HandOfFate wrote on 2020-09-02, 19:30:

gex85 wrote on 2020-09-02, 19:23:

as soon as I install a sound card, the onboard IDE controller starts acting up, but Win 2000 works like a charm.

Are they sharing (conflicting) on a DMA channel by any chance?

I'll have to investigate a bit... What I have observed so far is, as soon as I install a sound card (tested some ESS ISA card, AWE64 Value and a Yamaha WF-192XG), the boot time increases to about 3 minutes and two "Dual FIFO IDE Controller" (or something like that) entries show up in the device manager with a yellow warning icon, saying Windows needs to be restarted to make this device work, and the optical drive is not recognized any more. Obviously, rebooting doesn't help at all.

RetroLizard wrote on 2020-09-02, 18:20:

steevf wrote on 2020-09-02, 05:58:

RetroLizard wrote on 2020-09-02, 05:37:

How, if I might ask, do you create music on older Windows 98 computers?

The software I used was called "Cakewalk Pro Audio 9".

Do you need any external keyboards or such for the software to work?

You don't have to. But you need at least some sort of midi sound module. In my case I had a ESS sound card with a Sound Canvas Wavetable synth attached to it. That was all I had. In fact any sound card with General MIDI FM synth can work. They won't sound great but they will work. The sound card's game port was also an MPU401 device which allows you to use external keyboards with midi adapter cables. But I didn't have that. I just had the internal sound card.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-09-01, 13:00:

Fun times!!! what motherboard did you get?

Embrace the madness it's fun

I ended up winning the auction!

Tyan 1592s

utahraptor wrote on 2020-09-03, 01:02:

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-09-01, 13:00:

Fun times!!! what motherboard did you get?

Embrace the madness it's fun

I ended up winning the auction!

Tyan 1592s

That looks like a really nice board. And it's an ATX board. That will make the case and power supply selection a while lot easier!

johnny_cache wrote on 2020-08-30, 22:53:

I am so jealous! We used to have these exact machines in my school and I have been trying to track one down for a long time. […]
Show full quote

red_avatar wrote on 2020-08-29, 22:41:

* HP Vectra VL 5/75 - DOS 6.22 + Windows 3.11 - Pentium 75 - 32MB RAM - SB16 […]
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* HP Vectra VL 5/75
- DOS 6.22 + Windows 3.11
- Pentium 75
- 32MB RAM
- SB16

I am so jealous! We used to have these exact machines in my school and I have been trying to track one down for a long time.

You don't have any pictures of it already saved, do you?

Jess

There are two versions of that PC and I have them both. I first had the older model and was very impressed but ran into a BIOS limitation as well as a problem with the Cirrus chip not supporting certain games and the PCI bus being only 16bit so every replacement 2D card would be too slow. So I got the newer model which has a different BIOS that supports larger drives and where the PCI bus is 32bit.

Older model:

Newer model:

utahraptor wrote on 2020-09-03, 01:02:

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-09-01, 13:00:

Fun times!!! what motherboard did you get?

Embrace the madness it's fun

I ended up winning the auction!

Tyan 1592s

Nice board, I have the AT variant (S1590) and so far it has proven to be quite fast and stable.

steevf wrote on 2020-09-02, 21:43:

RetroLizard wrote on 2020-09-02, 18:20:

steevf wrote on 2020-09-02, 05:58:

The software I used was called "Cakewalk Pro Audio 9".

Do you need any external keyboards or such for the software to work?

You don't have to. But you need at least some sort of midi sound module. In my case I had a ESS sound card with a Sound Canvas Wavetable synth attached to it. That was all I had. In fact any sound card with General MIDI FM synth can work. They won't sound great but they will work. The sound card's game port was also an MPU401 device which allows you to use external keyboards with midi adapter cables. But I didn't have that. I just had the internal sound card.

I see. And, besides ebay, where would one find Cakewalk Pro Audio 9?

RetroLizard wrote on 2020-09-03, 07:56:

steevf wrote on 2020-09-02, 21:43:

RetroLizard wrote on 2020-09-02, 18:20:

Do you need any external keyboards or such for the software to work?

You don't have to. But you need at least some sort of midi sound module. In my case I had a ESS sound card with a Sound Canvas Wavetable synth attached to it. That was all I had. In fact any sound card with General MIDI FM synth can work. They won't sound great but they will work. The sound card's game port was also an MPU401 device which allows you to use external keyboards with midi adapter cables. But I didn't have that. I just had the internal sound card.

I see. And, besides ebay, where would one find Cakewalk Pro Audio 9?

As far as VOGONS is concerned, eBay only - we don't permit linking to copies of formerly commercial software here, thanks 😀

Bleh, nevermind. It's apparently too much trouble asking where to buy specific software here without people taking it the wrong way, so I won't bother asking anymore.

There's got to be a better source than eBay scalpers...

RetroLizard wrote on 2020-09-03, 18:46:

Bleh, nevermind. It's apparently too much trouble asking where to buy specific software here without people taking it the wrong way, so I won't bother asking anymore.

Try Googling it to see if there are perhaps other programs out there that can do midi editing. Specifically, software that would still work on 20+ year old operating systems.

All the new stuff is 64-bit Windows 10 or Max OSX and speaking of that, the most recent version of Cakewalk is actually free from BandLab right now. Yes, totally, legitimately, legal, and free, full featured DAW. But it only works on 64-bit Windows.

I honestly don't know where I could legally get the older 32-bit software except from ebay scalpers or find open source alternatives.

red_avatar wrote on 2020-09-03, 06:09:

There are two versions of that PC and I have them both. ...<snip> […]
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There are two versions of that PC and I have them both. ...<snip>

Older model:

I really like the look of the older model.

Maybe not that retro, and kind of useless now, but today (actually, 3 days ago) I made a mirror of the download.nvidia.com/Windows/ site, which contains lots of drivers for nvidia hardware (mostly old videocards and motherboard chipsets). Why? because just like intel did, maybe one day nvidia will grow tired of having their old drivers around and will delete them, and we all know that even if multiple drivers versions work for the same hardware, there are specific versions that work way better than others.
The archive file is about 26GB of only Windows drivers. And some PDF files. Will upload it to archive.org ASAP.

Edit:
Here's the link to the archive: https://archive.org/details/download.nvidia.c … dows-2020-08-31
And here's the contents: https://ia801502.us.archive.org/view_archive. … -2020-08-31.rar

Today I tested out a few patched Sega Game Gear ROMs on an Everdrive cartridge on my Sega Mega Drive. Mostly just for fun to see how they would run on real hardware connected to a modern TV. I played a bit of Sonic the Hedgehog & then some Coca Cola Kid, plus a few others and most games run well. Notably Sonic is a little bit trickier to play, as enemies have a habit of firing at or hitting you before they even appear on the screen. Still managed to blast through the first few zones with ease before getting bored at Labyrinth and I probably could complete it via this method if I had time.

Also today, retro related activity - I purchased a Slotket & a Socket 370 cooler. Going to use it to add a Socket 370 PIII 1GHz Coppermine CPU to a Slot 1 440BX motherboard and build a 2000-era PC from spare parts in my collection, covering games from roughly 1998-2002. The aim is to have 2 Coppermine PIII 1GHz PCs with similar specs, of which 1 PC is practically ready and just needs a HDD to begin setup, so I'll probably have to purchase a couple of HDDs too at some point.

Cleaned and built out a Shuttle SS51G PC. Fresh thermal paste, swapped the HDD for a SSD and replaced the CD-rom, bios update, and a fresh copy of Win98 has given it new life. Also a chance to use some components I was not running anywhere else: Geforce4-4400 and a SB Live!. Note how small this PC is compared to my previous compact which it is resting on.

kolderman wrote on 2020-09-05, 06:11:

Cleaned and built out a Shuttle SS51G PC. Fresh thermal paste, swapped the HDD for a SSD and replaced the CD-rom, bios update, and a fresh copy of Win98 has given it new life. Also a chance to use some components I was not running anywhere else: Geforce4-4400 and a SB Live!. Note how small this PC is compared to my previous compact which it is resting on.

Out of curiosity, where do you find cases like that?

steevf wrote on 2020-09-03, 20:10:

I really like the look of the older model.

Me too and the PC is really well designed inside as well - very easy to take apart and work on.

Problem is that the older model lacks some vital features because it was an early Pentium:
- no PCI ports, only ISA vs 2x 32bit PCI + 2x ISA
- only support up to 8GB drives vs 40GB drives
- internal 2D chip had some compatibility issues the new model doesn't have + the lack of a PCI slot meant I was stuck with slow ISA 2D cards
- extra front 3.5" bay so I can keep the disk drive while having a Gotek one as well
- boot from CD only possible on new model
- BIOS very limited compared to new model

So I was kind of forced to get he newer model which isn't quite as sexy looking but all the issues I had with the old model are gone and it's a brilliant DOS machine now. If you can spot one on eBay, it's a very good choice. It's incredibly quiet, easy to work with, has very solid hardware and very few compatibility issues. It comes with a good SB16 as well (although it was missing in mine - they probably sold it separately just like the missing drive).

RetroLizard wrote on 2020-09-05, 07:39:

kolderman wrote on 2020-09-05, 06:11:

Cleaned and built out a Shuttle SS51G PC. Fresh thermal paste, swapped the HDD for a SSD and replaced the CD-rom, bios update, and a fresh copy of Win98 has given it new life. Also a chance to use some components I was not running anywhere else: Geforce4-4400 and a SB Live!. Note how small this PC is compared to my previous compact which it is resting on.

Out of curiosity, where do you find cases like that?

Waited years for one to turn up on ebay. It's more than a case - it comes with a custom motherboard with an outer universal AGP slot, very unique.

red_avatar wrote on 2020-09-03, 06:09:

johnny_cache wrote on 2020-08-30, 22:53:

I am so jealous! We used to have these exact machines in my school and I have been trying to track one down for a long time. […]
Show full quote

red_avatar wrote on 2020-08-29, 22:41:

* HP Vectra VL 5/75 - DOS 6.22 + Windows 3.11 - Pentium 75 - 32MB RAM - SB16 […]
Show full quote

* HP Vectra VL 5/75
- DOS 6.22 + Windows 3.11
- Pentium 75
- 32MB RAM
- SB16

I am so jealous! We used to have these exact machines in my school and I have been trying to track one down for a long time.

You don't have any pictures of it already saved, do you?

Jess

There are two versions of that PC and I have them both. I first had the older model and was very impressed but ran into a BIOS limitation as well as a problem with the Cirrus chip not supporting certain games and the PCI bus being only 16bit so every replacement 2D card would be too slow. So I got the newer model which has a different BIOS that supports larger drives and where the PCI bus is 32bit.

Thanks so much for posting. God I miss these. I am actually finding some pretty cheap results on Ebay now. Can't decide between that or a Kayak XU.

Jesse

I tried unsuccessfully yet again to get a Trident 9850 AGP video card to work on my Via Apollo Pro 133A board, and it still locks up in 3D games despite all my BIOS tweaking, Powerstrip settings, and driver reinstalls. The card works fine on an Intel chipset though.

If this is any indication of the "fun" and "challenge" an AGP card would provide in a SS7 board, then I will gladly skip that mess and stick with my "boring" Slot 1 440BX board.