Nexxen wrote on 2026-02-22, 19:42:

I had it hard when I was young. I had to go to school shoeless in the scorching heat of the summer and had to go shoeless in th […]
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TechieDude wrote on 2026-02-22, 02:52:

I guess today's retro activity was having to deal with older people who just like to shit on younger generations for some absurd reason 😂

I had it hard when I was young.
I had to go to school shoeless in the scorching heat of the summer and had to go shoeless in the freezing winter, in the snow, for 20 miles, uphill both ways, fighting the wolves!!!

What are you youngsters complaining about? 🤣
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I tried to use a PCI card to have USB 2.0 in my test rig, a P-233.
Wouldn't work. NEC chip with lots of issues with compatibility.
I have plenty of VIA that just work, I'm boxing this one for good.

Were you so poor that you didn't have a single pair of shoes worn by the family member who had just gone from village to town like us? Sad...

@NEC USB: My USB NEC doesn't work well on older boards either, VIA does, and for the oldest pieces I have a USB 1.1 OPTI FireLink.

Ydee wrote on Yesterday, 14:41:

Were you so poor that you didn't have a single pair of shoes worn by the family member who had just gone from village to town like us? Sad...

@NEC USB: My USB NEC doesn't work well on older boards either, VIA does, and for the oldest pieces I have a USB 1.1 OPTI FireLink.

What do you think we were throwing at the wolves? And at the vultures? 🤣
(this is really silly 😀)
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For the little possible use of USB on 286/386/486, I prefer to have a CF adapter on the front, for easy access.
ISA is limited to 16 bits, 486 have PCI but a pentium is better anyway at that point. IMO

USB and pentium are the right starting combo, sometimes I have to wait for files to be copied as it becomes unresponsive until finished.
Most of us went through this. USB 2.0 cards are super available, USB 2.0 doesn't matter as the transfer rate is limited by the IDE controller or mobo chipset. Better than 1.0 for sure though.

Tradeoffs.

Had a pair of Roland SC-55 modules on the bench today. Both modules are failing the MIDI diagnostics in test mode.

I'm assuming they may have identical faults, but have not figured out what the fault(s) may be.

I did remove the glue under the 2200uF capacitors on both boards. It had started to go conductive in one of them, but I don't think it was causing any issues. Removed and tested both capacitors, and they checked out fine.

edited to add:

Turns out I'm dumb. I had the MIDI cables connected incorrectly when I ran the tests.

After reconnecting them properly, one of the modules passed the test on both inputs. However, the other module is still showing errors on both inputs.

At least one of them is working which now gives me a basis for comparison with the non-working module.