brostenen wrote on 2020-01-18, 20:48:

SD and other kind of storage, are a god sent solution for these old 8-bit machines. Like anything from Spectrum and C64 to BBC M […]
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SD and other kind of storage, are a god sent solution for these old 8-bit machines. Like anything from Spectrum and C64 to BBC Micro.
The only 8-bit stuff I have, is C64. However I find it wonderfull to have this option.
However. I use a real Tape drive for TAP files. I have not gone the way of digital storage yet, when dealing with tape.
I found a way to make Turbo tape, so it is mostly just as fast as floppy and D64 files from SD2IEC.

Is there a turbo tape solution for Sinclair machines?

Yeah if I'm dealing with .tap files on the C64 I'll also use the Datasette, with one of those Cassette adapters and load straight from my PC (specifically a headless Thin Client set up specifically for the purpose of sending games to old systems and accessed remotely, ie. via a Tablet or other PC).

With regards to turbo loading on the Spectrum - I know it is possible to convert .sna & .z80 files to .wav and this was what I was doing prior to getting the divMMC. This gives a turbo loader that you can load via the cassette or audio in port and many games load in about 30 seconds, as opposed to the .tap or .tzx files which can take 2-3 minutes or longer. The larger games in this turbo format can sometimes take a couple of minutes, as opposed to something like 10-15 minutes.

Plus the tool to convert those files allows you to add custom text to the load screen and select what colour loading bars you desire on the fast loading portion.

PTherapist wrote on 2020-01-18, 20:58:

Yeah if I'm dealing with .tap files on the C64 I'll also use the Datasette, with one of those Cassette adapters and load straigh […]
Show full quote

brostenen wrote on 2020-01-18, 20:48:

SD and other kind of storage, are a god sent solution for these old 8-bit machines. Like anything from Spectrum and C64 to BBC M […]
Show full quote

SD and other kind of storage, are a god sent solution for these old 8-bit machines. Like anything from Spectrum and C64 to BBC Micro.
The only 8-bit stuff I have, is C64. However I find it wonderfull to have this option.
However. I use a real Tape drive for TAP files. I have not gone the way of digital storage yet, when dealing with tape.
I found a way to make Turbo tape, so it is mostly just as fast as floppy and D64 files from SD2IEC.

Is there a turbo tape solution for Sinclair machines?

Yeah if I'm dealing with .tap files on the C64 I'll also use the Datasette, with one of those Cassette adapters and load straight from my PC (specifically a headless Thin Client set up specifically for the purpose of sending games to old systems and accessed remotely, ie. via a Tablet or other PC).

With regards to turbo loading on the Spectrum - I know it is possible to convert .sna & .z80 files to .wav and this was what I was doing prior to getting the divMMC. This gives a turbo loader that you can load via the cassette or audio in port and many games load in about 30 seconds, as opposed to the .tap or .tzx files which can take 2-3 minutes or longer. The larger games in this turbo format can sometimes take a couple of minutes, as opposed to something like 10-15 minutes.

Plus the tool to convert those files allows you to add custom text to the load screen and select what colour loading bars you desire on the fast loading portion.

Sweet... Good to know. 😀

I am documenting everything I know about IBM 486SLC/SLC2 chips and digging the internet for more, here:
IBM 486SLC/2 Mega Thread (was Weird idea: 83mhz overdrive for 386 sx.)

Will clean it up and put it on the Vogons wiki maybe? When I'm done.

I was pulling my hair for the entire night trying to fix dospad inconsistency on my iDevices. I managed to compile a version that would work even though it has errors. I don’t know what happened to the versions I had working on them before.

Photoshop 3.0.5 (or 3.0.4?) with Win 3.1 simply refuses to work due to something wrong with the win32s subset - although every other 32bit app there works well. So I had to uninstall it.

I tried running Ultima II with the upgrade patch on my K6-III+ machine today. Still no good. I suspect whatever the developer did to make it work without a DOS protected mode extender in DOSBox broke functionality on actual DOS machines, or that it's using newer instructions that the CPU can't provide, or that I'm missing something really obvious. I reached out to Soviet Conscript on his video showing how to run games from the Wizardry Archives and Ultima Collection on original hardware, including the fan patches, and he made it work so long ago that it was clearly before something changed in the 2.0 or 2.1 version of the patch. Looks like version 1.1 of the patch is still available, so I'll try that next. If that works, it's good enough. I just want slightly improved graphics.

Edit: Version 1.1 of the patch did the trick. Looks like I get the speed patch, some stability upgrades, EGA graphics, and protection from the stat overflow bug. Looks like the innkeeper might still rob me sometimes though. Still pretty solid.

I also started cleaning the dual Pentium Pro machine I grabbed about a year ago. After a few cleaning wipes I was surprised to see that the SCSI hard drive and floppy drive weren't as dirty as I thought. Broke a few tabs on the translucent turquoise case front during the cleaning process, but such sacrifices are necessary to remove a dead spider. Worst parts of the case are the rust on the one bottom corner and the rivets holding it all together. I think I'm going to need to drill and clip the rivets then clean each panel individually. If I go that far I may even strip, prime, and powder coat everything. The case will eventually house my SLI Voodoo 2 build, so I might consider replacing the side panel with a window while I'm at it. Could be really fun.

Not sure what will happen to the dual Pentium Pro machine. Tempted to turn it into a weird workstation with an Oxygen 202 which only has NT4 drivers, or I could see what else is available. I definitely spotted a Crystal audio chip and some headers labeled "wavetable" on the board, so there's some potential.

Killed my 9700 Pro while trying to replace that yellow crap that was on it. 😭

F

Time to find a 9800 Pro or XT.

Tested a patched version of King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne for DOS (Tandy 3-voice compatible sound card) and there are no glitches in the game and plays beautifully on my 486. Going to copy the other KQ2 directory for the IBM PC Speaker and edit my KQ2 batch files to load the correct ones. This was last night.

Got this 6 disk cd rom drive with 2 caddies.

Did some maintenance work on my MS Sidewinder Precision Pro joystick. Cleaned the mess inside, applied new grease, and added the four steel balls that MS no longer put in in the second revision in order to save costs. Final step is to build the USB adapter.

derSammler wrote on 2020-01-22, 17:23:

Did some maintenance work on my MS Sidewinder Precision Pro joystick. Cleaned the mess inside, applied new grease, and added the four steel balls that MS no longer put in in the second revision in order to save costs. Final step is to build the USB adapter.

I have MS CART Precision Racing (the one that came with my Sidewinder) if you wanna try it.

EDIT: Forget it. I just re-read your post and you said it was a Sidewinder Pro Joystick not Racing Wheel. My bad

There are no drivers working on Win 7/8/10 for MS Sidewinder Flightsticks is there?

If you convert them to USB, they all work fine in Windows up to 10. The Precision Pro rev.2 (not to be confused with the Precision Pro 2) has native USB support. You just need to wire a dumb adapter for that. The older 3D Pro can work with no drivers as a CH or Thrustmaster with almost all features intact. And for the Force Feedback Pro, there's an open-source USB converter to work with newer systems as well.

I'm using my Sidewinders with Windows Me, however. 😀

You have such a big courage to use Windows ME.

ME is very stable if you set it up on standard hardware and turn off the system restore feature. I have it installed on two of my retro systems and these are the only ones that never had a blue screen so far. 😀 ME mainly got bad press back then because early WDM drivers (which ME requires - unlike 98) were mostly crappy when ME was released.

derSammler wrote on 2020-01-22, 17:48:

If you convert them to USB, they all work fine in Windows up to 10. The Precision Pro rev.2 (not to be confused with the Precision Pro 2) has native USB support. You just need to wire a dumb adapter for that. The older 3D Pro can work with no drivers as a CH or Thrustmaster with almost all features intact. And for the Force Feedback Pro, there's an open-source USB converter to work with newer systems as well.

I'm using my Sidewinders with Windows Me, however. 😀

I have a Precision Pro 2 and I want to know about this dumb adapter!

https://forum.flightgear.org/viewtopic.php?f= … t=36336#p353968
https://www.wikihow.com/Transform-Your- ... B-Joystick

Fought with Win2K's registry to undo a change, turned out that it took the wrong drive letter, and I had to edit some of the values to make them point from D:\ (old drive letter) to C:\.

Not a fun day, and I have still loads of values to sort out.

I recieved some beefy heatsinks in the mail today. So I installed 4 of them on the CPU in my homemade Amiga500 Desktop machine.
The reason was that the Ram/IDE-Adaptor/Controller that are installed between the CPU and motherboard, makes the CPU really hot.
These babies are extremely effective. So I guess it was a success....

Then I watched tons of Amiga500 Demo's for an hour. Just to make sure the heatsinks did their job as they should. Still cold to the touch.

Started removing rivets in a rusted case yesterday while listening to the PC-98 soundtrack for Sorcerian. My wife walked in and asked, "Oh, what hentai game music is this?" Right platform, wrong genre 😜

Received and fixed Compaq LTE ELITE 4/75CX today. Working very nicely, former owner was playing with the windows 3.1 and many cute games and some classics (arkoids, etc) on windows 3.1 and Office. That's it. Nothing DOS software installed even DOS games is not there.

The tantalum capacitors of orange kind has a habit of blowing and short out in the compaq LTE notebooks that uses old SMD orange blocks with a pin for positive marker. I have same thing in LTE LITE/25 yet to fix.

Now I have two: 4/75CX 16MB, 340MB hard drive and 4/50E 12MB with dead hard drive, yes TFT monochrome, can run it as well but has issues. This 4/50E needs more TLC especially floppy drive and both has dead cylindrical battery so they keep settings and date needs fixed.

The internal power supply is just constant 18.5V DC 30W output that plugs into motherboard via 3 pin using red/black two wires and does not have switched signal. If you have internal dead power supply then use this: these also have car adapter jack socket under the AC input socket. Voltage I don't know.

Cheers,