Show off your old and retro computer parts

[SimplyChunk]

1 hour ago, Bitter said:

School...go figure

the same school that tried to fob us off that 'Turbo Pascal' was the best basis for a career in programming

[SimplyChunk]

Finally got Munt to work with DOSBox!!!!

 

Here's a vid of it playing the Monkey Island 2 intro  

 

 

One step closer to having MT-32 compatibility for Frog     

[luckybob77]

20 hours ago, Bitter said:

Mmmm token ring. You'll probably need some terminators or an actual literal ring of cable lol.

 

That is NOT token ring.  Its older than that.  Its called IBM Twinax.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinaxial_cabling

 

And it makes sense for a school to still be using that into the 90's as the massive IBM machines it plugged into were ultra-expensive.  

 

If you want to see token ring, i have token ring....  in a box...  in storage.... because its a bitch and a half to setup, where as ethernet is plug-and-play. (effectively)

[SimplyChunk]

2 hours ago, luckybob77 said:

 

That is NOT token ring.  Its older than that.  Its called IBM Twinax.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinaxial_cabling

 

And it makes sense for a school to still be using that into the 90's as the massive IBM machines it plugged into were ultra-expensive.  

 

If you want to see token ring, i have token ring....  in a box...  in storage.... because its a bitch and a half to setup, where as ethernet is plug-and-play. (effectively)

Nerd!  (only joking)

[da na]

2 hours ago, luckybob77 said:

 

That is NOT token ring.  Its older than that.  Its called IBM Twinax.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinaxial_cabling

 

And it makes sense for a school to still be using that into the 90's as the massive IBM machines it plugged into were ultra-expensive.  

 

If you want to see token ring, i have token ring....  in a box...  in storage.... because its a bitch and a half to setup, where as ethernet is plug-and-play. (effectively)

Talked to my computer science teacher who set the network up sometime around late 80s-early 90s. This connected several computers to an IBM AS/400 mainframe. He recalled (not so fondly) getting shocked by the DC voltage of exposed connectors when performing maintenance on a live network.

 

[SimplyChunk]

Munt even works as a Sound Canvas in Duke3D.  ok it's 'working' cause the MT-32 wasn't General Midi unlike it's Sound Canvas equivalent...but it still kinda sounds...right

 

[luckybob77]

On 9/13/2023 at 4:15 PM, ChonkerFox said:

Munt even works as a Sound Canvas in Duke3D.  ok it's 'working' cause the MT-32 wasn't General Midi unlike it's Sound Canvas equivalent...but it still kinda sounds...right

 

https://www.roland.com/us/support/by_product/all/general_apps_tools/508451ba-ab7a-44bb-979c-a4097dfe1142/

 

That should help.  I haven't used it myself, as the system my MT32 hasn't been completed.  I did just win the auction for the memory and video card.  Both should arrive this month from Sweden and Germany, respectfully.  Its taken me a good decade, but my pentium 1 machine will soon be complete.

 

there is also a metric fuckload of info about the MT-32 here.  https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ultimate-roland-mt-32-tutorial.html

[SimplyChunk]

25 minutes ago, luckybob77 said:

https://www.roland.com/us/support/by_product/all/general_apps_tools/508451ba-ab7a-44bb-979c-a4097dfe1142/

 

That should help.  I haven't used it myself, as the system my MT32 hasn't been completed.  I did just win the auction for the memory and video card.  Both should arrive this month from Sweden and Germany, respectfully.  Its taken me a good decade, but my pentium 1 machine will soon be complete.

 

there is also a metric fuckload of info about the MT-32 here.  https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ultimate-roland-mt-32-tutorial.html

yeah.  the video you quoted was just in DOSBox with Munt.  I've got a tiny form factor lenovo PC coming which i'm gonna run Munt on and connect that through the gameport midi of the awe64 in my P3 machine.  I'll also be running another general midi program on it for GM stuff

[Beerzerker]

Setting up for some "Angry benching".
Yep - I'm kinda pissed off ATM but this should help me to unwind and I'll be following these simple, EZ steps:

1: Set it up.
2: Setup the OS and tweak it.

3: Pour a stiff drink.
4: Add voltage

5: Pour a stiffer drink.
6: Add moar voltage.
7: Lather, rinse and repeat steps 5-6 as needed or until it fries and dies.



 

 

[SimplyChunk]

6 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

Setting up for some "Angry benching".
Yep - I'm kinda pissed off ATM but this should help me to unwind and I'll be following these simple, EZ steps:

1: Set it up.
2: Setup the OS and tweak it.

3: Pour a stiff drink.
4: Add voltage

5: Pour a stiffer drink.
6: Add moar voltage.
7: Lather, rinse and repeat steps 5-6 as needed or until it fries and dies.



 

 

If you kill the board before the chip let me know.  I got a gigabyte 990FXA UD5 i can send you

[Beerzerker]

On 9/15/2023 at 8:19 PM, ChonkerFox said:

If you kill the board before the chip let me know.  I got a gigabyte 990FXA UD5 i can send you

The offer is appreciated but nothing bad happened, the system is alive and well after I ran it frozen for a couple of hours.

Volted it up, ran it hard and found out the chip I was using (Phenom II X4 975 BE) is a decent one but not like you'd reallly want it to be when competing against others using the same thing. 
Goes over 6GHz with ease but seems to wall quickly too. 

I credit some of the results to the mods I made to the pot so it would handle heat loads better and it did show with how stable the chip was during all this, esp when I was running all 4 cores hard.
It's a rev 1 pot so I'm not sure if all I did can be applied to later versions of a T-Rex with the design changes made with later versions of it.

[Kilrah]

iMac's now upgraded with a 160GB HDD and 512MB RAM (from 13GB / 128MB), dual boot OS 9.2 and OSX 10.3.9, has new speakers to replace the rotten original ones and a companion 4th gen iPod

Funnily the 20GB iPod HDD is bigger than the one in the iMac originally was... 5 years inbetween though.

 

 

 

 

The iPod had this on it...

 

 

[Dabombinable]

Palomino Duron really aren't that common. My "new" 1300:

It has additional L2 and L9 bridges, so maybe I will be able to unlock the final 192KB L2 cache. Not attempting the multiplier unlock as its mobo only does FSB overclocking.

[Dabombinable]

Even with the latest BIOS however...mobo is still confused:

Edit: Model 6 is Palomino, Model 7 Morgan. This explains the erroneous claim for 200MHz FSB Athlon XP 1500+ support on some of Gigabyte's KT133* based motherboards - these oddball Duron with the Palomino core that confuse the BIOS.
Because from what I understand, no one has seen 200MHz Palomino Athlon XP in the wild that weren't low power models (SFF).

[SimplyChunk]

So..My DA-15 Game port to Midi cable came.  Along with my couplers.  I received the USB to Midi a few days ago.  I've gotten the Lenovo M92 mini PC up and running with Windows 11 and Munt 32.  I plugged the Game port end of the DA-15 in to my AWE64.  The other end I added the two 5 pin couplers.  Then I plugged the Midi In on the DA-15 to the Midi Out on the USB to Midi lead.  Then the Midi Out on the DA-15 to the Midi In on the USB lead.  Plugged that in to the mini PC and fired up Munt 32.

 

I turned on 'Frog' and let it go in to Windows 98 then restarted in DOS MODE.  After it had restarted I put the Monkey Island 1 and 2 CD in the drive.  Loaded setup app and selected 'Roland' on Port '330' and saved it.  I then selected Monkey Island 2 from the menu and......

 

 

..THIS    

 

 

A few seconds later...

 

THIS     

 

Glorious Roland MT-32 Midi emulation!!!!

[Skyesgaming]

29 minutes ago, ChonkerFox said:

Glorious Roland MT-32 Midi emulation!!!!

Congrats hun! 

I know you've worked so hard on this to get it where it is today and I'm so happy to see the progress you've made. 

[Beerzerker]

2 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

Palomino Duron really aren't that common. My "new" 1300:

It has additional L2 and L9 bridges, so maybe I will be able to unlock the final 192KB L2 cache. Not attempting the multiplier unlock as its mobo only does FSB overclocking.

Good luck with these, I have a few myself and some good boards too but these would be perfect in my old Soyo.
Speaking of Pally's I did have a Pally XP 2000+ in the Soyo when I first got it, if I still have it I'll need to get the numbers off that chip and make 100% sure what it was.

[SimplyChunk]

So I also got General midi to work through the same setup using a fork of Bass Midi called Omni Midi and Midi Ox.  I'm getting some vicious slow down though which I know isn't on the PIII end.  I'm guessing 4GB of RAM just isn't enough for Windows 11.  So I've got 2x4GB sticks for 2 quid each at CEX.  I also for 2 quid picked up an i5 2400 they had.  So if the RAM upgrade doesn't fix the slow downs then that definitely will The AUX cable is going to go out the headphone jack on the Munt machine into line-in on the AWE64 so I can mix the sounds out the same speaker out on the sound card

[Dabombinable]

8 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

Good luck with these, I have a few myself and some good boards too but these would be perfect in my old Soyo.
Speaking of Pally's I did have a Pally XP 2000+ in the Soyo when I first got it, if I still have it I'll need to get the numbers off that chip and make 100% sure what it was.

I had to check again with my mobile Duron 1300 as well (needs a board that allows adjustable CPU multiplier however) to ensure it was what I'd asked for- because the image was generic Duron, and certainly not a cut-down mobile Athlon XP. Funnily enough this 1300 runs cooler than the Duron 1000 despite having an extra 14W on its TDP.

[Beerzerker]

21 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

I had to check again with my mobile Duron 1300 as well (needs a board that allows adjustable CPU multiplier however) to ensure it was what I'd asked for- because the image was generic Duron, and certainly not a cut-down mobile Athlon XP. Funnily enough this 1300 runs cooler than the Duron 1000 despite having an extra 14W on its TDP.

Better silicon is why that is.
Lesser quality silicon is obviously used for lesser chip models and the 1000 didn't make the cut to be anything else higher.

You can find an Asus A7N8X Deluxe 2.0 to see what it could probrably do. If what you spot is a 1.04version, leave it because it's not as capable as the 2.0 version is.
You can tell what version it is by looking between the PCI slots, under the second slot and see the board's model and version.


Stay away from the 1.04 and "X" versions along with others you may happen across.
Either a Deluxe 2.0 or A7N8X-E will do by name, all others should be left where you saw them out of the A7N8X line and there are several variants of the A7N8X out there.

[Dabombinable]

2 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

Better silicon is why that is.
Lesser quality silicon is obviously used for lesser chip models and the 1000 didn't make the cut to be anything else higher.

You can find an Asus A7N8X Deluxe 2.0 to see what it could probrably do. If what you spot is a 1.04version, leave it because it's not as capable as the 2.0 version is.
You can tell what version it is by looking between the PCI slots, under the second slot and see the board's model and version.


Stay away from the 1.04 and "X" versions along with others you may happen across.
Either a Deluxe 2.0 or A7N8X-E will do by name, all others should be left where you saw them out of the A7N8X line and there are several variants of the A7N8X out there.

No joke, I was going to get one of those boards, but since the seller made an error in their listing I ended up with an Asrock KT400 based board. Which was a blessing in a way as it proved rock solid and compatible with ESS Solo-1 for my mum's retro PC. BIOS is basic AF next to my MSI KT600 board however.

It's really hard to quantify the quality of Palomino and Morgan Duron against each other. I do know however that the Palomino core was made at AMD's plant that used copper while the Morgan core was manufactured at a plant that still used aluminium (Intel's Coppermine was meant to trick people into thinking it was manufactured using the more advanced copper process - it wasn't). And that is easy to confirm due to the colour of the light reflected by the die - different compounds used during polishing.

[Beerzerker]

3 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

No joke, I was going to get one of those boards, but since the seller made an error in their listing I ended up with an Asrock KT400 based board. Which was a blessing in a way as it proved rock solid and compatible with ESS Solo-1 for my mum's retro PC. BIOS is basic AF next to my MSI KT600 board however.

It's really hard to quantify the quality of Palomino and Morgan Duron against each other. I do know however that the Palomino core was made at AMD's plant that used copper while the Morgan core was manufactured at a plant that still used aluminium (Intel's Coppermine was meant to trick people into thinking it was manufactured using the more advanced copper process - it wasn't). And that is easy to confirm due to the colour of the light reflected by the die - different compounds used during polishing.

Sorry to hear you coudn't get one but they are good boards.

I can quantify a Morgan vs a Pally, the Pally's were just better since they were newer.
I've seen Pally's do FSB speeds a Morgan can't touch and naturally so. As far as specs overall they are more or less identical but many Pally's can do 166FSB with ease, Morgams don't like going that high on the bus for the most part but some can.  IIRC the stock FSB for a Pally is 133 and a Morgan's is either 100 or 133, I want to say a few Pally's had a stock FSB speed of 166 too but ATM I can't confirm that.

It's been awhile since I've messed around with mine.

[Dabombinable]

23 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

Sorry to hear you coudn't get one but they are good boards.

I can quantify a Morgan vs a Pally, the Pally's were just better since they were newer.
I've seen Pally's do FSB speeds a Morgan can't touch and naturally so. As far as specs overall they are more or less identical but many Pally's can do 166FSB with ease, Morgams don't like going that high on the bus for the most part but some can.  IIRC the stock FSB for a Pally is 133 and a Morgan's is either 100 or 133, I want to say a few Pally's had a stock FSB speed of 166 too but ATM I can't confirm that.

It's been awhile since I've messed around with mine.

I have actually successfully run my 2nd (lost the PC's OG) Duron 1000 on the MSI KT6V-LSR with a 333MHz FSB. It was stable but performance didn't increase much over it being in the KT133E board (and that's with DDR 400 @ 200/266/333MHz vs 133MHz SDRAM). I saw more performance with Gigabyte's easy tune utility and a 10 percent OC (via FSB overclocking).

Spoiler

Unfortunately, it just couldn't do a 400MHz FSB (while still being 1000MHz) as I couldn't get the multiplier low enough. From what I understand, Palomino only went up to 133MHz FSB (stock). Shame I don't know where my Athlon XP 1800+ is (it was with the OG Duron 1K) as it is possible to multiplier unlock, and I'd have liked to get it running on the 400MHz FSB @ 2GHz (matching the clock of the Sempron 2800+).

[Cringe_Master245]

Old Dell Inspiron 620 

I3 2100

No gpu

6 GB ddr3

1 tb HDD(don't know speed)

Old HP Compaq  d530 CMT

Pentium 4

512 MB ram

Unknown nVidia gpu

80 GB HDD

60 GB HDD

 

 

[Dabombinable]

6 hours ago, Cringe_Master245 said:

Old Dell Inspiron 620 

I3 2100

No gpu

6 GB ddr3

1 tb HDD(don't know speed)

Old HP Compaq  d530 CMT

Pentium 4

512 MB ram

Unknown nVidia gpu

80 GB HDD

60 GB HDD

 

 

The videocard is a Quadro 4 100:

NVIDIA Quadro4 100 NVS AGP specs (gpuzoo.com)
You'll need the breakout cable if you want to use it however - the downside to a fair few OEM parts.