I've set up one of my excess machines to find a new fan owner and made few pictures of it. 😀
https://imgur.com/a/aGXax9O

Benchmarks:
3DBench: 45,4 fps
Chris' 3D benchmark: 23,8 fps
PC Player: 7,4 fps
Doom (min details): 52,7 fps
Doom (max details): 22,4 fps
Quake: 5,7 fps
Landmark: 317MHz cpu, 487MHz fpu
Topbench score: 195

Pardon the dirtyness. 😀

Not much today has happened in retro activity, but I did put on a new case sticker for my AST, and i've been having a tough time configuring mTCP on it lately.

Is it a 286? Looks really nice.

Set up my 486 with my Sony Trinitron monitor on top, and a nicer keyboard.

I tried to adjust the focus screws on the CRT (they are accessible through a couple of holes in the case). To no avail... they adjust the focus alright (vert and horiz), but it was already at its best setting! So now I suspect aging components inside, and it is not worth it to me to open it up.

It looks great in low res. But go higher than 640x480 and it looks pretty blurry.

But it's working perfectly for DOS games, which is primarily what I need it for. Played some Commander Keen, with the Gravis Gamepad of course.

Received a Serial cable for my Commodore 64 so tested out the Pi1541.

It's working relatively well, though some niggling issues that I need to look into - specifically it does have small issues running with Fast Loaders (ie. JiffyDOS), namely that it will occasionally try to load the CBM File Browser when you hit Shift/Run-Stop despite the fact that you have selected a particular disk image or you'd just get a "File Not Found" error instead. Yet, typing the LOAD"*",8,1 command manually will load the selected disk properly - which is weird, as Shift/Run-Stop is supposed to do the same thing. It doesn't always happen, but I haven't figured out what is causing it yet, it's probably related to the auto mounting of the fb.d64 image and a clash between the regular browse mode vs 1541 emulation.

But when it is working properly, it certainly does as you'd expect - runs practically everything, including games that a regular SD2IEC does not support!

It's only caveat is lack of fast loader support for loading .PRG files, they load at regular loading speed. But that's not a major issue, I can always use the SD2IEC as Drive 9 via the 2nd Serial port onboard the Pi1541 and run .PRG files from that.

Ordered a new bottomcase for the Asus L8400 laptop, because the current one has cracks around the hinges. I also partly disassembled the laptop to check for more issues and found 2 cracked clips from the side where the IR port is, will glue them back on when assembling. Couldn't test the floppy drive because all my floppies are out of reach so that is for another time. For the rest this notebook seems to be build like a tank so that is a plus.
Also discovered it is a L8400L version, instead of L8400C as advertised. This means it has a 1133mhz PIII mobile instead of a 850mhz model, and an Ati Radeon Mobility instead of the Savage card of the C model.
Quite happy about this "upgrade".

Installed my newly received Diamond VLB VGA graphics card on my main retro rig. It works perfectly.

Picked up this gem at the local thrift store yesterday for $15. It's incredibly clean given its age, never seen an older computer this clean. I only bought it for the case. I'm going to gut it and use the case for a P4 3.2 GHz build, late Win98 with probably my Voodoo 5500 AGP card. Already have the mobo and CPU, both new, just need to get some RAM, a SB Live! and a new PSU and I'll be in business.

It currently has the stock Dell mobo and a P4 2.0 GHz socket 478, which I have no use for, so I'll be posting it for sale on eBay, maybe get just enough to cover the cost of the purchase.

bjwil1991 wrote on 2019-12-31, 03:59:

Is it a 286? Looks really nice.

Yes it is a 286 😉

got some 1mb 30pin simms non parity.. the board I need them in is the only board I have that apparently NEEDS parity. dammit.

BloodyCactus wrote on 2020-01-01, 01:06:

got some 1mb 30pin simms non parity.. the board I need them in is the only board I have that apparently NEEDS parity. dammit.

Ouch ! A lot of older 286 and 386 needed parity simms and have been there. Always buy parity 30pin and 72 pin if given a choice, you can use parity in a system that doesn't require it.

BloodyCactus wrote on 2020-01-01, 01:06:

got some 1mb 30pin simms non parity.. the board I need them in is the only board I have that apparently NEEDS parity. dammit.

When I first bought RAM for my 286, I had a similar problem. My 286 came with 640k on 3 chip SIMMS originally, so I thought 1x4 MB 3 chip SIMMS would work with it, but I was wrong. When installing them into my machine, they gave me parity errors. A month later I got a good deal on 1x4 MB 9 chip 70 NS SIMMS and those have worked just fine.

Installed 3C509 and CT4170 into a Toshiba T3200SXC. Despite my initial suspicion, 3C509 works just fine in an 8-bit ISA slot. Next on TODO list is a boot prom with XTIDE universal bios + an industrial flash drive.

Spent most time today 3d-printing trays for my socket 7 CPU collection. Still some more to go...

derSammler wrote on 2020-01-01, 16:14:

Spent most time today 3d-printing trays for my socket 7 CPU collection. Still some more to go...

Interesting. What design are you making?

I'm using this:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3026939

Today I've found that the new VMWare Fusion 11.5, for the first time, on macOS hosts can emulate the Sound Blaster 16. I'm about to try it out now... for a WfWg 3.11/MSDOS 6.22 VM.

If it works, I won't need dosbox at all, except on my iPad with the very old ported version (iDOS2/DOSPad), which hasn't been updated for almost an decade.

Starting with iOS 13, I can feel that there will be a problem with very old apps. I can't believe no one has taken over litchie's work and forked it to continue the development. DOS games with iPad can be much more fun than most of the silly games available on App Store. I despise Fortnite...

https://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-40539

EDIT: Aaaaand... it works. I can hear the Windows sound when starting/exiting. Amazing. For most people this is nothing, but for a deaf person like me, with childhood memories, it's amazing.

I'm slowly going through my large December hauls. Cleaning, cataloging everything. Also, my girlfriend gave me my first soldering iron as a New Year gift, so the first thing I want to learn to do is replacing barrel batteries. Have around 10 of 286-486 motherboards that need that. While I was messing with the boards I've found something amusing, thought I'd share:

For some reason the previous owner put a socketed 386DX40 chip into the board that already had the same chip onboard. Makes me wonder if there is any logical explanation to that at all.

A.) They thought they were going to get a dual core 386 (sad face when they turned it on)

B.) Just put it in there for safe storage so the pins wouldn't get bent

Option B is my theory anyway.

Or option C: onboard CPU stopped working (if it did).