jakfish wrote on 2024-08-06, 19:20:

Thanks for the link.

Does the R38 just pop off? Or is there more surgery needed (I stink at soldering)?

As a suggestion you can find someone at a HAM festival, makerspace, or any similar event/group who'd likely desolder a single resistor for you if had the board handy. Although the HAMs might need some magnification these days :p.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-08-06, 21:44:

A number of times when I want surface mount components off, I just score around the solder with a blade, and then crack them off with pliers or leverage... if you're not careful you can lift pads and tracks like that though. Mostly I do it that way when there's a lot of heat sensitive stuff around it, or there's a lot of fine trace stuff I could get a stray blob of solder drop on and cause issues and take forever to clean up. Though there's two different types of careful there, tryna leave the board pristine, slice on the component side, tryna leave the component pristine, slice on the board side.... and the third, both need to live... microsurgery down the middle of the join 🤣

How barbaric, removing a single surface mount resistor is super easy with a temperature controlled soldering station and a big tip.
Just heat the top of the resistor and nudge it off to the side. Cutting the solder joint like that requires far more dexterity and time.

Nah, I'll be done before the iron is halfway warm. I can do it both ways, I just can't be assed to warm the iron up for one or two.... you don't wanna hear about the third way if you're already nervous.... mini butane torch and flick it, 🤣

Anyone have any luck increasing the ISA bus speed?

The manual basically warns against this (specifically the last line)- https://www.dmp.com.tw/app/webcamera/pdf/m6117d.pdf (p.28)

4.4.1 ISA ATCLK frequency control After powering-on, the default value of ISA ATCLK is 7.159 Mhz, this clock is changed by prog […]
Show full quote

4.4.1 ISA ATCLK frequency control
After powering-on, the default value of ISA ATCLK is 7.159 Mhz, this clock is changed by programming index 1Eh : D[2:0] to
set to different frequencies to meet the system designer requirements.
Index 1Eh
D[2] D[1] D[0] ATCLK
0 0 0 7.159 Mhz (def)
0 0 1 PCLK2/3
0 1 0 PCLK2/4 PCLK2/3
0 1 1 PCLK2/5
1 0 0 PCLK2/6
1 0 1 PCLK2/8
1 1 0 PCLK2/10
1 1 1 PCLK2/12
Note : PCLK2 means doubled CPU clock
To make sure the system boots normally, the default ATCLK is 7.159 Mhz. So system can boot at any CPU frequency. After
powering on, BIOS can detect the CPU frequency, and set the desired AT clock frequency. For example, if CPU running at
40 Mhz, the PCLK2 will be 80 Mhz and if we choose D[2-0] = 110, this means ATCLK =PCLK2/10, then ATCLK is 8 MHz.
Note : The 82C54 has some limitations which require ISA ATCLK set as 7.159 MHz. Please refer to Appendix C

Basically, any change - even the minor PCLK2(80)/10 = 8mhz results seems to quickly result in errors in Win 3.11 (I/O controller or something memory related?). I thought disabling the GPCS in bios would let me move off the 7.159mhz bus speed. I need to double check my testing procedure; I might not have hard reset after every bios change. Anyone else try this and experience the same thing?

The reason I'm messing with it is that increasing the ISA bus speed improves FastDoom's playability immensely. The videocard (gd5422 512mb, in my case) handles it (10mhz) fine. If I could find a dos TSR to change bus speed on the fly, Id definitely risk 10mhz while playing Doom only.

BinaryDemon wrote on 2024-08-07, 11:37:

The reason I'm messing with it is that increasing the ISA bus speed improves FastDoom's playability immensely. The videocard (gd5422 512mb, in my case) handles it (10mhz) fine. If I could find a dos TSR to change bus speed on the fly, Id definitely risk 10mhz while playing Doom only.

While it might result in instability I'd assume that's the "risk" involved. I can't imagine it'd result in damage without changing power in some way. Data corruption maybe?

I think I had it stable at an increased bus speed. Although I'm unsure what I was doing at the time... I'll have to fire it up and try Win95 with a game.

I do think the risk is data corruption, I can only say that after returning the ISA bus to the stock speed that the crashing in Win3.11 stopped. I didnt restore any files from backup. Doom probably only writes during save activities - Id consider the risk minimal.

But Id rather not deal with constantly changing the bus speed in bios.

Could someone run 3dbench and tell me what the score is? I just want to compare the number to what I get with existing 386/486 computers I have.

So interestingly I got 13.1 fps for both v1.0 (slow) and v1.0c (fast) from Phil’s Dosbench suite.

That would be everything stock: hardware settings and software configuration.

Cool. Thanks. Is there any cache that can be enabled or anything else that can be adjusted on the stock PC to nudge it up a bit?

By the way, I heard the game Xargon has a bug with the keyboard on this machine. Something like you move an arrow key to move the player and then the input sticks as if you continued to hold the key down (makes me wonder if the related games, Jill of the jungle or kiloblaster have the same issue). Just one guys reported experience on fb, but perhaps there's an issue with the keyboard mapper in certain old games and the modernish keyboard layout on the machine?

I was noticing some "not ideal" keyboard behaviour in a couple of things, but didn't dig into it or characterise it yet... still been short on retro time and haven't got many hours in on mine.

dukeofurl wrote on 2024-08-08, 01:52:

Cool. Thanks. Is there any cache that can be enabled or anything else that can be adjusted on the stock PC to nudge it up a bit?

By the way, I heard the game Xargon has a bug with the keyboard on this machine. Something like you move an arrow key to move the player and then the input sticks as if you continued to hold the key down (makes me wonder if the related games, Jill of the jungle or kiloblaster have the same issue). Just one guys reported experience on fb, but perhaps there's an issue with the keyboard mapper in certain old games and the modernish keyboard layout on the machine?

Well I’m sure increasing ISA speed would help that score just not sure if that’s practical yet. I’m going to play around with loading univbe tsr too.

I haven’t tested the keyboard much yet, I knew there was issues with input rate due to other reviews before I purchased. I plan to use external ps2 keyboard and mouse most of the time.

Has anyone got a copy of Windows 95 for this machine (any or all of the versions) that they can share. It only came with Windows 3.11. Thanks.

Vogons' rules prohibit sharing of such software, sorry.

Best we can do, is point you at an ebay auction of a legit OEM license pack or something.

Like this one. Since you have win3x, you 'should' be able to use it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/156338971703?itmmeta … ABk9SR9D62IimZA

Or this one, for OEM new PC.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256596189779?itmmeta … ABk9SR9D62IimZA

Those would be 100% legit via 2nd hand market.

djsb wrote on 2024-08-08, 05:42:

Has anyone got a copy of Windows 95 for this machine (any or all of the versions) that they can share. It only came with Windows 3.11. Thanks.

Mine shipped with 95, I uploaded an image of that from before first boot: https://archive.org/details/pocket-386-cf

Thanks.

I have also asked the seller about Windows 95 as well. I am not used to .img files. Are they compressed like .iso files? Is there a particular way of loading them onto a CF card? Does does the CF card have to be formatted in FAT or FAT32. Thanks

Use something like etcher to write them.
https://etcher.balena.io/

They are a raw sector dump of the media.

(On linux, just use dd)

Re: Win95 images: https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download … load&authuser=0

That's from my Aliexpress seller. I've used it and found it safe. Using Windows, you'll need ghost32.exe (not *64) which I found equally reliable, esp for custom backups/restores.

I'd avoid using the vendor images, and just enjoy the pains of doing the installation yourself. Part of the experience 😀
It is also very likely that MSIE, CH375.sys, and whatever other stuff the vendor has put there is significantly slowing down Win95. Other than CH375 for the USB disk support, you do not really need any driver on top of a clean Win95 install.

For proper USB recognition, you definitely have to replace the seller's CH375.sys with FreddyV's much-better version-- https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fil … 991&menustate=0