I stick a MIF-IPC-A replica in each box so I can easily switch the MPU-401 BOB from one PC to the next (unplug the DB25 and plug it in elsewhere). The MPU-401 BOB has a SC-55ST and MT-32 connected to it (2X MIDI OUT). That makes it super easy. I typically have CT1600 or CT1740s/CT2230s in my boxes.

Played 6 levels of WarCraft 2 - human campaigns yesterday evening. That was a lot of fun. More fun to be had this weekend.

Just spend the day, downloading: All drivers, manuals, BIOS's, CPU-Support-List's, VGA-Support-List's and Win9X/2K/XP/Vista-drivers for all 50 socket 478 Asrock motherboards that are on the Asrock website. Next up! Socket462 from Asrock.
I am now wondering on how, best, to make an "Asrock socket 478 pack" 😀

What a load of downloads... Combined they make up 7.86 gigabyte. Wow 😳

Wow what an effort!

I had fun with it. Actually. I managed to wash all of my dirty clothes and I went to the supermarket too.
So it was not a complete day behind the screen. 😁 Only 12+ hours.

brostenen wrote:

Just spend the day, downloading: All drivers, manuals, BIOS's, CPU-Support-List's, VGA-Support-List's and Win9X/2K/XP/Vista-drivers for all 50 socket 478 Asrock motherboards that are on the Asrock website. Next up! Socket462 from Asrock.
I am now wondering on how, best, to make an "Asrock socket 478 pack" 😀

What a load of downloads... Combined they make up 7.86 gigabyte. Wow 😳

Why?

smeezekitty wrote:

Why?

Well. There is really a lot of mobo's from asrock out there, and eventually asrock will be taking off all them drivers.
Just as nvidia have been taking down the old drivers, and creative as well. And at one point or another, people
will be starting using socket 478 boards as retro hardware, because none of the p3's and earlier are all dead.
And lots of asrock mobo's are generic hardware. Wich means that some of the drivers will be working on boards
from manufactors that are not having drivers avaliable or manufactors that went ouy of bussiness.

I can give you an example.... Were to get a complete driverset for my Epox MVP3 board? Were?
Or...
Try to search the net for an manual and driverset for the Creative Labs MP400 CT-6080 card.

AsRock is a fairly new mobo manufacturer.
They didn't exist before s478/sA. I don't see them removing stuff from their website anytime soom.
Even if they do remove it, there is not exotic hardware in 99% of the motherboards of that era, so you can download chipset drivers, sound drivers etc from Intel, VIA, Realtek etc etc...

That's a good point. But one day people will be looking for this stuff. It's just a matter of time. But I agree that focusing on manuals, BIOS updates and propriety utilities might be more efficient.

Yeah. I know that asrock is no exotic hardware, unless it will be if we look at how fast the boards are failing.
I have two boards from them, and they have both had their cap's replaced by me. That's after 8 years of use.
It will be sad to see them go. I really like old asrock boards. They have some sort of simplicity-feeling over them.

Now I have all drivers, manuals etc. for the 50 boards they have online.
If I want to buy a new asrock 478 board, then there is only one model avaliable online here in Denmark.
(There might be others in small shops around the entire country)
Wich means, that the 478 board's from Asrock are pretty much a discontinued line of products.

I am just looking 5 to 10 years in the future, when people are looking for this stuff, as Mau1wurf1977 is stating.
Then I can give them a copy of what they need. Only thing that would have been even more cool.
Is if I had a iso file of every single board's driver-cd. See... That would have been a keeper. 😀

Anyway....
I can not find any MVP3 drivers on VIA's website. Eighter they do not have it, or the site is too messy to find anything.
I have found some drivers around the web. Just that it would be cool to have access at the manufactor.
Just to check and be shure that I have all drivers that are related to my board.

Working on another Voodoo project 😀

This time with a lot more cards but on just one system.

I finished imaging all of my floppies - all that is except Wordstar, which was just too many freaking disks 😵

While I had the disks out I've installed Afterdark and a Starwars sound pack on my Windows 3.11 machine - fun!

And today I finally replaced the hack job cable I made for the Model M I rescued a few years ago. I took the replacement cable from another Model M I bought recently for spare parts. I've been using this bad boy daily for 2 years so it needed a bit of a clean while I had it apart - it amazes me how good this thing looks after all these years.

Yeah its kind of strange how Asrock released boards for older systems. For example right now I am using an Asrock LGA775 board with a BIOS date of 2011. Several years past LGA775's peak years

Played around with my Cyrix 5x86 133 Windows 98 system; cleaning up the root directory, optimizing Winamp, played a few midi files through the Sound Canvas SC-55 and attempting but so far failing to install a PCI network card - Windows 98 locks up hard when it goes to install the drivers on a number of different cards.

I am trying to find a nice Prescott 5xx that will run at 4+ GHz at default voltage.

The first one, a Prescott 530 did run fine at 4 GHz but needed almost 1.5V, a bit too hot and power hungry.
The second candidate, a Prescott 520 did not even manage to finish 3Dmark 2003 @ 4 GHz 1.5V. (A.K.A, a really shitty overclocker.)
The third candidate, a Prescott 540 finished the 4 GHz 3dmark 2003 run at default 1.375V. I have a good feeling about this one.

Edit

The Prescott 540 was totally stable at 16*260 = 4160 MHz with default voltage.
To be able to run my memory at 533 MHz i added 0.05V and ended up with ~1.425V and 16*266 = 4266 MHz
The search for a suitable CPU for this system is over.

I dumped some old disks i still have stored that were originally used with an HP9000 Series 310 workstation. Converted the raw streams to images, found an emulator for Series 200 and tried the images.

Here you see HP Pascal 3.1 booted from the virtual image made from the disk:

from 1985.

I've never finished Day of the Tentacle so today I put a couple of hours in playing the CD version on my 486DX-33, Roland MT-32 and Creative Sound Blaster. I also finally figured out why The Secret of Monkey Island has been giving my Roland MT-32 grief for so long. I spent the morning trying to get my Cyrix 5x86 133 with Windows 98 on the internet and install a network card - wasted time, and unrelated to that failure came to the conclusion my 486DX-33 is really all I need to play 99% of the games I am trying to play 😀

Yea these old games often display issues on faster machines.

My friend held a small LAN party last night. I didn't feel like hauling my main rig + CRT around so I brought the Pentium 3 🤣

Installed Win98 on an MSI Mainboard PM8PM-V.

Loaded Drivers from MSI Website...
But then i found better Graphics-Drivers on the Net.

And MSI Site says. Onboard Audio is Not Supported in Win98.
But i Found a Driver which Works, and Soundblaster Emulation Works too, testet with Duke Nuked 3D.

BTW: Is there a List which Onboard Chipssets can Get to Work in Win98?
With Soundblaster Emulation in DOS?

Produced a few videos today, one is uploading right now and about graphics cooler replacement.

I often read that replacements coolers aren't compatible with the AGP GeForce 6600GT. Looking at the cheap eBay coolers I use I couldn't see why it shouldn't fit. The packaging on the box still mentions it's not compatible. So I still gave it a shot: