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waybacktech
Posted 2017-04-30 8:38 PM (#544 - in reply to #543)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



IDT WinChip

Posts: 237
10010025
Location: USA
Ahh doing some Duke 3D level editing? I use to use a little program called Devil's level editor for Descent back in the day. Buggy as fuck, but worked pretty well most of the time. One of these days I am going to sit down and properly play Duke3D. Are you doing this on your Athlon 2800 ?
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DXZeff
Posted 2017-04-30 9:36 PM (#545 - in reply to #544)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500100
Location: Hull, UK
No, the Xeon. Had to leave it again for now though as the chair and desk in that corner really strain my back after a while.

Never tried doing levels in Descent, tried Quake once but couldn't build a single room. It took me over an hour to build a cube and then I compiled it - seriously, I don't get the whole having to compile levels thing - only the game to load with me falling through the floor. Never did I go near it again.

The first editor I touched was Mapedit which is basically a modified Build editor (the same as Duke3D/SW) with access to the extended features Blood added. I still have some of my old levels in an incomplete state, those the were complete are lost to history unless there's an archive out there I'm not aware of and even then, I'm not bothered as everything I built back then was laughably awful. I do still have a fondness for a pointless death machine I built though, even if it is prone to crashing the game.

Duke 3D is worth playing at least once and past that there are numerous ports as well as countless user levels and mods which are worth messing with - not that I had my hand in any of said user content and therefore a reason to promote them or anything...
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Brostenen
Posted 2017-05-01 6:10 PM (#546 - in reply to #545)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
5001002525
Been more or less offline the last 4 to 5 days, as I have helped my parents tear down their carport/small garage.
Basically speaking... I have been some 210 to 220 kilometers away from home. (130 to 136 miles)
Anyway. I bought some stuff this weekend....

Near mint condition Baby-AT towercase with a brand new PSU for 15 US Dollars.
Compaq Presario CQ60-210EO laptop that looks like it was never used for 15 US Dollars.
Commodore64 model C untested (Hope it works) for 36 US Dollars.

The C64 has no cables, though it comes with the powerbrick. If it is not working, I will see if it can be fixed.
If it can not be fixed, then I will buy a keyrah and mount my Orange PI inside it.
All in all, I think this is a really good weekend for hardware. Pictures will come, as I am still tired.
Damn aspergers syndrome, it sucks, as I have no energy to do anything today and possible tomorrow as well.
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DXZeff
Posted 2017-05-02 12:50 AM (#547 - in reply to #546)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500100
Location: Hull, UK
And as usual, I've not really left the house much at all, much as I'd like to. I really do need to get a working bicycle.

$15? Damn, can't go wrong with that for an AT case these days, and with a power supply too.
Not familiar with the CQ60 as it's way after my time for paying much attention to anything, seems to be a similar era to that Dell I had so here's hoping you have better luck with it. In all likelihood you will.

If the C64 doesn't work I might still have my donor one around, but I'm really not sure if it got here. It actually worked fine for the most part but it is missing keys and so I kept it as a parts donor for the one I had already just in case, they were both trash finds. Overall they seem to be reliable though, other than occasional tantrums from the tape drives. If you don't have a tape deck for it and the system works it might be worth skipping that part entirely and just using an SD adapter. I want one for mine as I find the tapes irksome to create and floppy drives are more expensive than I'd like them to be.
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Brostenen
Posted 2017-05-02 8:41 AM (#548 - in reply to #547)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
5001002525
#DXZeff:
Hope the C64 works. I have my hopes high, as you say, they are really reliable little machines. For storage, I am thinking of getting a SD reader too, and perhaps one of those tape drive emulator dongles as well. They work like tape drives, though faster, in somewhat the same way. You can record the tape images onto the SD card, as well as copying the tap files and it just uses an SD card instead of a casette tape. So I will not be needing a tape drive for my C64 at any point. That said, I will say thanks for the offer. I just do not see a need for tape drives anymore.

Getting back to that AT case. It is not bend, and it has only minor scuff marks. And it is clean. Yeah... This is an awesomme find for 15 USD. So before I further do, I will flood this tread with pictures of that lovely case. On a sidenote. I got a near mint condition Shuttle HOT555-A Revision 3.2 motherboard some time ago. After my original board died. So I am thinking of building my P-166 system in this case. It will have the components on the list here below.

- Shuttle HOT555-A motherboard.
- Pentium-166 ceramic, non-mmx.
- 32mb Ram.
- Number9 S3-Virge325 2mb PCI
- Orchid Righteous Voodoo1 (because the S3 has extreme signal quality)
- AWE64 Gold.

Now... For the flooding...





(AT-01.jpg)



(AT-02.jpg)



(AT-03.jpg)



(AT-04.jpg)



(AT-05.jpg)



(AT-06.jpg)



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Attachments AT-01.jpg (174KB - 517 downloads)
Attachments AT-02.jpg (172KB - 531 downloads)
Attachments AT-03.jpg (190KB - 510 downloads)
Attachments AT-04.jpg (181KB - 530 downloads)
Attachments AT-05.jpg (176KB - 538 downloads)
Attachments AT-06.jpg (110KB - 545 downloads)
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DXZeff
Posted 2017-05-03 12:20 AM (#549 - in reply to #548)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500100
Location: Hull, UK
I own a very similar ATX case, but so much of it is missing that I'll likely never use it. That and it only takes those naff little µATX PSUs. On that note, I definitely own that same model of AT PSU somewhere, but I don't remember which machine it is in.

This device should now work;

But I'm missing an RTC for the board I wanted to test it in. One will have to be ordered I guess as I'd rather not plug it into my good board until I know it's not going to fry anything. That is assuming there's enough room behind the drive cages in that one anyway, not that I'd want to install this thing permanently. It did work before when the old regulator wasn't being stupid so it should work now, but I'm not sure the new regulator is the correct version and the datasheet is horrible. If it is wrong, it should be providing too little power and not too much, so everything should be safe and I'll just get a no boot, indicating I need to change to the other new regulator I have.
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Brostenen
Posted 2017-05-04 8:22 AM (#553 - in reply to #549)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
5001002525
#DXZeff:
I honestly have no clue on to what that CPU board is. Hmmm... To me it looks like a sort of device, much like an overdrive CPU.

Me... I got this thing, wich are not "never opened" though it is brand new and never used. Uhmm. Not new. as this is from the early to mid 90's. Anyway... "Never been used" I guess it will be then. Actually funny when people try to sell something and say it is "brand new never opened" as the picture clearly show the item outside the box. Guess that is only some shitty sales tactic. Hmmm... They do not fool me with that crap.

Anyway... For the picture of what I got in the mail.

EDIT: It is a 486 cooler., and it is the exact same model from the exact same maker, that I used to have in my 486dx2-66 that I had from 1995 to 1999/00 before I gave that away to someone that did not have a computer. I am thinking that it will go inside my VLB/486dx2-80 machine. And the cooler from that one will go inside my 486dx4-120 system.

Edited by Brostenen 2017-05-04 8:28 AM




(IMG_20170504_090846698.jpg)



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Brostenen
Posted 2017-05-04 3:15 PM (#554 - in reply to #553)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
5001002525
Just picked this up. No funny smells or sounds when light comes on. Missing the AV cable. Not much yellowing. Not bad for 36 US Dollars.




(IMG_20170504_155417884.jpg)



(IMG_20170504_155453253.jpg)



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Attachments IMG_20170504_155417884.jpg (198KB - 537 downloads)
Attachments IMG_20170504_155453253.jpg (182KB - 527 downloads)
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DXZeff
Posted 2017-05-05 4:11 AM (#555 - in reply to #554)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500100
Location: Hull, UK
Excellent news! I hope it really does work once you get it hooked up to a TV/Monitor. If it does, be sure to check out things like Desert Dream and Second Reality (err, yeah) if you ever get an SD reader, they've always been two of my favorite demos.

I have decided that after a less than favorable demonstration by my shoddily assembled K5 that I am tired of these two motherboards. The PT-7502 is great but always ends up having problems, the 5VGM that it currently uses never really worked right. I gave in and bought this;

I had a SiS board once, it was extremely good, here's hoping that this one is too. It's an ECS, so I have high hopes as their boards usually work for me, though some have been slow. I'm not too bothered if it is a little slower as I'd rather it just worked, by the time anything has problems in Windows 95 it generally won't mind running on something faster, like the K6, to get around the problem. The 5VGM will head to the "sort of works but not really very well" pile, the PT-7502 will be relegated to a test board in the 5VGM's place if all goes to plan. Besides, I always missed the TR5510 that I started with, but these are the joys of taking things from dumpsters and turning your back on other people for more than a second.

I also nabbed this;

Currently I'm short on 30-Pin ram, but I should be able to get my hands on some and I'm hoping I can get away with less than the maximum. I don't really plan on doing anything too heavy with it so 4-8MB may be enough. If not, I have an older 486 that could use some additional RAM and I'll just have to track down some 4MB modules. I shall worry about that later however. I am hoping that this is easier to use than the S2000 and if it is, I may well part with the Akai at some stage in the future. I do like the Akai, but the interface is time consuming and it really holds things back. Oddly, I've not really run into much of the firmware instability that they were sometimes known for. I have to wonder if this card will be particularly stable or co-operative because I've sure as hell never seen or heard of one in use before and it seems to require rather a lot of proprietary software. I also wonder just how much it might be nerfed on its own as the company sold different cards that could all work with one another - quite a few studio cards do - and may well have been required for certain things to work. Back on the Akai, they actually did that, and that was a self-contained unit, so many expansions. Funny because they sold the 2000 as a cheaper 1000, it was, but only because it was a 1000 with the guts ripped out and sold separately, for a combined price higher than buying a 1000 in the first place, great workhorse when you have external FX and such though.
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RobW0lf
Posted 2017-05-05 2:48 PM (#556 - in reply to #71)
Subject: RE: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



Chips 386

Posts: 28
25
Location: Wigan, UK
My Geforce 6600 arrived in the mail today, bought it for £8 from a seller in Greece for use in my dual K7 system, though sadly it refuses to work in that board. I don't doubt that it works, the seller seemed trustworthy, but I don't have any other AGP-era boards to my name currently to test the card. My 478 P4 board went up in magic smoke a few weeks back, after refusing to work no matter what I tried. My luck with videocards goes something like this - ATI cards will almost always work, though might have instability and performance issues, Nvidia cards will either not work at all, or work flawlessly.

Edited by RobW0lf 2017-05-05 2:51 PM




(DSCF4675.JPG)



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DXZeff
Posted 2017-05-05 3:48 PM (#559 - in reply to #556)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500100
Location: Hull, UK
Well that's rather disheartening. I'm not sure I have any spare AGP boards left over either, and certainly nothing great if I do, otherwise I'd have offered to send you a spare just for testing.

My luck with video cards varies by era. I've never actually owned a GeForce 6 so I can't speak for those, but I have mixed results with GF4-era cards, for some reason the 5 series always works but they're garbage. ATI cards over that time are, much like you say, either willing to work brilliantly or not at all.
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Brostenen
Posted 2017-05-05 10:25 PM (#561 - in reply to #559)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
5001002525
Well.... My mission is done. I did my last build today, and now I have a collection of machines, wich display the evolution of the PC from the mid 80's to around 2000/2001. (This is some 13 or so computers in total) All the machines are in perfect working condition. In the process, I took some pictures of this Pentium 166 with Voodoo1, S3 Trio64v+ and so on... Even got a ZIP-100 SCSI drive and a controller installed in this machine.

Happy that this is over. I have been working on this project since 2013. :-) Now I need to take pictures of them all and install era correct software.



(P166-01.jpg)



(P166-02.jpg)



(P166-03.jpg)



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Attachments P166-01.jpg (170KB - 528 downloads)
Attachments P166-02.jpg (259KB - 522 downloads)
Attachments P166-03.jpg (194KB - 508 downloads)
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DXZeff
Posted 2017-05-06 1:10 AM (#562 - in reply to #561)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500100
Location: Hull, UK
Not how I would have done things... and that's why I like it.

I wish I had completed my last build, but every time I think everything works, something breaks and I have to start fixing or replacing things. It seems to have improved over the last few years though and I enjoy the task of mending and building anyway, so as much as I'd like everything to work, I'd miss the challenge if it did.

Nothing useful out of me today, woke up late and had boring things to do. Probably going to do some woodwork tomorrow to get out of the house.

Edited by DXZeff 2017-05-06 1:16 AM
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Brostenen
Posted 2017-05-06 1:19 PM (#564 - in reply to #562)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
5001002525
#DXZeff:

I think the reason why, is that we use our hardware in two different ways. As far as I understand it, you kind of use it more than me. This however is only what I can understand from your video's.
Me on the other hand, use it less. My machines are not powered on for more than a couple of hours each month. Some have not been powered on for more than a month. The reason for that, is my project of creating a kind og personal museum in order to save what I can for historic purpouses. In other words, my collection is more hardware and nostalgic plus historic centric. Than it is about the software (programs and games).

As an example.... I know you do not like voodoo's and will not buy them as such. Well. Unless they are really really cheap. As compared to me, who will buy them and use them just as much as TNT2's or Matrox G400's. This however is only because they have a pure historic value and not for what they deliver that I have bought my Voodoos's. To me, the maddness stops at V3-3500, because of the pure value V4/5's go for these days. The same with GUS cards. Of course I will by a V5 if someone offered it for 30/35 dollars. The same with GUS cards. If history had played out differently, and PowerVR had that same spot as Voodoo have, then I would have had a collection of PowerVR instead, up to around 1999/00.

Edited by Brostenen 2017-05-06 1:36 PM
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486u
Posted 2017-05-08 2:35 AM (#567 - in reply to #71)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



UMC U5S

Posts: 54
2525
I think it's pretty smart to plan for the future with collecting, I just bought a Nvidia 9800 GTX at a very low price and I buy things like this all the time. I figure some day these might be as sought-after as things like Paradise VGA cards are now and thus hard to get when I inevitably become nostalgic for the Win 7 days.
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DXZeff
Posted 2017-05-08 3:23 AM (#568 - in reply to #567)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500100
Location: Hull, UK
I admit that there are a few things I have been holding onto with the sole intention of selling should the prices increase. Mostly I just buy and keep what I need though. I do have a current thing going where I obtained a large lot of hardware that I'm going to fix up and sell to pay for other things that I want, complete with DXZeff branding where appropriate just because.

@Brostenen; Hey, it would be really boring if you built something identical to me. My friend already did that with his Xeon, he occasionally asks me how well mine runs things... go figure.
Again with the I don't like Voodoo cards. I'll cover it properly some day, but it does fascinate me how nobody ever seems to realize I have a near equal dislike for most early 3D accelerators and even then, it's less of a dislike and more just that I don't have much use for them. It is subjective, just as you said, whereby the software I use doesn't utilize any 3D card at all and most of the games I run on hardware that age either render in software mode exclusively, show no discernible difference, or else look better or run better in software mode. Beyond that there's not much that I care about enough to be upset if I have to run it on newer hardware, where it will usually work. Test Drive Off-Road 3 springs to mind, the game is from 1999 and appears to support at least Direct3D and Glide (Only by looking at DLLs as the game sets this up automatically) but it doesn't seem to care about running on vastly newer hardware, to the point where it will work under Windows 7 x64 with a GTX 460.

The short version is - my Pentium II was always meant primarily for music and was going to replace the Athlon 1500+ for that. The K6 was there more as a super fast DOS machine for cases where the K5 wasn't enough, letting me play games like Shadow Warrior or Blood at higher resolutions - oddly, when I recorded the latter, it was done with the (at the time incomplete) Pentium II despite the original plan. Of course now my Pentium III is left carrying the weight of both systems and needs repairs, so I've been stuck doing music with both ancient machines - like that time I had to use the T3200SX and P66 - or a P4 which isn't very good at it and the currently flaky K5. I've actually been working on a track lately, not proving easy and I'm unsure of whether I can finish it properly. I may share it here before completion at some stage, though one thing I can definitely say is, there are many tracks and it's a headache to get the mix to work, especially with the sync issues I have had.

Hey, I'd buy a V5 for $35... And then I'd sell it to you for $40 :P

Edited by DXZeff 2017-05-08 3:35 AM
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Brostenen
Posted 2017-05-08 9:15 PM (#569 - in reply to #568)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
5001002525
YES.... It's alive. It's alive. Picture and that "classic" click in the speaker when turned on.
I bought the parts today and soldered an AV to Composit cable.
Had to settle with a 5-pin DIN plug, as the 8-Pin horse-shoe was not to be found in the electronics store.
If I had the opporturnity to buy an 8-Pin, then I would have crafted a scart cable instead.

Anyway...
The picture quality is not that great, so I think my soldering skills lack something or I missed some shielding
or perhaps I just used too poor quality cables. On the other hand, I wanted to make it cheap.
Because I was only after some quick testing.

Now I need to look into S-Video 2 vga solutions and get an SD2IEC thingy. A couple of joysticks and
my children will experience gaming, exactly like it was in the 80's. On real hardware.



EDIT:
Tested the SID voices, using the code below. Working 100%

10 FORL=54272TO54296:POKEL,0:NEXT:POKE54296,15:GOSUB60
20 POKEW,17:POKEA,9:POKEHF,15:POKELF,35:POKES,128:GOSUB50:GOSUB70
30 POKEW,17:POKEA,9:POKEHF,20:POKELF,40:POKES,128:GOSUB50:GOSUB80
40 POKEW,17:POKEA,9:POKEHF,25:POKELF,50:POKES,128:GOSUB50:GOTO10
50 FORX=1TO2000:NEXTX:RETURN
60 W=54276:A=54277:HF=54273:LF=54272:S=54278:RETURN
70 W=54283:A=54284:HF=54280:LF=54279:S=54285:RETURN
80 W=54290:A=54291:HF=54287:LF=54286:S=54292:RETURN


Tomorrow I will test the filters, using this code:

10 poke54296,15+32 :rem filters: +16=low-pass, +32=band-pass, +64=high-pass
20 forv=1to3:print:print"voice";v:forl=54272to54295:pokel,0:next
30 onvgosub80,90,100:pokehf,15:pokelf,35:pokehp,8:pokelp,0:pokea,9:pokes,128
40 pokew,65:poke54295,2^(v-1)+128:forp=0to1
50 forf=0to2047step9:gosub70:next:forf=2047to0step-9:gosub70:next:next:next
60 forl=54272to54296:pokel,0:next:end
70 printf;"{left} {up}":poke54294,f/8:poke54293,fand7:return
80 w=54276:a=54277:s=54278:hf=54273:lf=54272:hp=54275:lp=54274:return
90 w=54283:a=54284:s=54285:hf=54280:lf=54279:hp=54282:lp=54281:return
100 w=54290:a=54291:s=54292:hf=54287:lf=54286:hp=54289:lp=54288:return


Edited by Brostenen 2017-05-09 12:41 AM




(composit.jpg)



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DXZeff
Posted 2017-05-09 12:53 AM (#570 - in reply to #569)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500100
Location: Hull, UK
I've never really had much desire to RGB my older machines as I'm of the impression that some software was made with RF/Composite in mind. I know for a fact that some Mega Drive games look better with the lesser signal because of how CRT screens worked and the ways in which dithering was used - and it was used in such ways deliberately. I suspect the C64 is the same. Always nice to have the option though and I'm glad it works.

Haven't really touched a computer today, sick of bashing my arms on the radiator and as they don't work, and they won't be fixed, I have started pulling them out. Brand new install, condemned before it was ever switched on and yet it has managed to rust and sludge up inside, making it difficult to drain. Luckily I have methods for dealing with such problems.

Edited by DXZeff 2017-05-09 12:54 AM
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DXZeff
Posted 2017-05-11 2:13 AM (#574 - in reply to #570)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500100
Location: Hull, UK
Did you know...

...AMD once had a motherboard produced which used the Elan SC520, a 486 SoC based on the Am5x86, in ATX form factor?

This was a development board and practically no record exists, but it is included in the SC520 Technical Details so at least one existed at some point.
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RobW0lf
Posted 2017-05-14 1:58 AM (#591 - in reply to #71)
Subject: RE: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



Chips 386

Posts: 28
25
Location: Wigan, UK
Grabbed this board for a cheap price, comes with a free Sempron 2600+ processor, should be fun to play around with. Lacks ISA but might end up being used as a fast MS-DOS system as my Pentium II 450 system is sadly dead. I've heard of people using bridge-chip based 6600s on these boards, if mine plays nicely with it I'll have a pretty nice system for a very cheap price. I need to tidy my room quite badly, I barely have the room for my main i5 rig, let alone my other systems... I've also been keeping my eye out for Trinitron CRTs on local listings, my main shitty Dell LCD is awful and I'm getting sick of it and can't really afford a good LCD currently, but sadly nobody seems to have any good CRTs anymore. All I really come across are shitty 14inch generic monitors, really regretting how I passed on two Sony branded Trinitron CRTs in 2014 from an internship, I didn't feel like having to lug a 20' CRT through a busy town centre after a stressful day of work, I regret not doing so a lot.



(Selection_001.png)



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Attachments Selection_001.png (59KB - 508 downloads)
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DXZeff
Posted 2017-05-15 12:28 AM (#592 - in reply to #591)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500100
Location: Hull, UK
For that price you can't go wrong if it works. There are at least a few sound cards that should run under DOS, or a 98 DOS BOX if not, for such a machine anyway. Though it would also make for a lovely fast Win9X/Win2K machine in general.

I know all about space constraints, my house is barely more than 50 square meters.

Don't dismiss generic CRTs so quickly, some of them are actually pretty good for what they are. LG models were cheap but usually offered a good picture, Sony Trinitrons though, whole different ball game and I love mine. My friend occasionally looks on in awe with a "Woah, that's so crisp." when I'm using it at higher resolutions, simply a beautiful monitor that no LCD I have ever seen can live up to.

Also, good to see you making progress on the Athlon MP in the other thread.

Haven't had time to do anything much as of late, have been stuck doing woodwork. Seems like the poll results are in though, K6 way ahead and I'll let you in on a secret - I'm glad, because some of the other videos on the list needed extra hardware I don't have yet and others would require digging up things that are currently stored away. I would have done this anyway, wouldn't have put the options in the poll if I wasn't willing to, but the K6 is by far the easiest because it's already sat next to the desk anyway. Something broke in there, but it is a relatively unimportant peripheral and I did say it was unreliable, so things will go ahead as planned.

Also delaying the K5 rebuild as I've decided to go for SCSI. I may still testbed the rest of it in the mean time, but that's about it until I get parts.

Edited by DXZeff 2017-05-15 2:39 AM
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DXZeff
Posted 2017-05-16 12:10 AM (#597 - in reply to #592)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500100
Location: Hull, UK
As I mentioned in Amazing Kariios' thread (http://forum.dxzeff.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=31) the Terratec Maestro 32/96 has been recorded playing back some generic MIDIs;


It's an odd card, you can re-route the MIDI-Out and any MIDI Input is passed to the Dream chip without software intervention. Generally offers a wide feature set and comes with its own applications. It has an FX unit which actually hooks up the the FM synth too. The drivers also install without complaint, which is a first for anything I've owned made in Germany - seriously, what's the deal with German PC parts makers back then and including broken installers? - so that was nice. The applications aren't even that bad, the media rack looks very similar to the one C-Media used in later years aside from some card specific things.

Overall, I would probably keep using this card if I didn't need it for recording. Unfortunately the inputs are just too noisy and the MIDI output has problems with SysEx (Something Terratec actually did disclose) so it just isn't fitting here. Here's hoping I can find it a use later on as I'd rather not have to part with it. Perhaps a good candidate to replace an AWE64 somewhere, maybe the one in the K6... Hmm... guess I'd better get to work on that K6 stuff soon.

Edited by DXZeff 2017-05-16 12:15 AM
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waybacktech
Posted 2017-05-16 4:10 PM (#598 - in reply to #597)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



IDT WinChip

Posts: 237
10010025
Location: USA
How is the SB compatibility on the Maestro?
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DXZeff
Posted 2017-05-17 2:06 AM (#604 - in reply to #598)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500100
Location: Hull, UK
Not too bad actually, the CS4232 is used for that and works as well as any other card with that chip. It will run Crystal Dream (A demo which has very flaky SB Pro detection) so that's a plus and it will work with normal Crystal drivers - though you can't use the card's extra features that way. The wavetable chip can be used in DOS with the Terratec drivers when configured to route MIDI that way, because as far as the system is concerned, it is plugged into the external MIDI port at that point.

I am fairly certain I got FM music and SB sound effects in Duke Nukem II, but memory was sometimes tight due to needing the TSR loaded.


New K5 board works. Even with the latest BIOS it has the interesting quirk of reporting the actual CPU speed, 117MHz, as opposed to the P-rating. This does not bother me as it's clearly intentional and it works anyway, just not something I've seen before on boards which actually support the processor. The BIOS is nice and overall, whilst I haven't used the board properly yet, it definitely reminds me of my old TMC (My original K5 board, not that flaky one running my K6) which is nice, because I always missed that one. SCSI card should be here in a couple of days and I can maybe get it running. The only gripe so far is I've had to sacrifice the PS/2 header, no space for it, I might be able to work around this later on if it becomes a problem.

Edited by DXZeff 2017-05-17 2:08 AM
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waybacktech
Posted 2017-05-17 3:49 AM (#605 - in reply to #604)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with



IDT WinChip

Posts: 237
10010025
Location: USA
I was wondering because I have come across these cards on ebay and wondered if they were as nice as they looked. Certainly the price is up there, but not at GUS levels. MIDI sounds pretty good to me.

I've got a bit of chaos going on right now. Tried consolidating the video editor and capture boxes into 1 and that didn't go over very well, mainly because Windows 7 doesn't seem to want to migrate over to the Xeon board from the I7 it was installed on. Linux has no clue what to do with my capture cards so OBS doesn't see them under Manjaro unfortunately. I have a new case on order for the dual xeon. As much as I like the Phanteks P400, it really lacks in proper cooling for such a heavy heat system which is mainly due to the FB-ECC ram installed on top of the dual xeon's. Thermaltake View 31 Dual Tempered Glass is what I have chosen. I looked at a corsair one but it went out of stock of course, but I think the Thermaltake will be a better case.

I am also working on a S939 project, probably not a quick project, but I have the motherboard purchased. I am looking for an FX-60 or an Opteron 185 for this build. I would love an Opteron 190, however those appear to have been made of unicorn shit and I am not really sure how many actually were produced. Prices of the FX-60 seem a little high for me right now but that is the processor I ultimately want for this build, but the opteron 185 would be a good fall back choice if I found it for cheaper. Time being I've got X2's, including a 3800 that came with the board so I might run one of those till I acquire the FX-60. I may pick up, if I don't already have one, an A64 4000+ chip as those are dirt cheap and are basically an FX-53 and are said to overclock very well.

Anyway here is a picture of the case...



(11-133-335-V16.jpg)



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Attachments 11-133-335-V16.jpg (102KB - 478 downloads)
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