386 box supertunning

[Tom Maneiro]

As for making a HD image - temporarily remove the HDD and put it in a Pentium (or better) system. Rip the HDD image and put the HDD back.

Fast, efficient and more imporrtantly - DONE!

I know, but taking apart Acer cases is an experience that i don't like to live... But someday i will do it. Someday is a good day ;D

[paulpsomiadis]

"Someday" is NEVER a good day - TRUST me!

How do I know?

I have a 60GB backup HDD with all my Application installers, drivers, games, media, etc... on it.

And because I decided to sort it out "someday" I now have to sort through 4000 files (5 years) of downloads all into individual folders for each program.

Be sure to get it done while you can...before "someday" catches up with you and the HDD gets an error you can't repair!

Don't say I didn't warn ya'!

[GiGaBiTe]

paulpsomiaids said:

"Someday" is NEVER a good day - TRUST me!

How do I know?

I have a 60GB backup HDD with all my Application installers, drivers, games, media, etc... on it.

And because I decided to sort it out "someday" I now have to sort through 4000 files (5 years) of downloads all into individual folders for each program.

Be sure to get it done while you can...before "someday" catches up with you and the HDD gets an error you can't repair!

Don't say I didn't warn ya'!

I can agree. I had a 60G drive that I lost everything on due to letting it sit for years without use. I turned it on for one final spinup to copy files off of and it failed. I'll probably keep the drive until the world ends in case I ever find another hard drive of the same type to replace the controller card on it.

[Tom Maneiro]

Fortunately for me, my most important stuff (university jobs and audio ripping projects) are kept in at least two HDs, two pendrives, and one CD/DVD. However, HDs always crash when you have pending stuff to backup, no matter how frequently do you backup

Talking about projects...

- PROJECT Spica: Nothing new

- 386 box supertunning: "Mission SB16", coming soon in your nearest cinema

[GiGaBiTe]

I have a SB16 and it sounds awful for games. the MPU401 it pretty much trash and makes all MIDI things sound like garbage in DOS.

[Tulio Adriano]

SB16 uses OPL2 FM Synthesis, no one should expect MIDI to sound like nowdays soundcards with WaveTable MIDI.

However, if you have SB AWE32 you get nice wavetable even on DOS because it is on Hardware. I had one with extra 8 MB memory for loading soundfonts, worked great.

I also had a Roland RAP-10, with nice hardware wavetable. Too bad all of those are ISA cards, otherwise I would still be using my old SB AWE32.

[jlf65]

tulioadriano said:

SB16 uses OPL2 FM Synthesis, no one should expect MIDI to sound like nowdays soundcards with WaveTable MIDI.

However, if you have SB AWE32 you get nice wavetable even on DOS because it is on Hardware. I had one with extra 8 MB memory for loading soundfonts, worked great.

I also had a Roland RAP-10, with nice hardware wavetable. Too bad all of those are ISA cards, otherwise I would still be using my old SB AWE32.

Some folks actually like that old synthesized sound. I had one guy bitching at me over at QJ because my port of DOOM used wavetable MIDI instead of emulating the OPL2 for the music. Kept saying it wasn't the "original" music.

[paulpsomiadis]

Some folks actually like that old synthesized sound. I had one guy bitching at me over at QJ because my port of DOOM used wavetable MIDI instead of emulating the OPL2 for the music. Kept saying it wasn't the "original" music

n00b alert!

@tulio Adriano - I agree, the old SB-AWE 32 was (and still is for older PCs) a killer card. I also own a Yamaha DB50-XG daughterboard that I used to use on that...

I've recently purchased a Terratec DMX - and (if it's compatible with my new Athlon X2 mainboard) I'll use it with my Yamaha Daughterboard! ;D

KEWL!

[Tom Maneiro]

I've recently seen an AWE32: it was installed on a old Win98 Pentium MMX box (something like my setup on Saki ;D). The owner came with that box to the lab for repair and cleanup. Unluckily (for me ) the box was working fine, so i was unable to snag (or even negotiate) that AWE32

Anyway, the SB16 should be enough for my needs... But since i was able to find a SB Live! in the junkyards over there, an AWE32 should popup someday...

[GiGaBiTe]

tulioadriano said:

SB16 uses OPL2 FM Synthesis, no one should expect MIDI to sound like nowdays soundcards with WaveTable MIDI.

However, if you have SB AWE32 you get nice wavetable even on DOS because it is on Hardware. I had one with extra 8 MB memory for loading soundfonts, worked great.

I also had a Roland RAP-10, with nice hardware wavetable. Too bad all of those are ISA cards, otherwise I would still be using my old SB AWE32.

I had an AWE32 long ago, but I got some AWE64s and did a comparison between the sound quality and liked the AWE64 much better. They are a pain in the ass to get setup for DOS, but MIDI in DOS among regular sound effects sound much better than my SB16.

Also, you can still use your old ISA cards in your modern PC. I saw an ISA2USB adapter that comes in different sizes (1, 3, 5 and 7 slots). The downside is that they were rather expensive. I forgot the link, but you should be able to find them with a google search.

[evildragon]

Actually, SB16 uses OPL3.

SB used OPL2, and SBPro used either two OPL2's or one OPL3, depending on the version.

[Tom Maneiro]

OK, it's time for the Wacky Workbench - X-Mas Special Edition!!!

Since it has been a long time since the last time, these are the experiments for today:

- Should you have Galaxy Angels inside your 386: QUICK! Call the nearest mental hospital ASAP, and while you wait for the paddy wagon, put some eurobeat tune there:


- Time to surf the (inaccessible) net! IE3 is evil, so let's use Arachne. You will need a packet driver for your netcard (it's a DOS TSR, FYI) if you ever want to surf the net, i forgot to load mine here


- This desktop looks nicer, but it does not have enough Galaxy Angels:


- Artist' rendering of free bus tickets on cereal boxes (and yes, i did that image IN MY 386! Not easy with a faulty Genius NetShit serial mouse)


- Trying to see an unsupported file ("download"). Arachne offers you more options than simply save the file elsewhere, like mail it (yes, it DOES e-mail!), or even FTP-upload to your favorite box!


- Unfortunately, this is Windows 95, and as said by Murphy, if it can fail, it WILL fail!



- One reboot later, let's do some torture testing on Marika: Remember "XXX386"? The first stage is MPEG playback. I had an old backup CD lying around, and i found inside a episode of Rocko's Modern Life (a really old Nicktoon), on MPEG-1, perfect for this experiment.

Takedown warning: The following screenshots may contain copyrighted Viacom images. Since we believe in fair use, freedom of speech, and such liberal/democ-rat crap, i will NOT remove them if Viacom asks for it. Thanks, and fuck copyrights!

- Playback speed: even the audio runs at "crappy slideshow" speed! But at least it looks pretty nice in ActiveMovie player (no color bleeding, just your typical dithering at 256 colors)




- Switching to fullscreen does not help at all: the playback speed is still sucky, and the switch takes at least 20 seconds of pain. Notice the cropping around the borders (carefully check the position of "Nicktoons TV" bug on windowed and fullscreen shots), this is really odd...


Results:

- Internet is OK, you only need a lot of RAM, and some minor overclocking. With Ararche, you should be OK.
- MPEG playback... Another reason of why you should avoid framebugger-VGA cards... Damn, nobody discards ATI Machs over here?!?! I think that there are ways to speedup playback on this box, but the main bottleneck is the video card, seconded by the slow CPU.


BONUS SHOTS!

- Venezuela switched to a new (and odd) timezone last week. M$ will not provide updates for Win9x/2K, but they have the Time Zone Editor (part of Win95 kernel toys). Since i hate desync'ed clocks, let's fix Marika...

(All of my systems, my two laptops, Saki, and now Marika are working in the new timezone. Now, the only remaining box is Asumi, but HOW IN THIS WORLD DO YOU FIX TIMEZONES IN AN ANCIENT 2000-Linux 2.2 BOX???)

- Japanase letters are everywhere! I got this nice shot from the lab (this justifies a bit of why students do steal CD burners and hard drives from the university stash):

Anyone there can translate that japanase word for me? It's katakana, but my tables are very sucky...


And now, it's the time for another.... HORROR TALE OF THE WEEK!!!
Sponsored by IBM/HGST Deadstars!

This is a IBM Deadstar 60GXP, the younger brother of the infamous 75GXP, and they do share the same fate (high failure rate, leading to the sell of IBM's hard drive division to Hitachi). This one is dead, as expected, but on our labs, we have one that it's STILL WORKING! (as of Dec 13th) Scary...



(that label over the IDE connector reads "ASSEMBLY MADE IN CHINA")


Remember, kids: if you have a 75GXP/60GXP, BACKUP AND BURN! Oh, that's another entry on my blacklist, too.


That's all for this week, and this year! I just got a new Motorola RAZR V3m phone (HELLO MOTO, and goodbye Kyocrap), so expect HD pictures for the upcoming Service Nights!. Enjoy the holidays, and drive with care

[paulpsomiadis]

Well, just gotta say...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I'm feeling real festive after some UBER DVD acquiring over the holiday period...

1) Blade Rurner 5 DVD collectors tin
2) Indiana Jones Box set
3) The ENTIRE 2nd Gig of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
4) Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Society
5) Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. Official Log 1

Wheeeee...awesomeness!

[paulpsomiadis]

@tom can you check your P.M.s - I sent you a message.

(sorry, forgot to change the message header...)

[Tom Maneiro]

Time for the first experiment session of 2008! Despite the dust, all systems are OK! No harddisks died on this X-Mas session.

Experiment #1: Saki and the Internet(tm): The 386 has already logged in into the WWW, but Saki, despite having Linux and two NICs, had never experienced a single connection to the net. So let's try something really weird for a Pentium MMX: connect using a EvDO cellphone on USB!

My new (and crappy) Motorola RAZR is perfect for this experiment: it works out-of-the-box on Linux (thanks to the cdc-acm kernel module), so it's dirty easy to surf the net... This is the initial setup:


On the Dell laptop, i've launched KPPP on Saki via SSH (remember: we only have 128 megs of RAM, so launching a full X server there is almost suicide for this experiment), and sucessfully connected to the network:


Firefox? No way! This is OLDSKOOL, so graphical web browsers are out of question. Instead, let's use Links (a textmode browser for Linux):

OK, that speed is not good, but it's due to routing issues on Saki's network adaoters, not because of my EvDO connection.

A couple of select shots:


Since tethering is not cheap here with my current carrier (another reason of why i used Links instead of FF), i quickly pulled the plug on this experiment ;D

Result: SUCCESS! (mostly...)

What's next?

- Router Saki: If i ever get a Ethernet switch and a Movistar cellphone (Internet access is free there!), Saki will be doing duty as a router, added to their current role as backup server, PDF printer, DNS domain server and audio recorder

- Experiments with Marika: I'm waiting for the 16M RAM to arrive for discard that Quantum SCSI disk, and instead i will use my 2 gig Samsung disk with the Crystal soundcard IDE port. Also, i will most likely discard that Crystal soundcrap because it's picking too much noise! I can listen in SRS stereo surround how my harddrive spinup and spindown, or how the CD tray open and close because the soundcard is acting as a weird microphone, picking any sound of my system and replaying it on my speakers!! Also, the speaker-out plug is suffering of the "missing channel" syndrome.

And that's all for this week! Stay tuned...


BONUS SHOTS!
(sponsored by Motorola and their army of incompetent software developers)

Some random pictures taken with my RAZR V3m: nice phone, REALLY CRAPPY SOFTWARE (even worse than Windows Me!), but with a really nice camera ;D Say sayonara to those crappy Kyocera pictures, but don't expect megapixel goodness. VGA is OK for this one. All of these pictures, unlike most on this thread, are RAW, no need to edit them