RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Feb 28 • 10 tweets • 7 min read • Read on X
Okay, it's a new day, let's test some more interface cards. We'll use the Pacman PC again. Time for a 🧵 Image
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Let's start with the NVIDIA GeForce2 MX. Oh my.. maybe this card has bad caps. NEXT! Image
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Next let's test this Network Everywhere Fast Ethernet 10/100 Network Card. No drivers on The Retro Web? Uh oh. Image
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As you can see though from the previous screenshot, I found drivers! This card has an ADMtek AN983 chipset. Great! I found drivers on a Vogons post. And I used the other network card that was installed to transfer it to the computer šŸ˜‚. Success Image
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Next we have this D-Link 530TX+ Rev E1 card. Well, at least that is what it says on the silk screen. Heh. On first detection, it says it is a Standard PCI Graphics Adapter. Say what?? Image
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Let's try a different PCI slot. Okay, that's better. Looks like this cached some hardware detection weirdness as we can see here in Unknown Devices. But let's go find a driver! Image
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Right, so this was a royal pain. None of the 530TX+ drivers worked... or the 530TX drivers that I tried. But a 538TX driver did! Sure thing. Well at least we got past that! Success! Image
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Next we have this Intel EtherExpress Pro 100. Windows 98 had the drivers available for it! It works great, despite me showing the wrong winipcfg in the last screenshot šŸ˜‚. Success! Image
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Finally let's test this ESS AudioDrive 1868F sound card. I had to disable onboard sound to get this to detect. But it works great! Have a listen if you'd like! Success. Image
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So, in the end, we did ok! Maybe a recap will fix the video card, but if not, I'm not too disappointed. Thanks for following along!

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More from @RetroTechChris

Feb 28
Oookay, the Compaq Presario 5528 is back on the desk! I wanted to spend some more time looking at the MPEG-1 decoder card under Windows 95 OSR 2.5. And I have good news! Time for a quick 🧵 Image
As some may recall, here was the next thing I was going to try: copying over the Windows 95A Media Player to Windows 95 OSR2.5. But as it ends up, that wasn't necessary!! I'll explain.
I noticed something on my Win95 OSR 2.5 install. It looks like the Internet Explorer desktop update installed ActiveMovie Control. And it looks like it is using a default Microsoft software decoder. HOWEVER, notice that standard Windows Media Player is also installed! Image
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Read 5 tweets
Feb 28
Well, looks like we have some modems to test. We better get going šŸ˜‚. I'm not going to do a full "dial" test, but we will see if we can at least configure them! Time for a 🧵 Image
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First things first, just like they taught in science class, always start with a baseline! So, I am going to make a copy of my Windows 98 installation so that we don't foul up the main install, and we'll check out device manager. Looking good! Let's roll. Image
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First modem out the gate is this Creative Modem Blaster V.90 PCI DI5655. We are going to use the Pacman PC to do the testing since it has a very convenient shared ISA/PC slot. In it goes! Image
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Read 18 tweets
Feb 24
My new old stock Tandy 1000 SX is now all configured! As mentioned earlier, I'm going to made a video about it at SOME point. But let's talk about the fun I had today with getting it set up. Was setup 100% trouble free? No. But was it the Tandy's fault? Also, no. Time for a 🧵 Image
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The first thing I did was to populate this gorgeous motherboard with a full 640K RAM, and also popped in a NEC V20 processor for the 8088. Flawless! No issues whatsoever with this! Image
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Next up, I jammed in some cards. Network. XTIDE. Multi I/O. Real Time Clock. On boot, we see the XTIDE option ROM screen, so we are now cooking! Image
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Read 14 tweets
Feb 23
Well, after spending way too much time this weekend trying to get my MPEG-1 decoder working on the Presario 5528 from a fresh Windows 95 install, I finally was successful. Let's talk briefly about it in a 🧵 here! Image
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So, first some background: what's the story with MPEG-1 decoders? Well, back when PCs weren't quite powerful enough to play full-motion video, hardware options like this were popular. This machine has a S3 Scenic/MX2 (86C443) chip to do just that. Image
For this particular system, this chip pairs with an S3 Trio64V+ (8C765) via the S3 Scenic Highway bus. That said, it's fair to say that MOST S3 Trio64V+ cards did NOT pair with a Scenic/MX2, as this MPEG-1 option chip seemed to be FAIRLY short lived. Image
Read 16 tweets
Feb 16
Okay, let's play with this "new to me" Compaq Presario 5528 All In One that I picked up this morning. Going to build this thread as we go! But let's get this kicked off! 🧵 Image
As we saw from the first picture, this is a Pentium 75 system with 72MB RAM and a 1.0 GB HDD. As we look at the bezel, we can see it is not in perfect shape. But perhaps we can fix that up later! Image
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The first thing I did was run MemTest86+ which passed. From there, I got out my "good camera" because, as we can quickly see, we're going to need to be able to adjust shutter speed here šŸ˜‚ Image
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Read 34 tweets
Feb 13
I got a few optical drives in the mail today. Let's get them tested. Time for a quick 🧵 Image
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Okay, here we go. First up is a Toshiba XM-5302B. This is a 4X IDE drive! I loaded a Microsoft Money '99 CD into the drive, and this drive works GREAT!! Image
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Next up, we have this Mitsumi CRMC-FX4831T 48X drive. Once again, we load up the MS Money disk, and pass!! Image
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Read 5 tweets

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