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jbenam

jbenam

@jbenam.bsky.social

100 followers 290 following 550 posts

Retro-hardware aficionado.

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jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 1d

I would’ve loved this back in 2006-07, when I was rocking one. That thing was BUGGY as heck. Pretty sure I still own it (along with the horrible SuperKey that stuck several centimeters out of my NDS), maybe one of these days I will flash this new firmware just for kicks. Thanks for sharing!

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 2d

iOS 26 on day one here and I think that Liquid Glass was a big downgrade when it came to usability compared to iOS 18. Apparently iOS 26.1 is going to include a toggle to get it back to “normal”. Hopefully macOS 26.1 will include it as well, even if Liquid Glass isn’t as bad there

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

I think that WHDLoad is great and all but we lose little things like these (and cracktros!) which were integral part of the Amiga experience.

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

I still regularly find Model Ms for 50 EUR, if you want me to get one for you let me know (obviously not with German layout, though)! Sadly I can’t say the same for GUS sound cards :(

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

Thank you very much, that could turn in handy. I will be coming from my i5-3570K, so I am looking for at least something similarly powerful. The P6T has an i7-920 in it, which is quite a bit slower than the Ivy Bridge. It should still be plenty faster for my usage, but the X5690 would be FAAAAST.

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

I won’t do any gaming on it as I already have a Ryzen 5800X that it’s gathering dust :-) Probably will triple boot Win11, XP and Linux and do retrolab stuff (EEPROM programming, hard disk imaging)

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

Yeah I can pretty much get it for the same price. I don’t think I will overclock it, actually I don’t think it will ever work at more than 10% CPU load. I just want to max it out for funsies. I have a weird cooler I took from an OEM computer ages ago. Not sure how good it is, I guess will find out

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

Great! Thanks again.

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

So. After “repairing” my P6T I am looking into a Xeon for it. Do you have any experiences with X5690s? Are they space heaters and will they melt my mobo, or should I get one for cheap? For USB3 I already have a PCIe x1 board, I think I will just sidestep the SATA3 issue by putting an NVMe on it

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

BTW you made me get my X58 board back from storage and I have been able to get all 6 slots to work again. Apparently it’s an issue with some X58 boards and reseating the CPU fixes it. Weird thing. Now to put it back in place as my lab PC and max it out with 24GB and a Xeon for maximum weirdness

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

Thank you very much for the kind offer! If you really don’t need it then I will gladly take it. For the shipping lately I have been using Vinted, just put the item with a weird name at 1€, send me the link and enjoy cheap subsidized shipping thanks to venture capitalists

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

Customs? We’re both in EU :-) We have already swapped stuff some time ago

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

Looks like it’s common as dirt, I can find it for 10 euros on eBay

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

Cheers. I could get it for 15-20 EURs, btw. I guess I will skip it then

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

Here are the pics I have of the card. What do you infer from these? What kind of card is this. I hope it’s a 9600 XT!

Zoomed in sticker of a Radeon 9550

Picture of a Radeon 9550

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

Ah, how could I forget Final Fantasy VII? I literally got an AWE32 because of that one game. Apparently AoE1 did too and some other games I still haven’t got around to playing

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

So I can get a 9550 for pretty cheap. Should I get one for a future Pentium 3 machine I am not sure I will ever build? I also have an FX5700LE 128MB DDR, should I stick to that?

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

I have to admit that I couldn’t find much of a difference between these three. Or maybe it’s just my headphones? I should try again with that audiophile-grade amp + dac that is just gathering dust

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

I just haven’t found that many Win9x games that still use MIDI. Most of my DOS/MIDI gaming is done on my souped-up 486 (an AMD 5x86 overclocked to 160MHz). The only Win9x games I can think of right now that still use MIDI are Outpost 2 and Ultima Online

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 3d

How rare are these things? I have a Gold but never bothered looking into RAM expansions. I don’t use soundfonts very much (maybe I should?)

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 4d

Welp. I would still test everything in another motherboard just to be sure.

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 4d

Nice! Might be worth trying again the ESS + DREAM card now?

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 4d

I have checked the PSU and it doesn’t not supply -12V OR -5V. So unless there’s an internal circuit providing those voltages (and I can’t see any from the pics on the internet) that might explain the ISA issues you’re seeing. You need another motherboard with a big ass AT power supply for testing

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 4d

Apparently a guy on Vogons is running an ESS1869F on it so it *should* work. Can’t exclude the possibility of motherboard variants (maybe a subsequent rev that removes -12V?), though.

jbenam @jbenam.bsky.social · 4d

Maybe it’s lacking -12V to the ISA slot? That’s pretty much needed for some soundcards to work correctly (especially the amp part). Many “modern” motherboards with ISA slot outright omit -12V