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Wasnt there hardware for a brief time whose selling point was allowing you to listen to mp3s without ruinin whatever else your doing in a main program? I wanna say it was sound cards but it might have been a software thing or cpu even i cant recall
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May 31, 2016 20:08
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Bovril Delight posted:I remember when we first were able to play music while playing a game, it was glorious. One of my first internetting rigs was also a K6-2 with a state of the art Voodoo 3 video card, loved it! thathonkey posted:Wasnt there hardware for a brief time whose selling point was allowing you to listen to mp3s without ruinin whatever else your doing in a main program? I wanna say it was sound cards but it might have been a software thing or cpu even i cant recall Not sure if you're talking about hooking up the cd-rom to the sound card (to make a elaborate CD player essentially) but I definitely did that for that very reason. "Check this out! I turned off the in game music, and have MY OWN music playing...from a CD!! This is insane!"
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May 31, 2016 20:16
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3 motherboards ago (an Asus supporting an Athlon of some flavor) had mp3 play functionality that you didn't have to boot into the OS to use. I had a fancy pants soundcard so I never disabled it to be able to use this feature as it was off when a soundcard was turned on. I think I still have it and am curious to see how it works. e: this was a long time ago so I could be remembering it wrong but that is the functionality as I remember reading about it - keyboard driven commands from a DOS screen to play media
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May 31, 2016 20:21
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Obligatory Handle posted:Jerking it to pictures and not HD streaming videos of a chick getting triple penetrated. jerking it to pictures on web tv
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May 31, 2016 20:24
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Orange Red Bull posted:jerking it to pictures on web tv
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May 31, 2016 20:25
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Anyone remember Microsoft NetMeeting? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_NetMeeting I seem to recall that you could just sign in and randomly message people and have a voice chat if you wanted.
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May 31, 2016 22:28
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GutBomb posted:Oh did I mention this was my roommate's computer I did all this to? I was a lovely roommate. I remember installing the memphis codenamed betas of Windows 98 on that computer at some point in time. lol no you're a lovely person, you shouldn't even install MS betas on your own PCs  Bonzo posted:Anyone remember Microsoft NetMeeting? Wow that was back when you could do screen sharing and have a shared whiteboard and it was free and not lovely slow and unreliable. Why did Microsoft have to replace this with "better" things? The whiteboard was good for playing games you'd play on paper like Os and Xs.
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Jun 1, 2016 03:09
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Also http://toastytech.com/guis/index.html is a site with lots of screen shots of (mostly old) operating system/other GUIs. It's nice for a walk down memory lane.
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Jun 1, 2016 04:21
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used to be that every video card had its own individual renderer that a game had to support i think mechwarrior 2 had like half a dozen different versions each compatible with different video cards
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Jun 1, 2016 04:38
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Sten Freak posted:3 motherboards ago (an Asus supporting an Athlon of some flavor) had mp3 play functionality that you didn't have to boot into the OS to use. I had a fancy pants soundcard so I never disabled it to be able to use this feature as it was off when a soundcard was turned on. I had a laptop with that functionality for a short period during university. You could have it in a sleep mode and it had media buttons near the headphone jack, I would just play one set playlist all day while walking around campus/town with the laptop safely in my backpack. I want to say it was my NEC Versa P440 but it could have been the one just before that.
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Jun 1, 2016 09:09
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About 4 years ago I got the urge to build the system I could never afford (back in the late 90's).. A friend of mine had an Asus P3B-F mobo with PIII 500, as well as a Sound Blaster PCI 16. I already had 768MB of PC133 SDRAM laying around, an old 52x cdrom drive, a 40G Maxtor IDE drive, a D-link DFE-538TX network card, a Corsair 430W power supply, and an old Enlight Mid tower. I set the system up with Windows 98SE, and I think it was FastVoodoo drivers that I used. I was also able to secure a pair of Voodoo2 12MB cards. I bought from a guy without the SLI link cable, so I had to make one from some old floppy drive cables. Not overly difficult, there are instructions online somewhere on how to do it. http://imgur.com/a/N53yZ Here are a few pics of the rig.. It's a mess, ugly as hell.. But it gets the job done:   Some UT glide action:  Full specs on the system are: Asus P3B-F PIII 500 768MB PC133 SDRAM ATI Radeon 9200SE 2 x 12MB Voodoo2 Sound Blaster PCI 16 D-Link DFE-538TX 40GB Maxtor IDE hard drive Corsair 430W power supply (I burned out 2 older 300W power supplies.. They just stopped working. I guess they were just too old) I would have loved to have picked up a Quantum Obsidian video card instead of the pair of 12MB Voodoo2's, but they're still expensive! http://www.ebay.com/itm/Quantum3D-Obsidian2-X-24-SLI-3DFX-Voodoo-2-24MB-Video-Card-SLI2-/152103439130?hash=item236a124b1a:g:844AAOSwY0lXReJc Can't bring myself to spend this kind of money on a system like this. Also, not sure if I missed it in the thread.. But Monkey Island anyone? Along with Kings Quest V & VI, This was THE series of my youth.   
thehoj has a new favorite as of 15:30 on Jun 1, 2016 |
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Jun 1, 2016 15:08
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 I still try to use my rounded IDE cables whenever I can because those things were futuristic levels of badassery back in the day.I've built a few 90s/2000s dream machines recently too for whenever we do our Starcraft/Command and Conquer LAN parties. I've got one dual Pentium II 450mhz with 2 LOUD AS SHITTTT SCSI drives just because I can. One of these days I want to do a liquid cooled P4 or Athlon XP (I still have my Athlon XP 1700+ overclocked to a 2600+, love that thing) for the very same reason haha. Great pics! One of my favorite resource hungry games to play on badass old PCs are the old Flight Simulator games. I played Flight Simulator 2000 (one with the Concorde on the logo) bigillions of times and damnit I feel like playing it now too. Tyson Tomko has a new favorite as of 16:13 on Jun 1, 2016 |
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Jun 1, 2016 16:05
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gently caress IDE cables forever and always.
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Jun 1, 2016 16:12
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Germstore posted:gently caress IDE cables forever and always. USB and SATA were the greatest things to happen to me regarding computer hardware by far.* No more huge parallel cables? No more lovely inflexible ribbon cables? I can save space behind my desk and improve airflow in my system? Sign me the gently caress up! *Note: I never started building/modifying computers until maybe 2000 or so. No doubt there were changes made before then that were just as good if not infinitely better.
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Jun 1, 2016 16:36
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I built a 90s dream machine but used compact fladh adapters for the drives. Want to replace that with SSD at some point.
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Jun 1, 2016 17:36
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The death of CRTs was p nice. No more hernias trying to lug around the 21" ones.
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Jun 1, 2016 19:11
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Although there are different "homebrew" methods the appropriate crimping tool for these ribbon cable connectors actually is pretty cheap to have and then you can make your own ribbon cables at just the length you need them. The connectors cost cents a piece at the electronics supplier of your choice and the ribbon cable you can buy in huge rolls very cheaply from China and although people think that's impossible, you can actually get really good quality ribbon cable from them. Thicker, a lot more difficult to pinch and damage and much more flexible than the cheap poo poo the manufacturers packed with mainboards, that stuff was just total "how cheap can we do this" bottom of the barrel later on. (I'm looking at you, black ASUS IDE- and Floppy-cables) The rounded cables can, at least with older controllers, cause crosstalk issues and are not ideal. (The ribbon configuration is not an arbitrary or a stylistic choice) If your crimp your own ribbon cables be careful though, cables too short can cause issues, especially with SCSI. Which btw. is even addressed in the SCSI spec, no cable shorter than 15cm *I think*, don't quote me on this. Just like with the rounded cables, more modern hardware usually is less susceptible here. (can handle glitches etc. better) Of course all of this is only interesting if you deal with old systems and their ribbon-ness. Careful with modern power supplies in old computers. Modern computers do a lot of point-of-load regulation, which means the voltage for a component is generated where it's needed, usually out of the +12V which are also disproportinatly strong compared to the other power rails on a modern supply. The first ATX specced computers (and basically all computers before that, really) work completly differently and get most of their power usually from the +5V and +3.3V rails. Higher end, "old" systems might draw more than a low- or even medium-wattage modern supply might even be able to deliver on those rails. That isn't even the biggest problem though. The modern power supplies (If we aren't talking really fancy stuff like DC-DC conversion from the 12V to the minor rails which is usually expensive enough that you know you're paying for it) usually regulate against the 12V rail and go wildly out of spec on the others if that rail is without significant load, which it often is in old computers. In the worst case, this can fry components or the power supply. The ATX spec says specifically that this is not allowed to happen under any circumstances, but well it does. Even if the power supply is really nice and does it according to spec the power efficiency will be abysmal and the power supply will run hotter and have a shorter life. Just don't do it and use a time appropriate supply if it's at all possible. A hint for a time-appropriate power supply is less Watts on the 12V rail than on the 5V/3.3V rails. sadly many of these power supplies require some maintenance after all these years, the upside is that if a power supply is well built and maintained every few years it basically lasts forever. My oldest power supply is 35 years old and I still use it every day. (Of course it has seen a bit of work and it's not all 35-year old parts) I have an old K6-III+ with 450 Mhz, a Matrox G450/Voodoo II/the Terratec card I talked earlier about and a SCSI controller+ two modern U320 SCSI drives. That thing flies. One of these days I will have time and revisit the good Fallouts. One of these days I'll even have enough time to put an old P3 together to take a look at the Voodoo 5/Matrox Parhelia I have. Kinda funny that Matrox survived by abandoning the market the moment they realized they were not competitive anymore. Last I heard their current cards use AMD chips though and they're not faring that well either huh. Police Automaton has a new favorite as of 20:58 on Jun 1, 2016 |
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Jun 1, 2016 20:54
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Germstore posted:gently caress IDE cables forever and always. Never trust a cable you can't screw down 
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Jun 1, 2016 21:13
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feedmegin posted:The death of CRTs was p nice. No more hernias trying to lug around the 21" ones. There is a bit of a downside. I volunteer for an organization that takes in old PCs to fix up and donate to families and people in need. Up until a few years ago we had more CRT monitors then I cared to count. We find that LCD monitors are not donated as much because they never really break down and since family PCs no longer need to be upgraded every 2 or 3 years, people just hang on to them. So now we have PCs to give away but run short of monitors. We can't even give the CRTs away so we just send them for recycling.
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Jun 1, 2016 22:31
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Casimir Radon posted:I built a 90s dream machine but used compact fladh adapters for the drives. Want to replace that with SSD at some point. I've thought about doing this but how badly does the lack of trim support in Windows 98 gently caress with SSDs? I've heard that performance can degrade by huge amounts after a few months
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Jun 1, 2016 22:53
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Bonzo posted:There is a bit of a downside. I volunteer for an organization that takes in old PCs to fix up and donate to families and people in need. Up until a few years ago we had more CRT monitors then I cared to count. We find that LCD monitors are not donated as much because they never really break down and since family PCs no longer need to be upgraded every 2 or 3 years, people just hang on to them. So now we have PCs to give away but run short of monitors. We can't even give the CRTs away so we just send them for recycling. Also, a busted LCD fits in a trash bag and nobody is the wiser. Can't sneak a 27" Trinitron out the kitchen trash.
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Jun 1, 2016 22:56
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Flatscreens die all the time, just recently my Dell died after like, two years. Not a cheap screen either. It's the older, earlier ones that seem to refuse to die. I wish they'd make decent and modern 4:3 (or whatever, 5:4) at non-industrial prices. It's just such a practical form factor to have for many things.
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Jun 1, 2016 22:59
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It really cannot be stressed enough how much USB has improved computer peripherals
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Jun 1, 2016 23:01
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Buca di Bepis posted:I've thought about doing this but how badly does the lack of trim support in Windows 98 gently caress with SSDs? I've heard that performance can degrade by huge amounts after a few months
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Jun 1, 2016 23:04
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Serial's still around for a lot of technical and industrial things. It's pretty good. USB is ok but passes data through the CPU, this is why a raspberry pi 'NAS' with a USB hard drive sucks rear end
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Jun 1, 2016 23:04
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I like serial better than USB since I know how to do serial but the book I got in 1989 didn't have a chapter on USB so it's basically magic to me. e: And of course I can get so many useless garbage boxes to talk to each other via serial, which is nice.
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Jun 1, 2016 23:10
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Buttcoin purse posted:Also http://toastytech.com/guis/index.html is a site with lots of screen shots of (mostly old) operating system/other GUIs. It's nice for a walk down memory lane. This guy has a section lamenting the discontinuation of banquet chicken finger meals and how the brownie had just the right stuff to get him going in the morning This site rules
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Jun 2, 2016 00:38
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Serial's neat but back in the day a PC's parallel port could be coupled with little more than a resistor DAC to play music  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2iZFVoOq68
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Jun 2, 2016 01:20
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Jonny 290 posted:Also, a busted LCD fits in a trash bag and nobody is the wiser. Can't sneak a 27" Trinitron out the kitchen trash. Please don't do this. Most towns offer electronics recycling, and if they're like my town, while dropping off whatever junk you have, you can also go through what other people have left. I've scored a couple of decent computers, a working Intellevision and Sega Genesis (with controllers), a practically brand new Samsung 3D Blu-ray player still wrapped in plastic (missing the remote but easily remedied), and a bunch of random components and whatnot. Thats just from 3 trips in 2 months.
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Jun 2, 2016 02:09
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Jonny 290 posted:Serial's still around for a lot of technical and industrial things. It's pretty good. USB is ok but passes data through the CPU, this is why a raspberry pi 'NAS' with a USB hard drive sucks rear end 11 years of correct opinions Jonny
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Jun 2, 2016 05:24
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thehoj posted:I was also able to secure a pair of Voodoo2 12MB cards. I bought from a guy without the SLI link cable, so I had to make one from some old floppy drive cables. Not overly difficult, there are instructions online somewhere on how to do it. it's made out of standard ribbon cable and IDC connectors too so you can make it out of a couple dollars of new material might be useful to other people because I'm sure authentic SLI cables are more expensive than they should be
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Jun 2, 2016 05:33
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Regular Nintendo posted:This guy has a section lamenting the discontinuation of banquet chicken finger meals and how the brownie had just the right stuff to get him going in the morning What the gently caress is up with his obsession regarding web browsers? quote:My Athlon XP2000+
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Jun 2, 2016 06:17
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well at least he realizes internet explorer is poo poo
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Jun 2, 2016 06:26
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Yeah I'd take a wild guess that he doesn't fancy Microsoft much. http://toastytech.com/evil/index.html
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Jun 2, 2016 06:53
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empty baggie posted:Please don't do this. Most towns offer electronics recycling, and if they're like my town, while dropping off whatever junk you have, you can also go through what other people have left. I've scored a couple of decent computers, a working Intellevision and Sega Genesis (with controllers), a practically brand new Samsung 3D Blu-ray player still wrapped in plastic (missing the remote but easily remedied), and a bunch of random components and whatnot. Thats just from 3 trips in 2 months. I promise not to put LCD in trash. *hucks LCD out car window on interstate at 3am*
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Jun 2, 2016 07:06
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*drags broken 60" rear-projection LCD TV out to curb* "FREE - WORKS GREAT!" like what are they gonna do, load up that 200lb beast into their car again, drive it back here, and dump it back on my lawn?
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Jun 2, 2016 07:08
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drunk asian neighbor posted:*drags broken 60" rear-projection LCD TV out to curb* I still have a soft spot for my 62in Rear Projection TV. Sure it's only 1080i but it has decent speakers for a big TV and works well in the bar area. I'm actually looking at finally replacing it for a UHD panel or possibly an OLED. The prices are dropping rapidly.
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Jun 2, 2016 08:57
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Negrostrike posted:Yeah I'd take a wild guess that he doesn't fancy Microsoft much. This is my homepage on the net.
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Jun 2, 2016 09:22
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Mechanism Eight posted:Serial's neat but back in the day a PC's parallel port could be coupled with little more than a resistor DAC to play music Oh I like parallel too. I wish someone made an actually functional USB-to-Centronics adapter. Is it even possible to make? We just don't know.
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Jun 2, 2016 09:26
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They had issues here with people cleaning out these recycling centers and basically just dumping the poo poo they couldn't sell/use somewhere. Now nobody is allowed to take anything which kinda sucks.
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Jun 2, 2016 09:27
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