What retro things have you done today?

paradigm · 14 Apr 2021 at 08:13

Yeah 6800 AGP are insane, also if you plan on using Windows 9x/ME then you’d have to use hacked drivers. Top end for 9x/ME is FX5000 series, but as well all know the FX Series was not only cack, but also £££

I’ve got a 6800 Xtreme and a 7900GS AGP, and whilst great cards in their own right, then don’t deserve the price premium over their PCIe counterparts. Would have made more sense to switch out for a Socket 775 P4 or a 939 A64.

phatboy · 14 Apr 2021 at 08:19

paradigm said:
Yeah 6800 AGP are insane, also if you plan on using Windows 9x/ME then you’d have to use hacked drivers. Top end for 9x/ME is FX5000 series, but as well all know the FX Series was not only cack, but also £££

I’ve got a 6800 Xtreme and a 7900GS AGP, and whilst great cards in their own right, then don’t deserve the price premium over their PCIe counterparts. Would have made more sense to switch out for a Socket 775 P4 or a 939 A64.

One of the exact leadtek AGP A400 6800le cards I wanted went on here for £14 in someone's clear out thread and I missed it by seconds, still absolutely gutted

Going to keep my eyes peeled for a bit but failing that I do have a gigabyte G41 matx board in the garage with a Q8300 in it I might end up making use of at some point if getting a card is so much cheaper

cee-S-dee · 14 Apr 2021 at 10:18

paradigm said:
Yeah 6800 AGP are insane, also if you plan on using Windows 9x/ME then you’d have to use hacked drivers. Top end for 9x/ME is FX5000 series, but as well all know the FX Series was not only cack, but also £££

I’ve got a 6800 Xtreme and a 7900GS AGP, and whilst great cards in their own right, then don’t deserve the price premium over their PCIe counterparts. Would have made more sense to switch out for a Socket 775 P4 or a 939 A64.

Your right for 7800 series onwards but the 6800 was supported in Windows 98 from driver version 61.67 onward. I think the only card which is not Supported without hacked drivers is the 6800GS

paradigm · 14 Apr 2021 at 10:21

cee-S-dee said:
Your right for 7800 series onwards but the 6800 was supported in Windows 98 from driver version 61.67 onward. I think the only card which is not Supported without hacked drivers is the 6800GS

Whilst this is true, you lose a lot of older game compatibility with anything newer than the 4x.xx detenators.

Reliably, the fastest cards for 9x are the FX5000 series and Quadro FX1000/2000/3000 cards.

phatboy · 14 Apr 2021 at 11:36

paradigm said:
Are all the caps looking good? Any bulging? It’s more than possible that using such an old card has killed a cap. I’d probably also look for any damage to the PCB itself as well as for any dry/cracked solder joints.

Are there any signs of life at all? If you boot with another card present as well, can you see the dead one in device manager, or in DOS can a BIOS flash util see the dead card?

So all the caps are looking fine on the card after another look. I have just booted up the system on a PCI (that i thought was dead!...WIN) card and i do have a "VGA controller" showing there along side the MX4000 PCI. Just installed the ATI drivers to see if it comes to life......nope, nothing

Update - system is now in some crazy blue screen 7E boot loop after installing those....joy!

LewisRaz · 14 Apr 2021 at 11:44

Does anyone know if a usb - PS2 adapter will work on a kvm switch? This microsoft mouse is nice but... The accuracy of the ball is not.

Kurgen · 14 Apr 2021 at 13:16

LewisRaz said:
Does anyone know if a usb - PS2 adapter will work on a kvm switch? This microsoft mouse is nice but... The accuracy of the ball is not.

can you not just get a PS2 LED mouse ?

Armageus · 14 Apr 2021 at 13:24

LewisRaz said:
Does anyone know if a usb - PS2 adapter will work on a kvm switch? This microsoft mouse is nice but... The accuracy of the ball is not.

I can't say for definite, but a decent branded mouse (e.g. Microsoft) that ships with a USB-PS2 adapter should be fine (as they are designed to support both)

The "Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse" we had been ordering at work for a long time, always used to come with the adapters

Ravenger · 14 Apr 2021 at 14:09

Took delivery of a Memopak 16k for my battered ZX81 (Trying to source a more pristine ZX81 at the moment). That's a very special peripheral for me as my ZX81 had one of those instead of the Sinclair wobbly ram pack. It's nice to see the machine looking more like the one I had as a schoolkid.

phatboy · 14 Apr 2021 at 16:11

Wow! I was highest bidder on an untested x1950 agp on eBay until 4 seconds where it got 3 bids and jumped to 23 quid from 6!

Ah well lol

LewisRaz · 14 Apr 2021 at 16:29

phatboy said:
Wow! I was highest bidder on an untested x1950 agp on eBay until 4 seconds where it got 3 bids and jumped to 23 quid from 6!

Ah well lol

Thats annoying. I really wish ebay would outlaw sniping. (of course you can try it manually, but a jump like that is clearly a snipe)

Finished my little edit I was working on last night.

Not really interesting content at all just some good practice working under a tripod and lights and then the editing etc afterwards. Happy with the resulting quality. (this was done at night on an iphone 12mini with a couple of studio lights)

phatboy · 14 Apr 2021 at 17:27

LewisRaz said:
Thats annoying. I really wish ebay would outlaw sniping. (of course you can try it manually, but a jump like that is clearly a snipe)

Finished my little edit I was working on last night.

Not really interesting content at all just some good practice working under a tripod and lights and then the editing etc afterwards. Happy with the resulting quality. (this was done at night on an iphone 12mini with a couple of studio lights)

yeah it gets on my nerves no end when it happens! Ah well. I am actually so impressed with how well the 6600GT is doing in the 64 box so just going to leave it in there I think.

Managed to get just under 200MHz overclock out of the Newcastle too, which is apparently quite good going lol

That video of the X2 is seriously good and you should be proud of that. I hope you don't mind, I have shared it with my boss as he is a complete tech lover too and will love how its done. Also mentioned we could learn something for our videos from it too!

paradigm · 14 Apr 2021 at 18:57

Ordered a £4.99 Microsoft Intellimouse that’s marked as Serial capable on the back, being 12v/-12v signalling compatible.

Fingers crossed that’s the 486 build complete, well once the cache stick arrives that is.

Kurgen · 14 Apr 2021 at 20:07

messed up my windows 98 PC tried to install dos on a 256mb CF, halfway through install said video out of range. so assume its some dos resolution not supported by a VGA monitor. i accidentaly fdisk my drive D and now it only has half the capacity, will have to try and sort the CF card out in a windows 10 pc

LewisRaz · 15 Apr 2021 at 08:51

Tried to play settlers 2 on my Dell 486 but it ran like crap. Not sure what was up there as I meet all the requirements. Was not even close to playable.

Guest2 · 15 Apr 2021 at 09:34

LewisRaz said:
Thats annoying. I really wish ebay would outlaw sniping. (of course you can try it manually, but a jump like that is clearly a snipe)

My dads an antique dealer and in the past someone kept sniping every item he was bidding on. He got annoyed and thought, "screw it" and bid £2000 on an item worth around £100 in the last few seconds. The snipe guy ended up winning it for £2050 so must have had unlimited amounts on items or at least ones my dad was also bidding on

phatboy · 15 Apr 2021 at 09:36

Guest2 said:
My dads an antique dealer and in the past someone kept sniping every item he was bidding on. He got annoyed and thought, "screw it" and bid £2000 on an item worth around £100 in the last few seconds. The snipe guy ended up winning it for £2050 so must have had unlimited amounts on items or at least ones my dad was also bidding on

HAHA That is class!

Takes the edge off my bitterness a bit

phatboy · 15 Apr 2021 at 09:38

In my news this morning, despite the exceptionally limited overclocking features on my board the Athlon 64 is now at 2006 MHz! so thats Athlon 3000+ and a little bit performance. That will do me.

Because the Akasa tower cooler is such complete overkill the temps haven't changed at all lol

cee-S-dee · 15 Apr 2021 at 21:26

My EISA IDE Cache controller turned up today so I could start to put together a new 486 build. 20mb ram and a Cirrus Logic GD5429 2mb VLB card and the Cache controller which has 4mb on it. It has a DX2 66 installed and from my very brief testing doom appeared to run really quite smooth. need to get some benches done to see how it really performs.

Quite looking forward to completing this one, EISA builds don't seem to be all that common.

LewisRaz · 16 Apr 2021 at 00:32

cee-S-dee said:
My EISA IDE Cache controller turned up today so I could start to put together a new 486 build. 20mb ram and a Cirrus Logic GD5429 2mb VLB card and the Cache controller which has 4mb on it. It has a DX2 66 installed and from my very brief testing doom appeared to run really quite smooth. need to get some benches done to see how it really performs.

Quite looking forward to completing this one, EISA builds don't seem to be all that common.

Looking good. Really dont see many EISA so that is a nice change!

I guess the only thing left is to choose a soundcard?

Theme hospital soundtrack now up if anyone wants to take a look: