Posted 2018-03-18 1:51 PM (#1183 - in reply to #1182) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 618 Location: Hull, UK
Hard drives replaced, just in time too, the original drives are completely dead now. Anyway, fuck CloneZilla for throwing a fit and refusing to clone to a differently sized disk, even when the volumes being cloned are smaller than the destination disk, as well as not being able to write to RAID volumes whatsoever, wish I'd known about that when I started using it, Ghost used to handle it fine and that was nearly three decades ago now. Sometimes I swear computer technology is going backwards.
Regardless, the server is back, it should be for a while (these are Seagate drives, so expect them to break in six months, could have sworn I ordered WD ones) and it should also load things a little faster. Response time (not load time) might be longer though as the mirroring setup I now have to use isn't too quick and it can take a while to get moving, it should improve a little with time though as the system is still poking the drives contents around a bit.
Ah, well, have things to do here involving Pentium II's, VCRs and cameras, so I suppose I should go and do those things.
Posted 2018-03-30 7:15 PM (#1190 - in reply to #1183) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 618 Location: Hull, UK
For years and years this guy on eBay has listed a broken CPU over and over, I have no interest in it at all, but it has tags which match a saved search so I get e-mails telling me it's there every so often. I decided to see what else he had for sale, on a whim, and noticed he had two ECS boards, the 430VX and 430TX counterparts to my TR5510 and SI55P boards. This wasn't so interesting to me as I didn't really want them or anything, but it was neat to see them, then I noticed something...
That's interesting, it comes with some stuff...
This is a different version of the card to the one I had, but it does look distinctively similar, almost like a later revision from the same place. It lacks the MONO_OUT and the ZV_PORT, but the latter wasn't populated on my original card and the former has no place to mount a speaker in this case anyway. It does also lack the matching transformer, but it definitely looks like the SPDIF is coming from the YMF724 and not using some crappy ADC+Glue to convert the analog signal like the 'YMF744" was. With any luck I've just found a working card.
Question now is what happens to the TBS Pinnacle? It might be able to stay in there, but the drivers for it do interfere with other cards. Win98SE needs a reinstall anyway, though, so that can be tested before said reinstall.
Posted 2018-04-01 10:08 PM (#1191 - in reply to #71) Subject: RE: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
Intel P5
Posts: 68 Location: N.E. Pennsylvania USA
My Latest Purchase on E-Bay for $30.00 ASUS P5-A AMD K6-2 300 8Mg PCI Video card and ESS ISA Sound Card. Everything works so far.
Maybe a Windows 95 Build?
Posted 2018-04-02 11:46 PM (#1192 - in reply to #1191) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 618 Location: Hull, UK
Windows 95C would probably be a good candidate if you don't want to run 98SE on it. Looks like some decent kit, ATX form factor too and you don't find many good ones like that now, most of them are AT boards. I'd want to look for an AGP video card down the line but it's not a requirement.
Meanwhile I'm still waiting for that stuff and this server is still running on a PSU which is drifting out of tolerance really fast - temporary fix is not pretty - but a replacement is on the way, probably tomorrow so expect some downtime.
Hoping to get at least two videos done this month to make up for last month being empty, clicked yesterday that the K6 is actually complete now, so that might appear along with some other stuff.
Posted 2018-04-03 4:34 AM (#1193 - in reply to #1192) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
Intel P5
Posts: 68 Location: N.E. Pennsylvania USA
Can`t wait to see your K6 build, need to get another case for the parts i just got and i have a 500 K6-2 i might use.
Really liked that Mullet man video
Posted 2018-04-05 5:01 PM (#1196 - in reply to #71) Subject: RE: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
IDT WinChip
Posts: 237 Location: USA
Mousing around on ebay again. I was looking for a cheap 1080p capture card ( if such a thing exists ) to try out since the Avermedia card I have is so frustratingly picky about refresh rates and resolution, not to mention it does not auto adjust between resolutions very well. So as luck ( as it is ) would have it, I came across what seems to be a very good deal. This DPict 1080p HD frame grabber with the combo VGA/DVI input. These cards are $45 from the guy, while other sellers of the same card are asking 10x more. Why I have no idea but maybe that means this is a good card.
I've build, or rebuilt actually my original Slot A Athlon 550 box, instead of the Viper 770 Ultra card I ran in it back in the day, I am using my Fury MAXX currently. Seems to work really well now that I put a heatsink on the Irongate NB. I don't know why that went missing but I couldn't remember if it came with a heatsink or not, but ya I looked at other SD11 boards and they have the heatsink so... this is one of those things that happens after years of being in a box, things go missing and you forget why! I was having problems completing a run of 3DMARK 2000 with it kicking back to the desktop about halfway through the run, and the missing heatsink was the reason why. I didn't think the NB really got that hot but ya it was getting to about 65c.
Posted 2018-04-07 1:21 AM (#1197 - in reply to #1196) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 618 Location: Hull, UK
@Old Guy 88 - Seems there are a few people in need of cases lately, don't know if they're drying up or if it's just a coincidence. Either way, should be a pretty good system once it's all put together, would be interested to know how the ALi chipset holds up versus an MVP3.
Also thanks, had that video planned for a long time and figured it was worth it for April 1st.
@WaybackTech - Definitely remember you saying about the Aver card being awkward, this dPict looks like a serious piece of equipment. I do have to wonder what the encoding is like, haven't seen a 1080p60 card on a single lane PCI-E interface so I'm guessing it's either limited to 30fps or that it relies on an encoder (probably that big TI chip) for this, either way, as long as it gets a clear image and supports the resolutions.
The server now has its lid back on after a good few (around six) years.
Hopefully it should last a while before needing any more work, it's running new fans, a new PSU (of the correct type) and new hard drives. It is also in a warmer and less damp location now.
Kinda strange going in that room and realizing that most of my boxes still aren't unpacked.
Posted 2018-04-07 2:40 AM (#1198 - in reply to #71) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
Intel P5
Posts: 68 Location: N.E. Pennsylvania USA
Glad to see the Server Fixed
This E-Bay seller in the U.S. has some Interesting old Hardware, not organised you have to scroll through all the pages http://stores.ebay.com/zizigulu/
But that thing looks fine if you're into making VST stuff, as in it looks like every other single-tone-generator VST out there and probably needs a Cray to make actual music with.
Fun fact: I have discovered that the CZ uses a Z80-derived CPU from NEC.
Posted 2018-04-13 5:53 PM (#1213 - in reply to #1204) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
IDT WinChip
Posts: 237 Location: USA
So after figuring out that the support for the Nexeon HD card is severely lacking for what I need it to do, not to mention the "support team" does not replay to their email, I am flipping it on ebay.
Meanwhile, I found this nice big card to try. Looks fun and of professional quality. Terms like "Broadcast Quality" gets me all tingly.
The website has very good support for this card, including Directshow drivers and plugins for Adobe Premier. I have also already done some poking around at people using OBS with this card and it's said to be done, although even the manufacturer admits some of the features of this card are lost when using Directshow. I have a copy of Premier now, trying it on the Nexeon card, also with no luck
Supports 2K capture. The FPS I see come conflicting numbers, some lists claiming 60fps @1080p others showing 60fps only up to 720p. Either way I should be able to get 60fps capture for the resolutions I will be inputting. Anything that requires 1080p I can't imagine will be a vintage computer and would probably be desktop or direct from game capture with OBS, so we shall see what it actually ends up being able to do. Looks promising though. If nothing else, I can always fall back to the Avermedia card.
Posted 2018-04-18 10:22 AM (#1220 - in reply to #1213) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 618 Location: Hull, UK
Hopefully this one turns out to be more suitable than the DPict did, it definitely looks hardcore, I'll give it that.
Recently grabbed this;
Got it cheap in unknown operational status, PC won't boot with it installed, but it may be possible to fix yet as nothing is getting hot or otherwise suggesting there's a serious problem. Owner said it never worked since bought new and I can't help get the feeling there's a short hiding somewhere, so it's going to get thrown under the tap for a while, left to dry, probed for shorts and then tested again.
In the future this won't make sense as I was lazy and linked the eBay picture instead of putting one up on Imgur... of course, in the future, Imgur might go to hell like the other sites did anyway.
Posted 2018-04-24 7:37 PM (#1228 - in reply to #1220) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
IDT WinChip
Posts: 237 Location: USA
I've been getting RIMM'd lately. First board I received about a week ago. It is a dual slot 1 board with the intel 840 rambus chipset for an Compaq AP550 workstation. I also purchased the power supply for this board, but unfortunately I have not been able to get a post out of it. The board turns on, processors get warm, but the only sign of life is one front panel LED flashes steady, about once a second. I am not sure if the LED is power or hard drive, I think power. It is not labeled on the board. I had to look up the power button assembly which houses both LED's so I'd know which plugs were indeed the power button. Anyway that board has been shelved for the time being till I can figure out if it is bad or what the LED flashing means. Speaker is a proprietary thing, so I can't just plug in a normal case speaker, though I think it is amplified which means POST beep codes might get passed out through the onboard sound card, but if that is the case I am not hearing any post codes from external speakers so I really don't know on that one. So far I have been unable to find any mention of this behavior in the manuals for the system. The Compaq AP230 ( single cpu model ) manual lists the power LED flashing once a second as either in suspend mode, or rom error, but I have no way to know if this applies to the AP550 board or not, but either seems like a logical reason for my LED to be flashing. Power supply seems to be putting out the correct voltages, although kind of makes a sizzle sound when power is first applied to it, so I am wondering if the flashing LED is because something else is wrong with the PSU, sort of like how Dell's power button glows orange when their PSU is blown.
Second board, purchased minutes before typing this post actually, it a bit more interesting and something I came across while looking for answers to the above mentioned POST problem.
This interesting board is a dual slot 2 board, also using rambus, a combination I was unaware of ever having existed, though I guess I am not surprised. This board I believe is new enough to run the Xeon processors my other board was unable to run. Both the board and the memory riser card were from the same seller, and both were agreed to my offer of $31 free ship for both. This board is for the Compaq SP750 workstation, the top dog workstation, and big brother of the AP550 and AP230. Problem here is going to be that the power supply is EXPENSIVE AS F*** so this will be unused for some time till I can figure out if I can rig up a power supply or find one eventually for much less than they currently cost, but this board is so unique I figured it would be good to get and hang on to till I can make use of it.
Posted 2018-04-25 7:18 PM (#1230 - in reply to #1228) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
Chips 386
Posts: 37
@waybacktech
I'm just a commoner while speaking of any HW tech, especially new and complex, yet RDRAM looks for me like an opposition (kind of) to HBM memory: high speeds, narrow bus of RDRAM vs lower clock, wide bus of the latter.
I completely forgot about Rambus in P3 systems.
Hope you'll be able to find the cause of the issue with that system. It's a bit strange though that such boards were sold separately from the cases (both MBs & boxes seem proprietary).
Posted 2018-04-26 4:38 PM (#1231 - in reply to #1230) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
IDT WinChip
Posts: 237 Location: USA
twm - 2018-04-25 12:18 PM
@waybacktech
I'm just a commoner while speaking of any HW tech, especially new and complex, yet RDRAM looks for me like an opposition (kind of) to HBM memory: high speeds, narrow bus of RDRAM vs lower clock, wide bus of the latter.
I completely forgot about Rambus in P3 systems.
Hope you'll be able to find the cause of the issue with that system. It's a bit strange though that such boards were sold separately from the cases (both MBs & boxes seem proprietary).
Ya would actually like to have the whole system but seems like those aren't around at this time. I've been thinking something with the memory might be my problem, I am using pc1066/32 stuff, which runs fine on my P4 boards, but I am pretty sure none of them are ECC, and from what I can tell it looks like both boards require ECC RDRAM so that might be where my problem is here. I have some PC800 stuff, but not a full 4 of the same speed, a mix of 40 and 45ns, and I seem to no longer have any CRIMMS so I think I am going to order some ECC RDRAM and see if that fixes my problem. If not, oh well it is only a few bux anyway.
Posted 2018-04-28 12:34 AM (#1234 - in reply to #1220) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
Chips 386
Posts: 37
I got this board around september of 98' - spend my first earned-by-myself money on it.
Still don't know, was it a fair exchange, but a summer month as a boy who glued up posters on billboards - and voila, the MB is mine. As well as an old PC case with power supply.
It's a rainy spring now, 18' (obviously), noisy and quick-passing days. I still have [s]that dusty junk[/s] the board. It works. It feels speedy, and WWW says about 8 KB of cache integrated into the chipset (Doom is still like a syrup anyhow). I quite like it. It's tiny: 22 x 17 cm (~8.5 x 6.5"?) - that makes me... like it more, lol. And I don't remember any problem with it.
I suspect I'm bragging now but... it got my attention this night! Spent a hour or two combining and cleaning the stuff.
Need to prepare a case to settle it in: I'll finish it probably at an upcoming week.
@DXZeff
Life in the Bin is quite awesome, as well as the drawing. I even feel it like a suitable hymn for some day. (And I just got a vision of The Mullet Man playing "Cars" by Numan. Without any reason! But... that's a vision) Sigh, I need to go to sleep, that's for sure.
Posted 2018-04-28 6:58 AM (#1235 - in reply to #1234) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 618 Location: Hull, UK
Whilst I'm not a fan of 486 boards like that, I do think small 386 boards are kinda neat if only because they show how much things change over time - look at how huge the early ones were with DIP chips all over the place. Also, yours seems to support 486DLC chips, so that's always an option. Props for removing the battery.
Mullet Man has played songs in the past, in public, though thanks to having to rush because of an issue with cabling, it got off to a rough start as I opted not to use a chair, having made everyone wait long enough already whilst dealing with said problem. https://youtu.be/L9NixsibJ_E - may as well just skip to the 4:20 marker when the second song starts. I was actually quite glad of the few mistakes in a way, because it proved I was actually playing, their only other synth guy just hits play on a sequencer and presses a few chords every once in a while with some ambient crap, so yeah, with the mistakes it proved to onlookers that the music was being played right then and there, even if it was being done so imperfectly.
Didn't matter too much, it was just done as a joke anyway, a kind of protest to the masses of guitar players who all sing the same songs - I swear, every single one of them would go up there and play 'I see a bad moon rising' at varying degrees of slow. Nonetheless, T3200SX, GM-6, MU90R and CZ-1 operating in public and proving they're still useful. Unfortunately Mullet Man can't sing at the same time as play.
John Foxx - Underpass was meant to be played, but I somehow lost the Cakewalk sequence and couldn't finish Amadeus properly in time.
Life in the bin is meant as a theme for a cartoon I'm supposed to be working, the image is a still frame from it.
Finally decided to bite the bullet and get my hands on a 486 laptop;
Not doing things by half.
This system belonged to Sniffer / Network General, it has two NICs in the ISA slots, one is Ethernet and the other is Token Ring, it was set up as a network sniffer (figures with where it came from) and the drive has been imaged, because otherwise it's the factory install from Toshiba with minimal alterations. I don't trust these Conner drives, this is the only one I've ever seen working and it has a very distinctive tone, have to wonder if it's possible to boot a SCSI one as the interface is exposed internally for CD-ROM drives.
Posted 2018-04-29 6:25 PM (#1238 - in reply to #1235) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
Chips 386
Posts: 37
@DXZeff
That's an extreme performing condition! A torture for your back at least.
Underpass - I like the song, even if someone, including me, may giggle a bit because of... well, you know, it is underpass!!!
Honestly, I can't recognize the 1st song you've played. Yet, it sounds like a catchy pop hit from an early 80s... well, I like new wave, and early synth. Until maybe ~86, when (not everyone but) too many became too crazy with Yamaha FM stuff. I mean, FM synthesis is nice, but it does suck when it lacks of any effect processing IMO.
But I'm chatting mindlessly. Maybe that first melody isn't from John Foxx, so I don't need to feel ashamed, lol. And what is GM-6?
I owned a younger, yet ambitious brother of CZ - VZ-1. Tricky to program, yet a powerful device. Also really solidly built.
I need to expand my dictionary with some synonym of Yet. Nonetheless... yeah, this one is too long to type.
It feels good to see that Casio line isn't forgotten.
PS I feel like you may rock much more with an electronic percussion module to accompaniment (even an analog one!) - some wild drum machine, and a singer nearby. (I'm a bit crazy of a more primitive drum modules. You may have a different look on it, I realise ...still, you may even try MIDI-CV converter with analog one!)
PPS Underpass is a great song to record at home (with an actual singing!) during some boring winter, I believe :)
Hope you'll get both chance, time and furious mood to play live again and to continue your work on the cartoon.
PPPS Just recalled another funny track by Mr Foxx.
BTW, that laptop - does it have ISA slot or some sound card onboard?
Posted 2018-04-30 5:33 AM (#1241 - in reply to #71) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
TM Crusoe
Posts: 618 Location: Hull, UK
@Old Guy 88; Oh, that 'laptop' will appear in the future, there are just things I want to do to it first... terrible things... no, but I would like to see if it can boot from SCSI hard drives as I can't be bothered with Tohiba's bullshit with locking down IDE, the system has an internal SCSI controller which does have a BIOS and the service manual does allude to it supporting hard drives, though it is ambiguous on this subject and talks more about using an internal CD-ROM drive, another feature I intend to add.
@twm; As there's no space for a chair in front of the stand in this house, I'm quite used to playing in that position.
Around here, people commonly replace the word 'underpass' with 'underpants' whenever that song plays.
The first song was 'OMD - Enola Gay' which is a surprisingly well made synth song for its time, a lot of electronic songs from the early 80s are badly constructed and out of tune, though most of those ones have been forgotten about.
Argh, the Yamaha DX7, that was one of the worst things I ever bought and it surely has to be one of the worst things ever made. Everybody complains about the number of songs using the factory sounds, but the truth is that it is nearly impossible to not use them because the interface is horrible, the firmware is unreliable and loading and saving sounds is a chore if you can even get it to work at all. For example, on the Casio CZ, the programming interface is exposed with its own buttons (DCO, DCW, DCA, though the 8-stage EG scares some people, you don't have to use all eight stages though) and it's quite clear what they do, you can write to any slot by pressing only two or three buttons (WRITE+H+3) and if you really mess things up, there is a factory reset feature. To save a sound externally I would either insert a cartridge and simply press the "CARTRIDGE" button before again selecting the slot you want to save to (WRITE+CARTRIDGE+A+1) in this case on the cartridge...
Now where the two synths really differ in this regard is getting program data into a computer. For the CZ, you merely send a SysEx message and listen for a response, such as F0 44 00 00 70 10 00 70 31 (I think) would get me the data in A-1 sent back, and that would be it. The synth would send the program data and I could sent it back again later to restore that sound, you could even do this with the buttons on the synth but what's the point when you can do it all remotely faster.
By contrast, the DX7 cannot do this, there is no button command to send SysEx over MIDI anyway, so we can rule that out. The cartridges are expensive and rare, so good luck finding them (you won't find CZ ones either, but you have less reason to want those because everything just works on that synth anyway, so you may as well use MIDI SysEx instead, as above), the floppy drive is pretty much useless and will usually only work with cartridges anyway for some reason, which leaves you with MIDI SysEx... the problem here, is that the DX7 does not like doing this, often the synth will emit strange shrieking noises and display an error message on the LCD display. Still, let's assume it does work (forget using any of those librarians, they all speak their own language and usually don't work, if you even have the power to run them) and you manage to load or save a program. Now what? Well, you can't load or save only one, you can only perform this operation on the entire bank... of 32 patches... yeah... not good, because if you want to change just one sound, you're going to have to dump the whole bank and somehow merge that other sound in with an external tool on a computer before loading the modified bank. New problem, if writing the bank goes wrong, it corrupts the sounds for that entire bank, rendering it useless... additional problem, Yamaha removed the factory reset and diagnostic tests, so there is no way to restore the synthesizer to its factory state and reload the default sounds without having the original cartridge or getting it to work with a computer which, as we just established, is usually the cause of the problem in the first place. Terrible thing, the synthesis engine itself is pretty horrible too, sounds awful, not worth the effort. I only ever wrote one song on that, in fact it was recycled as the opening to Mullet Man's Mega Drive. Either way, I have no intention of ever touching another DX7 for as long as I live, especially given the US model is prone to earth leakage over time.
The GM-6 is just a Genius branded computer mouse, it's square and has three buttons on it, nothing special.
Haven't worked with the VZ-1 before, but they look pretty cool and sound decent in what limited demonstrations there are out there. The CZ isn't hard to program at all, despite what they say, once you know how to work it, but then I suppose you could say the same about most synthesizers really - it's always easy when you know how. Still, the CZ-1 is the workhorse here and handles the bulk of everything, even things it probably wasn't really supposed to do, I love that synth.
I have a Casio RZ-1 drum machine, though as I couldn't carry it along and load samples on the day, I opted to use the MU90R's drums to save space and time, both are actually really capable if you put the time in, but I was in a hurry and some of the effects were a little sloppy on the MU90R drums this time around. I can't get anybody to sing for me. Also I have no real interest in analog equipment, I can get close enough to fool most people with what I have anyway and I dislike the potential unreliability and cost. The only analog I'd ever own is Prophet 5 Rev.3 and they cost far too much, so it will never happen.
Nonetheless, recording songs is a thing, there is an album in the works, with terrible vocals and a collection of somewhat offensive songs which rip off other songs.
Laptop has sound onboard, seemingly a Windows Sound System compatible, but it is being stubborn in DOS. The system does also provide two ISA slots.
Posted 2018-04-30 11:44 AM (#1243 - in reply to #1241) Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
Chips 386
Posts: 37
You've summarized most of impressions I got while playing with CZ-101 and DX100. It was fun to play with the first one: clear layout - you don't even need a computer to take control of it. So, easy to program and funny results when you've become familiar with its synth engine.
In contrast, I was disappointed of my results with DX100. Got a vision that it's me who is doing something wrong. Yet, those are more than 10 years old impressions by now.
CZ logic quite differs from such in VZ though, you better look for a manual to start with the latter (It's a shame to say, but I even disassembled my VZ to check if a few buttons are broken: after all, they turned out to be fine, that was just a control logic I didn't realise). SysEx patches aren't compatible between those two, yet that's not a problem - you'll build your own bank eventually. And that's not a boring time to go through.
I have some admiration to Sequential Circuits products: got a huge impression when I first met one (Prophet-600). Maybe this is a subjective thing but... that's how I remember it.
Maybe you'll share another live performance with the forum folks (if it will happen in a foreseeable time). Speaking of the laptop - I have some cheap Toshiba 486 from around 95' that needs my attention (broken floppy, probably dying matrix), but it obviously hasn't any sound and full-length expansion slots other than PC Card and some for docking station.
Recently Played/Bought/Messed with
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