TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[biffzinker]

Boards using Ensoniq AudioPCI tech are usually easily identifiable by the board design and the chip size because they all look quite similar. Such boards include Sound Blaster PCI64 (April 1998), PCI128 (July 1998), Creative Ensoniq AudioPCI, Vibra PCI and Sound Blaster 16 PCI.

Actually had one of those sound cards, I think it was the Sound Blaster 16 PCI. If I remember right it was easy to get legacy DOS support working for me.

Oh well, maybe I'll fiddle with some of the cards I got, and see if I can get them to work...

Which sound cards do you have?

 

[Trekkie4]

Wouldn't want I'll see about swapping the Live card for Aureal

Actually had one of those sound cards, I think it was the Sound Blaster 16 PCI. If I remember right it was easy to get legacy DOS support working for me.

Which sound cards do you have?

Potential candidates are Aureal Vortex 2, alternative SB Live model (newer than the one I'm using right now) and SB128 (no EAX though)

 

[stinger608]

There have been tons of issues with the Sound Blaster Creative cards for years! Back in the Awe 64 days it wasn't bad, but I had serious issues with the Live! cards and so did tons of other people.

I did finally find a driver that worked awesome in Windows 98SE and DOS. I think I still have that driver on a burnt CD somewhere if I can find it.

I know it took forever to actually find that driver and I was hell bent for election to keep it on a disk!!!!!!

 

[Trekkie4]

There have been tons of issues with the Sound Blaster Creative cards for years! Back in the Awe 64 days it wasn't bad, but I had serious issues with the Live! cards and so did tons of other people.

I did finally find a driver that worked awesome in Windows 98SE and DOS. I think I still have that driver on a burnt CD somewhere if I can find it.

I know it took forever to actually find that driver and I was hell bent for election to keep it on a disk!!!!!!

Would be cool if you could find it somewhere... I'm using the one from Vogons driver database, original driver CD for SB Live & seemed to work OK with all my other SB live cards except for SB0220. 0220 was/is the OEM card & requires unique drivers in order to work.

 

[stinger608]

I'll make an effort to find that dang disk @Trekkie4 !

I know I have it in a hard case.................I wanted it safe.

 

[Trekkie4]

No prob, I appreciate it!

 

[stinger608]

Found the disk! It was sitting in one of the bottom drawers of my desk along with a bunch of EDO ram.

Now if we can figure out how to share these files with ya @Trekkie4

Do you have a dropbox?

Maybe I can upload them on Microsoft One Drive and share that with ya?

 

[Trekkie4]

I think I used to have DropBox acc, but if that's the case, then I haven't touched it in years... I'll have to check. I do have 4Shared account, if that helps?

 

[biffzinker]

bunch of EDO ram.

What are you doing with EDO RAM after all this time has passed still?

Edit: Went looking about EDO RAM as a refresher, and dang forgot it was only capable of 320 MB/s of memory bandwidth @ 5v back in 1994.

 

[Trekkie4]

Whoops, I've edited one of my previous posts on the page before & completely forgot to actually mention it here...

Sound card problem resolved, I took out the Live card & swapped it for another Live (value) but still had the same issue. So I ditched the Live completely & took the Aureal Vortex2 MX300 from the previous generation of RetroMaster... I just hope I won't regreat this decision, since this is my ONLY Aureal card in the entire collection...

Funny thing though... Even though DOS drivers worked out OK (and there wasn't any problems, whatsoever), I kept getting the error message for the joystick/gameport component... Something about driver loader not being able to load the VXD file(s), IDK. Probably due to the same reason as SB Live, IRQ interference. But then just as I was about to give up, I came up with the idea to force "legacy" MS driver, instead of using the Aureal one. Because every gameport is the same, right? And it worked! So it's all good for now!

As for the EDO RAM, @stinger608 hold onto it! It's quite rare to find EDO modules nowdays, especially if they come in identical pair(s)

 

[biffzinker]

Whoops, I've edited one of my previous posts on the page before & completely forgot to actually mention it here...

I seen your edit when I flipped back a page to check on a past reply.

 

[Mr.Scott]

What are you doing with EDO RAM after all this time has passed still?

LOL. I still have FPM here.
Never know when you might need it.

 

[Trekkie4]

My point exactly!

 

[buzzi]

Finally I bought this:

to make that work :

and it's running fine, just the spacebar spring makes an annoying noise (is not the classic, lovely and caracteristic spacebar sound), I'll look if I can fix it, I have a spare keyboard that could be cannibalized (its spacebar works, but some keys don't)

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that, when unplugged and then plugged again, it works without needing reboot!

I think that I won't polish it with abrasive paste, to leave it with signs of the years!

 

[Trekkie4]

Found the disk! It was sitting in one of the bottom drawers of my desk along with a bunch of EDO ram.

Now if we can figure out how to share these files with ya @Trekkie4

Do you have a dropbox?

Maybe I can upload them on Microsoft One Drive and share that with ya?

Sorry it took me so much time to get back to you on Live drivers issue, but anyhow... I went back through my emails & checked ... I don't have DropBox, but I DO have DropSend... Somehow I figured those two are the same I also have 4shared acc, in case that makes any difference?

 

[Ahhzz]

Sorry it took me so much time to get back to you on Live drivers issue, but anyhow... I went back through my emails & checked ... I don't have DropBox, but I DO have DropSend... Somehow I figured those two are the same I also have 4shared acc, in case that makes any difference?

Actually, if he stores the file in the "public" folder, he can simply send you a link, and you can download it without an account.

 

[Trekkie4]

Thanks @Ahhzz

Time to upload more pics... Enjoy!

This here is Diamond Monster MX300, aka Aureal Vortex2 in combo with Creative WaveBlaster2 expansion module. This is what ended up being inside RetroMaster system, while the old Live card ended up inside RetroMaster 1000 (older system) And being a Slot-1 machine, it doesn't have any issues with Creative card, whatsoever! So much for the Asus A7V8X-X, "the BEST Socket 462 motherboard ever made" If you ask me, I'd give it no more than 3 out of 5


The current inside view of RetroMaster 2000 (2500)... Yeah, it's pretty tight! Not much room left for expansion or even decent air flow Heh, just the Aureal card alone is about the same size as nVidia Ti4200!


And these three pics are just for fun... While experimenting with Live! cards, I took apart one of my earliest retro builds (don't think I ever posted this one before), so I took couple of pics... Pretty decent system for what it's worth, based on Pentium 3 (733MHz) CPU & Asus P3B-F motherboard. It has a Voodoo3 3000 card inside ... this is my secondary V3 3000 sytem actually which I barely ever use any more or even take apart...

 

[stinger608]

As for the EDO RAM, @stinger608 hold onto it! It's quite rare to find EDO modules nowdays, especially if they come in identical pair(s)

I have a bunch of EDO ram. Probably 30 sticks in various sizes.

As for the Live! driver files; I can probably just upload them to the public URL for my Microsoft One Drive and you can grab em from there.

 

[buzzi]

@Trekkie4 I do LOVE those green PCBs

 

[Trekkie4]

@Trekkie4 I do LOVE those green PCBs

One of the green boards in particular, or all of them?

 

[buzzi]

shade of expansion module is my favorite, but green PCBs in general, since they are so retro

 

[Ruru]

I was wondering where you guys buy nostalgic stuff. ebay? craiglist?

Here in Finland a popular HW forum called MuroBBS is a great place to buy old and new hardware, usually all old HW is cheap or free. Also I've got pretty much stuff for free from friends since they know I like to play around with old hardware and OC the crap out of those.

...aaaaand the A8V Dlx detects full 2048MB of RAM, that CPU is A64 3200+ Winchester which runs for now @ 2.4GHz with stock cooling. I just need to get a Win XP disc from somewhere since Win7 isn't the right choice for a retro rig

 

[stinger608]

I just need to get a Win XP

Again, I can probably upload the XP Pro ISO imagine on my One Drive and share it for ya to download @9700 Pro .

It, of course, would be the U.S. version if that would work for ya.

 

[Mr.Scott]

No need.
Here's a link. Site is clean, I use it all the time.
http://getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/windows-xp-sp3/

 

[biffzinker]

No need.
Here's a link. Site is clean, I use it all the time.
http://getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/windows-xp-sp3/

How about that, I've used that site before for XP 64-bit.