But it seems to have a compatibility problem with my pi4. I'm not really a linux guy and if something goes wrong when I'm following a guide I have no idea what to do. I'll try a pi3 tomorrow or I'll find the parts to do it via serial perhaps. It was what I wanted to do (because it's cool!) but I don't think I have the diods in stock.

Continuing the repairs, I had two keyboards. One USB Kensington ValuKeyboard and a A4Tech KBS-720. The Kensington had a fried PCB (don't ask, I have zero ideas how it died) and the A4Tech wouldn't register a whole row of keys.

Little do people know that they're both the same keyboard 🤣

All it took was swapping the PS/2 PCB from the A4Tech into the Kensington and presto, a working keyboard!