Redesigned and printed my bay adapter to better fit the encoder and not look so ... janky. 🤣

StriderTR wrote on 2025-09-15, 18:33:

Redesigned and printed my bay adapter to better fit the encoder and not look so ... janky. 🤣

Very nice!

I sold quite a few of those Antec cases back in the day, that looks like a VSK-3000 or something similar.

Photoshoot for XP Retro Gaming Fb Group for my Inspirion 530 after I got my XFX Alpha Dog Edition 8800 GT in it.

iGamer wrote on 2025-09-15, 21:43:

Photoshoot for XP Retro Gaming Fb Group for my Inspirion 530 after I got my XFX Alpha Dog Edition 8800 GT in it.

Oh wow, this might be the first time I've felt really old after reading a post here.

It wasn't long ago I was working on and upgrading Inspiron 530 systems just like that for some friends and relatives... but they are 18 years old now. Holy cow...

I did lots of upgrades to keep them useful for several years, including trying to use sticker-modded LGA771 Xeon quad cores, but the boards in the ones I used could not support Quad Core CPUs at all.

Still, they lasted quite a while. One was even used for light gaming with a Radeon HD 7570 1GB GDDR5 and then a GTX 750 Ti for a while.

pete8475 wrote on 2025-09-15, 19:50:

StriderTR wrote on 2025-09-15, 18:33:

Redesigned and printed my bay adapter to better fit the encoder and not look so ... janky. 🤣

Very nice!

I sold quite a few of those Antec cases back in the day, that looks like a VSK-3000 or something similar.

Thanks!

It's a VSK4000E. Got it super cheap on Amazon about a year and a half ago. Perfect inexpensive modern case for my DOS build. One of these days I may find a proper "old" case, but until then, this works.

Have drawn this diagram for my single sound card multi-boot (FreeDOS/Win98/Win10_x64) S/PDIF out setup.
Thought doing the drawing by hand these days would be better head start than working though a CAD or diagramming program,
but then have not yet got it into a "digitized" form for easily manipulating, which I though would be damn straightforward in 2025.

Another machine got into the drawing, which is slightly beside the point.
The funny thing is that while S/PDIF seems to have gotten me to a state when I can listen to loud music and sound in headphones quite happily,
my struggle with USB for having the DACs and MIDI module powered seems to only be beginning.

Today I installed for the very first time OS/2 Warp4 on a VM using x86Box. That was a hectic process and the system is not stable at all, but interesting to play with this nonetheless...

DarthSun wrote on 2025-09-14, 16:24:

None in AMD5x86. It's Cyrix5x86 has.

I mean specifically the Pentium/K5/K6.
The AMD5x86 is just a 486 with a 4X multiplier anyway..

Welp, today has been weird...
I recently discovered the joys of BIOS Patcher, and I've been patching most of my motherboards' BIOSes and flashed some without any problems. Abit AB-PD5N, QDI Advance 10T and QDI Platinix 4 are among the successful ones, with many others waiting, but I had to disable the Rollback function on the 10T, because it always booted unpatched on a cold boot for some reason. Also, running BIOS Patcher on DOSBox makes the patching process so much quicker.

Messed with a basic low-end-ish (?) Win95 P200MMX system with an Abit AB-PD5N, the only non-Intel Socket 7 board I have. It seems alright, but the built-in SIS graphics are TERRIBLE. I had found that PC abandoned next to a dumpster on my way back home, and thought it was a 486 or something because of the VGA port's orientation. Imagine my surprise when I opened it up, and found only ribbon cables to the motherboard. Also a fully working Win95B install on the HDD.

I also found out that my Intel Advanced/EV has a newer MR-BIOS version than the one I had installed. I had 3.28, while the last one was 3.30. not sure what the differences are, but I still prefer it to the stock Intel BIOS. Tried another ALS100 sound card on that system (anyone remember the one I had botched 5 years ago? It's still functional, but I wasn't happy with the sound, too noisy, and kinda dull-sounding). While this one is also slightly noisy, it's nothing like the other one, more like a basic SB16 noise level, and it actually sounds clear. Enjoyed some Adlib Tracker tunes

Here is the bad part: I reshelled a PSP 3000 of mine. Not gonna lie, it gave me some trouble. Nothing too crazy. Until I powered it on. Cracked screen. Cue me screaming bloody murder like a madman, because I can't comprehend HOW. It's not like I smashed everything into place, I actually was VERY careful, but it happened anyway.
*sigh* I've replaced screens on 2 DS lites, a 3DS, a PSP, reshelled a DS Lite, a GBA SP, a 3DS, no problem. But it just HAD to happen now of all times. At least it's mine, so I didn't break someone else's console. I can find replacement screens on AliExpress, and got one for another PSP, but they're just not good, unlike DS and 3DS ones that are perfect.

mtest001 wrote on 2025-09-16, 21:34:

Today I installed for the very first time OS/2 Warp4 on a VM using x86Box. That was a hectic process and the system is not stable at all, but interesting to play with this nonetheless...

First time installing OS/2 at all or just in a VM? I find OS/2 quite fiddly regardless.

I've installed various versions of OS/2 on my retro rockets often enough that I've gotten pretty good at OS/2 troubleshooting.

One of my weirdest experiences installing OS/2 happened on my IBM Pentium MMX system. It turned out that the 430 VX chipset had issues with IDE bus mastering, and the IBM IDE driver on my custom install disk enabled bus mastering by default. That took me some time to figure out.

First time installing OS/2. I found the installation process quite complex, despite the fact that I chose the "easy installation". After the installation the network would not work and it's only after rebooting that the thing decided to install the TCP/IP components. Also right now I am stuck with 640x480 screen resolution and trying to play any media file results in an instant crash (though for that last problem I suspect an IRQ conflict).

I worked for IBM for about 6 years starting in 1999. I clearly remember seeing some remnant of OS/ such as install disks and books left in cabinets etc but I don't remember seeing a working system, and I certainly never touched one. So it's a nice feeling after all these years to finally take a closer look at this system.

Running 3D-Copter but I think a GeForce256 and DX7 is too modern. It doesn't look right, or is it? Also, no sound.

During the installation the DirectX 2 setup was checking the installed version, so I guess there's my hint.

"No honey, it's not what it looks like".

I only had 10 minutes today - there was no time since the last status, so I had to make do:

• there is one memory IC on the back with bad connections as well
• Applying pressure to the bad connection IC fixes all memory channel A issues
• the MDB0 failing bit is still present, so more on that front

With a bit of luck I might be able to conclude the repairs on that card today:

mtest001 wrote on 2025-09-17, 07:26:

First time installing OS/2. I found the installation process quite complex, despite the fact that I chose the "easy installation". After the installation the network would not work and it's only after rebooting that the thing decided to install the TCP/IP components. Also right now I am stuck with 640x480 screen resolution and trying to play any media file results in an instant crash (though for that last problem I suspect an IRQ conflict).

I worked for IBM for about 6 years starting in 1999. I clearly remember seeing some remnant of OS/ such as install disks and books left in cabinets etc but I don't remember seeing a working system, and I certainly never touched one. So it's a nice feeling after all these years to finally take a closer look at this system.

Yeah, IBM treated networking support as an add-on throughout OS/2’s life. The networking installation in OS/2 Warp really isn’t that much different from the LANMAN setup all the way back to OS/2 1.x. I can see how that would trip-up a new user. I had a lot of fun troubleshooting my first few retro rocket installs before I realized that OS/2 setup didn’t replicate my carefully created custom installation floppies for modern storage hardware. The computer either wouldn’t boot into OS/2 at all, or it would fail during the networking setup because OS/2 couldn’t find the installation CD. Now, I reboot using the installation floppies immediately after the first phase of installation to check CONFIG.SYS for the correct configuration (driver calls and switches). I fix things as needed before restarting the computer to continue installation. I often have to do this multiple times to get a fully working OS/2 install because each installation routine potentially messes up CONFIG.SYS.

As for your video drivers, you could try the Generic GRADD drivers if your virtual machine supports VESA graphics modes. I used these to get widescreen (1080p) graphics on virtual and real hardware. I’ve since started using Matrox video cards for high-color, widescreen resolutions to get accelerated graphics on real hardware.

Here’s a link to the generic graphics driver: https://ecsoft2.org/graphics-adapter-device-drivers-gradd

Made a longgggg cable with 4 wires. About 3 meters, 10 feet for vintage measurement system users.
Because I'm tired of moving from my chair to a test PC to press Power or Reset.
Yes, I'm lazzy.

And also build a cable for Wake On Lan from network card to mainboards.
Yes, I'm very lazy.
How do we enable WOL from Win98 ?
D-Link DFE-538TX here.

PD2JK wrote on 2025-09-17, 09:51:

Running 3D-Copter but I think a GeForce256 and DX7 is too modern. It doesn't look right, or is it? Also, no sound.

During the installation the DirectX 2 setup was checking the installed version, so I guess there's my hint.

The attachment DSC_5968.JPG is no longer available

I have heard that DX7+ is not particularly compatible with DX1 and DX2 titles through some other unrelated garaphics issues searches. As in DX2 apparently used vendor specific extensions that were deprecated in favour of a unified interface in later directX versions, especially for sound.

I've printed a bunch of moves for MK2, MK3, Soul Edge and WWF Wrestlemania from scans of vintage computer magazines and laminated the printouts.

A few months back I bought a 21MB floptical unit (Insite 325VM).
I thought it was dead. I took everything back from the start and had to replace a broken resistor to have it work like new.

Reads and writes 720, 1.44, 21MB disk perfectly.
The component that looked deader than dead was just the victim of smoke going its way.
So happy about it as it is a costum IC impossible to find. I'll probably record it working for future reference.

So I'm working on the SS7 build right now, and I want to replace the graphics card, the Sparkle Vanta 16MiB. And I have two options right now, Matrox G450 32MiB and ATi All-In-Wonder Rage 128 GL 32MiB. The reason I mentioned the Rage 128 is that, and if I'm not mistaken, have a 128Bit memory interface. So which one is a better choice?

Processor: K6-2 500 @ 500MHz
RAM: 160MiB PC100 (64MiBx2 plus 32MiB)
OS: Windows ME

https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/matr … 0-agp-dual-head

https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/ati- … r-128-agp#chips

Made some 30 pin SIMM memory chips for my 386 boards. Here is a power house beauty with 16MB installed with a Cyrix 486DLC-40GP.

Re: Let's make some memories (SIMMs)