chrismes wrote on 2024-08-07, 10:42:

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-08-06, 22:57:

I'd be curious how it compares to an SVGA monitor for old EGA games. I haven't been able to get my hands on anything older than the late 90s for CRTs. There seems to be some disagreement here if it would make a difference. I assume that there would be a difference, but I haven't looked at anything below SVGA since the 90s.

VGA does line doubling on 320x200 resolution, which makes it look different. Look at this photo of my EGA screen and compare it to a VGA screen, there are very distinct single lines of pixels:

Absolutely. That looks a bit like a scanline shader like those seen in RetroArch. I always thought those were a bit exaggerated. I guess not. Thanks!

dionb wrote on 2024-08-05, 22:41:

Got a brand new card in the post today - and stuck it in a 1998 motherboard. And it works! […]
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Got a brand new card in the post today - and stuck it in a 1998 motherboard. And it works!

One of those.new FX5500 cards from AliExpress. Now this was a surprise as the Tekram P5MVP-A4 motherboard has an MVP3 chipset with PCI 2.1 so no mandatory 3.3V support, and I'd read these cards are universally keyed but need 3.3V to run.

But... a quick unsuccessful test in a 486 followed by a successful test of another known 3.3V card in the SS7 board shows that Tekram actually implemented 3 3V on this old clunker.

That aside the card lives up to my hopes - full VESA support for all the modes SVGATEST could throw at it. I bought it for combination of that with DVI.

That was interesting news I had to look into. It's great they don't seem impaired vs original noughties cards. I had to think long and hard about whether I wanted to order one for myself or not, but ultimately went with not. I "saturated" with PCI FX6200 when they were dirt cheap on eBay the other year and those and the lower DX6/7 PCI overlap enough that there's no FX5500 PCI niche to justify here. I'd have probably pulled the trigger if I hadn't got the 6200s though. If they are available for long enough I might have a weak moment when I'm feeling rich in a year or two. (Or discover that I can't do what I wanted with cards on hand) They seem ideal for those i810/i815 OEM Tualatin systems that only had onboard graphics and can turn them into Glide capable with dgvoodoo, whole shebang would cost less than a V3 these days.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-08-07, 15:26:

[...]

That was interesting news I had to look into. It's great they don't seem impaired vs original noughties cards. I had to think long and hard about whether I wanted to order one for myself or not, but ultimately went with not. I "saturated" with PCI FX6200 when they were dirt cheap on eBay the other year and those and the lower DX6/7 PCI overlap enough that there's no FX5500 PCI niche to justify here. I'd have probably pulled the trigger if I hadn't got the 6200s though. If they are available for long enough I might have a weak moment when I'm feeling rich in a year or two. (Or discover that I can't do what I wanted with cards on hand) They seem ideal for those i810/i815 OEM Tualatin systems that only had onboard graphics and can turn them into Glide capable with dgvoodoo, whole shebang would cost less than a V3 these days.

That's definitely a use case, and a nice one too.

My use case is actually determined by a frustration with the interaction between a monitor and a KVM switch. The monitor supports analog and digital inputs with VGA, DVI and HDMI. But the DVI port is DVI-D. The KVM switch supports DVI-I, but just does a straight passthrough, so I can choose to connect the DVI-I output from the switch to either the VGA or the DVI-D on the monitor, but not both. Yet I want to have a DOS system output onto this monitor as well as a WinXP system. And I want the latter at resolutions where VGA isn't a great option. So I need something with digital output that also has full DOS VESA support. I have some PCI and AGP cards with DVI, but they fail the VESA (Matrox G450PCI, Matrox G550AGP, ATi Radeon 9200 etc).

Ideally I'd like to mod the card to work in 5V slots, as that would make it a truly universal solution for me (well, the system needs to have PCI, so no really old stuff).

Oh I getcha... and will possibly actually feel the pain when I get to bringing up the "office stack" trying to get 1600x1200 to CRT through KVM

cyclone3d wrote on 2024-08-06, 22:42:

Heads up that there are some really cheap Slot A Athlon Thunderbird CPUs on eBay right now. (10.49 shipped)

A bit more to ship outside the US, but I ordered one anyway regardless. With import taxes that should come to ~30Eur shipped. Hopefully a Thunderbird will run in at least one of the Slot-A boards I have.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-08-04, 15:41:

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-08-04, 01:58:

Thank you, I do like the line work on it as well. Reminiscent of earlier 90s cases. :) […]
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zuldan wrote on 2024-08-04, 00:53:

I actually like the lines on that case. Also seems to be in very good condition. Nice find

Thank you, I do like the line work on it as well. Reminiscent of earlier 90s cases. 😀

Unfortunately when taking it apart, it looks like there is a piece of the case missing. It seems designed for possibly screwless card insertion. There appears to be a bracket or cover that should go over above the rear slots, but that piece was missing.

I'll have to either try to find a replacement piece, or figure out some other solution to secure cards in this case.

I took a look at one of my cases which seemed to have identical metalwork, however mine does not clip, it's just a cover which has wandered off, and mine is drilled and tapped for screws to hold the cards. Similar styles of clip are seen on Thinkcenters and Apex cases if you're trying to clue into how the mechanics go.

Somewhere in this thread or the activity thread we discussed the funky pinouts for ATI AIW 9600 cards.

Around here maybe, given were are talking about the same type of connector:
Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Picked up a Turtle Beach Montego II for 14.99$ for my other win98 box. To be honest I don't understand why all the A2 revision chip prices are so high compared to the rest.

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-08-08, 14:34:

Picked up a Turtle Beach Montego II for 14.99$ for my other win98 box. To be honest I don't understand why all the A2 revision chip prices are so high compared to the rest.

I believe this is due to the 8830 chips supporting A3D 2.0, whereas the 8820 chips only support A3D 1.0.

Found a Roland MT 200 on FB for $30.

The seller knew it would go for much more on eBay, but just wanted someone to have some fun with it.

Until I saw it listed, I didn't know anything about it. But after a quick search online I figured out it's SC-55 compatible and I jumped at it. I've been hoping to find an SC-55 that wouldn't destroy my wallet for a while now.

As for this unit, it seems to work just fine, but the wheel control is a bit flaky. Oh, and the pic doesn't show it, but there's a number of gouges in the plastic along the top. Oh well, that just means it's well-loved. 😀

Hi all,

This couple of months managed to find some notable items.

A beautiful BEK-Tronic BEK-P402, somewhat rare jack-of-all-trades for the 486 cpus. It works well, but the it doesn't have Q3, that I suspect is needed for 3.3v cpu's.

from the same seller a PCChips M326 motherboard. Although being a PCChips it has a form factor that I find interesting, small but well packed.

On the motherboard front also a IBM 92F9654 for the IBM ps/1 model 2121. Love this small IBM's. It was a bit of an impulse purchase, but the idea was to upgrade one of my PS/1 model 2011 to a 386 CPU.

@ a local flea market bought a cheap bundle, yet relay interesting cards:

The Matrox MILLENNIUM P650 64MB is an odd card, but the Matrox RT.X100 takes the cake.... don't know yet what to do with them....

Next a Am486DX5-133 at the low price of 22€.... I couldn't resist.

To be continued ....

Xicor wrote on 2024-08-08, 16:27:

but the Matrox RT.X100 takes the cake.... don't know yet what to do with them....

You could do video production like it's 2003... 😁

Continuing on ....

A cartridge for NEO-GEO MVS of one of my favorite arcade games, Puzzle Bobble. @ 5€ I thought it would be a good deal for the eproms alone.

Also in another flea market, found a Geforce 256 from creative for 4€:

It had a hard life, some scuffs and a broken fan. managed to pull the cooler off to replace with a better one.

From ebay, a Elsa Gloria Synergy-A8:

Elsa made some of the most beautiful cards of its time, and this one is no exception.

Finally won a auction for an IBM PS/1 type 2121 a couple of days ago:

My first 2121, perhaps I should build a Frankenstein PS/1 with a 486 SXLC2 as in https://www.zonadepruebas.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=6184 using the MB of the previous post. Maybe the firmament demands it !

danieljm wrote on 2024-08-08, 16:26:

Found a Roland MT 200 on FB for $30. […]
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Found a Roland MT 200 on FB for $30.

The seller knew it would go for much more on eBay, but just wanted someone to have some fun with it.

Until I saw it listed, I didn't know anything about it. But after a quick search online I figured out it's SC-55 compatible and I jumped at it. I've been hoping to find an SC-55 that wouldn't destroy my wallet for a while now.

As for this unit, it seems to work just fine, but the wheel control is a bit flaky. Oh, and the pic doesn't show it, but there's a number of gouges in the plastic along the top. Oh well, that just means it's well-loved. 😀

Nice find! $30 for one of those is a fantastic price..

Hook up some speakers to it and it's like having a stand-alone General MIDI jukebox. 😀

Xicor wrote on 2024-08-08, 16:58:

Continuing on .... […]
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Continuing on ....

Also in another flea market, found a Geforce 256 from creative for 4€:

It had a hard life, some scuffs and a broken fan. managed to pull the cooler off to replace with a better one.

Huge pickup for only 4$ congrats!! Jealous! *Hope it works!

danieljm wrote on 2024-08-08, 16:26:

Found a Roland MT 200 on FB for $30. […]
Show full quote

Found a Roland MT 200 on FB for $30.

The seller knew it would go for much more on eBay, but just wanted someone to have some fun with it.

Until I saw it listed, I didn't know anything about it. But after a quick search online I figured out it's SC-55 compatible and I jumped at it. I've been hoping to find an SC-55 that wouldn't destroy my wallet for a while now.

As for this unit, it seems to work just fine, but the wheel control is a bit flaky. Oh, and the pic doesn't show it, but there's a number of gouges in the plastic along the top. Oh well, that just means it's well-loved. 😀

Great find and I love the look of these things. I think I'm good when it comes to MIDI devices, but this would make me weak.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-08-08, 16:58:

danieljm wrote on 2024-08-08, 16:26:

Found a Roland MT 200 on FB for $30. […]
Show full quote

Found a Roland MT 200 on FB for $30.

The seller knew it would go for much more on eBay, but just wanted someone to have some fun with it.

Until I saw it listed, I didn't know anything about it. But after a quick search online I figured out it's SC-55 compatible and I jumped at it. I've been hoping to find an SC-55 that wouldn't destroy my wallet for a while now.

As for this unit, it seems to work just fine, but the wheel control is a bit flaky. Oh, and the pic doesn't show it, but there's a number of gouges in the plastic along the top. Oh well, that just means it's well-loved. 😀

Nice find! $30 for one of those is a fantastic price..

Hook up some speakers to it and it's like having a stand-alone General MIDI jukebox. 😀

One that can play off a floppy!

danieljm wrote on 2024-08-08, 16:26:

Found a Roland MT 200 on FB for $30. […]
Show full quote

Found a Roland MT 200 on FB for $30.

The seller knew it would go for much more on eBay, but just wanted someone to have some fun with it.

Until I saw it listed, I didn't know anything about it. But after a quick search online I figured out it's SC-55 compatible and I jumped at it. I've been hoping to find an SC-55 that wouldn't destroy my wallet for a while now.

As for this unit, it seems to work just fine, but the wheel control is a bit flaky. Oh, and the pic doesn't show it, but there's a number of gouges in the plastic along the top. Oh well, that just means it's well-loved. 😀

I have the MT 200S (the version with speakers) and it sounds great! One heads up though. It can be a bit flaky. When I first got mine, I had trouble getting it to play any incoming midi data from my Roland UM-ONE, even after doing a factory reset. I thought I bought a dud, but I got it working after a bunch of tinkering. I found this guy's video to be really helpful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmOLiu_6pIc

Law212 wrote on 2024-08-06, 17:04:

This one is a Toshiba Tcra 550cdt. Missing the battery, but looking it up it has a Pentium 1 266 , with 16 megs of ram. It also has a 4MB S3 virge /MX 3D and does open GL and direct 3D. So looking forward to messing around with this one.

Don't forget to take out the leaking batteries that lurk within - there's a CMOS one and a "battry change backup" one. Love those Tecras though 😀

Bagged this card as part of job lot. The label on the backs says it's a TNT2 M64...However the silkscreen on the fornt suggests is a TNT2 Pro.

Here's hoping...

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-08-08, 19:43:

danieljm wrote on 2024-08-08, 16:26:

Found a Roland MT 200 on FB for $30. […]
Show full quote

Found a Roland MT 200 on FB for $30.

The seller knew it would go for much more on eBay, but just wanted someone to have some fun with it.

Until I saw it listed, I didn't know anything about it. But after a quick search online I figured out it's SC-55 compatible and I jumped at it. I've been hoping to find an SC-55 that wouldn't destroy my wallet for a while now.

As for this unit, it seems to work just fine, but the wheel control is a bit flaky. Oh, and the pic doesn't show it, but there's a number of gouges in the plastic along the top. Oh well, that just means it's well-loved. 😀

I have the MT 200S (the version with speakers) and it sounds great! One heads up though. It can be a bit flaky. When I first got mine, I had trouble getting it to play any incoming midi data from my Roland UM-ONE, even after doing a factory reset. I thought I bought a dud, but I got it working after a bunch of tinkering. I found this guy's video to be really helpful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmOLiu_6pIc

Thanks! I'll make sure to check it out.