70s-early 90s Computer General

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>>2926174
>Link's

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>>2926191
> >Parallel port USB devices run into issues on some modern OSes (winNT) because they aren't allowed to directly 'bit bang' the port
>Because they are intended for printers only, and nothing else. They don't give direct access to the lines, neither will they redirect I/O accesses from/to 0x378 which can be hardcoded in the application.

Yes, I said that you weren't allowed to bit bang it in windows.

Linux will let you on almost all parallel port devices, including most USB ones. ALMOST NO terminals use parallel ports for data transmission to a modem though, so your point is invalid when it comes to USB RS-232 devices.


Pictured: IBM 3161 full font from it's "test" mode.

Paneled together from multiple pics to fight blur around the edges at low f-stops.

I really need a ROM reader/programmer so I can dump this font. It looks AWESOME.

Anyway, USB -> serial converters don't work with a lot of gadgets especially stuff that requires an IRQ line (being that USB is poll-driven and has no provisions for this).

>>2926448
>Yes, I said that you weren't allowed to bit bang it in windows.
By default but there are workarounds that just worked great for me and even on (old) computers and weren't mine.

>Linux will let you on almost all parallel port devices, including most USB ones.
Really? You can set every control pin and read every status pin individually?
But there's no way that this can be fast as the real thing. USB1.1 dataframes are 1ms long and USB2.0 are 125µS long but a IN or OUT instruction on real and modern (SPP) parallel port takes about 1.37µS. I'm not sure but I think that I read in the specs that USB3.0 is about 13.7µS long.

>ALMOST NO terminals use parallel ports for data transmission to a modem though, so your point is invalid when it comes to USB RS-232 devices.
Yes. I know but you're were the one who brought it into the discussion first and I have my own experience with one of my favorite ports on a PC which allows for easy interfacing with 7400 logic ICs, as long there's not a problem to run the software.
And I originally posted: >>However, the original question was about the serial port which has nothing to do with the parallel port.

>I really need a ROM reader/programmer so I can dump this font.
Ironically the first practical and working devices that I designed and built for the parallel port just did that but with NES and SNES cartridges.
I also programmed 29F/C flash ROMs via modified NES carts.

>It looks AWESOME
I agree.

>>2925078
>>2925086
>I figure I can solder leads to the backside of the board and glue down a 5-pin header so I can connect another ps/2 port bolted to the slot plate.

Success!

Not only does the ps/2 keyboard port work, it works simultaneously with an AT keyboard if for whatever reason you'd want to do that.

I now have a USB mouse and keyboard hooked up to my 486 through ps/2 adapters.

>>2926727

I've worked with FTDI adapters that emulate a device in order to operate at high rates, but they are not cheap and they presume all pulses being batched into a USB "packet" are sent or received successfully across the business end of the adapter.

I'm currently in the process of purchasing a Panasonic A1F (JP model) from a fellow in Spain, anything I should know about MSX going in? Memory upgrades? Best software to start with? I'd like to try my hand at programming in addition to some games.

It appears that the unit I'm getting only has 64k of internal RAM. While I could probably make/find a 512k memory mapper, that would mean I wouldn't be able to play high-quality sound in Snatcher as the cartridge slot would be taken up. Is there a way to upgrade the RAM for a Panasonic A1 series internally, preferably to at least 192kb?

>>2927340
please disregard this post, I'm retarded because I didn't realize the A1F has 2 cartridge slots. So I can still use the SCC and the memory mapper at the same time.

>>2927191

Great! What do you plan on running on this computer?

>>2927413

DOS 6.22 + Win 3.1 for CoTW.

I've got it running off an 8GB CF card sliced up into 2GB partitions, soon to be loaded up with Epilucasierragee.

>>2927340
>anything I should know about MSX going in? Memory upgrades? Best software to start with? I'd like to try my hand at programming in addition to some games.

Check for an MSX Music cartridge, many games and demos uses it for sound, some producing really nice tunes with it (Some examples : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV31dIJYVIU). You can also check for an MSX Music and a Moonsound cartridge if you wanna get the best sound from 90s Dutch demos too.
For programming, it's an 8-bit computer, so assembly language is the way to go if you want to make interesting stuff. You only need the BASIC interpreter to load your program (after you converted it by hand into hexadecimal machine code, which is slow and pretty annoying for big programs), but having an assembler will save you a lot of time. You can check : http://home.scarlet.be/~dhran/compass-info/
The only ressources you should need at first are a Z80 programming manual, the MSX system manual (with a complete memory map) and the MSX BIOS calls.
Here's a page for MSX dev ressources:
http://map.grauw.nl/resources/

>>2927447
Wow, great stuff, I'll keep an eye out for a music cartridge.

Question about how RAM works on the MSX:

If a cartridge has RAM (such as the Musical Memory Mapper or the MegaFlashRom) can it be mapped for use with applications running from the diskette drive?

>>2926174
TRS-80 Model 4 was the last of the I/III line. It was produced in 1983-85 at which point Tandy switched to IBM compatibles. These are the only of the Model 3 family that can run CP/M without l33t hax0r tricks. In addition, they have an internal speaker for sound generation and an optional graphics board.

It is backwards compatible with the Model 3 if a Model 3 OS disk is booted. When running in Model 3 mode, the extended features such as the speaker are unavailable.

>>2926174
Since parallel ports were brought up here, TRS-80s like these have an old-fashioned Centronics port, not the IBM-style parallel port which means that a standard PC printer normally cannot be connected to them without damaging something.

To elaborate a little bit - the Model III was not a direct successor to the Model I even though it was derived from the Model I's architecture. In fact the CoCo line were the proper followup to the Model I as Tandy's entry in the home/educational market. The Model III/IV were more intended as small business computers a rung below the professional-grade Model II family.

>>2927808
>These are the only of the Model 3 family that can run CP/M without l33t hax0r tricks

By this I mean the Model I/III are not fully CP/M compatible because the video buffer occupies the normal location where the Transient Program Area on CP/M begins. They consequently had to have customized CP/M software that ruined the essential point of that OS, which was portability.

The Model IV was the first of the line that has a "normal" memory map that allows unmodified CP/M software to run.

>>2927815
>TRS-80s like these have an old-fashioned Centronics port, not the IBM-style parallel port

What are the modifications that IBM made for his parallel port not to be fully centronic compatible? As for the TRS-80 using centronic and not IBM variant, I think it's quite understandable as the architecture is older than the IBM PC, and making every TRS owner get a new printer when they upgrade their computer isn't a smart move unless it's a totally different architecture.

>>2928573
>What are the modifications that IBM made for his parallel port not to be fully centronic compatible?

The IBM port has some electrical differences from the Centronics standard because IBM and Epson were running a scam operation to force you to buy their printers (IBM had contracted with Epson to produce printers for the PC). Partially because of this, Radio Shack used to sell four kinds of printer cables: Centronics -> Centronics, Centronics -> IBM, IBM -> Centronics, and IBM -> IBM. Many printers made up to 1987 or so will also have switches on them to select IBM or Centronics, plus there were ISA cards available for PCs that had a Centronics-standard port on them.

Attaching a Centronics printer to a PC won't work, but it won't damage anything on most later bidirectional PS/2-type parallel ports as these generally have resistors around the port to protect it (some shit-tier brands like Packard Bell left these off).

>>2928573
The TRS-80 line predates PCs, yes, but the Tandy 1000 line which was supposed to be IBM compatible still has the Centronics port on it.

What is up with Multisync monitors? I read around the web that they can support multiple video standards. How do they work exactly?

I have one that I want to connect to a computer with an EGA card, but I fear that I can't do that because it has a captive HD-15 cable, and I need De-9, unless there is some sort of an adapter.

>>2928949
Back in the early 90s, there were monitors produced by NEC and a few others that supported 15Khz TTL RGB in addition to the VGA standard (31Khz analog RGB).

I once encountered a Tandy DMP printer at a Salvation Army. Had the edge card Centronics connector and also a DIN port (this was a serial connector for the CoCo line). It was heavy as hell.

>>2926174
That is one sexy hunk of metal.

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>>2928573
As I remember, the C64 had a separate adapter to convert to Centronics

>>2929461
C64 cables for parallel printers were very common and everyone had them, but they usually let you connect them to the IEC port.

>>2929617
Well, I'll just sit quietly over here then

>>2928949

Most Multisync monitors are just your average SVGA monitors that supported multiple Horizontal sync in order to display high resolution pictures (we usually say that PC monitors are 31kHz monitors, but the monitor is rarely in 31kHz mode when displaying a 1280*1024 picture). There were monitors like >>2928985 said too, that supported sub-31kHz Hsync, and sometimes TTL RGB too, though I doubt most of them support the EGA video signals.
Your best option would be to look at these CGA/EGA LCD panels they sell on industrial supplies website, or to track an IBM EGA monitor. If you find a multisync monitor that support EGA video signals (TTL RGB with 2 lines per color), then go for it, but don't expect all multisync monitors to accept that kind of signal.

>>2927458

Of course, there are system variables that allows any program to know if a slot is expanded, how many banks it has, and which address they are located at. There are more informations about it on the MSX ressource website I gave the link earlier.

>>2927458

Though, if you want to get an assembler without contacting someone who don't maintain his stuff since 2010, you'd better check W.B.Ass 2 :
http://wbsoft.home.xs4all.nl/msx/

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Hello i found this today.
SVI 328 PC Mk II
I also found an old monochrome display rated at 50Hz (living in PAL area)
Ive never used a computer like this before. The power cable seems standard but video is RF i think and i havent seen a rf cable in my life
Also its supposed to me the same hardware than MSX does that mean it can play msx games and applications?

>>2930492

No, the SVI-328 and 328 mkII aren't MSX-compliant, even though they are close by design. It can run CP/M though.

>>2930517
thanks. so whats the best way of finding the cables or accessories requierd to use this at all? I just noticed the power cable has 4 pins so i dont have one for it, and in the back it seems to have 3 ports for video and audio i assume.

>>2930525

Check this website :
http://www.samdal.com/svdocuments.htm
There must be the pinout of the various ports on the documentation.

>>2930534
i will! thanks for your time and help

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>>2930094
>>2930204
Thanks again, sorry for being so helpless with this stuff. I'll be sure to post update pics once the computer arrives.

Where do you guys get your vintage computer stuff? Ebay? Craigslist? Some local place?

>>2927808
In fact the M4 defaults to M3 mode if booted into cassette BASIC as in OP pic, which means you get 64 column text and no access to extended features. You have to actually boot a M4 OS disk to throw it into M4 mode.

>>2930673
Depends. More mainstream stuff like Commodore and IBM PC can be found on eBay, but stuff like MSX and ZX Spectrum you'll be better off finding their specific communities and finding their trading circles. MSX.org has a forum for that sort of thing, AFAIK.

>>2928723
What electrical differences? A cable with different types of connectors on each end or slightly different signaling isn't an electrical difference.

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sorry for infideling in an holy thread

any cheap solution for ~80-90x looking pc/msx-ish case (incl working keyboard) for modern single-board computers?

>>2931670
You could just grab a cheap broken MSX, rip put the internals, create a few mount points and install a mini-ITX board in there

>>2931421
There is some difference with the pinout plus I think the Centronics port had a 5V line that the IBM one didn't, but I can't remember the exact details.

>>2930673

Mostly locally, sometimes on bidding websites.

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I'm still around.

Computer music and demos incoming :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJFAqJYdeJ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICuqJ4ouwCI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-EOg-fXgi0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orYMZmIC2Vg

As for the OP of the next edition, I hope you won't forget to renew the random music and gameplay videos, because this thread still has the same vids as the previous one.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtNidYKsI1U

>>2926475
Nothing stops a non-standard driver from being used. I never said parallel ports were fine over USB - I took issue with your stupidity in claiming USB RS232 devices don't work well even though they do. Parallel ports are something that a card is a good idea for. For RS232 it's a waste of slots.

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>>2926727
I just made a dumper on an AVR interfaced with a serial port since my last post.

Used one shift register (74HC595) for the bottom 8 address pins, and directly controlled the top 5 address pins.

I'll post the bitmap when I find it. Three more ROMs to dump.

And yeah, I've been able to set pins individually (well, I had to use bitwise operations).

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>>2928949
>>2928985
Sony made the GVM-2020 and GVM-2000 around then. They're 600TVL and work between 15 and 36 khz.

The official sony link to the PDF is currently 403ing, but it's available if you google "GVM2020.PDF" (with the quotes).

I have a newer PVM-20L5 myself, but you can still find the GVM's like new on ebay, where 20L5's don't fit with the early 90s as well and weren't sold straight to consumers, and are significantly more well known amd therefore valuable. If my 20L5 hadn't been free I'd have a GVM-2020.

>>2935990
b-b-but he read on teh intarwebz that they don't work with "a lot of gadgets"

>>2936150
He's totally right that they don't in windows, and some hardware doesn't provide the capability to use special drivers.

Parallel ports are best used on a motherboard or PCI card.

However, I was telling him he was wrong to be recommending wasting a slot on a serial port. They don't suffer the same degree of low level problems as a parallel port. Some serial devices only output +-5V instead of the full +-12V in the spec, but most devices work fine like that and those that don't can be made to with a MAX232 level shifter.

>>2936571
He said "USB -> serial converters don't work with a lot of gadgets". He's totally wrong.

>>2936578
Can you read?

I said he was right about parallel devices. Not the actual subject of the conversation, though, which was serial devices. I think he conflated serial and parallel connectors as having the same problems.

Just got given a box with a commodore 64 and a floppy drive, along with some ancient mobile and car phones. The local garbage tip has a computer center which gets stuff from the whole region, pretty cool.

The only issue is that the commodore has no power cord. Anyone know where I can find one online that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Found some cunt on ebay selling one for $56.99 aussie dollarydoos.

>>2936914

The C64 uses a unique dual-voltage AC and DC power adapter. Unless you luck out at thrift stores or recyclers, they don't really come cheap.

Alternatively you could cobble a power supply together with two off the shelf adapters and a 7pin DIN plug. It needs 9VAC rated for 1A and 5VDC rated for 2.5A.

>>2936896
I can read but seems you have issues. I said nothing about parallel and neither did he in the post I quoted. Feel free to reread it a few times if you need to.
I don't think he conflated anything. I think he heard the maymay that USB to something adapters have problems and parroted it without even know serial and parallel are two different things. Or that either is a thing. Or that USB printing adapters aren't USB to parallel adapters.

>>2937053
Thanks mate, that's very informative. I've got a Jaycar nearby, they're a really good store for tinkerers. I'll see if I can find any plans for making one.

On the other hand I managed to find one on ebay for $32.50AU including postage, so I'll probably go with that.

>>2937097
When I replied to him, he replied about issues wjth parallel ports on USB when I was talking about serial.

You aren't reading the full conversation.

>>2936914
You can get a Flash SD card gadget in place of the disk drive.

>>2936914
You would be better off making or buying a custom power supply as >>2937053 stated.

The original black box Commodore supplies are notoriously shit, they are unrepairable and the voltage regulator inside of them tends to die and fuck up your computer in the process.

>>2938236
>The original black box Commodore supplies are notoriously shit, they are unrepairable and the voltage regulator inside of them tends to die and fuck up your computer in the process

It's because of overheating. The design of the things means that they get hot easily.

>>2937548
I read the full conversation. I just didn't reply to every post in it in that post.
If you had to reply to every post in a conversation in every post it would get pretty messy don't you think?

>>2938236
Commodore hardware had a lot of problems that might have been avoided if the Tramiels had not been the ultimate cheap pieces of shit.

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>>2938690
Tramiel was born as Idek Trzmiel[4] into a Jewish family.

After the German invasion of Poland in 1939 his family was transported by German occupiers to the Jewish ghetto in Łódź, where he worked in a garment factory. When the ghettos were liquidated his family was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. He was examined by Josef Mengele and selected for a work party, after which he and his father were sent to the labor camp Ahlem near Hanover, while his mother remained at Auschwitz. Like many other inmates, his father was reported to have died of typhus in the work camp; however, Tramiel believed he was killed by an injection of gasoline. Tramiel was rescued from the labor camp in April 1945 by the 84th Infantry Division."

>>2938690
Another example - the TED chip in the Plus/4 would overheat and die because it lacked adequate cooling. They really need a heat sink.

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Can a(n) NES/SNES RF adapter work with this thing? According to the manual the included RF box (which I don't have) connects to the TV using these fork-looking antenna connectors, but it has the same plug on the back that the NES used for its RF adapter along with a channel 3/4 switch.

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>>2938765
Here's the back.

>>2938765
Probably won't work, because the NES puts 9 volts AC on the RF connector to make the switchbox select it automatically.

Instead, just get a RCA to Coax adapter and forget the switchbox entirely.

>>2938780
Are you sure? I'm pretty sure that the SNES uses the same RF adapter that the NES uses even though the SNES uses 10V DC power instead of the NES's 9V AC.

>>2938791
Look it up, dude. He's right. Just get the adapter

Arkanoid for MSX :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egzdmi-3ZII

>>2938770
>>2938765
No, but an atari 2600 RF switch would work. or a RCA to F-connector adapter.

>>2940501
>that casual copy of Labrynth

>>2930673
All of those places and more

>>2938690

That's what you get for trying to fight the Japanese in a price war but without offering the same quality.

>>2938693

I don't know if it was him or Irving Gould who was the worst at the end. Tramiel did make some good moves in the late 70s, but I can't think of any made by Irving.

>>2926174
How good is a Pentium III PC for DOS games?

>>2946080

Not bad, I used to use one as a "DOS PC" (I had Windows 2K in dual boot) with an Ensoniq audio PCI card and an integrated 3com Ethernet chipset that happened to have DOS drivers. But it wasn't without issues -- some games ran too fast (though those usually require a 286 PC-AT or a PC-XT to run at the right speed), some wouldn't even start, and when games tried to do some kind of FM synthesis with what they saw as a soundblaster, the result was just awful. As long as you have the drivers (and that the drivers can make games think you've got some popular hardware of the time) it should be alright for 90s games (though now that I made my 486 PC work again with the right hardware, I wouldn't go back to using this config for DOS stuff, I can finally enjoy the FM tunes from Princess Maker II with a real Soundblaster 16).

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hHEzbDvF3Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiClWFXaQb0

So I'm getting back into Commodore 64 with VICE, what are some games you guys recommend for it that are must-plays?

>>2949065

Check the Ultima games and Infocom text adventures.

>>2938236
Well shit, I've already bought and received a power supply. Now I just have to figure out a way to get this shit to display on my crt. I saw on ebay a 5pin to red-white-yellow rca cable for like $12. Worth it?

The local Jaycar can probably do me an RF converter for a decent price.

>>2951573
Get an svideo cable for it if your TV has the input. The C64 outputs it natively.

>>2951573

What >>2951835 said, or if you want you can also check for a C64 monitor like the Commodore 1701 and/or 1702. Those are worth 10 bucks (never pay more for one) and they're well-built computer monitors made in Japan.

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Some nice Amiga demos and cracktros :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=975GCMBPVNA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dV-6PFJPRc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfRP-1dGehE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8gtC-jOAQo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHqRUq7fxf4

>>2952529
>those are worth 10 bucks

I check almost weekly to see of a commodore or trinitron has wandered in to my local thrift store but the best I've found is a Hitachi TV Monitor from the late 70s. The only other things they usually have are shitty 90s/00s CRTs which are the worst of both worlds. I keep seeing CRTs sold on ebay for hundreds, actually selling, and I just don't get it. These things used to be incredibly niche, now they're popular and I can't stand it

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>>2954374
>eBay CRT prices

It really does make you wonder.

>>2954374
>I keep seeing CRTs sold on ebay for hundreds

Yeah, and you'll only see these prices on ebay, even other websites have lower prices. Hell, there was a thread on /v/ yesterday were anons would post screenshots of craiglist ads from people giving away Hitachi rear-projection sets for free and asking if it was a good idea for vidya uses.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86g7h2JWw3A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgWVJrmNWEs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dUF9WN3dBk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZNsEmE_RJU

>got three free broadcast monitors (two 20" sony PVM's and one panasonic 14") and a $5 Apple IIe composite monitor

>>2959748

Nice catch. How is the Apple IIe monitor? Do you have any photos?

>>2936005
What exactly is going on in this pic? I take it that's a character set ROM for something.

So I'm wanting an 80s computer, something like a Tandy TRS-80 or PCjr.

Can anyone recommend anything?

>>2961747
Any reason you chose those particular platforms? There were a lot of options in the 80's. Most of them much better for gaming.

>>2961747
Get a Commodore 64 or an Atari, they're the most fun.

>>2962023
>Atari
That's not how you spell Apple. The ST is slightly interesting if you're going for late 80's. For early 80's the 64 and Apple were king

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Could anyone help me with my IBM 5150? I recently got a VGA card for it, and I am having trouble getting anything to show up on my monitor. The card itself is an Oak technologies OTI 037c, which should work fine with the computer according to this guide here (http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/5150/vga/5150_vga.htm). I don't know what switch settings I should use, and I've been going by this google groups thing here (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/nz.comp/V7dOoSp8uiA). Here is a link to an archive of the webpage that was linked (https://web.archive.org/web/19981202060820/http://poppy.oaktech.com/vidfaq.html).

The monitor itself is some 15 inch NEC multisync CRT from the late 90s. I've already tried some of the switch settings, such as non IBM VGA color, and IBM color. Which setting would most likely be the correct one?

Pic related, the 5150. The card itself is on the far left.

>>2963468
According to this:
http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/graphics-cards/M-O/OAK-TECHNOLOGIES-INC-VGA-OAK-VGA-8-BIT-VERSION.html
It should be "NEC Multisync or compatible".
But it might be possible that the EPROM is fucked (bitrot) which can happen after 20-25 years.

>>2963515
If there was a problem with the card itself, wouldn't the pc give off the " one long beep followed two short beeps" beep code?

It gave the beep code when I put the card in and forgot to remove the EGA card in it, but when alone, it just starts up with the normal one beep.

It looks like I might need to start looking for a ROM dump somewhere.

>>2962018
I just like the all round computer more.

I have a C64 but I dunno, it's a weird feeling. Feels closer to a console than a PC to me.

I'm not sure when the game came out, but I'm looking for it. I don't remember too much.
They had it on school computers, you were supposed to manage your cargo? I think, but mostly it was buying gas and driving cross country with your truck.
Someone know what that game is?

>>2963930
>I have a C64 but I dunno, it's a weird feeling. Feels closer to a console than a PC to me.

That's because it's a low-end home computer that was meant to be used for games among other things, not a business-oriented spreadsheet machine that happened to have games that ran on it like the IBM PC and it's clones.

>>2965152
Yeah, that's what I mean. I want a proper desktop computer. Failing that I want an old home computer that's cheap to get and possibly a monitor for it. Saw a nice commodore monitor in a local shop but it was way too expensive for what it was.

>>2965270

You might as well try the Apple II.

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>>2963671
>>2963515
>>2963468
Well, I got the card to work, I somehow missed the possibility that the pins that were jumped were the problem. Now I need to fix my keyboard...

>>2963468
You seem to be short a RAM card and a disk drive, although you may prefer to just use a CFA -> floppy adapter for that.

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>>2966308
I do have a Ram card, but it's a combo card and has a corroded battery, so I took it out to eventually replace the battery. The computer also has two floppy drives, but they aren't original to the unit, and are slim units.

Pic related

>>2960596
>got any pics of the apple IIe monitor?
Yeah, I have several.

I'm on my phone ATM though. I'll see if I ever put any on imgur or anywhere else online.

>>2960820
The one plugged in there is actually an old 80386 motherboard BIOS that I'm using to test my ROM dumper. The ROM with the terminal font will be dumped after I'm sure I'm not going to burn anything out and I have the dumper actually addressing the chip properly.

There's a shift register controlling the 8 least significant address pins (there are 13 total) since I don't have enough I/O pins on the arduino otherwise.

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>>2967721
have lots more on my desktop but here's one. taken from two exposures.

>>2966250

The IBM PC had a BASIC interpreter that wasn't the MS-DOS QBasic?

>>2967725
How do you dump a ROM? Do you simply encode the address you want on the pins to make it spit out the byte there from some other pins? Or is it more complicated than that?

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>>2968704
There was also GW-BASIC and BASIC-A. I had the former. I think it's basically the same thing as PC-BASIC but just rebadged.

>>2968867
>GW-BASIC

GWBASIC was just a version of QBasic that wasn't shipped with MS-DOS though.

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>>2972430

>>2970705
GWBASIC is much more primitive than QBASIC. It's an old-fashioned BASIC with mandatory line numbers.

>>2968704
IBM machines up to 1990 had a BASIC in the ROM that would activate if no bootable disk was present. GW-BASIC was merely a RAM-resident version of that for clone PCs.

>>2974070
It was actually an x86 conversion of the latest (at the time) Microsoft Z80 BASIC with features specific to the IBM PC added.

>>2974195

I see, so it have been released as a stand-alone interpreter to allow clone manufacturers to have the same BASIC dialect running on their machines without having to copy the IBM PC ROM (thus allowing IBM to sue them)?

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>>2976459

>>2975598
IBM's license agreement with Microsoft required them to include the useless cassette BASIC in the ROM of every machine even though only the 5150 and PCjr actually had a cassette connector. After QBASIC was introduced in 1991, the agreement expired and they could at last remove the cassette BASIC. IBM releases of DOS had a file BASIC.COM or BASICA.COM which rode overtop of the cassette BASIC and included the support code for disk access and extended features. BASIC.COM merely added disk access and was designed as a "lite" version for machines with low RAM, but by DOS 3.2, this was no longer an issue so the file then became just a stub that launched BASICA.COM.

Clone machines had the entire BASIC in one RAM-resident executable, variably called BASICA.EXE or GWBASIC.EXE depending on the DOS version. It's been widely debated over the years what the GW part means (often joked that it's short for "Gates, William"). It most likely means "Generic Workstation".

There were several editions of BASICA/GWBASIC over the years which usually followed the version number of the DOS they were released with.

The initial 1.x versions were included with DOS 1.x and do not support disk directories. They also have the unique property of using the stack for filling things with the PAINT statement, which means that if you try to bucket-fill a complicated area, you could overload it and get a STACK OVERFLOW error which was fixed by using the CLEAR statement to increase the size of BASIC's stack. All version 2.x and up BASICs don't use the stack so this phenomenon does not occur on them. The 2.x versions ofc also now supported disk directories. The 3.x releases added EGA support and a few other features.

It should be noted that the only 1.x versions of BASICA were the IBM DOS ones and a standalone BASICA.EXE included with the very first Compaq Portable DOS (being that DOS 2.0 replaced 1.x a few months later). The Compaq BASICA is labeled as v1.13 and still does not support disk directories, but it does have the newer PAINT algorithm.

No releases of BASICA/GWBASIC support VGA. Some OEM editions support various oddball/proprietary things like Tandy and AT&T graphics. Hercules was not normally supported unless you used SIMCGA, although the utility disk provided with Hercules cards did include a special version of GWBASIC with support added.

>>2978326
>>2978363

Thanks for the clarifications on the various MS BASIC version for PCs and clones. It's pretty interresting.

>>2978363
>They also have the unique property of using the stack for filling things with the PAINT statement,
Most likely the 4-connect recursive algorithm.

>>2978326
>It's been widely debated over the years what the GW part means (often joked that it's short for "Gates, William"). It most likely means "Generic Workstation".
When I was in school I heard it stood for "Gee-Whiz BASIC"

Also, all versions of BASICA/GWBASIC have double precision numbers disabled by default. Using the /D switch at startup (eg. GWBASIC /D) enables them. This was possibly included for memory saving reasons during the early days when machines had 64k-128k of RAM, since having double precision numbers enabled slightly increases BASIC's memory footprint. If you don't have double precision enabled, BASIC simply truncates those numbers to single precision. Eg.

PRINT 1.23456789

displays 1.23456

>>2978363
>and AT&T graphics

Aka Olivetti graphics. This is a 640x400 monochrome mode that works like CGA Mode 6 but with four banks of scanlines instead of two. The AT&T 6300 had this mode in addition to standard CGA modes and also required a special monitor (TTL RGB, but at 31Khz instead of 15Khz). These computers were a slightly modified US version of an Olivetti XT clone sold in Europe.

QBASIC supports this mode along with some applications software but I am not aware of any games that use it and it's also not supported by DOSBox or any emulator as far as I can tell.

Some Amstrad CPC demos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy2IvtAFgcQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ImoF4CoA_M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycXbCNDwpmE

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>>2982623

>>2981204
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycXbCNDwpmE
Eat your heart out Ballz.

>>2981204
>>2984323
Shit! Then what is clearly a reworking of the Koyaanisqatsi theme at 4:22.

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I bought a Amiga 500 and it just arrived.
The old floppy drive is fucked and scratches disk but I luckily have a fully working Panasonic JU-256A from 1992 which I just modified using:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=30944
The PCB matched up and the drive really works.
Also the power supply doesn't have a switch, it could be that it was intended for a different Amiga?

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>>2986078
These are the only amiga floppies that have.
The left one had Workbench but according to a dump I made with DISK2FDI it contains a program named Appetizer (and it's seems to be corrupted).
The middle one had Turrican 2 but unfortunately it just became a victim of the old destructive drive.
The right one did work on the second attempt, the highscore still has my full name on the 2nd place and my sisters name on the 6st (and she failed at using a keyboard correctly despite of being 6 years older than me).

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>>2986086
And this is the reason why it was so expensive (won with 45€, the amiga was not tested, other A500s with mitsumi keyboards usually go for 20-25€).
A german mechanical keyboard by NMB doesn't pop up often on ebay.
The seller was quite retarded and packed it badly so that 3 keys fell off but luckily remained undamaged.

I also managed to get Revision 6A which was exactly the one I wanted and I didn't expected that.

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>>2986078
>Also the power supply doesn't have a switch, it could be that it was intended for a different Amiga?
After trying to get the new floppy drive to fit I decided to look closer at this.
This does work somewhat with a Amiga but serial port, certain floppy drives and audio circuit will not work at all
Now I have to check the caps on +/-12V rails.

>>2986334

Well, look like you've got yourself a Commodore 128 PSU, and you wont get anything 12 V related with it :
http://www.hardwarebook.info/C128_Power_Supply

>>2986362
Yeah, I know.
Look like I have to go for plan B: Get strong enough 5V and 12V power bricks and wire it all up to something that works just like the original Amiga PSU and maybe put some 5.1V zener+fuse circuit on the 5V rail for overvoltage protection.

What if Treasure made a Turrican game?

>>2987471
For those that don't know, Treasure is the company that made Gunstar Heroes, Alien Soldier, and Sin & Punishment.

>>2987471
>>2987474

More straight-forward stages and twice as many baddies to crush with your mighty beam.

>>2987471
less stages, more bosses

>>2987471
It's called Gunstar Heroes.

What can I do with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128k+ other than gaze at its beauty?

>>2990768

Playing a bunch of bad arcade ports and nice games. Learning Z80 assembly. Try making artwoks with the color clash limitation. Stuff like that.
If I'm not mistaken, you can feed it programs directly from your PC's headphone audio output.

>>2990787
Yes, that's what I'm doing. k7zx lets you send them at insane speeds, but it only works reliably with .z80 snapshots and very simple .taps.

I just need an RGB cable...

>>2990802

The Spectrum 128k has an RGB output? I though all models had RF output only?

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>>2990250

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nDPjuLWFRo

The music at 13:33 is really great imo.

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>>2993331

did sandboxes and game with destructble landscape existed in that era

>>2995803
Yes
clonk 1 also artillery for example

I sold a CoCo 3 to a friend and used the cash to buy an Atari 800XL. I've always wanted one because I'm autistic for anything Atari, but I dont know what to do with it other than play hacker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2euteWSCqQ
So is there anything special that it can do that /vr/ knows of (other than games)? And is there any particular flashcart or disk emulator you'd recommend? I'm thinking of getting an SIO2PC.

>>2996984
There's plenty of very good games in the 1981-85 period though a few have incompatibilities with the 800XL ROM (especially Synapse games).

After 85 the Atari 8-bit became irrelevant outside of shitty Yuropoor tape games.

>>2996987
>After 85 the Atari 8-bit became irrelevant outside of shitty Yuropoor tape games.

After 85 the Atari 8-bit became irrelevant period. The interest shifted to the ST after this one have been released. Also
>shitty Yuropoor tape games
You guys need to understand that the UK isn't the only European country.

>>2997150
>After 85 the Atari 8-bit became irrelevant period

It was outdated 70s tech that couldn't handle NES kinds of games.

>You guys need to understand that the UK isn't the only European country

Perhaps so although post-85 until the end in the early 90s, the Atari 8-bits were sold there as mostly a low-cost home computer for playing tape games.

>>2997159

>It was outdated 70s tech that couldn't handle NES kinds of games.

It was some pretty good 70s tech though, even compared to early 80s computers it has some really nice points

>Perhaps so although post-85 until the end in the early 90s, the Atari 8-bits were sold there as mostly a low-cost home computer for playing tape games.

Yes, it was still sold as a low end computer, but it wasn't relevant at all -- the focus shifted in favor of the ST.

>>2997196
>It was some pretty good 70s tech though, even compared to early 80s computers it has some really nice points

The limited sprite capabilities and relatively primitive sound are what did the Atari 8-bit in. This was hardware designed for Pac-Man, not Castlevania.

>>2997208
>This was hardware designed for Pac-Man, not Castlevania.

No computer was designed for Castlevania -- they weren't designed to be dedicated game machines, they were designed to allow home users to do various tasks using them, which included but didn't only consist of playing video games.

>>2997242
So neither was the NES since it came out in 83 before Castlevania was a twinkle in anyone's eye. Your point?

>>2997263

My point is that the NES have been designed for games only and all of it's hardware features are geared torward this kind of application. It was conceived as a home version of arcade systems, unlike micro computers which were conceived like a home version of mini computers that had a video chipset added to them because not everyone has serial terminals at home.

>>2997283
All the same, the Atari 8-bit had a chipset almost four years older than the NES's hardware; it wasn't cut out for the post-1985 world. The Commodore 64 was only one year older than the NES; it was better suited for 3rd gen games than the outdated 70s chipset in the Atari 8-bit.

>>2997283
Also if you didn't know, and you probably don't, the POKEY/ANTIC were designed originally as the guts of a console that would be the Atari 2600's successor, but then they decided to build a computer around them instead. So yes, they were very much meant for gaming.

>>2997292
>and you probably don't

Nice assumption there. It's a well known fact that they used part of the Atari 5200 chipset for their 8-bit computer line. Of course they were going to use this chipset for a new computer, it would have been really stupid from them not to take part of the then growing micro computer market, and developping a whole new chipset would have been a waste of money and time.

>So yes, they were very much meant for gaming.

The problem I was talking about wasn't that other computers weren't meant for gaming, but that they weren't meant ONLY for that kind of tasks.

>>2997304
Dudedudedudedude. The computers came out in 79 two and a half years before the 5200, which was just a hacked up Atari 800.

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>>2995650

>>2999241

Is that your photo? If so, nice!

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>>2933303
Do you prefer using monochrome or color with your Apple II? After having only ever used one with monochrome, it's weird going back and seeing old games in color (well, terrible Apple II color).

Pic related, it's my setup. The monitor /// no longer has the black scrim, been considering fabricating a replacement.

>>3001994

Is that an Apple II clone?

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>>3002771
Yes, it's a Franklin Ace 1200, a II+ clone with integrated 16KB language card and 2 disk drives.

It also features a Franklin Dual Interface Card, which is a serial + parallel interface, a Franklin 80 column display card, and a produced-under-license Z80 Applicard which lets you run CP/M programs.

ADT didn't work the the serial card, so I reverse engineered the ROM on the serial card and patched ADT.

>>3004821

I see. Are there any other significant software incompatibility, or most games and softwares run just like on the real thing?

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>>3006552
No, it acts just like a real Apple II+. The 80 column card isn't IIe or HGR2 compatible, but that's not surprising as no other II+ era card would be either.

Official Appple ProDOS also checks for the Franklin branding in the ROM and won't boot, but patching this out is easy and very common.

My grandparents had this computer, if I had a choice I would go for a IIgs or IIe.

The Apple IIe line went to custom ICs that incorporated several functions on one chip instead of the parts bin approach of the II/II+, This was partially to reduce costs (also power consumption) but also to discourage cloning.

A little bit after that, Steve Jobs had the Mac dev team put an Easter Egg in the system ROM that could be called up via jumping to a certain memory location. This would display the names of the Mac dev team as Jobs reasoned that if clone makers stole the Mac's ROM and there was a court case, he could then pull up this Easter Egg to prove that the clone Mac had a pirated ROM.

>>3007704

I see, so it's actually a pretty good way to run Apple II softwares.

>My grandparents had this computer, if I had a choice I would go for a IIgs or IIe.

Well even though the IIe or IIgs are better machines, I think that having such a machine is stillpretty nice.

>>3008032

>The Apple IIe line went to custom ICs that incorporated several functions on one chip instead of the parts bin approach of the II/II+, This was partially to reduce costs (also power consumption) but also to discourage cloning.

That's a good way to prevent cloning, it deters cheap clone manufacturers from making quick bucks, though I guess some might try to reverse engineer the chip and just make a daughterboard doing the same thing.

>>2992238
As far as I know, every Spectrum since the 128K has RGB in addition to RF. The 48K models only do RF, but can easily be modded to do composite.

A pretty good musicdisk for MSX2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vFhTEjbyVA

Too bad Pouet has almost no MSX musicdisk.

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>>3008032
In fact, the Franklin Ace 1200 that I have is so compatible because it directly copies the Apple ROMs. Franklin argued that you couldn't copyright ROMs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer%2C_Inc._v._Franklin_Computer_Corp.

Every function of a II+ is implemented with discrete logic or ROMs (other than the 6502 itself). This leads to a pretty large mainboard. The blinking text feature is implemented with a 555 timer on the mainboard.

>>2990787
Jet Set Willy has been kidnapped.
Are you a bad enough dude to rescue Jet Set Willy?

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>>2997242
So much this, man. Even a lowly ZX-81 can be interesting if you have some imagination and a little skill at coding.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=d548QzDg4LA
Let's not forget also CP/M and IBM PC machines were not designed for Castevania either, but they still managed some decent games anyway.
For good idea of what Atari 800 can do, check out Altered Reality:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=lcOHSlJjbVs

>>3012378
wrong link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuHqw_3A-vo

>>3011571

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztmyq9E6lMM

This one is full of nice arranges of game music.

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Hi /vr/,
I've got pic related and a power cable for it. Nothing else.

What can I do with that in 2016? Considering MSX wasn't really popular in my (shitty) country, there's no way for me to get any peripherals.
Are there any fan-made cartridges for this kind of thing? All I can do is program in Microsoft BASIC.

>>3015249
Get the MSX Flashcard

>>3015730
>100 euros for the cheapest one
Thanks anon, that's what I was probably looking for... it's way too expensive for me, though. I wonder if I could make one myself.

>>3015249

Try to check for DIY RAM cartridges, 32kB seems pretty low even for an MSX 1 computer.

>>3012378
>For good idea of what Atari 800 can do, check out Altered Reality:

ANTIC is good at doing raster effects but lacks the capabilities needed for NES kinds of games. Also Atari 8-bit graphics look dull and muddy compared with the bright pastels of the Commodore 64 or NES.

>>3016018
I saw some schematics somewhere, thanks for the suggestion.
My ultimate goal is to play the MSX version of Metal Gear. I also want to be able to save the programs I write on this computer.

>>3001994
That is a beautiful specimen of both the Franklin and the Monitor ///.

If/when you fabricate the nylon grid that was used as an anti-glare solution for the Monitor III, please document it both here and elsewhere. It was a beautiful solution before antiglare solutions existed, but fuck, if you so much touched it with a non-lint-free cloth, you were fucking fucked. Fuck :)

>>3015967
Well, the time it costs you to try and develop oneself will be higher than those 100 Euros. At least if there is no open schematics and firmwarecode to do all the stuff the card does.

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>>3016584
Thanks.

The most annoying part of getting it to work was that it has the same keytronics capacitive keyboard as a lot of the TRS-80's and the like, which has little mylar circles mounted on foam on each key. Unfortunately, after 35 years the foam was falling apart. I had to peel off each mylar circle, remove the remaining foam and adhesive with alcohol, and glue in new foam circles and put the old mylar back on. Luckily, some guy in Germany sells a repair kit that has precut foam with sticky on each side, so that helped a lot.

>>3016196

For that you'll need another MSX than what you have now, Metal Gear requires at least an MSX 2.

>>3016976
Oh. I was pretty sure MG came out for the original MSX. My bad then.

...Which doesn't change the fact that MSX is probably good, so I want to get this thing up and running.

>>3017049

Well nah, the palette of Metal Gear isn't the palette of the TMS9918. But don't worry, there are many good konami games for the MSX 1 too (Gradius/Nemesis I, II, Salamander, Parodius, Twin Bee, Antarctic Adventures, F1 Spirit to name some).

>>3018545
Actually, the MSX IS a Konami system. It feels like that almost 90% of all games for it came from them.
Sure, the also did a ton for NES(with different company names..), but the ratio on MSX way higher in feeling.

>>3019908
>Actually, the MSX IS a Konami system. It feels like that almost 90% of all games for it came from them.

Wrong. The MSX was Konami's flagship during the 80s, but the MSX also had many good games that weren't Konami games. Other companies like Compile or Micro Cabin are also associated with the MSX because of the titles they released for it.

>>3015249
I bougt this one for 0.50€ in france without any cables...
>into the trash it goes?

>>3020213

Don't trash it, all the schematics needed to make your own cables are available on the internet, and there are many good MSX 1 games.

>>3018545
I heard good things about Gradius and I think I played Twin Bee and liked it a lot.

>>3020218
Yeah don't throw these old systems away, worst case you can sell it to someone for 10-20 euro and make small profit.
It would just be sad to throw away these nice things.

>>3020151
Wrote nothing else. But still, most are likely from them.

>>3022101
>Wrote nothing else. But still, most are likely from them.

Most MSX games didn't came from Konami. They're far from being the company that made 90% of MSX games. They didn't even make 25% of the games available on the system.

>>3021651

The first Gradius on MSX is an okay port, it's quite enjoyable, but other platforms have equally good if not better ports of this game.
On the other hand, the MSX release of Gradius II (which has nothing to do with Gofer no Yabu, the arcade release) is a really great game, the first to actually use the SCC soundchip, and konami made really good tunes for it :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-_EOZ8f4JM
There was an x68k port of this game (Nemesis '90 Kai) but it actually sound worse than the MSX version, whatever kind of sound module you may use.

>>3022647
Gradius 1 on MSX is worth playing if you have the SCC version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yucFVhoY6YA

>>2933305
Speaking of music...
I got the LGR videos about old soundcards in my "watch again" section of Youtube, watched them again and am looking for more. Any other good videos about specifically sound on old computers?

>>3022973

Well, the original port is worth playing too, but it's true that the additional soundtrack is nice.

I found a Commodore VIC20 at the flea market today. I've never done any computing more retro than Win3.0 or so, and that was when Win3 was new. So I stupidly bought it without the tape deck or the power wire for about 15 bucks. Now I've got no way to load it or power it on to even test it works. Two questions, if any of you could be so kind:

1) Is there a cheap (including third party) power solution for VIC 20s?
2) I know that on some retro computers, there's a direct audio in jack that you can casette load with, and some people use music players' headphone out jack with a 3.5mm male-male wire to load them. Is that something you can do with a VIC20, and what parts would I need to do that?

>>3030191

1) Yes, you can check the pinout of the VIC-20 power input and build your own from a ATX one.

2) No, the VIC-20 use the datassette, and all the digital<->analog conversion are done withing the datassette. Don't worry, you can get that shit for literally 5 bucks.

You can also hook most disk drives and printers that could be hooked to the C=64.

>>3030220
I'm not seeing datasettes for 5 bucks, but 20 isn't exactly murder. I think I have one of those iPod -> cassette converters for older car stereos somewhere, might try that.

But...converting ATX to the VIC20's power supply? Do you have a link to those designs? That sounds like a fun project.

>>3030191
1) What kind of connector do you have?
The early two prong or the C64 compatible DIN socket?

>>3030220
>you can check the pinout of the VIC-20 power input and build your own from a ATX one.
I think this is a actual solution for Amiga computers but the VIC20 and C64 need 9VAC which a ATX one will not supply.
However, anon could try to get a C64 power supply.

>>3030286
two prong, fairly boxy
at first I thought I could somehow repurpose a playstation wire for it, then I looked closer

>>3030325
Okay, all you need is a fitting plug and a 9VAC power brick or some transformer that outputs it with up to 3A.

>>3030349
So, splice the 9VAC line with what, a C8 connector? The hard part will probably be finding the 9VAC adapter.

>>3030367
>So, splice the 9VAC line with what, a C8 connector?
If you can make it fit but I think the spacing is different.
>The hard part will probably be finding the 9VAC adapter.
I had that problem too when I wanted to make my own C64 PSU, I found a 9VDC brick which just had a transformer, bridge rectifier and a huge capacitor.
I removed latter two and had enough room in the case for a modern 5V/2A smartphone charger (PCB).
Maybe you should look out for a heavy 9VDC power supplies as well, chances are good if it's marked as "unregulated 9V".

>>3030384
I'm eyeballing the computer now, I'd definitely have to trim down the C8. that being said, I think there'd be more than enough structure to make it work fine.

Modding the power supply even more could work. I know 9VAC@3A is a weird spec, but I'm still surprised someone hasn't whipped up an adapter at that spec yet. I'll keep the unregulated 9V thing in my back pocket for sure, thanks.

>>3030267
>I think I have one of those iPod -> cassette converters for older car stereos somewhere, might try that.

Wouldn't the cable get snaped by the datassette's top when you'll have to close it though?

>>3032574
I presume it doesn't close ultra tight, that's how the car cassette converters worked -- just stayed in there. If it does, I could just nibble a pin-sized hole off the datasette with a dremel.

>>3032597

In car stereos the cassette slide in, in the datassette it's an actual door you have to close, like most non-car players of the time. And yes, it's actually too tight for a cable to pass through that door.

>If it does, I could just nibble a pin-sized hole off the datasette with a dremel.

Eww, why not just use your average Type I tape? Yes, there are many datassette out there, but still, damaging (yes it's only the case, but still) something that isn't produced anymore on purpose isn't a great thing to do.

>>3032597
>>3032645
Maybe exchange the cable of the cassette converter with a ribbon cable?
The ones that are thin as paper.

>>3032652

Yeah, if the cable is that thin it might be able to go through.

>>3032645
I have a tape recorder somewhere, but not something I could write arbitrary files to -- just the voice recording kind. I suppose I could bypass this with that one Arduino C64 loader replacement. Apparently it also does VIC20 TAP files in addition to C64 and PET. Could be (yet another) fun hack.
>>3032669
>>3032652
I'm not sure a ribbon cable would be much thinner. As I recall, this particular adapter is roughly 28 AWG. It's super, super thin. I'm not familiar with tape decks like this, does it need to be shut to run, or is it made so that something needs to be pressed (by design, the door shutting) in order to run? Because if we're talking about a PS1 lid scenario, I could always find a small spring or something and dupe it open.

>>3032703

It needs to remain pressed to run because the door is what actually holds the cassette tape and put it on the 2 rotating gears when closed.

>>3032709
Hm. Guess I'll be looking into Tapduino then. Thanks again.

Downloaded HESMON, know a fair bit of 6502 assembly. How to I store strings in it?

>>3034073

In 6800/6809 assembly, there's the macro <label> EQU <value>, and strings are delimited by double quotes, and i think it's pretty much the same in 6502 assembly.

I eventually realized you can put 12VDC into the VIC20's 9VAC input, because it's just gonna go through a voltage regulator and the AC/DC converter anyway. It's a shame model 1 Genesis video connectors aren't compatible with the VIC20.

I ended up using an old 3.5" external hard drive adapter spliced with some weird connector I found at a thrift shop that inexplicably is a perfect fit for the VIC20. Might have to put a name to that connector so no-one else has to play 'guess the connector' again.

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>>3034847
(forgot attachment)

>>3034847
>>3034848

Be prepared not to be able to use the user port then :
http://www.hardwarebook.info/VIC-20_User_I/O

>>3035945
I actually can't see why this would stop the user port being used

>>3036019

The pins 10 and 11 of the user port are there to supply the very 9VAC you're supposed to feed your VIC20 to any devices that might uses it.
Look at the 5th page of the service manual :
ftp://www.zimmers.net/pub/cbm/schematics/computers/vic20/VIC-20_The_Friendly_Computer_Technical_Manual_%28PN_990440%29.pdf

The only way to get this is by hooking these pins prior to the diode bridge, thus way before the voltage regulator.
Also, it looks like the cassette port-related circuits won't like that 12V DC for long either.

>>3032574
>>3032597

The cassette door is detachable, you can just pop it right off by squeezing it at the hinge on both sides and pulling up. And then pop it back in as you please.

This is on the later rounded rectangle Datasette player that is. Probably wouldn't work on the early PET version.

>>3037127
Oh, forgot to add, it still works and reads fine with the door taken out.

>>3036035
At a glance of the datasette circuit, it seems to me that the DC is more of an issue than the 12V. For reasons I'm not entirely sure of, the input terminal voltage I'm actually seeing on this power supply is more of the magnitude of 10V. My only guess is that this the adapter is a Chinese production and they reused the wrong shell. That or it's crazy out of tolerance and the device I was using it on prior didn't care. I will say that despite the mismatch it runs wonderfully cool compared to what I'm hearing about the stock VIC20 power supply.

I could probably fix all of this by popping open the adapter and ripping out the converter circuit. Assuming that brings it back into spec as a 12V AC signal, it'd be a matter of thinking of a consistent way to drop 3VAC. A big problem, since the only way I can think of dropping AC without possibly causing more problems down the line is yet another transformer.

>>3037735

Good luck modifying that transformer.

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>>3012378
Wow, that's an awesome advert for Nemesis. A few months ago I was tracking down the game. Haven't been able to run it at the right speed in various emulators. From what I see a pretty interesting early roguelike with different battle mechanisms.

>>3037080
So that's what that thing is at the back of the room in the IT Crowd.

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You know, the phrase 'console port' means two different things on two different boards. On here, /vr/, a console port would be a port of a PC game to a console, see Ultima or Maniac Mansion. But on /v/, a console port is a game that is made primarily for consoles, and then rudimentarily made to work on PCs, such as 99% of all multiplatform games. Looking at some videos and history regarding PC games, it seems like there was a time when PCs used to have exclusive titles, that were then ported to consoles, such as DooM or Quake. Now, very few PC exclusives like those exist, and ironically, the new DooM is made for consoles first and foremost, with the PC version just 'being there'. PC versions of multiplatform games are oftentimes butchered or delayed, or nonexistent if the game is of Japanese origin.

What happened, exactly? I know for a fact that consoles were always a more popular method of playing games, yet computers of all kinds, despite being made primarily for work with arbitrary video technologies, had games developed for them. Sometimes ports, sometimes exclusives, sometimes breakthrough hits that saw console ports. I want to say that the major shift from PC+console to console only started around 6th gen due to the PS2's almost comical market dominance, and continued until 7th gen as both consoles were powerful enough for more ambitious games, and had an obscene install base between the two. But I refused to believe the answer is simply "CONSOLES!" because they ALWAYS were more popular than PCs.

>>3034848
Need a RAM expander if you're gonna do anything cool with that.

>>3040709
Video game jargons have a bad habit of being misappropriated to mean something other than it was originally intended to be. A lot of people (usually Britbongs) used beat-'em-ups to refer to competitive fighting games and even the term "competitive fighting game" itself has been misappropriated by tourneyfags to refer exclusively to games approved by EVO.

I remember the term "console exclusive" used to refer to multiplatform games that were not available on PC (such as Bayonetta and Vanquish), but now it's being used by marketers for multiplatform games that's also on PC, but only available on a certain console brand (usually PlayStation or Xbox).

>I know for a fact that consoles were always a more popular method of playing games, ...

That's not true. Consoles were almost irrelevant in Europe until the early to mid 90's, when the home computer market crashed and there was a time without low cost gaming systems during the switch to IBM compatibles.

>>3040709
Wider audience, and maybe the devs make it on console first because console players aren't able to be as adaptable compared to pc players who'll inevitably have mods, or since some play with controllers it removes the need to make a game from a pc base. I'm looking at the UI from more popular games like Skyrim or Oblivion which were designed with consoles in mind from the UI to the controls. Consoles is also an easy way to expand user base which you already touched upon.

>>3040709

PCs had very few exclusives at first actually. Most of the time, other kind of computers had the original game (Apple II for Ultima, Commodore 64 for Maniac Mansion), then the game was ported to PC a bit later (during the 80s, these ports weren't as good as the original in some cases). Some developpers dide make game exclusively for the IBM platform (Sierra, before the arrival of other 16/32 bit computers like the ST or Amiga), but most of the time PC games were multi-platform titles, and not alway the best port of these at first.

>tfw gonna sell my 5150 to my friend
It doesn't even boot up with a command line or anything and he's much more computer knowledgeable than I am, so I figure it's better off with him than me atm.
Just gotta dig out the keyboard and printer.

>>3041153
The console port comment was more or less for me to open up the question with, not asking why the definition changed.

>>3041250
So would you say the European shift from PC to console is what's responsible for the mass influx of once mostly PC developers? The PS2 had so many games that were on all consoles but not PC (Mercenaries, Timesplitters, that Baldur's Gait spinoff), and I reckon that was hugely popular in Europe. Well, it was hugely popular around the WORLD.

>>3041257
I can understand that, though I find the sudden transition to be strange. And regarding Beth UIs, they are unintuitive even on consoles, Sky UI is great for both console and PC, yet the solution Bethesda went with was fucking retarded.

>>3041272
When I say PC, I mean computers in general. I should be aware that PC refers to anything based off the IBM PC, and doesn't include things like the Commodore 64 or Amiga. And it appears PC getting bad ports isn't entirely a new thing, though back then it could be attributed more to the porting teams being cheap outsourced programmers and, well, computers not actually being made for games in the first place.

>>3042738
>And it appears PC getting bad ports isn't entirely a new thing, though back then it could be attributed more to the porting teams being cheap outsourced programmers and, well, computers not actually being made for games in the first place.

Some computers were designed with game in mind without being meant to be straightforward game machines (for example, the Commodore 64 has 8 hardware sprites) but machines like the IBM PC was meant to be your home spreadsheet machine.

>>3042776
That's true, but the C64 still couldn't do certain things the NES was already built to do, namely smooth scrolling. The C64 could do other things that are technically more impressive than anything the NES could do, but the NES was made only to play games. At its core, the C64 was a tool, not a game system, even if it was more consolized than other computers.

Fast forward to today, where PCs are literally just more expensive consoles that occasionally play games better than consoles. We've come full circle, haven't we.

>>3042787
>That's true, but the C64 still couldn't do certain things the NES was already built to do, namely smooth scrolling.

True, that's why I said it was designed with games in mind, but not as a game machine.
There were machines that could handle all kind of games way better than consoles (the Sharp x68000 and the Fujistsu FM Towns for example) but these are exceptions though. It didn't stop computers from having some really good action games though.

As for PCs nowadays, I think that the fact consoles allow online multiplayer nowadays stripped PCs from one of their killing feature.

And as for the European shift from computers to console, I think it's mainly due to the fact that most of the home computer manufacturers which were popular in Europe either stopped making computers, of went bankrupt. Also, Euro developpers started to support consoles like the Playstation (Psygnosis) or the Nintendo 64 (Factor 5) more than PC clones.

Anyway, gotta love Aleste's soundtrack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6AG19bUPjQ

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wtf is wrong with you ebay?

>>3046404
I did a similar search, after learning how iffy many PC-98 emulators were.

Considering that I'm going to spend more on the proxy service's shipping than the actual computer, what is the best PC-98 model to get?

>>3046523

If you're gonna run most games from an HDD and wanna play late PC-98 titles, you'd better get a PC-9821 with at least a 486DX2 or a Pentium.

>>3046404

Greedy resellers without an ounce of decency wanting easy bucks from people who don't know their shit. I mean holy shit the floppy drives of the machine he's selling don't even have their front panels and the keyboard isn't even present, and he still find a way to sell it WAY above the market price for this kind of machine.

I'm about to head out to pick up a Mac SE (1MB, dual 800k floppy). Wish me luck. (also software/game suggestions?)

>>3042839
>Psygnosis

Sony bought them out. They only did WipEout games, before Sony closed them down. Factor 5 went out of business eventually, though I think some Factor 5 people went on to form Crytek. Crytek, like F5 before them, jumped ship to consoles, and barely exist.

>>3047418

Factor 5 didn't close down before the PS3 era though.

>>3047106

Uninvited and other mindscape adventure games are pretty cool games for the first Apple generation. Shufflepuck is kinda nice too.

>>3048743
Damn that's some good scrolling for an MSX.

>>3048824
That's from an MSX turbo R game, which was the last model of the MSX computer ever made.

>>3049252

Pleasure Heart is also compatible with the MSX 2+, but benefit greatly from the Turbo R's CPU when there's a lot of action on screen. But anyway, both the 2+ and Turbo R have horizontal hardware scrolling.

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>>3046646
>>3046404
I'm going to buy this one:
http://item.rakuten.co.jp/nabekin/h14101005/?scid=af_pc_etc&sc2id=247567789
i'll cost me 175€ including shipping fees
what do you think buddies?
also i live in France so i assume i'll have to buy an AC adapter, and since there's VGA output i'll not have issues with hooking my european monitor right?

>>3050446

No, you'll have no problem hooking a VGA monitor to it. As for the adapter, be sure to get one that will support the computer's power rating (50 to 230W according to the photos on the link you've posted).
And for the price, it's kind of pricey for that model of PC-9821.

>>3051536
>>3050446
290W. So get something that goes up to 300W or of course higher to be safe..

Is there anywhere I can get an adaptor for the classic square-y Amiga mouse so that I can plug it into a modern computer?

Or a reproduction of that mouse design with a USB connector.

>>3052279
Amiga (and Atari ST, I think) don't have any complicated protocols for their mice, the quadruple signals (for movement) and buttons go directly to the computer.
It is possible to modify almost any PC mouse that uses a ball to work with a Amiga and the other way around should be possible too in a similar way.
If you can get a ball mouse that you can use with your modern computer (I don't recall seeing a single one with USB) then you could use a DSub9 socket in there and solder like 8 wires to the sensors and buttons of the PC mouse and convert it into a rather messy adapter.

>>3051891
>>3050446
thank you for the help fellows

>>3052279
Check "Keyrah" from IndividualComputers, as far i can remember it also forwarded Joysticks and mouse too..

But i guess that there are also easier adapters somewhere around, normally stuff like this can be obtained easily and sometimes cheap on ebay. Since it's like >>3052718 wrote not a very complex thing.

Worth picking up an A1200?
I don't actually know much about Amigas, but it seems like the best balance of performance, compatibility and price. I have a minor obsession with owning one that comes and goes and I'm considering satisfying it for good.

They seem to generally be about £200 which feels high, but still within the bounds of being acceptable.

>>3054030

An Amiga 1200 is worth picking, but £200 is way too much for one, you'd expect the seller to be selling an A2000, 3000 or even a 4000 for that price.

>>3054601
£200 (~150-250, trending towards the lower end, often boxed with CF hard drive, WB discs, etc) seems to be about the UK average for an A1200 sold within the UK (at least for buy-it-now on ebay), A3000/4000s are significantly rarer and more expensive if they're there, A500s seem to hover around £50-70.

Is there anywhere you can realistically get one for lower than those prices in bongland?

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>>3050446
samefag here,
i finally made up my mind and bought this one fore 120€.
It has a sweet i486, HDD FDD 3.5" and win 3.1 installed on it! can't wait to recieve it

>>3055326

Did you check if it did have any FM synthesis hardware or if you could add any though?

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>>3055331
>sound function: "option"
i guess i can add an external sound card.
full specs (in moonspeak)
http://www.pasocomclub.co.jp/datas/nec_pc_9821ne2.html

>>3055348
http://j02.nobody.jp/jto98/n_note_sound/pcmciafm.htm
The little breakout boxes some of them come with are cute as hell.

>>3055385

Yeah, they're pretty nice looking.

>>3055348

It looks like you could also add an external C-Bus bay.
I checked the website a bit, it sells some really useful stuff. They even sell 8" floppies.

>>2986334
>>2986397
I was still actually working on this till now but I was just too lazy to post what I did.
So to sum it up in somewhat chronological order:
- Managed to fit the new floppy drive by using some rings and nuts to raise it by 4mm, new screws were needed as the original ones are too short. Now it fits perfectly.
- Made amiga specific connectors like the power connector from 5 nails and some thin metal sheets and a DSub 23 connector for the SCART adapter cable.
- I used ADTwin to get Workbench 1.3.3 on actual floppy disks and made a "adapter" by sticking a floppy cable to a DSub 25 extension cable with >25 solid wires each 7-10cm long.
- Made a rather huge power supply by using separate 12V@2A, 5V@12A and [email protected] power supplies, all these are now combined in a metal case along with 3 LEDs and mains switch with builtin lamp.
- I transferred WB 1.3.3 a few times more via null modem cable, to have additional copies that are written by the Amiga itself.
- Bought 50 new noname DD disks in orange color for 19,50€, they work perfectly.
- Made some hardware and software improvements to my (own designed) Super NES mouse/controller to C64/Amiga adapter.
- Attached heatsinks to CPU, Agnus and Denise as these get really hot.

That were the good things but there is one bad accident I regret that happened a week ago:
I was still working on PSU and I wanted to measure how the voltage drops the on 5V rail depending on the load.
I wanted to attach the probe to one of the capacitors for 5V but slipped and shorted it with the capacitor for +12V which was right next to it.
Aftermath:
Fully shorted 68000 (I think it drew a current of 6A, calculated from the voltage drop) and pin 43 of Denise was shorted to ground, I quickly got it running again as I had 19 spare CPUs (and 20 of them in PLCC68) and all chips for a Rev6A board. I didn't knew if these were working beforehand but it turned out that all of them are okay.

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>turn on my Amiga 500
>white screen
>remove the memory expansion
>try again
>still white screen
>mfw

Is amiga kill? What to do? No icons or anything, just white screen.

>>3056932
>icons

>>3056940
I mean the floppy hand icon or any error messages.

>>3056932
Well, I know that this means that the CPU doesn't run correctly. At least Denise and Agnus outputs video as you can see a white screen.
Maybe reseat all socketed chips and check again.
Did your A500 had any problems in the past?

>>3056932
one word: capacitors

Since we're on Amigas, what's a joystick for 'em that doesn't suck?

>>3056932

>White screen

CPU failure. Do what >>3057338 said, and if it still doesnt work then consider yourself lucky because 68000 CPUs are still sold today.

>>3057513
Doesn't this mean he also has an opportunity to pretty much solder a more powerful CPU?

Or am I thinking of newer Amigas?

>>3055825
There are also a few HW related things I noticed:
Analogue RGB output is really weak. I get like 550mVpp on my 75ohms inputs instead of the standard 700mVpp. The voltage of the video circuit was about 4.6V when I measured that.
The audio output also appears to be weak too, I get like no more than 400mVpp on the left channel while the Turrican 2 title song plays. Turrican 3 is just as quiet. Around 894mVpp is nominal max. amplitude for consumer line level audio.
Is there some (test)software that can play a 1khz sine at maximum volume on either both or one channel which will run in a plain A500?
A simple tracker would be fine too.

Also I would like to do some computing too, how are external 3rd party floppy drives?
Anything that I should get or avoid?
And what about HDDs and flash memory based substitutes?
Should I get one or just stick to floppy disks?
I could also make my own Kickstart switcher by using four 29F040 (2Mbyte in total) which could give me 4 versions to chose from and I think that versions 1.2, 1.3, 2.04 and 3.1 would allow to run quite much if I have enough RAM.
Does anybody here have better ideas aside of simply getting a more powerful Amiga or very expensive expansions?

>>3057513
I wouldn't count on it that the CPU is dead, anything that connects to the CPU and/or chip bus could cause that which includes all custom chips and some 7400 logic (marked as DATA PATH).
I would use a voltmeter in this case and measure if any of the bus signals (mainly address, data, reset, clock and read/write) is always 0V or 5V, anything in between means that there's a signal which is okay but if not could mean that some defective chip shorts this to either ground or power.

>>3057642
>Or am I thinking of newer Amigas?
Yes. The A500 uses a 68000 in DIP-64 package which usually sits in a socket.

>>3057650
>which includes all custom chips

Those triggers their own color screen error though.

>>3057659
That's what the Kickstart does if it runs correctly and checks the registers of that chip.
Every custom chips (excl. Gary) has a connection to the either the DRAM data bus or 68000 data bus. If one of these lines get shorted then it will cause a white screen.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Acorn-BBC-microcomputer-B-64K-computer-LTM-Portable-RARE-/371571443116?hash=item56836245ac:g:ysMAAOSwv9hW4UNr

Why is this in a weird oscilloscope-like case?

>>3057728
I thought it was a pretty popular form factor for portables in the 80's.

There's a lot of portable IBM clones that have this shape.

Alright, I have a question about general /vr/ computer capabilities. Suppose I wanted to port an arcade game to PC, let's say I wanted to port DonPachi. What operating system would I target, Windows 95? Game came out in 1995, and console ports came out in 1996, so I assume 1996/1997 is when the PC version would be made. How were old PC games made? Did Win95 have built in sound support, or were sound cards a necessity still? Could one theoretically make a "homebrew" Win 95 game today?

>>3058342
DOS and Win9x versions is what you should be making.

>>3058342
>Did Win95 have built in sound support, or were sound cards a necessity still?

Even today if your computer didn't have an integrated soundcard you'd still need a soundcard. Anyway, if you follow what >>3058483 said, for DOS stuff you'd need to know how to use various kind of sound hardware, while for Win9x you have DirectX.

Also Win9x falls out of the scope of this thread, same for the 100MHz Pentium and more CPU your game will require (Raiden II needed a 100MHz CPU, a Donpachi port will need something similar).

>>3057728
It were the laptops of that time. Almost all bigger companies you can name did atleast one of these with theier hardware. Also Commodore.

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>>2926174
The first computer my dad/family owned was an obscure brand known as PCPartner, in 1991. There's home videos of me and my sister playing such games as MSPaint, and command shell.

>>3059206

Check at your local electronic recycling center, businesses are throwing them away en masse.

>>3059237
>'91
>not playing Space Quest, Commander Keen or Duke Nukum.

>>3058342
>Did Win95 have built in sound support, or were sound cards a necessity still?

You need sound hardware regardless of what OS you're using. If you mean how you interface with that hardware, then you can use DirectX rather than banging on the hardware directly and needing to support dozens of different interfaces.

>Could one theoretically make a "homebrew" Win 95 game today?

There's nothing stopping you from writing code for that API right now.

>>3058483
Alright, sounds fair.

>>3058894
>>3059945

Well by sound card, I was asking if a typical PC from 1996/1997 still needed a sound card adapter. I assume that a Gateway Win 95 PC would have an integrated sound card, yeah? What would that be, a soundblaster or something?

>Also Win9x falls out of the scope of this thread

Oops, my bad.

>>3061084
> I was asking if a typical PC from 1996/1997 still needed a sound card adapter.
Most shitboxes by that era were shipping with soundblasters or integrated sound.

>>3061097
Oh sweet, then maybe this game could take a cue from Mario Teaches Typing and have a fucking RAP song in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdV4d2MRVK8

"D, to-the-O, to-the-N, to-the-Pachi. Gonna rack up them points, now watch me. With my space ships of red, blue, and green, I can hear the crowd of ladies scream."

>>3059237
>an obscure brand known as PCPartner
I don't think those were actually that obscure, I've seen three of the smaller 2-bay 386SX-16 models in the flesh, that's the first time I've ever seen one like that though.

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>>3061158
I saw it in a magazine, but the company went under long ago. and It was the only time I've seen it pop up. I still have the keyboard that goes to it, one of those nice psuedo-Model Ms with Alps clicky keys.

>>3061084

Mid-90s prebuilt boxes usually had common low-end sound cards, like a cheap Sound Blaster or Ensoniq card. These were not integrated, but actual ISA or PCI cards.

Late-90s setups started using motherboard integrated audio after the AC'97 spec was released. They made things a lot cheaper for the manufacturer but In terms of sound quality and susceptibility to EM interference they were a lot worse.

>>3061127
song is actually way better than I expected

Where can you buy retro computers in the UK? Ebay is OK but often the computers are either broken or outrageously expensive.

>>3057650
>And what about HDDs and flash memory based substitutes?
>Should I get one or just stick to floppy disks?

It is the year Two Thousand and Sixteen. Use a Flash adapter and join us all in the 21st century please.

Besides it's much much more convenient and reliable than floppies.

>>3062486

>more reliable than floppies.

Floppies are reliable enough if you don't put them on monitors and speakers (and if you don't use 00s ones made in china).

Also, there's nothing wrong with using floppies when dealing with more than 20 years old computers.

>>3062509
This is the guy who'd restore a classic car and insist on only using rusted 60 year old parts he found in a barn because muh authenticity.

>>3062519
I hate car analogies, I really do.

>>3062390
I had a Dell Optiplex from 96 and it has integrated sound.

>>3062559

Integrated sound was definitely a thing, usually using something like a Vibra-16 chipset.

Integrated just wasn't very common until later, when DirectSound and AC '97 made SB compatibility unimportant.

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>>2926174
So am I the only person in the world who hadn't seen this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNRO7lno_DM

>>3062535
It could be worse, we could try to retell the entirety of 'The deathbed vigil' using food analogies.

>>3062486
come on, I have all my computers hooked up with flash memory and connected to my network and most of them are half modern parts half vintage parts frankenmachines but if someone likes floppies there's no reason to deride that. Anyone who's into this should at least have a way to read floppies and get data off of them, there are a lot of interesting things I've found on old floppies I've rescued from fleamarket bins, student written programs (my favorite thing), interesting freight rosters, text files, it's all about the human soul in mundane information.

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Need some help here: I've got a Commodore 64 Executive computer, that bigass grey box with the handle. (Pic related, although not mine) It turns on and the screen displays, however...I can't actually type anything. Not sure if they keyboard is messed up, or if the cable that connects it to the machine is messed up. Should I just get a new cable, or what?

>>3062519

Your analogy is just plain wrong.
If you're here just to shitpost you might as well just go to >>>/g/