What retro activity did you get up to today?

[badmojo]

Did a rare thing of removing an item from my collection instead of adding one - left my LG CRT for recycling

Sorry for your loss. I'm paranoid about being without a CRT because it's a big part of the experience IMHO. I have 3 that were NOS up until a few years ago - an LG Flatron, Acer branded flatscreen, and a Philips shadow mask. I like the Philips best but they're all nice screens - hopefully between the three of them they'll last for as long as my interest in this hobby does.

[torindkflt]

Tried to find the oldest computer in my collection capable of running the 8088 Domination demo. Oldest I can POTENTIALLY run it on is either my AT&T PC 6300 (8086) or my WYSE 286 desktop, but both of those will require a proper Sound Blaster 1.0 card, as none of the cards I currently have seem to work on anything earlier than a 386. There's also the issue of the AT&T not being 100% true PC compatible, but I wouldn't know whether this is an issue or not until I actually tried running it. For now though, my 386DX-20 Toshiba portable with a Creative Vibra 16 will have to do. It works, but is extreme overkill for something designed to run on an 8088.

[Godlike]

I decide to resurrect an 286-16 from school:
viewtopic.php?f=46&t=53017

[Scali]

but both of those will require a proper Sound Blaster 1.0 card

Sound Blaster 2.0 or Pro 1.0/2.0 will also work on an 8088, 8086 or 286. Possibly SB16 as well, not sure.
As for 8088 Domination, it needs a Sound Blaster with DSP v2.00 or higher. SB 2.0 or newer will have this.
SB 1.0/1.5 may have either DSP v1.05 or v2.00. Early models came with 1.05, but could be upgraded to 2.00 by ordering the DSP chip from Creative. Later SB1.0/1.5 were sold with DSP v2.00 installed from the factory.

[manicminer]

Today got my Commodore Amiga 500 online for the first time.

Amiga 500 running A-Talk III ----> Null modem cable -----> Dell D630 running TCPSER -----> Telnet connection to my Raspberry PI.

Sorry for the low quality, cellphone picture.

[emosun]

I made a rack to hold my cards , i stuck a few in but i have enough to fill it

[Jed118]

I played Nomad all weekend (1994 Gametek) and decided to write a user's guide with planet locations and resources because no good ones exist on the internet.

[brassicGamer]

I spent a WHOLE DAY searching for my socket 3, socket 7 and socket 939 CPUs that have gone missing. If one set had gone missing I'd be less concerned because they would obviously be misplaced. But for all three sets to disappear is most odd. The P4s and PIIIs / Athlons are exactly where they should be so that's also odd. That's one good thing about slot-based CPUs - it's almost impossible for them to go missing!

[Tetrium]

I spent a WHOLE DAY searching for my socket 3, socket 7 and socket 939 CPUs that have gone missing. If one set had gone missing I'd be less concerned because they would obviously be misplaced. But for all three sets to disappear is most odd. The P4s and PIIIs / Athlons are exactly where they should be so that's also odd. That's one good thing about slot-based CPUs - it's almost impossible for them to go missing!

I hope for your sake noone ended up stealing them. Hope you find them again, I loose stuff all the time

[cyclone3d]

I've been busy building up my sound card collection as well as video capturing hardware in preparation for a web page project I have planned.

[oeuvre]

When your 486 motherboard gives you this beep, you know it can't be good. http://k003.kiwi6.com/hotlink/bmm61wk4ga/GW2KBEEP.mp3

[torindkflt]

When your 486 motherboard gives you this beep, you know it can't be good. http://k003.kiwi6.com/hotlink/bmm61wk4ga/GW2KBEEP.mp3

This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is only a test. Seriously, hope it's an easy fix!

Anyway, managed to finally get one of my spare sound cards working on my Toshiba T3200 portable. It's the oldest computer in my collection with a hard drive large enough to hold the 8088 Domination demo, so until I can get a larger hard drive and compatible sound card for my AT&T 6300, this will have to do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vTPqO2sgrU

Next, I tried running 8088 MPH on my Toshiba T2100 (8086) connected to an older CRT TV via composite. When in slow mode, it's the absolute closest I can get to an original IBM PC...supposed to be 4.77MHz, but according to the 8088 MPH pre-test it still isn't the right speed. Overall, the demo works about 90% correctly. Some flickering text during the "16 color/256 color" moving gradient screen, "Race The Beam" is a complete garbled mess and the team photo screen loses the vertical hold, but for the most part it's watchable. The biggest problem is, there's no color at all, no matter what settings I try during the initial setup. I don't know if it's the particular TV I'm using (It's a CRT but it is new enough to be "digital", although I'd imagine this wouldn't have any affect on composite input) or an incompatibility with the CGA hardware in the computer. Could also be a simple timing issue with the computer not being quite the right speed, I dunno. I'll have to try again if I ever manage to get a real 5150 or an otherwise-identical system.

[ODwilly]

Scrapped some old machines, sad to see them go but no space luckily just some crappy OEM's. Also took a dual cpu 450mhz? (idk) Sun Sparq station to Goodwill along with about 10 keyboard/mouse combos and a bunch of spare parts.

[cyclone3d]

Tried in vain to get my ASUS P5A up and running. Bought it on eBay a few years ago and it would never POST.

Thought it may be some setting or something else as the seller claimed it worked.. got a refund when it didn't.

CPU fan spins, chipset gets warm, CPU gets warm... but no beep codes or video at all. Tried a couple different CPUs in it. Unfortunately I don't have another Socket 7 board to verify that the CPUs are any good.

Then I searched online for a socket 462 board with 2 isa slots... of course couldn't find any. Pretty sure none were ever made. Most likely going to end up using my PCI-ISA expansion setup when it comes time to finish rebuilding my KT7A build as I really am going to want at least 2 isa slots since I have a Yamaha SW60XG on the way. And since it is only midi, it will work fine in the expansion setup.

Ended up ordering a new MSI MS-6167 Slot A motherboard off of Amazon for $38 shipped. Same seller is also selling on eBay, but even with cheap shipping it would have been about $45.
https://www.amazon.com/6167-Slot-Motherboard-Retail-MS-6167/dp/B00B871BUW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1490075030&sr=8-1&keywords=ms-6167
Apparently they still have a bunch of these boards as they have the listing on eBay as having more than 10 available with 25 sold.

Only reason I got it is because it has 2 isa slots. No overclocking, but with isa sound cards I really don't want that anyway as the sound cards are generally made to work at the default isa clock speed and sounds will not be at quite the right speed with the isa bus overclocked.

It will go nicely with one of my Slot-A Tbird CPUs. I have a whole gaggle of Slot-A CPUs and a couple other boards.. but only one of them has an isa slot.

[appiah4]

Installed Win98SE on my P166MMX build only to find out that the PS/2 mouse I had does not work with a PS/2 to serial adapter no matter what I try.. Ordered an active PS/2 to USB adapter, and will have to sacrifice one of my two ports for Keyboard and Mouse but we do what we must because we can..

On a related note, if I set the pios to Halt on: All Erros but Keyboard, it will boot without an AT keyboard and I will use USB Keyboard/Mouse for Win98 right? I realize this means no keyboard for BIOS (Award BIOS v6 with no Legacy USB Keyboard spport) but BIOS is set up as is..

[LHN91]

Tested the AWE64 Value I picked up yesterday, and it worked wonderfully.

Currently it's in my early Socket 7 machine (Lucky Star P54CE, Pentium-S 133, 48 MB Ram, Win95C, Cirrus Logic 5446 PCI) - tested with Descent in AWE32 mode and my goodness that was a good experience.

[brostenen]

Currently in the process of gathering, testing and making things work together. In order to build a Dx2-66 VLB system.
As of now, I currently have it running with:

- Abit AH4T VLB Motherboard.
- Intel 486dx2-66 Write Back.
- 24mb Ram. (probably downgrade to 8mb)
- S3-805-1mb VLB. (Spea-something??)
- Goldstar VLB Controller. (single channel IDE)
- Creative SB16 CT-2890. (Vibra16 with an OPL chip)
- Floppy.
- 32mb CF Card.
- CD-Rom reader.

I am waiting for a dual channel VLB controller and I am waiting for a 512mb CF card.
The reason for getting that dual channel IDE controller, is that my last CD reader will not work
alongside my CF card adaptor. Hence the reader being attached to the soundcard right now.
Then I will have to see, if I am able to obtain/source some AT cases.
Uhhh.... Allmost forgot to mention that this is running with an ATX PSU and an ATX-to-AT cable.

I have had MS-Dos 5 running on it, and switched it to 6.22. Then I played Lotus, Dyna, Wolf3d and
finally played a couple of levels of Doom. I have totally forgot that I need a Dx2-80 in order to
make the most demanding parts of Doom run 100% fluid. Dx2-66 can do, I just need to upgrade
this machine to a Dx2-80 later on. Depends what games run too fast and too slow with a Dx2-66.

Anyway...
I was so blown back to 1990/93. A real awesomme trip back in time. Loved it.

[cyclone3d]

I have had MS-Dos 5 running on it, and switched it to 6.22. Then I played Lotus, Dyna, Wolf3d and
finally played a couple of levels of Doom. I have totally forgot that I need a Dx2-80 in order to
make the most demanding parts of Doom run 100% fluid. Dx2-66 can do, I just need to upgrade
this machine to a Dx2-80 later on. Depends what games run too fast and too slow with a Dx2-66.

Anyway...
I was so blown back to 1990/93. A real awesomme trip back in time. Loved it.

Does that motherboard have a 40Mhz fsb setting?

If so, you can always see if that DX2-66 is stable at 80 by just bumping up the bus speed.

And if something is a bit too fast, and the board has the 25Mhz fsb setting, you can bump it down to 50Mhz.

[Kamerat]

I have had MS-Dos 5 running on it, and switched it to 6.22. Then I played Lotus, Dyna, Wolf3d and
finally played a couple of levels of Doom. I have totally forgot that I need a Dx2-80 in order to
make the most demanding parts of Doom run 100% fluid. Dx2-66 can do, I just need to upgrade
this machine to a Dx2-80 later on. Depends what games run too fast and too slow with a Dx2-66.

With that kind of cooling on your CPU I would just bump the FSB to 40MHz with your current CPU in place, 66MHz often ran only with a heat sink while 50MHz 486's had none cooling at all. I would worry more about running two VLB cards at 40MHz than overclocking a 486 by 21%.

Edit: looks like cyclone3d got that before me.

[brostenen]

Does that motherboard have a 40Mhz fsb setting?

If so, you can always see if that DX2-66 is stable at 80 by just bumping up the bus speed.

And if something is a bit too fast, and the board has the 25Mhz fsb setting, you can bump it down to 50Mhz.

According to the manual, it should be able to run that and up to 5x86-133. And in my box of CPU's, I have an Amd 486dx2-80. For this system, I think my dx4-120 is a bit overkill as well as the 5x86-133.