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Dec 30, 2009, 10:01am

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Topic: 386 box supertunning (Read 8,121 times)

enginerd
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Re: 386 box supertunning
« Reply #660 on Nov 3, 2009, 11:46am »

I'd also suggest using earlier versions of Opera: Version 3.62 is the best 16bit web browser I've ever tried (and it runs quite fast on my 486DX-33 with 8MB RAM and Windows for workgroups), and version 4.0 renders websites quite ok (I've tried it on a 486DX2-66 with 16MB RAM and Windows NT 3.51).
The only disadvantage in using earlier versions of Opera is that they're shareware, and so they'll stop working after 30 days unless you have a valid serial number.

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dave
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Re: 386 box supertunning
« Reply #661 on Nov 9, 2009, 2:37am »

@idisjunction - I have downloaded the floppy image and I am going to test it. When I find time

Just a slight bit of news for anyone who cares. Because I live in Australia (the best place in the world in my opinion

), I got a laptop from Mr Kevin 07 (a.k.a Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister) and so did every other school kid in a public school in year 9! The laptop is a Lenovo IdeaPad s10e (a netbook actually, but meh... It's free, and it's red!

). It has Windows 7, 2 Intel Atom N270's, 2GB of RAM, 160GB of HDD space, but there is a catch. We are not allowed to run programs off of our flash drive (the group policy on windows actually prevents it) and we are not allowed to modify the hardware or software configuration (So, technically, we're not supposed to plug in flashdrives and mice and such)

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Tom Maneiro
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Re: 386 box supertunning
« Reply #662 on Nov 9, 2009, 6:24am »

So... technically, you have a brick, or at most, a unmoddable Nintendo. Government-sponsored PCs sucks

In other news, Saki is back to service - no NIC was lost, it just was dust. LOTS of dust. After some quick blowing (hey, don't think dirty things, kiddies!), the NICs were back to service. Saki needs a GOOD exhaustive cleanup

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Tom Maneiro
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idisjunction
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Re: 386 box supertunning
« Reply #663 on Nov 9, 2009, 7:51am »

Nov 9, 2009, 2:37am, dave wrote:

@idisjunction - I have downloaded the floppy image and I am going to test it. When I find time

There's no rush. I'm almost sure now I'm going to have to find an alternative C library and compiler to get it to run on a 386, anyway. Real 386 support broke in glibc / GCC somewhere around 2003/2004 according to my research. The problem is I don't know of any other C compiler that can compile a Linux kernel without a lot of hassle. :-/

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Re: 386 box supertunning
« Reply #664 on Nov 10, 2009, 2:06am »

@idisjunction - The image file wouldn't open with winimage or PowerISO, so I was going to try it on my linux computer (I thought maybe because it was a linux disk image, I might have to open it under linux). Fedora was loaded up, I was about to log ion, and the power supply fried itself! I guess i'll have to load it up on my other computer

. I'm intending to run your boot floppy on a 486 (I don't own a 386, so a 486 is the next best)

@tom - This netbook thing is basically a poxed up piece of crap. Still, I can play hearts on it when i've got nothing to do

. Also, talking about dust, I had to hose out the heatsink in our Dell. It was loaded with cat hair and dust and god knows what else

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Re: 386 box supertunning
« Reply #665 on Nov 10, 2009, 7:10am »

Nov 10, 2009, 2:06am, dave wrote:

The image file wouldn't open with winimage or PowerISO, so I was going to try it on my linux computer (I thought maybe because it was a linux disk image, I might have to open it under linux). Fedora was loaded up, I was about to log ion, and the power supply fried itself! I guess i'll have to load it up on my other computer

. I'm intending to run your boot floppy on a 486 (I don't own a 386, so a 486 is the next best)

Yeah, its an ext2 file system (you can't have device nodes on a FAT file system in the 2.6 kernel). It'll run on a 486; just keep in mind my goal was minimal usage of RAM and fitting on a normal floppy, so if you have more than 4 MB of RAM, you'll probably be unimpressed. It's the first "distro" I made from scratch, though, and like so many other script kiddies I'm anxious to show it off.

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Tom Maneiro
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Re: 386 box supertunning
« Reply #666 on Nov 21, 2009, 5:27pm »

Shameless plug: If you live (or are near) from Venezuela, take the opportunity to buy some of my shit (including some uber-rare AS/400 memorabila!)

http://listado.mercadolibre.com.ve/_CustId_79094320

I now need a way to get rid of that bunch of copper wires...

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Re: 386 box supertunning
« Reply #667 on Nov 25, 2009, 7:06pm »

Can anyone help me to identify a few RAM chips?

I'm keeping an eye on MercadoLibre auctions to see if i ever spot some 30-pin 4MB SIMMs for Marika (to see if i EVER get that 16MB upgrade done...), and from time to time people sells (or at least attempt, since nobody loves old things here) that class of modules. Sadly, all the auctions that i've seen are for 1MB sticks. However, i've seen this one:

http://articulo.mercadolibre.com.ve/MLV-....2-contactos-_JM

Unfortunately the guy does not know the size of the modules that he is selling. But, i asked him for the RAM IC numbers on the sticks, and got this:

- Elite Memory EM4003NJ-7, from early 1994
- GoldStar GM710442568, from early 1993

Tried googling those, and for the Goldstar i got no matches, and only gazillons of part miners for the Elite (I DON'T WANT TO BUY THE F*CKING CHIP!), but no datasheets, or even a simple description. I suspect that those thingies are more lame 1MB sticks, but i'm not sure... Since nobody buys that class of stuff in Venezuela, if these result to be 4MB sticks, i will go for these, but only if i can get the exact info.

In other boring news, i finally got my degree in Computer Engineering, after 5 years of sweat, blood, and tears... and lots of cool parts!

System status upgrade:

- All systems will be moved from my university dorm to my home base the next week. Get ready for another wiring mess!

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Re: 386 box supertunning
« Reply #668 on Nov 25, 2009, 11:35pm »

Those are most likely 1mb sticks. The 4mb sticks shouldn't be that rare on places like ebay, e.g. http://cgi.ebay.com/4-x-RARE-SAMSUNG-MEM....=item3ca7c9fb7b

Congratulations on the graduation, now good luck on finding a on job

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Re: 386 box supertunning
« Reply #669 on Nov 25, 2009, 11:45pm »

Bummer... I already have a gazillon of 1MB sticks...

And nope, eBay is no option for me thanks to our retarded currency exchange control imposed by our fine government (translation: you can't have $$$ without a credit card AND a lot of complex paperwork... and that's just for $400 (for purchases on Internet) for the entire year!)

Too bad for me, since i like Samsung memory

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Re: 386 box supertunning
« Reply #670 on Nov 30, 2009, 9:29pm »

if you're really good, you could also try to find some 72 pin simms with some 4mbit x 1 or 4mbit x 4 fast page mode simms, and then create a pcb. a homemade pcb won't last (homemade as in a clothes iron, some copper clad board, some magazine paper, a laser printer/copier, and a nice dangerous mix of hcl+h2o2), so it has to be fabbed

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Tom Maneiro
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Re: 386 box supertunning
« Reply #671 on Dec 10, 2009, 12:00pm »

Moving times!

Since i got my degree, my dorm lease died, so i had to move all my crap back to home. This included the systems! All HDs survived the long 250Km trip on the back of a 2007 Ford F150 (Look Ma, NO PADDING!), and are back to service, ready for more experiments:

- Saki is now doing duty as a router for my house. And since it has a parallel port, i plugged my good ol' Canon BJC-250 there, for sharing with all the boxes around home. It required a CUPS rebuild, which in turn required to rebuild a lot of other misc libraries (libjpeg/tiff/png, OpenSSL, Gutenprint...), but now the printer is working fine. Despite being a ol' P225MMX, this box is not too slow building things from source: the full CUPS build took around 30 minutes (in total it was around 4 hours building deps, and messing with the configuration).

- Marika also got a new printer: yep, it's printing to ACTUAL PAPER through Saki. Fortunately i still keep my BJC-250 driver floppies, that are STILL WORKING after 11 years! Now, the funny thing is that it takes around 5 MINUTES to print a simple page! But the quailty is good (at least for this ancient printer). The setup was also sloooow (around 10 minutes), but it didn't required reboots or system updates. Who needs stinkin' USB HP faggot printers when we have the old gold parport paper engravers?

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Tom Maneiro
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Re: 386 box supertunning
« Reply #672 on Dec 10, 2009, 12:56pm »

Posting this from my 386 - IE3 is actualy more use-able at 40MHz!

Note for myself: Get this shitty IBM monitor fixed...

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