imi wrote on 2020-05-17, 14:37:

the cheapest shipping option from here would already over €10 and that's in an envelope, add tracking to that and you're already at €15
and no company is going to send without tracking as the liability is just too high, especially when you are small and can't just brush off lost packets or fraud attempts
do a small packet and you're at €20... those are just regular international shipping prices in europe, and it's cheap imo compared what I've seen stated as shipping costs to europe on small items on ebay.com

He does offer untracked shipping, though, I believe it's like €12 instead of €20 for US shipments of that size. But that's a bit of a large risk for such small savings IMO.

Today I revived two of my Terratec EWS64XL soundcards. Out of the four that I own, two refused to be detected by both of the mainboards I tried them on. After giving them a good cleaning, they are now working as they should. I think cleaning the contacts that go into the ISA slot did the trick, but I also cleaned the PCBs and the slot bracket.

Just gave up on Windows 98 - Too much work to get it in an useable condition. I'll look for Windows 2000 (I already have a VM) or a XP modified to look alike (thanks to Inexperience Patcher). Right now I am setting up a XP VM.

psychz wrote on 2020-05-17, 12:44:

TechieDude wrote on 2020-05-17, 10:35:

Not really retro, but cool nonetheless.

Apple begs to differ :< Considers everything >4yrs "vintage" iirc, however Core2Duos are still perfectly usable.

THIS. I beg to differ too. Vintage, for me, is something from 15+ years ago. Hell, 20 years ago. I fail to see a 2014 MacBook Air as a vintage product - having used one until 2018 with excellence and sold it in a perfect condition - like new. I bet the owner is still using it without any issues thanks to how I keep my stuff in pristine condition.

For example, this 2013 rMBP i'm using I got it second hand, and has a few issues. One is the keyboard function keys, 9 of them do not work. I overcame it with a remap, but if I ever decide to sell, I'll just ask the buyer if he wants to use the remap or pay more for me to change the keyboard - there is a risk involved, as the keyboard is one of the most difficult parts to replace and the procedure itself can break it for good.

The second issue is the sound - the left speaker is broken. Luckily this is something I can pay for. So I ordered two new speakers, but brazilian mail delivery is currently... how can I say... deplorable. I paid a bit more for fast delivery and I had to wait almost three weeks instead of four days. It should come next week and I will proceed to replacing it when the pandemic ends and I get back to work, because I am using this mac as my home office machine and I do not want to risk damage in the procedure. For now the sound is not a problem - I am using it in clamshell mode with my 40" TV through HDMI. I turned off the startup sound chime to save it and avoid blowing up the other speaker.

The battery is still holding fine though. Not excellent, but still good to go, so no replacement necessary. Apart of these issues, this mac as a whole is operating like brand new, thanks to 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD installed by the previous owner. Should be enough for me until my market investments give me some $$$ return to fund a newer model.

EDIT: our 2009 24" iMac with Core 2 Duo processor is still perfectly fine with a SSD included and running Catalina thanks to DOSDude1 Patch.

Just out of curious which one of you last second sniped me for the Trident 3DImage 9750 PCI? I did not expect to have competition on that item. Even with AGP the 3DImage 9750 is somehow slower than a ViRGE

Fitted a switch assy to my x86 test bench https://imgur.com/a/bWfpMw6

Made a dual BIOS for my M912 V1.7 board with Award BIOS (found one that is Y2K compliant, but detects the CPU as a DX4-120 and stuck at write-thru mode for the CPU) and AMI WinBIOS to do some benchmarking and see which one works better of the two. The Award BIOS works with the turbo button, but I need to adjust the CPU to write-thru mode so that NSSI reports the de-turbo speed correctly and L2 cache works. Speedsys detects the L2 cache with the CPU (the CPU is a 5x86-P75 in Write-Back mode --> Evergreen 586) but kind of slacking.

Installed a 5x86-P75 that is write-thru only and runs pretty well and I get the actual 386DX-33 or 486DX-33 speeds when de-turboing the system. Even L2 cache works with the CPU that works in write-thru cache mode (CPU is a Kingston TC-5x86/133). All in all, not bad at all.

Fixed an issue with the detection of a CF-to-IDE adapter on my 486 laptop and installed some games on my WinME/XP dual boot machine: Return to Castle Wolfenstein, DXBall2 and Crimsonland 1.9.8. Played like an hour of Crimsonland, very funny game IMO.

bjwil1991 wrote on 2020-05-18, 01:29:

Made a dual BIOS for my M912 V1.7 board

Installed a 5x86-P75 that is write-thru only and runs pretty well and I get the actual 386DX-33 or 486DX-33 speeds when de-turboing the system. Even L2 cache works with the CPU that works in write-thru cache mode (CPU is a Kingston TC-5x86/133). All in all, not bad at all.

Great ! I really like the real M912 v1.7/Amptron DX6900 boards. They are very stable (the ones with real cache) and built better than many other 486 boards. Good to know it can emulate a 386DX-33 when de-turbo'd. Too bad the Award is not Y2K but for old gaming would not be an issue since you want it to be good for games.

Getting my DX2/66 rig built up a little nicer on the test bench. Got the Mach64 VLB in there, along with the Sound Blaster Pro 2 and Gravis Ultrasound. Working good now! I was afraid the Mach64 wasn't going to work because I got it in a cheap scrap lot, but the image quality is great and it works flawless.. just installed the drivers and no issues ensued.

wiretap wrote on 2020-05-18, 03:21:

Getting my DX2/66 rig built up a little nicer on the test bench. Got the Mach64 VLB in there, along with the Sound Blaster Pro 2 and Gravis Ultrasound. Working good now! I was afraid the Mach64 wasn't going to work because I got it in a cheap scrap lot, but the image quality is great and it works flawless.. just installed the drivers and no issues ensued.

Looks good ! what motherboard and what brand vid card are you using ? just curious as it looks like the Mach64 has all soldered memory, many have 1/2 soldered and 1/2 socketed. Good work !

As far as I know, it is just ATI branded. Part# ATI 09-30100-00. Memory is all soldered.

Motherboard is a Biostar MB-1433.

Horun wrote on 2020-05-18, 03:20:

bjwil1991 wrote on 2020-05-18, 01:29:

Made a dual BIOS for my M912 V1.7 board

Installed a 5x86-P75 that is write-thru only and runs pretty well and I get the actual 386DX-33 or 486DX-33 speeds when de-turboing the system. Even L2 cache works with the CPU that works in write-thru cache mode (CPU is a Kingston TC-5x86/133). All in all, not bad at all.

Great ! I really like the real M912 v1.7/Amptron DX6900 boards. They are very stable (the ones with real cache) and built better than many other 486 boards. Good to know it can emulate a 386DX-33 when de-turbo'd. Too bad the Award is not Y2K but for old gaming would not be an issue since you want it to be good for games.

The Award BIOS I found is Y2K compliant for the OS level. Speedsys says otherwise, but at least I get my L2 cache with a WT CPU installed this time.

Decided to fully recap the ALS100 and it ended in disaster. It became mono, and even noisier than before. All because I soldered a capacitor wrong and wanted to correct that before testing it. The result? The capacitor came off ALONG WITH THE FUCKING PAD! Just how cheap are these things!?

I know of no high quality ALS sound cards...

Now that I have the Am386DX-40, I was rather impatient and wanted to test the 386 board I had, to see if there's any life in it. Now, back in March, I ordered some round connector strips from China, which haven't arrived and I'm guessing are lost in postage, and I intended to use some of that to make the Dallas socket. I said screw it, took a few small round connector sockets, and just cut off the pins I needed. Won't be pretty, but when the Dallas is in, you can't see it. Put them on the Dallas, then stuck it in the board and soldered it in. As for why I didn't solder the Dallas straight on, I was afraid the pins of the vertical battery socket would touch something underneath on the board if it wasn't somewhat raised up from the board, which a socket achieves.

I had no idea if the board would do anything without cache installed, so I just set it all up in a rather makeshift testbench setup (I have a legit PC testbench, I sometimes even wonder why I even bought it given I tend to be too lazy to set it up and just do makeshift stuff like this), powered it on, and... nothing. After looking at the jumper settings, I decided to put in the one for the SRAM Wait State setting. Even without cache, I figure that might be necessary. Power on again, and hey, 10 beeps this time, it's alive, at least somewhat! CMOS error, so had a look at the Dallas. First, I tried a fresh battery instead of the used but still good one in there. Nope, didn't help. Took out the Dallas again, and noticed a bent pin. Corrected it, carefully reseated the chip to avoid more pin bending, and now we got 1 long and 8 short beeps. Display/Retrace error, let's try seating the VGA card in a different ISA slot. Trying it again, three beeps, that's a RAM error, makes sense with the damaged top slot missing the right latch.

So, in a last ditch effort to see it boot to the BIOS, I just held the RAM SIMM into place while powering it up, and the CRT came on! First the video BIOS, then very briefly the motherboard BIOS before getting into a bootloop. With this rather janky way of doing it, it probably wasn't making the greatest contact in the SIMM slot, so it seems to conks out right when it wants to do a memory check. Well, if I had some spare desoldering station filters, I'd get on it right away to replace the top SIMM slot with an angled one from a battery bombed Mac Classic board, but I don't, so this is another repair for another day. But, I'm pleased as punch that the board does have a good amount of life in it! Can't wait to do the repairs, find a nice case, and get to work on this 386DX40 build 😀

wiretap wrote on 2020-05-18, 03:21:

Getting my DX2/66 rig built up a little nicer on the test bench. Got the Mach64 VLB in there, along with the Sound Blaster Pro 2 […]
Show full quote

Getting my DX2/66 rig built up a little nicer on the test bench. Got the Mach64 VLB in there, along with the Sound Blaster Pro 2 and Gravis Ultrasound. Working good now! I was afraid the Mach64 wasn't going to work because I got it in a cheap scrap lot, but the image quality is great and it works flawless.. just installed the drivers and no issues ensued.

sweet, those old ATI cards are nice. I have a mach32 Ultra Pro years ago. Still miss it, it it was not for it not licking early 3d games with a voodoo1 I would have kept it.

Daniël Oosterhuis wrote on 2020-05-18, 12:39:

Now that I have the Am386DX-40, I was rather impatient and wanted to test the 386 board I had, to see if there's any life in it. […]
Show full quote

Now that I have the Am386DX-40, I was rather impatient and wanted to test the 386 board I had, to see if there's any life in it. Now, back in March, I ordered some round connector strips from China, which haven't arrived and I'm guessing are lost in postage, and I intended to use some of that to make the Dallas socket. I said screw it, took a few small round connector sockets, and just cut off the pins I needed. Won't be pretty, but when the Dallas is in, you can't see it. Put them on the Dallas, then stuck it in the board and soldered it in. As for why I didn't solder the Dallas straight on, I was afraid the pins of the vertical battery socket would touch something underneath on the board if it wasn't somewhat raised up from the board, which a socket achieves.

I had no idea if the board would do anything without cache installed, so I just set it all up in a rather makeshift testbench setup (I have a legit PC testbench, I sometimes even wonder why I even bought it given I tend to be too lazy to set it up and just do makeshift stuff like this), powered it on, and... nothing. After looking at the jumper settings, I decided to put in the one for the SRAM Wait State setting. Even without cache, I figure that might be necessary. Power on again, and hey, 10 beeps this time, it's alive, at least somewhat! CMOS error, so had a look at the Dallas. First, I tried a fresh battery instead of the used but still good one in there. Nope, didn't help. Took out the Dallas again, and noticed a bent pin. Corrected it, carefully reseated the chip to avoid more pin bending, and now we got 1 long and 8 short beeps. Display/Retrace error, let's try seating the VGA card in a different ISA slot. Trying it again, three beeps, that's a RAM error, makes sense with the damaged top slot missing the right latch.

So, in a last ditch effort to see it boot to the BIOS, I just held the RAM SIMM into place while powering it up, and the CRT came on! First the video BIOS, then very briefly the motherboard BIOS before getting into a bootloop. With this rather janky way of doing it, it probably wasn't making the greatest contact in the SIMM slot, so it seems to conks out right when it wants to do a memory check. Well, if I had some spare desoldering station filters, I'd get on it right away to replace the top SIMM slot with an angled one from a battery bombed Mac Classic board, but I don't, so this is another repair for another day. But, I'm pleased as punch that the board does have a good amount of life in it! Can't wait to do the repairs, find a nice case, and get to work on this 386DX40 build 😀

Do like a happy ending! Well done on fixing it.

TechieDude wrote on 2020-05-18, 12:17:

Decided to fully recap the ALS100 and it ended in disaster. It became mono, and even noisier than before. All because I soldered a capacitor wrong and wanted to correct that before testing it. The result? The capacitor came off ALONG WITH THE FUCKING PAD! Just how cheap are these things!?

I managed to fix it in a very unorthodox (but effective!) way, by bypassing the traces entirely using bodge wires to where the traces are meant to go with the help of a multimeter. I needed to bodge the other end as well, because it also came off. MAYBE setting the soldering station to 399C was a bad idea, noted. Anyway, it might not look pretty, but it works and I'm proud of it! Admittedly, I love the issues that piss me off, because when I finally solve them, it feels great, especially when I learn something from the whole ordeal 😉 Pretty certain I'm not the only one.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-05-18, 12:28:

I know of no high quality ALS sound cards...

Me neither, the fact the ALS100 chip (NOT ALS100+) is somewhat decent must have been a mistake or something 🤣 It is better than SB16 as in not having DMA clicking and hanging note bugs, while retaining Adlib, SB, SB Pro AND SB16 compatibility with High DMA as well, and a 'real' OPL3 to boot. Too bad the boards they are used on are abysmal noise sponges! All in all, not a bad card, if you want things to 'just work', or are a beginner, though I'm more pleased with my AWE32 CT3910, at least about SnR, because clicking is obnoxious in Space Cadet 😁

Mine has FT6116-100 coupled with an original YAC512-M DAC, in case the photos aren't easily readable. It's fully compatible with OPL3, even 4Op and percussion mode sound identical.

EDIT: Does anyone have any info about the amplifier chip used in this card? Googling "chmc9512 amplifier" or "chmc9512 ic" didn't produce anything useful. Is it a rebranded TEA/TDA, a clone or something else???

Spent a fair bit of time setting up this cute Toshiba NB555D to do... well, basically what you see in the picture. I inherited it (from my mum) with a "big" install of Linux Mint 18.3 with the Cinnamon desktop, but that was pretty overbearing for this little 9-year-old netbook. I decided to try PeppermintOS (not related to the 'other' Mint), which is based on LXDE and tries to be lightweight while still being full-featured & useable. (More importantly, it uses Ubuntu/Debian package repos and has Nemo for a file manager. Big pluses in my book.) It goes OK.

Floppy disk for scale...

This thing "looks" pretty good for its era on paper - it has an AMD APU with a Radeon HD6250, it's been upgraded to 4GB of RAM and it even has a 500GB HDD (yes, I know an SSD would be better.) It also has SURPRISINGLY good Harman/Kardon speakers which is why I want to use it for music, tons of I/O (3 USB ports, HDMI, VGA, wired ethernet, mic/line-in) and really nice build quality. The problem is this is the low-rent version, with a single-core, single-thread AMD C-30 that runs at 1.2GHz. It is glacially slow and really gimps the machine. Even back in 2011 that was pretty hopeless. You could get an uprated model with a dual-core version of the same CPU (AMD C-50 or C-60) which would be a ton better, but my mum got this through her work back then, and of course they issued everyone the absolute base model. She chucked it in a drawer and barely used it. I imagine most of these got sold like this one, with the absolute cheapest possible spec, and then retired early because of that. What a waste.

(The 1024x600 screen doesn't help either, a lot of software just plain doesn't fit in that. Fortunately most Linux distros have a way to drag windows around without needing to keep the title bar on-screen.)

Anyway, I want it to run Sunvox, Deflemask, Schism Tracker, etc., which it does fine, and it can even handle moderate stuff under DOSBox, but forget about getting any performance out of web browsing with it. I'd love to use it to monitor Twitch chat, but it takes a full minute to load the site (once it's loaded, the chat itself goes OK as long as you stop the stream preview) and trying to do anything once there is agonizing. Even installing packages with APT or decompressing things tends to peg the CPU at 100%.

I'd bet anything this CPU still has the second core on the die, since it's basically the same thing as the C-50/C-60. If there's a way to unlock it Phenom II style I'd love to know about it. Can't find much online though. As it is, I'm looking around for a replacement mainboard with the dual-core option. If only it had a socket...

Why can't laptop makers bring this form factor back? Stuff a modern quad-core APU in, ditch the 2.5" SATA bay for NVME, ditch the HDMI for mini-Displayport, put in a better screen that eliminates the bezels, and keep everything else exactly the same. People would be lining up around the block for them. I would!