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Post by Tom Maneiro on Apr 27, 2007 10:24:27 GMT -5
Ditto for that... I got all my drives from the university dumpsters I abuse my drives, but they resist... I can tell a very different history about IDE controllers on "el-cheapo/noname" motherboards That's how my SV2042H was a big garbage bin in my old PCCHIPS M755... And that's the reason of why i NEVER use Maxtor drives: the whining is "by design".. Well, they seems to get rid of it on newer DiamondMax's, but older CrystalMax series was very noisy (and never forget the most hated 541DX too). But that's enough about harddrives! Now let's go to the important stuff: - I may repeat the "Slashdot-on-386" experiment, since our residence will get broadband Internet access coming soon. - PROJECT Spica status: 25% done, time for heavy QA testing. - Anyone knows how to configure a router in Debian? Once i get my new Internet access, i plan to use the recording box as a router for all of my boxes.
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Post by Tom Maneiro on Apr 27, 2007 17:33:42 GMT -5
Photo time! (sponsored by "I love Samsung" and "I hate Samsung") Three golden oldies from the lab: From left to right: - Quantum ProDrive 40AT (alive and kickin' ass) - Seagate ST-157A (still alive too) - Western Digital WD95044-A (believe it or not, it's.. dead as a brick but awfully LOUD! Someone dropped it on the floor, because the PCB was broken, and the mounting frame looked like a crashed NASCAR car) Say hello to my new SV4012H, ready to house those Twin Spica raws: Oddly enough, this Caviar was dead too: way cold and silent, like a enemy from the mafia: "A small step for my screwdriver, a big step for the revenge!": a full stripdown of a TSSTcrap TS-H492 DVD/CDRW combo: Some QA testing on Pita-Ten dubs under Linux: My current "dubbing studio" setup: two computers and a TV ;D (don't worry, those clothes over the recording box are clean ) And that's all news for this week. Stay tuned!
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Post by GiGaBiTe on Apr 29, 2007 2:11:21 GMT -5
Me thinks that that computer setup will lead to catastrophe (the one sitting on that vertical one next to the monitor with the large eyes)
Sure you may not topple it over, but you know those pesky neighbors and friends that don't respect "the stack" and end up moving it that 1 cm that makes it come crashing down.
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Post by Tom Maneiro on Apr 29, 2007 11:16:45 GMT -5
Don't worry: it's (almost) rock-stable, although i need to do a small stability fix to the table holding these stuff (see the cardboard boxes acting as boosters for the table? I need to replace one of these) There is enough space to move into the room without disturbing my setup. The real danger is on the laptop, just in front of my bed These "large eyes" are from Kurumi (from Steel Angel Kurumi), just behind my GRUB bootloader ;D With that "greeting", sometimes you wish not to boot Linux, eh?
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Post by Tom Maneiro on May 1, 2007 18:04:55 GMT -5
Happy Workers Day! Although today is a "free" day, i did some work with my boxes today (cleaning, manteninance, and such things). Here is a brief list of news for today: - I've installed the SV4012H into the recording box, and moved the backups to it. Although the BIOS requires to use a 32GB jumper in the drive for recognize it, Linux can see and use the full 40GB space However, the drive is AWFULLY SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW! It's almost 50% slower than my older SV0432H with only 512K of buffer (this one has a 2MB one): less than 8MB/s, compared with the 15MB/s peak speeds got with the other two drives. These drives are VERY odd, eh? - While installing the SV4012H, i've discovered that the CPU fan was almost dead, clogged with tons of dust... Even with that, my overclocked P200MMX is still fine... (well, my "composite" cooler, composed with four smaller coolers from dead Pentium boxes, helped too). These old chips are rock-solid... As for the fan, it's back to service after one drop of 3-in-1 - Back to PROJECT Spica: Unfortunately, Animax did it again: they added new series, removed some others, and made a total chaos with the program schedules: Pita-Ten was dropped (fortunately for me, the rips are done =), and the nightly broadcast of Twin Spica was moved two hours earlier (from 23.30 to 21:30), so i will be unable to record several episodes for now (because these schedules are in conflict with my class schedules). What it's new? Blood + (daily broadcasts, seems OK), The Twelve Kingdoms (daily broadcasts, pure crap), and Montecristo (weekly broadcasts, i will not bother with this one). I'm thinking to save my cents for purchase a PS3, ONLY for DVD encoding (these Cells are X-TREME number-crunching beasts!).
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Post by 386er on May 2, 2007 10:14:51 GMT -5
Just write cause I wanna tell you all about my old tunned 386: That's the hardware: Silicon Star (ABIT) AK3 motherboard Am386DX-40 with a ULSI 8C87 DX/DLC40 coprocessor SIMM30 32MB Oak OTI-087 VGA Multi/IO controller (unknown brand) Ethernet 10Mbps Sound Blaster 16 + IDE Hard drives: Seagate Barracuda 80GB 7200 Samsung 1GB drive + LG 52x CD-ROM Pretty impressive... but... Still wanna get a new Multi/IO Controller and VGA Card (possibly a ATI Mach64 ISA card?) and maybe overclock it someday (haven't done yet for obvious reasons as it was my first PC...) That's what you get in practice: Dual boot: DOS/6.22 + Windows 3.11 Linux 2.6.17 MP3 realtime playing for 40kbps, single channel 16KHz MP3s (madplay, fixed-point math, doesn't use coprocessor) and about 30 minutes (buffered output for the entire MP3) decoding MP3 128kbps, joint-stereo 44KHz 04:28 long MP3 (with mpg123 floating point decoder, does use the coprocessor), but after the wait, it sounds like heaven!!!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D Browsing the web with IE3 or Netscape 3 Gold or Opera 3 on Windows 3.11, or browsing the web on dillo/linux (google homepage took 2s to load!), or Netscape Communicator 4/Linux. You can use VB4 or MSVC to develop under Windows 3.11. or maybe gcc to compile your code under Linux. Can view PDF under GNU/Linux and many other things. As for DOS, Doom and Doom2, Lotus Ultimate, etc. are real fast! That's pushing a 386 I think!!!!!! ;D ;D
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Post by jlf65 on May 2, 2007 14:35:50 GMT -5
Damn! I'm so spoiled... my weakest computer is a 1GHz Via C7 with 512MB of DDR266 memory. ;D My main system is an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ (2.4 GHz) with 2GB of DDR2-800 memory. I currently use the C7 for my console programming (PSP and PS2). I'm in the process of setting up gcc for the 68000 and SH2 on it so I can do some SEGA console work on it as well. I do AVC encoding for my PSP on the X2 system... it really rips through the videos.
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Post by Tom Maneiro on May 2, 2007 17:43:12 GMT -5
Just write cause I wanna tell you all about my old tunned 386: That's the hardware: Silicon Star (ABIT) AK3 motherboard Am386DX-40 with a ULSI 8C87 DX/DLC40 coprocessor SIMM30 32MB mmm... an DX, eh? That explains everything... Now have fun with a SX! Waaaaait a second! Can you use the entire 80GBs of your 'Cuda under this box? Linux 2.6 on a 386?!?!? Did you make your own "Linux from Scratch" for this box? I always dreamed to run Linux in my 386, but i have too litte RAM (6 megs), and the nearest thing to a working station was a kernel panic when loading muLinux (a floppy-based 2.0-kernel distro). As for overclocking, i'm still waiting for a litte thingie called "soldering skills" (already got the oscillators) For some odd reason, mpg123 crashes under Win95 on this box. Maybe try a DOS build? (if it exists...) It's really to the x-treme! ;D Now do yourself a favor, and fit an fancooler to that 386DX-40 if you plan to continue with such loads ;D Somewhere in the future i will play with gcc on the 68K too... Added to the "wishlist", right after those HQ Spanish anime DVDs and that 386SX- 50. As for MPEG-2... i'm hoping for a FAST hd-dvd/blu-ray adoption, for vanish that ugly algorithm from the earth... (and for single-disc series)
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Post by 386er on May 3, 2007 8:25:55 GMT -5
Yes, I can use the entire 80GB disk (those BIOSes aren't capable of LBA translation, so are limited to 1024 cylinders, 504MB in practice), but Linux kernel doesn't use BIOS calls to get access to disk (the same happens for a NT system, but not for the good old DOS (or DOS based Windows versions) ). The BIOS stills get it as a 2015MB or something, but Linux kernel can handle the entire disk. Yes, I made a cross-compiled linux from scratch (not over yet) without any manual (manuals and HOWTOs suck). I think the best way to learn and customize a system is to find your way through it. If you don't want to complicate your life, you can grab any old distro, e.g. Slackware 7.1 (2000) that can do the trick if you tune it properly, but you must own a full 32bit system I think (DX). If it's not the case you can install muLinux or build your system up on Linux kernel subset (286 and below). As for the cooler, I thought about it last day Will do it if I eventually overclock it... LAST NEWS: KDE 1.2 up and running on the 386! Altough a little bit slow (GNOME 1 is slower on that box). I think I will stay back to my fluxbox. The GIMP also runs there, although it tooks a minute (maybe two) to load. Next stage: Mozilla Firefox?
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Post by Tom Maneiro on May 3, 2007 17:30:35 GMT -5
Meltdown Firefox! ;D I have lots of spare hard drives, and i just got my Linux-from-Scratch book, so i will consider to build my own distro for my lil' 386SX. But having 6MB of RAM will be a major block in the way. Sometime in the past, i tested an old 10GB Maxtor harddrive on this box, and tried to run muLinux into it. Just before the kernel panic, the kernel saw my Maxtor... as a 504Mb drive That was with a really old 2.0 kernel. In my recording box i have a 40 GB disk, but due to BIOS restrictions, i must setup it as a 32GB drive by using a jumper (otherwise the system would hang at boot). Now, with a 2.6.17 kernel, Linux can see the full 40 GB area (the other 8 gigs are hidden as a "host protected area", but Linux disables it on boot). Maybe it was a pain to develop IDE drivers in 1992? It seems that it was the reason of all OS sticking to BIOS for do such works... until Linux and WinNT.
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Post by paulpsomiadis on May 7, 2007 10:50:22 GMT -5
@tom - I agree with GiGaBiTe, you REALLY need to move that other PC off the top of the monitor! If alarm bells haven't started ringing just yet - they soon will! (and by then it may be too late!)
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Post by 386er on May 8, 2007 4:16:14 GMT -5
New progresses: Opera 9.20 up and running. I must say it is not as fast as dillo ( ) haha. It takes as much as 2 minutes to load youtube.com ;D I promise to upload a video of this sucker running those things. Yesterday I was wondering if it was hot... The processor must have been at about 40ÂșC... It remains to test Mozilla Firefox 1.5 and Wine running some win32 apps. Will report new tests
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Post by GiGaBiTe on May 8, 2007 15:33:52 GMT -5
Meltdown Firefox! ;D I have lots of spare hard drives, and i just got my Linux-from-Scratch book, so i will consider to build my own distro for my lil' 386SX. But having 6MB of RAM will be a major block in the way. Sometime in the past, i tested an old 10GB Maxtor harddrive on this box, and tried to run muLinux into it. Just before the kernel panic, the kernel saw my Maxtor... as a 504Mb drive That was with a really old 2.0 kernel. In my recording box i have a 40 GB disk, but due to BIOS restrictions, i must setup it as a 32GB drive by using a jumper (otherwise the system would hang at boot). Now, with a 2.6.17 kernel, Linux can see the full 40 GB area (the other 8 gigs are hidden as a "host protected area", but Linux disables it on boot). Maybe it was a pain to develop IDE drivers in 1992? It seems that it was the reason of all OS sticking to BIOS for do such works... until Linux and WinNT. You have to understand that back in '92, nobody ever thought that hard drives would get this big this fast. There are several tools you can use to make Windows bypass the int13h BIOS handle so you can see larger drives, it's just hard to find them.
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Post by Tom Maneiro on May 8, 2007 17:28:21 GMT -5
That motto of "things will not (go too fast/last too long)" also caused the entire Y2K thingie.
Nobody thinked in 1981 that by the end of the century everyone would want a PC...
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Post by Tom Maneiro on May 9, 2007 17:49:58 GMT -5
Today's menu: a guided tour to the Digital Circuits and Computer Organization laboratory of my university (the UNEG), aka "the lab" (warning for 56Kers/Firefox users on Celerons: hit STOP right now!): The best kept secrets of the UNEG computer history are just behind these doors: After entering the lab, you will notice the collection of old AT cases. Most of these were 486s or Pentium MMXs on their good days, at the service of the students. There are lots of busted PSUs and motherboards there! Some random IBMs from the lab: i hate all of them I can't remember the last time when these oscilloscopes were used... We also have printers! The dust is free ;D And now, the spine of the lab: "the stash": Level 4: fuxored hard drives (lots of Maxtor, Seagate, Samsung and JTS units), some spare 5.25" floppy drives, and some really OLD 1X IBM CD drives! (pre-IDE?) Level 3: assorted expansion cards: from XT MFM HD controllers to lots and lots of Trident 9440 PCI videocards Level 2: the best harddrives are here: some 1/2GB Samsung Winner's, some Caviar 2850ACs, a couple of Maxtor-branded Quantum Fireball 7200s, some odd Maxtor 7xxx's, and a couple of the best 540MB HD that i have EVER tested: the IBM DALA-3540. Level 1: Motherboards, motherboards, and more motherboards. Socket 7 and older... Basement: fried PSUs, unsorted cables, one magnetic tape reel, and MORE expansion cards (lots of NE2000s/NE2KPCIs...) Now you know one of my main sources for really old hardware, maybe the only one in the city, and a easy one to find Now, where was that 386DX-40? ;D
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