Robert B wrote on 2020-01-26, 07:28:

The funny thing is that I don't have a EGA monitor/converter to test it.

As far as I see, the Paradise card has VGA chipset and layout. Its EGA "relatives" have PEGA1A chip set and oscillators which are not installed here.

I can't see the connector, but I think it's VGA.

Went to buy my first multimeter today on a radio market, rescued some things from a scraper on my way:

IBM DX4-100 (a rebranded Cyrix) — probably nothing special, but why not. Also, a 40MHz 387. I have an AM386DX40 in a similar form-factor (don't know what it's called):

Acumos AVGA2. Basically the predecessor to the early Cirrus Logic ISA VGA cards:

wiretap wrote on 2018-06-18, 03:37:

DaveJustDave wrote:

Wow, bad ass! that's definitely a collector's item. Would love to see more pics of it in action.

OldCat wrote:

Wow, looks really really cool! Another item on my "WANT" list.

I bought a little thing for my 8-bit collection - Euro Scart Chinch converter:

conv1.jpg

Thanks. I'll get some more pictures, screenshots and videos soon.

In the meanwhile, I snapped an Acronis image of the system in its OEM state. https://archive.org/details/PCVMXS20DiskImage.7z

Do you still have this Vaio?
I got one and have a problem with your Acronis image.
Running it first time after restoring is just fine. Everything works (MX-LCD screen and front panel buttons in particular)
But on the second boot and further MX-LCD wont work (it works but not fully. I got only Mute and Volume +/- lighten up but the rest of buttons are dark and LCD screen shows only MX logo as in bios).
I believe there's Windows messing with USB drivers after first boot.

p.s. as I figured out, Lucent Modem PCI card is connected to the MX-audio/LCD board and Windows identified it as USB device. Maybe there's something wrong with BIOS/IRQ/PCI settings?

Managed to test this ISA soundcard today that I got in my last ebay lot.

Dont know much about it but it installed automatically in windows 98se and seems to work nicely.

oh neat, does the wavetable work in DOS?

imi wrote on 2020-01-26, 15:09:

oh neat, does the wavetable work in DOS?

Have only given it a quick test in windows as it was the only soundcard I had to hand and something I was tring to launch required a sound card.

I also have little knowledge or pre windows soundcards and features so wouldnt even know what to load up to test these things 😀

Got two new graphics cards yesterday:
Hercules Stingray Pro (ARK1000PV) 1MB PCI
Hercules Stingray (Avance Logic ALG2301.B) 1MB PCI.

Pictured with them is my ARK2000PV (brand unknown). One interesting thing I noticed is the ARK2000 card corrupts the text mode used by 1942: PAW's install.exe program, but the ARK1000 does not. I'm not sure if this is a function of the chipset, or the vendor BIOS. Anyone with an ARK2000 and 1942:PAW want to test it out?

In some quick tests, the two ARK cards are identical in DOS benchmarks. The ALG2301.B is as slow as my integrated CL-5430 (the slowest DOS chipset I have). I'll go through and retest all 14 chipsets I own extensively and report here when done.

LewisRaz wrote on 2020-01-26, 15:21:

imi wrote on 2020-01-26, 15:09:

oh neat, does the wavetable work in DOS?

Have only given it a quick test in windows as it was the only soundcard I had to hand and something I was tring to launch required a sound card.

I also have little knowledge or pre windows soundcards and features so wouldnt even know what to load up to test these things 😀

Really cool card. One I have not seen before.

The wavetable should work in DOS. There were a few motherboards that had that setup integrated.

Go to vogonsdrivers.com and get the Yamaha Audician 32 drivers. There should be a configuration utility for DOS included.

LewisRaz wrote on 2020-01-26, 14:53:

Managed to test this ISA soundcard today that I got in my last ebay lot. […]
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Managed to test this ISA soundcard today that I got in my last ebay lot.

Dont know much about it but it installed automatically in windows 98se and seems to work nicely.

Really Nice ! Never seen a 719 card that included the wave chip.

RacoonRider wrote on 2020-01-26, 12:56:

Robert B wrote on 2020-01-26, 07:28:

The funny thing is that I don't have a EGA monitor/converter to test it.

As far as I see, the Paradise card has VGA chipset and layout. Its EGA "relatives" have PEGA1A chip set and oscillators which are not installed here.

I can't see the connector, but I think it's VGA.

Good to know! I'll check things out next week. 😀 Thanks.

One last microcomputer purchase for the time being, something I've been setting money aside for and really wanted for my collection -

A pic of the one I bought, which obviously hasn't arrived yet. Not my picture, but I did resize and blank out the background.

I was going to wait until March to buy an Amiga 1200, but the money was burning a hole in my pocket and I couldn't wait any longer.

Also got the following to go with it:

8MB Fast RAM expansion
IDE to CF Adapter + 44pin IDE Cable
16GB CF Card

Just need to get an RGB Scart cable for it, which I'll do later.

After three years of search, it is finally mine.

This is most likely going to be the last purchase I make for the RDD for a long time. I need to recover the amount of money I spent for the latest purchases, including two 1GB DDRAM 400 sticks and a PCMCIA WiFi card for my lapRDD project, which I am currently setting up (although slowly).

Once I have enough money one day, I will look for an XT Keyboard, an Hagstrom converter, and a Microsoft Green Eyed mouse. Until then, I need to save up.

MITSUMI FA404M floppy with built in card reader, couldn't pass it up.

Also 5 Yamaichi BQFP-132 sockets, they look like this but are for JEDEC BQFP-132 386/IBM 486 BLx.

I've picked up today from the flea market two expansion cards.
The first one is a Western Digital WD1003-WAH MFM hard drive controller card. For now I don't have any MFM drives to test it...

The second card in an Orchid RAMQuest 50/60 memory board, unfortunately it has a missing IC. Anyway I don't have an IBM PS/2 model 50 or 60 to test it...

So, both cards will go to storage for now.

LewisRaz wrote on 2020-01-26, 15:21:

imi wrote on 2020-01-26, 15:09:

oh neat, does the wavetable work in DOS?

Have only given it a quick test in windows as it was the only soundcard I had to hand and something I was tring to launch required a sound card.

I also have little knowledge or pre windows soundcards and features so wouldnt even know what to load up to test these things 😀

Cool card. Would love to have one of those. Here's a thread on it.
Help identifying sound card

boxpressed wrote on 2020-01-26, 21:19:

LewisRaz wrote on 2020-01-26, 15:21:

imi wrote on 2020-01-26, 15:09:

oh neat, does the wavetable work in DOS?

Have only given it a quick test in windows as it was the only soundcard I had to hand and something I was tring to launch required a sound card.

I also have little knowledge or pre windows soundcards and features so wouldnt even know what to load up to test these things 😀

Cool card. Would love to have one of those. Here's a thread on it.
Help identifying sound card

Thankyou for that link!

I look forward to setting up a rig to have a mess around with it now.

furan wrote on 2020-01-26, 20:19:

MITSUMI FA404M floppy with built in card reader, couldn't pass it up. https://i.imgur.com/mOsGQP0.png https://i.imgur.com/rrzROy […]
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MITSUMI FA404M floppy with built in card reader, couldn't pass it up.

Couldn't pass this up either, but yours is way more practical. 🤣

liqmat wrote on 2020-01-26, 21:57:

furan wrote on 2020-01-26, 20:19:

MITSUMI FA404M floppy with built in card reader, couldn't pass it up. https://i.imgur.com/mOsGQP0.png https://i.imgur.com/rrzROy […]
Show full quote

MITSUMI FA404M floppy with built in card reader, couldn't pass it up.

Couldn't pass this up either, but yours is way more practical. 🤣

TEAC FF-3010700 Combo Drive Front.jpg

now that's something I have never seen before ^^

I've picked up two NEC MultiSync EA193Mi 19" monitors from a surplus seller on ebay for quite cheap for what they are...

happy to report that they seem to display DOS resolutions just fine, scaled correctly and there doesn't seem to be any excessive filtering going on.
there's also a wide range of adjustments for positioning the picture and auto adjust seems to work just fine too.
they are IPS, led backlight and they sport not only VGA and DVI but also DisplayPort! that last one and the fact that they're actually white and not black was the main reason I got them ^^
perfect testing monitors for all of my systems.

unfortunately the little OSD control joysticks are broken on both of them... but that should be fixable.

and while the monitors aren't really retro ^^ also got this nice ELSA Winner 1000Pro

imi wrote on 2020-01-26, 22:22:

I've picked up two NEC MultiSync EA193Mi 19" monitors from a surplus seller on ebay for quite cheap for what they are...

Wow, those NEC monitors sound nice! DP on a 4:3, I didn't even know that was possible. I've been fortunate to find a regular supply of decent LCD monitors at my local thrift stores for very cheap, so I pick up the good ones when I'm there. I've found a Dell 2001FP 21" 4:3 with 1600x1200 native res, haven't tested lower resolutions yet, but hopefully it scales well. Also found the 19" version of basically the same monitor with a 1280x1024 native res. Think I paid about ten bucks for each, and they go for a pretty penny on ebay.

they're not 4:3 natively, they are 1280x1024 5:4 like pretty much any 19" LCD, but they display 4:3 resolutions scaled correctly apparently... but yeah... I just bought them because I looked up the model and was like... 19" IPS with DP? ...well and they were cheap ^^

none of my old 17" or 19" 1280x1024 LCDs scale correctly, not even my very first LCD I got in 2001 which you would think would have support for "old" resolutions.
also all the samsung 19" I took from the office have bad caps.