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 2026-02-24, 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.

Continued diagnosing the Roland SC-55 with faulty MIDI inputs.

After tracing circuits and testing various things, I discovered that the resistors on the MIDI 1 input (R2 and R3) appear to be bad. They're supposed to have resistances of 120 Ω (R2) and 100 Ω (R3). But they tested at 150 Ω (R2) and 3.1 kΩ (R3). This explains why the input signal wasn't working.

The second MIDI input (on the front panel) goes through a completely different path than the rear input. I wasn't sure why both were testing bad, until I realized the test was using the MIDI Thru to feed the MIDI 2 input. Since the MIDI Thru signal branches off after the resistors on the MIDI 1 input, the Thru signal would also be bad.

I switched the cables for the test and connected MIDI Out directly to the MIDI 2 input. The MIDI 2 input now tested fine.

Hopefully replacing these two resistors will fix the issue and return this unit to fully working status. Though the real challenge is going to be trying to remove them without melting any plastic.

Not often we see a fault with SMD resistors changing value ...

It wasn't what I was expecting either.

I did take a close look at them. Both faulty resistors had black marks on them, which zooming in under the microscope looked like holes in the resistors themselves.

I wonder if they were overheated and damaged resulting in higher resistances. Which makes me wonder if adjacent components might be damaged as well.

I'm more baffled how this could happen. Either the resistors themselves were just faulty components or was an overloaded signal applied somehow. Not sure how that would happen via MIDI, but who knows.

I've designed a lot of electronic circuits.
In fact I'm still doing it just now with FreeCAD.
I suppose guys from Roland knew at least as much a I know 😀 Probably more.

So it can't be an "overloaded".
Just bad quality component.
But can we say "bad" if it lasted 40 years ?

What if someone wired up a "custom" adapter to connect some device to their Sound Canvas and things went awry?

Or maybe the neighbor of some 90s synth musician snuck in and hooked up a MIDI version of one of these to get some peace and quiet:
http://www.fiftythree.org/etherkiller/

It's been a long time I love BeBox.
Of course I don't have a BeBox .
Don't even get a 4.5 iso to boot.
If anyone has the solution to burn the iso .....
Just to play Quake 1 with a Voodoo 2 on BeOS.

BeBox are BeOS, and BeOS was quite great circa 2000.
In fact I used it as my daily OS for a while. Great with a BP6 😀

I've always love the Led thing meter for cpu usage. So wanted to replicated it for my retro machines.
It's easy on Linux / FreeBSD.
Probably also BeOS 5.0, I think the source code is available for MiniPulse.
I even think I did it decades ago.
But BeOS is just an Unix, it's easy.

My main problem was to get cpu usage on Win98.
And I finally found ...
At least I think. A thing in registry.

Probably wrong and not accurate, but the goal is to have a needle moving or a few leds.
Win XP is easy too.
I got Visual C++ 6 and 2005, it sound promising.
Didn't try Borland yet.
No idea if it can be done with ming or any free compiler.
I'm bad for coding.
My background is electronic, VHDL and audio, not Win code 😀
And in the reality more carpentenr and mechanical ..

So I plan a CPU meter with a real analog Vu-meter.
Working as well on Win98, WinXp, Linux, FreeBSD (NetBSD should be the same) and BeOS (Haiku should work).

The goal is having fun, and others have fun too.
So it should be easy to replicate.

I still don't know if I use an Arduino or just basic electronic with a R-2R ladder.
R-2R is easier, but not all paralell ports use the same voltage ...
Some 5 volts, others 3.3.
I suppose most here can use an Arduino and load a code in a Nano.
So high or low levels are not a problem, then we can map cpu usage to a basic pwm.
But for sure there will be a potentiometer to ajust to YOUR analog meter.

I have to think about it .

Muckrake wrote on 2025-10-12, 01:51:

Successfully patched Wasteland to run in 16 colors on an IBM PCjr.

Whoa! Any chance I could get that patch from you? I came on here tonight as I was going to give Wasteland another run and did a search, and imagine my surprise. I have a PCjr right next to me. I didn't even know the game would work on a PCjr!

nali wrote on Today, 04:43:

So it can't be an "overloaded".
Just bad quality component.
But can we say "bad" if it lasted 40 years ?

If it was just one resistor that had failed I might chalk it up to just a bad component.

The fact that both resistors on the input line are testing out of spec and show signs of physical damage makes me suspicious that something caused this.