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Brostenen

Posted 2016-12-06 9:39 PM (#132 - in reply to #130)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

The mailman had this with him today...

DXZeff

Posted 2016-12-07 4:10 AM (#134 - in reply to #132)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

I'm still waiting for my ISA one to get here.

I think my EliteBook just gave up the ghost, died in the middle of writing a document and won't power back on, it had also started running into serious heat problems regardless of new paste and cleaned heatsinks. The repair costs were already higher than a replacement laptop anyway, so I won't be fixing it at this stage. Guess it's time to look at a new one. I am, however, really impressed it kept running so long, the case was heavily dented, the keyboard was also warped and the screen was pierced from the back casing all the way through to the chassis in front of the keyboard, damaging the WiFi card in the process and yet, the laptop kept running. It did well and I think it had good years left in it, a shame, but at least it died gracefully instead of killing the hard drive or something.

Edit: Acquired this as I'd been watching it for a while along with a few others;

Will have to replace the keyboard at some point, no way I'm using a shitty UK layout, it doesn't make sense. I'll worry about that later though, should be fine with the UK one for now. Spec list;
EliteBook 8760w
Core i7-2620M @ 2.7? GHz
1TB Hard Drive (Please don't be Hitachi, the original drives are generally WD but this one is not the original, if it's a Deathstar I will be furious!)
16GB RAM
nVidia Quadro 3000M with 2GB Dedicated GDDR5
Other things you'd expect by 2011 like USB 3 and whatnot.

Only real gripe is the 1600x1900 screen, I mean really? It was the best I could find without the price going too high, people seem to not want the 1920x1080 display so I'm stuck with this crappy low resolution one, fuck sake, at least it's not shiny I guess and it should at least be a good 1600x900 screen if my 8540w's display was anything to go by. Still pathetic though for the time, I'd expect at least 1920x1080 by then, especially on a 17" display but guess what? They made an even lower resolution model. Ha. Well, as long as it works and it has to be better than the god awful LCD monitor I've been stuck using on the 8540w since I got here I guess. Otherwise, seems like it should be an awesome laptop, but I won't know until it gets here and at this time of year that could take a while.

Edited by DXZeff 2016-12-07 5:43 AM

DXZeff

Posted 2016-12-08 3:23 AM (#136 - in reply to #71)
Subject: RE: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

Dug out a 90MHz Pentium chip for use in a video and realised something unusual about it. I bought it quite a while ago from a fairly big collector who knows his stuff, yet, apparently, he missed this feature... See anything odd in the markings?

Edited by DXZeff 2016-12-08 3:26 AM

Brostenen

Posted 2016-12-08 2:13 PM (#137 - in reply to #136)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

Have no clue on what it is. :-)

For me, I have been taking some soundcards for a spin, just to hear them stacked up against each other.

- Tango 100 with shitty adlib implementation, yet awesomme midi capeablilities. As it has one of them early Dream-Synth.
- AWE64 Value. Generic sounding, shitty yet a bit better Adlib implementation than the Tango.
- Mozart based OPL4 card. Has trouble playing OPL2/3 in stereo. Testtool play's FM in stereo.

Need to find me a way of recording these cards, not using the usual suspect's in terms of all the games everyone else uses
for this purpouse.

Edited by Brostenen 2016-12-08 2:19 PM

Brostenen

Posted 2016-12-08 11:58 PM (#139 - in reply to #137)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

I have begun making recordings of DynaBlaster. That game is one of those that only sound right on a real OPL chip.
So far, I have done 4 recordings. Using AWE64 and Media Vision Jazz16. Title track and first level including the cutscene.

Recordings (some large files)

Edited by Brostenen 2016-12-08 11:59 PM

DXZeff

Posted 2016-12-12 1:48 PM (#141 - in reply to #139)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

I can definitely hear the difference, some very thin scratchy tones going on with the AWE64 there, makes me want to re-record the DN2 soundtrack, or just more soundtracks, though more people seem to be doing them properly now instead of using inaccurate emulators.

Sorry I've been quiet lately, I've had a lot going on but my silence has not been completely fruitless; http://imgur.com/a/WnZ3A
Supposedly the Xeon can render this at 1920x1080p25 in about 1.5 hours. I believe it, because it rendered about 13 hours of SD footage, which had to be scaled and de-interlaced, in around 2.5 hours. Kicks major ass. The video on the other hand probably will have some mistake I missed and end up having to render it again, no matter how many times I check this always happens. At least it doesn't take up 20 or more hours of my day now every time I have to render a video.

Brostenen

Posted 2016-12-13 2:48 PM (#143 - in reply to #141)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

Yeah...
The Jazz souds correct, with the full spectrum of sounds and frequency's as it should.
The AWE64 on the other hand, is first of all missing the fatty warm sound, it sounds thin in a way.
The AWE64 is has a artificial treble sound, and some tones are actually missing. Mostly in the bass area.
Some halftones are missing too. Sounds like a hard change between notes and not sliding in between each other.
In other words, the AWE64 is like OPL emulation in DosBox, when playing the music in DynaBlaster.
(sometimes even worse) Plus the AWE64 has an annoying pumping sound, something are being played harsh.

Don't know if all this is what you hear too.

DXZeff

Posted 2016-12-14 6:38 PM (#146 - in reply to #71)
Subject: RE: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

That is exactly what I hear. I've dug out a motherboard in recent times, one which I remember having a particularly odd sounding FM implementation. It had an oddly smoothed off sound to it and whilst not accurate, I did find that I sort of liked it. I don't know if I'll ever run it again and currently lack the resources to, but if I ever do fire it up I'll try to record it... Unless I can find some recordings from when it was briefly one of the only machines I had access to, I think I have a recording of some Duke Nukem II music somewhere from it.

Edit: Oh, yeah, I still have those recordings - https://www.mediafire.com/?cacg9ziv9bv6516
Also, there are some photos in that folder, including one where you can see my desk as it appeared in 2004 when the photos were taken. They would have been shot shortly before I wound up stuck with the 486 for a few months, which would be why the unstable Cyrix machine was being used to edit video, likely the Athlon 64 had already died and I was loaning this to get by. Inevitably I had to return the system to its owner. Likely didn't help that I ended up in the care of social services just 9 days after the photos were taken (and 18 days after NUKEM.WAV was recorded) either and so I had no means to borrow the system again, having to cobble together the 486 until April of the next year. You can see my old VCR (I still have it) and a TV which I loaned as well as my lovely ADI monitor with BTC keyboard and Genius mouse. I still have some of this stuff. In the TV you can see some fat fuck reflected, that was me.

Kinda weird looking back, thinking that unbeknown to me at the time those photos would be some of the final moments of a somewhat normal life at home, frozen forever in time by that small silver camera I started my YouTube channel with.

On a side note, SSDs are for losers (The Xeon uses 4TB WD RE4 mechanical drives) in my opinion :P

Edited by DXZeff 2016-12-14 7:03 PM

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Brostenen

Posted 2016-12-16 4:16 AM (#147 - in reply to #146)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

Yeah... Strange how life tumbles one up and down, and randomly spits one out at a place one never would have thought possible at an earlier stage in life. Can be positive or negative. Depends on if one can settle with what one got at the present, in every stage of life. Yup... Sometimes life results in kids. My children just love Pacman, so there are still hope, that they at one point in life, will apreciate some of my hobby. If not half of it, then at least pacman. Hehe.

Got that Dreamblaster S1 in the mail today. Looking forward to take it for a spin sunday evening or some time during monday.

Edited by Brostenen 2016-12-16 4:16 AM

DXZeff

Posted 2016-12-16 10:49 AM (#148 - in reply to #147)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

I dunno, I think by far the most troubling thing about those images is my complete disregard for organizing directories properly. Nx586 videos in the Mario 64 folder, no doubt I will regret that decision some day when I want to find the video file.

Hope the Dreamblaster turns out good for you, I've decided that I don't really have a use for one as barely anything I play uses MIDI in that way and I'm generally happy with FM or the MU90R for anything that does. Kinda odd really, seems most of my library goes from using AdLib exclusively to using redbook/PCM with no synthesizer support at all. I also have my eyes on another synthesizer to replace the DX7 with and that will drain any funds I could have thrown at random peripherals until I can get shot of the DX7 to make it back - which I should, because it is worth way more than the device I want to replace it with.

In fact, I should be able to get rid of it at half its worth and still have coins to spare, but it's motivating myself to list it or post it up on a synth forum. It's a shame really, the synth engine is pretty good and it can make some really cool sounds, but the implementation is just so awkward and the documentation (official and online over the past 30 years) is so close to non-existent that it's not worth having for someone like me that actually wants to use it instead of just tapping keys to play factory patches. I've always felt Yamaha made trash in the 80s, but had only used their low-end gear before. I was honestly quite shocked to see that their poor manufacturing, general corner cutting and what I assume to be a total disregard for the end user stretched as far as their flagship professional products back then. Odd how they made up for it so much in the 1990s.

DXZeff

Posted 2016-12-16 3:05 PM (#149 - in reply to #148)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

I just had my first big Tantalum blowout. I replaced the I/O card in my P66 with a new one because of problems with the old one. Unfortunately when I hit power there was a bang and the PSU shut off, a tantalum has smoked up and burned through my new IDE cable. Luckily it was only tied to power and ground, so it simply tripped the PSU and made a bad smell, it'll take more than that to kill Zoe! So at least the machine is OK, nothing expensive or hard to replace was damaged. Tempted to return the card, but as they're expensive anyway I may as well try to fix it, I'd guess it was a 100uf cap but as it's only on power pins to a chip I could use almost any size. There's even a chance the card would work without it, but I suppose it would be wise to replace all the Tantalums before they all blow up if I'm going to fix it. I'll take a picture of the skid marks if you want, but I've seen far worse. Glad the IDE ribbon caught the debris and not the WinTV above, or the PAS below, that would have been far worse than losing a cable. The round IDE cable I am using now looks stupid in there, but it will work until I find another spare one.

Up to now I've been lucky and they've either gone short without blowing, or else have slowly fried and only the smell has alerted me. Surprisingly, I didn't react with a jump and half expected something to happen - again, my gut instincts are always right it seems. The only chip that has any marks is a 74-series one which the cap is tied to, so if that died I can replace it too.

Edited by DXZeff 2016-12-16 3:07 PM

Robman

Posted 2016-12-16 8:08 PM (#150 - in reply to #149)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Chips 386

Posts: 38

Location: Canada

Sweet i7 laptop HT

Brostenen

Posted 2016-12-17 11:07 PM (#151 - in reply to #150)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

Recieved an ATX to AT psu converter cable today, and an Arduino Music Shield.
I got the MIDI shield some time ago, alongside 4 x 64x8 cache chips.

Anyway...
Having the MIDI shield and the Music shield, I can now start working on a homemade cheap external GM module.
I know it is not the best one, far from, though I am going for this anyway.
Then I have this cheap tone regulator, that I need to assemble/solder, so I can put some lovely bass/treble control
to that module. Going to be fun, creating a cheap module, that can deliver some natural sounding instruments.
The MusicShield is one of those that can play MP3 files too. Who knows. Might be a feature on the module for the future.

- Arduino MusicShield: 5.38 US Dollars.
- Arduino MIDI Shield: 7.99 US Dollars.
- Tone controller module: 3.42 US Dollars.

Not going to be the best sounding, more or less in the league of an SB PCI-128 with 512k soundfont loaded in Win98.
Though it is going to be external, for use in MS-Dos-6.22 and it is going to be homemade.

Edited by Brostenen 2016-12-17 11:10 PM

DXZeff

Posted 2016-12-18 2:26 PM (#152 - in reply to #151)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

@Robman; Aye, it's going well so far. Sorry, I haven't logged into your board in a while, had other things going on.

@Brostenen; Seems like a good idea. I considered trying to do something similar with a low power computer or some such, though due to my total ignorance of Arduino and Raspberry, I'd likely use an STPC board to do it.

----------

Currently getting over a cold, ain't nothing compared to the hay fever I get every summer but it still takes its toll. I'm past the clogged nose and headaches, now I'm just having the annoying coughs and tiredness so it's more of an inconvenience than anything. Probably be gone soon, I have a surprisingly good immune system and rarely does a cold last more than three days. This does mean that I've done very little though, outside of tidying the shed and noticing occasional head crashes on the server. Doesn't matter too much as the drives will be getting an upgrade in a few weeks, it should hang on until then.

Oh, I may be back here later though with some mildly interesting news. Unknown at present, depends how my luck plays out. I also did acquire some more interesting hardware, but I'll share that at a later time when I can get better pictures.

DXZeff

Posted 2016-12-18 9:30 PM (#153 - in reply to #152)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

Hmm... Guess I should start looking into selling that DX7 soon, huh?

Also, just dug around on my old memory stick from college. Nothing too interesting, but there are some raw resources from early YouTube videos nobody would ever want to see again. Backed it all up anyway as the stick is dying.

Brostenen

Posted 2016-12-18 11:47 PM (#154 - in reply to #153)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

That look's like a wonderfull keyboard. Though I can not play any instruments, nor do I have any broad knowledge in keyboards.

Brostenen

Posted 2016-12-20 3:15 PM (#155 - in reply to #154)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

Been soldering today. Got that MusicShield powered on.

It needs 5volt and 3.3 volt. For that I used a molex and a stepdown converter.
The 5 volt went straight into 5volt input on the shield.
The 12 volt were connected to the stepdown converter, wich were set to 3.3 volt output.
That output, went straight into the shield. Both grounds were spliced together and went to the gnd on the shield.

So far so good.... Now I need to test if the MIDI shield will start in MIDI-Synthesizer-mode on the Music Shield.
Or I need to connect GPOI#0 to GND and GPIO#1 to 3.3 volt. This will put the shield into MIDI mode on reset.
I just need to test it with the MIDI shield first, to see if it does this or not for me.
If not... Then more soldering.

To test it out. I think I will use a soundcard and Doom in dos. This will not be today though.

Edited by Brostenen 2016-12-20 3:17 PM

DXZeff

Posted 2016-12-20 7:42 PM (#156 - in reply to #155)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

Still getting over my cold. I have changed the CinemaPro in my Pentium to a Celebrity and can now capture video, but my video card isn't working properly, freezes with garbage when playing an MPEG and occasionally garbles in Windows anyway. Initially I thought I had borked the drivers and restored an image of the drive taken prior to either card being installed (Incidentally, the drive can image in about 12 minutes, so this is no hardship. SCSI FTW) but it behaves the same. I think it is probably the Trio part of the card and not the MVP1100, so if it is broken I should be able to replace it as there are several boards with that connector on them.

I am considering doing something long overdue and re-making my YouTube channel trailer thing, the one I have is outdated so much it's not even funny. I'd like to keep it around the 2:30 mark at most. I may try to slap a preliminary script together later tonight if nothing gets in my way.

@Brostenen; Good to know there is progress and I look forward to seeing - or hearing I guess - the end result. I need to get my hands on a new soldering iron.

Some time back, probably October last year, I made a video playing a bunch of DOS MIDI music on the Korg O1. I might use it as the double-upload next video now Flash-Back is done.

Brostenen

Posted 2016-12-22 11:51 AM (#162 - in reply to #71)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

No luck on that MiDi thingy.... Though I need to get an Raspberry PI now.
I have found something called PiMidi on instructables.
It is an RaspberryPI + Fluidsynth external, standalone midi synth.

Anyway...
The shield I bought, were described on the makers Wiki, as being able to handle MIDI-In.
And on a forum, this specific model, were talked about, as setting GPIO#0 low and GPIO#1
high, for realtime midi. What I found, when digging around, was one single post on another
forum with Arduino shields/stuff. Here it was mentioned that both GPIO 0 and 1 was
connected directly to GND on the shield. Well... And the shield I have generates static
noise. So I guess it can not be done for cheap, and the shield I have are DOA.

As I wrote... I need to get an Raspberry PI now. Get some DIN plugs, resistors and other
parts. For building an external MIDI device. So I guess this will have to wait untill I
have more money in and around marts. Yeah....

I tried, failed and I proved to my self that this is just too cheap.
The jurney and idea was good though...

EDIT:
When searching for "pimidi" on google, I get a lot of related stuff.
The building plans, should be the first hit on google, and be a link to the project on Instructables.

Edited by Brostenen 2016-12-22 11:55 AM

Brostenen

Posted 2016-12-24 12:40 AM (#165 - in reply to #71)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

Been messing with my MAME machine. Now year 6 or 7 in the making.... (Something else allways get's in the way)
Though it has been having an upgrade of hardware one time. From a generic Socket-A to the Socket775 I am using now.
As of now, it is a HP DC-7600. It was upgraded with 4gb Ram (now 5), and from 2.6 to 3.0 ghz P4.
Plus I have installed an Radeon x550 PCI-E gfx card, just to get some more beefy horsepowers.

Anyway...
I have it up and running with Maximus arcade, emulators for Mame, C64, SNES and NeoGeo.
When I am in the console/games selction-menu, it is blasting some nice 80's charts hits as background music. (120 in all)
They are all being played randomly, so you will never know what it will play.

Need to get an arcade controller now or build a complete tabletop out of this. Future will decide.
It has been a lot of years in the making, so another 4 years won't do any difference to me.
At least it is working nicely enough, and can be used to play a game using a keyboard.

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DXZeff

Posted 2016-12-25 9:00 PM (#168 - in reply to #165)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

You're reviving my temptation to build a Total Carnage cabinet and I don't have the room

Brostenen

Posted 2016-12-26 1:03 AM (#169 - in reply to #168)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

DXZeff - 2016-12-25 11:00 PM

You're reviving my temptation to build a Total Carnage cabinet and I don't have the room

Go tabletop with Raspberry PI and TFT. If space is the problem.

For me, I have tested a Dreamblaster S1 in my 5x86-133 machine. It's an ok device. Not by any chance as good as an SC55.
Yet it is way better than an AWE32/64, and I really do not want to go the way of some big MIDI box taking table space.
If only the AWE64-Gold had WaveTable header and a real OPL chip, then it would have been (to me at least) the ultimate card.
And I really do not like having two cards in one single setup. Hmmm... Vintage computing is filled with endless compromises.

Brostenen

Posted 2016-12-28 8:22 PM (#171 - in reply to #169)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

Got this for free today....

Pentium One, 24mb Ram, 1gb HDD.

Edited by Brostenen 2016-12-28 8:25 PM

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DXZeff

Posted 2016-12-29 8:10 AM (#172 - in reply to #171)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

I don't do things by half, it's full cabinet or no cabinet.

No, I never liked multiple card setups either, plus they never seem to work right. The only exceptions are things like the SW1000XG and SCC-1 but even those are problematic at best and aren't worth the hassle when modules do a better job cheaper - or they did but they likely cost more now.

Nice laptop, the ThinkPad was always a solid machine in my experience. They're not exactly my first choice, but they pretty much tie with it. The only yuck is your wallpaper tiling.

As I write this you can't see the forum because of a power cut. Not sure why I bothered putting in a UPS for the server if my ISP aren't going to install one for their DSLAM. Connecting to this site is retro in itself as the data has to travel over some rather obsoleted equipment.

Edited by DXZeff 2016-12-29 8:11 AM

Brostenen

Posted 2016-12-29 9:20 PM (#173 - in reply to #172)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

It is a nice thinkpad that I got. Sturdy and stuff. It does however complain about the BIOS battery being flat.
Probably an easy fix though...... The wallpaper is not my idea. Hehe. It is all as the previous owner left it.
I have a dilemma though. I have absolutely no clue on to what I will be using it for. And I don't know if I am
going to keep it at all. For time being, I am holding on to it, as I need time to investigate how much it is worth.

I will keep an eye out for this model on the market, and in a year or two, I might sell it at a 40% discount.
It all depends on how much it is worth, and how much a new plastic cover for the lid is going to cost me.

The way it is now, I can not sell it to anyone, because the lid it broken at the hinges, and because unknown value.
No plan on cheating my self out of money and will absolutely not sell at those inflated eBay prices.

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