I remembered that Acronis True Image version 8 offered backing up over the network, so I decided to try it on my new retro LAN. Sure enough, it worked without a hitch. I easily imaged my DOS/Win95 machine to a network share.

This will come in handy when I want to test stuff out without the need to reinstall the entire system.

Nexxen wrote on 2023-02-04, 14:33:

Caps! After removing all the dead caps they still have some life but are around 1200 instead of 1600 (I doubt they are alive at […]
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Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-02-04, 01:26:

Nexxen wrote on 2023-02-03, 22:37:

5th yields the beep of missing ram. I turn off the PSU: 3 caps explode!

Oh man! That's never fun! 🤣 🤣

Motherboard or PSU caps?

Caps!
After removing all the dead caps they still have some life but are around 1200 instead of 1600 (I doubt they are alive at all but I checked anyway).
The last one of that kind (tall, 2,5 x 1 cm) was still good and had a higher reading with close to no loss. I put it back (it was on the CPU VRM zone)
They all were around the 12V 4-pin connector and I just didn't plug it in.

Board booted fine. Could access the BIOS.

I didn't stress anything after that but it caught me by surprise so much I was shaking for a minute 😀 heart pounding 🤣
The exploded 1st - micro pause- 2nd/3rd almost together.
It was a lot of noise!

Wish I knew why the pause and why they exploded when I turned off the PSU (I think it was just a coincidence, when they got enough charge to blow they blew).
The board wasn't booting because one of the caps got shorted (anti short PSU feature), my idea.

Caps seem to blow at very strange times.

I remember 20+ years ago some caps in the power supply of my Brother's PC exploded when the system was turned off. It was ATX, so I know they're never truly "off" in the sense that an AT PSU can be switched off, but it still seems weird that any cap explosions I have experienced occurred when the PC was under no load or low load.

Demetrio wrote on 2023-02-04, 07:11:

Made a 386SX build. […]
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Made a 386SX build.

Unfortunately, the HDD does not work so I have to wait the new one I've ordered to install MS-DOS 5.0

I will also buy a CRT monitor for it, like this IBM

IMG_20230204_080817.jpg

That looks like a lovely setup. I'm really digging that case!

Gutted this generic Quantex system I got last year and set it up with a Intel 430TX motherboard + Pentium MMX 200 processor, along with a Hercules Terminator paired with a Diamond Monster 3D video card setup.

I may turn this into a DOS build focused on early 3D / Glide gaming. The case does have some rust, so it's going to first need a rust removal bath + some general cleaning first.

Oh, wow. I really like that case. The copper heatsink is also really nice. The layout is very clean.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-05, 02:08:

Gutted this generic Quantex system I got last year and set it up with a Intel 430TX motherboard + Pentium MMX 200 processor, along with a Hercules Terminator paired with a Diamond Monster 3D video card setup.

I may turn this into a DOS build focused on early 3D / Glide gaming. The case does have some rust, so it's going to first need a rust removal bath + some general cleaning first.

I don't see the 3dfx card in PCI device listing which should appear as "Multimedia Device" with IRQ set as NA. Did you tested it prior installing the card?

I'm hung up in analysis paralysis mode of wanting to do like 5 things at once, but not picking what to do first.

Option A: Dig out the AST Advantage 386/25 and R&R it, throw in a soundblaster and CD, get it tuned up, find the Logitech Wingman and play Wing Commander, Keens etc..
Option B: Sort out the PC300/330 (Hell I don't know if IBM even decided which it was) 6571 with DX2-66 and play The Patrician, Battle Isle II. Install RealMagic card and try "Multimedia Space Explorer" and maybe see if 20Mhz bus with the caches turned off is Wing Commander speed too.
Option C: Excavate the Compaq Deskpro 233MMX stick either the Banshee or RV2100 in it, play Broken Sword, dick with multimedia stuff, try the 170 in one tweaks and see if it plays any of the crap previously mentioned.
Option D: ditto with Micron P233 tower, but it needs a soundcard finding prolly.

Having chosen one of the above, do light and tight with a 15" 4:3 LCD, or fishbowl CRT 14" with large dot pitch, not sure it does 800x600 even, but I kinda wanna see some stuff like Lost Vikings, Bio Menace etc on it to appreciate the bug is a feature antialiasing of the pixel sprites, and bask in the glow. or actually not too bad 15" that's crisper does 1024x768 for a more premium early 90s feel, still a little free AA, actually the smaller CRT option too, or 17" bit curvy lower end IBM G series, that is handiest to get to, not super crisp, might do more "free AA" than the 15", or full premium mid/late Trinitron IBM P series 17", that should be crisp and sharp best for windows stuff, but pixel art graphics look just as jaggy as on LCDs.... or say screw it and basically lose a whole quadrant of a room to the 21" Qvision, but hey I can kick back in a gravity chair with wingman on a plank and pretend it's a cockpit setup. ... or there's a projector... aaagh shut up brain, stop thinking of more alternatives.

Yah so mostly I've been digging out some old CDROMs and obsessing over system configs for playing them "just so"

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-02-05, 03:19:

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-05, 02:08:

Gutted this generic Quantex system I got last year and set it up with a Intel 430TX motherboard + Pentium MMX 200 processor, along with a Hercules Terminator paired with a Diamond Monster 3D video card setup.

I may turn this into a DOS build focused on early 3D / Glide gaming. The case does have some rust, so it's going to first need a rust removal bath + some general cleaning first.

I don't see the 3dfx card in PCI device listing which should appear as "Multimedia Device" with IRQ set as NA. Did you tested it prior installing the card?

This is the first time I'm testing the card. I think that initial boot-up shot was taken without the card installed.

I did have a second shot on my phone after installing and it shows up.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-02-05, 02:49:

Oh, wow. I really like that case. The copper heatsink is also really nice. The layout is very clean.

Thank you! I'm hoping it will clean up nicely once I can get it fully de-rusted and wiped down.

Just started the rust removal soak.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-05, 02:02:

Demetrio wrote on 2023-02-04, 07:11:

Made a 386SX build. […]
Show full quote

Made a 386SX build.

Unfortunately, the HDD does not work so I have to wait the new one I've ordered to install MS-DOS 5.0

I will also buy a CRT monitor for it, like this IBM

IMG_20230204_080817.jpg

That looks like a lovely setup. I'm really digging that case!

Thanks 🙂

I have to cover the slot for the CD-ROM, though 😅

Today's retro activity for me was finally starting to capture some recordings from old VHS tapes that I found last year, utilising a bunch of retro hardware.

I grabbed the nearest PC to hand - an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 with 4GB RAM, running Windows 7 and installed a spare PCI Analogue capture card, the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150. This card isn't particularly amazing, but it's what I had to hand and at least has hardware MPEG-2 encoding. A lot of people had driver issues with this card back in the day, but it's never let me down and seems to work absolutely fine in Win 7 x64 with 4GB RAM.

So to sum up, I used a 16-year old PC together with an 18-year old Analogue capture card, to capture footage from a 20-year old VHS tape using a 21+ year old VCR. The recordings were captured onto a 19-year old IDE HDD, just for the added retro factor. 🤣

Retro hardware can still be very useful many years later.

PTherapist wrote on 2023-02-05, 17:39:

Today's retro activity for me was finally starting to capture some recordings from old VHS tapes that I found last year, utilisi […]
Show full quote

Today's retro activity for me was finally starting to capture some recordings from old VHS tapes that I found last year, utilising a bunch of retro hardware.

I grabbed the nearest PC to hand - an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 with 4GB RAM, running Windows 7 and installed a spare PCI Analogue capture card, the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150. This card isn't particularly amazing, but it's what I had to hand and at least has hardware MPEG-2 encoding. A lot of people had driver issues with this card back in the day, but it's never let me down and seems to work absolutely fine in Win 7 x64 with 4GB RAM.

So to sum up, I used a 16-year old PC together with an 18-year old Analogue capture card, to capture footage from a 20-year old VHS tape using a 21+ year old VCR. The recordings were captured onto a 19-year old IDE HDD, just for the added retro factor. 🤣

Retro hardware can still be very useful many years later.

Nice, sounds like it was fairly trouble free? I am pondering doing some of this eventually. Have a PVR-150, but also the later 1250 that has ATSC, wondering though if 150 is better choice because all the money is in the analog tuner, vs 1250 where it's more 2nd fiddle, or maybe it uses a newer/better chip. However, I have compro video mate, ATI TV wonder, something by Avermedia, VIVO Geforce cards, and usb capture dongles, which is more like too much choice, just would be nice to hit the ideal combo first go.

Converted this sadly non-working XT to a working 286-16. I just kept the case and PSU,all the rest are spare parts.

Kind of a traditional move, though shame the XT board wouldn't work for you.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-02-05, 18:01:

PTherapist wrote on 2023-02-05, 17:39:

Today's retro activity for me was finally starting to capture some recordings from old VHS tapes that I found last year, utilisi […]
Show full quote

Today's retro activity for me was finally starting to capture some recordings from old VHS tapes that I found last year, utilising a bunch of retro hardware.

I grabbed the nearest PC to hand - an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 with 4GB RAM, running Windows 7 and installed a spare PCI Analogue capture card, the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150. This card isn't particularly amazing, but it's what I had to hand and at least has hardware MPEG-2 encoding. A lot of people had driver issues with this card back in the day, but it's never let me down and seems to work absolutely fine in Win 7 x64 with 4GB RAM.

So to sum up, I used a 16-year old PC together with an 18-year old Analogue capture card, to capture footage from a 20-year old VHS tape using a 21+ year old VCR. The recordings were captured onto a 19-year old IDE HDD, just for the added retro factor. 🤣

Retro hardware can still be very useful many years later.

Nice, sounds like it was fairly trouble free? I am pondering doing some of this eventually. Have a PVR-150, but also the later 1250 that has ATSC, wondering though if 150 is better choice because all the money is in the analog tuner, vs 1250 where it's more 2nd fiddle, or maybe it uses a newer/better chip. However, I have compro video mate, ATI TV wonder, something by Avermedia, VIVO Geforce cards, and usb capture dongles, which is more like too much choice, just would be nice to hit the ideal combo first go.

Yeah it was pretty trouble free. The drivers for the PVR-150 are still easy to find online, as well as the WinTV 7 iso image.

As for what to go with, with all that choice it's probably best to experiment. The PVR-150 was always a budget model, so the 1250 or 1 of those other products may well produce better results. The MPEG-2 encoding of the PVR-150 is not amazing, I always found it a little smeary as if the denoise filter is being applied slightly too harshly, but it gets the job done.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-02-06, 01:55:

Kind of a traditional move, though shame the XT board wouldn't work for you.

Yeah I know.
Tried a few things but nada.
Both the controllers report to be dead too so I'd thought that transplanting would be the next best thing.
Still going to check the hard drive though once I find my spare controllers.

Over the weekend, took my 486 apart and once-and-for-all got it stable and fully functional.
It's a VLB based machine, running at 3x50MHz. The io controller and S3 Trio32 are fine with 50MHz VLB bus, but for RAM i had to go from "Fastest" -> "Faster" -> "Slower" setting for timings, otherwise it tended to crash on Doom and Duke3d and had vertexes jumping into random places with PC Player benchmark.

I'm also using URAM+HIMEM for UMA/HMA memory and had to take the "lowdma" from UMBPCI package to get my floppy drives properly working.

Now the machine is pretty much complete - there's not much i could wish for a super-high-end VLB-based 486...

Murugan wrote on 2023-02-05, 20:04:

Converted this sadly non-working XT to a working 286-16. I just kept the case and PSU,all the rest are spare parts.

Very nice monolithic case, love it.

Love it too 😀
It's like a huge brick and it's in REALLY good condition for being this old.

Murugan wrote on 2023-02-06, 18:40:

Love it too 😀
It's like a huge brick and it's in REALLY good condition for being this old.

I happen to be messing around with an identical case, the only difference is the layout of the little black panel with the buttons and LEDs. Also in mint condition, it's really well built for being a clone.

Mine has a generic JUKO ST based motherboard with a 10MHz V20 and 640KB RAM, and came with I/O+floppy+RTC and CGA/Monochrome cards and a 5.25'' 360K drive. Currently I've got it working just fine (using an 8 bit VGA card to connect to my CRTs), but I'm debating upgrading it also with a 286 motherboard I have around that fits like a glove. The V20 is cool, but it's so slow... even games like Maniac Mansion (non-enhanced) struggle to run properly.

Maybe I'll create a thread in System Specs to see what other Vogoners think would be best.