iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Help: what was the most surreal thing you had to do in a nightmare to survive? I might steal it, though, since I recently played another horror game where I thought the concept is great but it could have been done so much better.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

And I think that's a good thing. May they spend their whole sorry ass racist lives in a bad mood while we normal people simply live in a big world full of different people.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

I figured it would be something around that amount; too bad our countries don't have proper trade deals like within the EU. Still, that would be totally acceptable even if the card turned out to be defective. Anyway, I'll DM you in a bit, thank you for reaching out and the kind offer!

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

So it would have been okay to fatally shoot the driver, right?

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

But can you please also burn a tree for each of those prompts

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

You only have to be less dumb than he is, I have confidence in you 😬

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

I am an ugly potato but I sleep really well knowing I still intelligencemog, educationmog, personalitymog and confidencemog this guy.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Haven't installed an OS yet, that was supposed to go on that SATA SSD. I hope it's not just broken, that "unknown PCI device" during POST is definitely the Silicon Image SIL3114, though, according to vendor ID and model.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

It's probably an issue with the firmware of the PCI SATA adapter, but luckily the board is so modern it lets me boot from USB. I should then be able to flash another firmware to the adapter, then have it appear as a 120 GB drive in IDE mode to install W98 to it. Will try that later.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Hm so the good news is the system seems to boot just fine, the bad news is the PCI SATA adapter isn't showing any signs of life, at the very least it looks like it has no BIOS of its own for booting from it. I set he motherboard's first boot option to SCSI which is usually necessary but no luck.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

It really wasn't him, though, it's technically not different from fan art.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Because it's eccentric and I got a Peltier cooling set new in box from a stock clearing seller for 15€ and I just had to try that. It promised excellent temperatures, too although they are actually just average.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

I would have preferred the Hamburg because I used to live there and still visit regularly, but you can't always get what you want.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

A Thermaltake Berlin. They had a series named after german cities: from 430 Watt (Munich) via 530 Watt (Hamburg) to 630 Watt (Berlin). The PSUs have motives typical for their cities.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Listening to an almost 40 year old concept album and within seconds I had started making a face and headbanging without even noticing it. The falsetto back then had some room for improvement. But I don't care, this is pure metal.

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Reposted by Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████

Anne @anneb.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Found the missing PCI SATA adapter! Now, what to do with the actual system? I'll attempt to start it in the evening, and see what happens. Could also run W98 I guess. At least games of that period shouldn't glitch out.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

It's a cool curiosity in my opinion but realistically speaking there is absolutely nothing that you would do that needs an ISA slot but also a CPU of the GHz or even more era. All DOS games run just fine on way slower hardware, if anything the 3 GHz make some games unplayable.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

I on the other hand one day got this board from someone who thought it was defective because no he tried it with several different graphics cards but got no picture. You guessed it, he tried AGP graphics cards only, which could not work in it. The board itself was 100% working as intended.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Together, these provide: AdLib/FM ESS ESFM Sound Blaster Sound Blaster Pro Sound Blaster 16 General MIDI (.sf2 and .94b sound fonts) MT-32 (via wavetable daughterboard or external real one) Gravis Ultrasound In theory there is one faster motherboard with working ISA slots but it's >400$ USD.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

PCI SATA adapter is still somewhere in a box, I'll use it once found to go along with the SATA SSD. Combination of sound cards: Guillemot Maxi Sound 64 Dynamic 3D PicoGUS Creative AWE upgrade card a.k.a. CT1920 Goldfinch

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Peltier-cooled Intel Pentium 4 3.06 GHz and 3 ISA sound cards, ticking ALL the important DOS sound boxes. Sadly what looks like an AGP slot is actually ADD and does not support graphics cards, so I'm limited to PCI in that regard, and using a Geforce FX 5200 because I have nothing proper.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

I'm a bit late following up, but if the offer still stands I'd be happy to e.g. buy the shipping label or something like that. If you prefer another approach that would also be fine, I just thought that's the easiest way.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

And there is already an issue: the IDE connector is full size 40 pin. Which means whatever I want to connect will need an adapter not only to that but also to a power source. At least the power source exists.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

However, if it is at least as compatible as an S3 graphics card is in DOS games, that would at least let me play early W9X games and enjoy a wide variety of stuff before that. Also no idea how much RAM is on this double sided module, but I'll find out tonight after dinner.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

In fact, the Nehemiah could be clocked at 1400 MHz, a Pentium 733 equivalent at least. While I hope for the Geode to be at least a Pentium MMX 166 equivalent, but that's not granted. And the onboard GPU? I have no idea what it is, but it certainly won't be as fast as an S3 Savage 4.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Found this in my lab, it's the forgotten inferior replacement board for my first Neoware CA2 that I accidentally killed when I had, after a long series of swapping expansion cards, forgotten to pull the power plug and promptly caused a deadly short. This 333 MHz Geode is much slower than the VIA C3.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

if you see this post an image you saved because it made you laugh.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

I do, it's a St. Benedict Medaillon, the inscription "Eius in obitu nostro praesentia muniamur" is latin and roughly means "may we be empowered by him during our death", it's a kind of charm especially for dying people.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Also fhe Yamaha is a cool card but not worth triple digit money. Just get a Terratec Solo-1 or 128i PCI, these are still plentiful for 30€ in box, and provide ESS Solo-1 with the great ESFM, wavetable connector and SBlink (although most of the time just one of the connectors is soldered)

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Oof. I have a gap with late PCI and early AGP GPUs, but was lucky enough to get two double decker Typhoon branded sound cards with the Yamaha 744 for under 30€ in 2022. But missed the Aureal Vortex 2.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

I'm using one,its onboard SiS Mirage graphics are so good I use the PCI slot for a Yamaha YMF744B sound card.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

I guess, but not as much. It is binned for 10W more TDP to begin with, plus the board only offers default voltage and up to .1 V less or more.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

The Leadtek WinFast A350XT TDH (Geforce FX 5900 XT 128 MB) got upgraded with a Zalman VF-1000 aftermarket cooler and Enzotech copper VRAM heatsinks. It may not be as nostalgic as a Voodoo 5, but it is much faster while ticking all legacy compatibility features that certain vintage games need!

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

By the way, AMD speaks of a "typical" thermal design power of 9 and 14 W, but the actual maximum power draw is 18 and 25 W respectively, so I won't repeat their marketing BS, in case anyone was wondering about my numbers. I like AMDs socket 462 CPUs, but I'm not any brand's loyal fanboy.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Let's be honest, the Geode 1500's efficiency is so cool, but I can't deal with being beaten by a P3 Tualatin, so the Geode NX 1750 is the likeliest candidate if none of you persuades me to do something else. I also have 1 GHz regular Athlons or different desktop Athlon XPs of almost every speed.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Today I spread more fake news than an LLM. CPU-Z tricked me into believing this was a Mobile Barton 2500+, but it is actually a Mobile Barton 2400+, which is a LV version with a 35W TDP and 1.35V voltage. Now I could put in either the 1000 MHz 18W Geode (1500+ rating) or 1400 MHz 25W Geode (1750+).🤔

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

It would still be faster than a regular 1900+ because this has twice the cache, and I could theoretically mod the CPUs multiplier settings so t defaults to 16x133 MHz to make up for it. But I'd prefer the lower speeds of the 25W Thoroughbred-B Geode NX, especially since the RAM bottlenecks anyway.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

I misremembered the CPU. There is still an AMD Athlon XP-M 2500+ (Mobile Barton) in there, which the motherboard turns into a 1900+ because it doesn't run the CPU's default FSB of 333, but only 266. I guess I was too lazy to put the Geode NX back in because the CPU cooler is a nightmare to mount.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

I love* Gotta love my german phone autocorrecting english words.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Yeah, the Geode NX is easily one of my favorite Athlons, along with the Mobile Barton. You don't have to worry about toasting it either. While it's default voltage is 1.0-1.2V (depends on model), all of them will run even 1.65V. It just won't be as efficient and cool then & require a regular cooler.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

I went and upgraded the sound card. The door hides the sadly poor condition of the audio panel's print, and I lobe that the case has proper cable management. Should do absolutely fine for any game or music released prior to Windows XP.

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Reposted by Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████

Gammitin (Ben) 💾 @gammitin.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

I'm insanely excited about this! 🤗 1Ghz AMD Athlon Slot A ✅

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

I haven't used the system in a while but I really like how the case allows me to show off the cool rare components, look at the debug display, and offers space for optical drive and front panel but also hides them behind a door.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

For a single ISA slot DOS card I went with the Sound Blaster 32 CT3670 which is really based on AWE64 tech and therefore bug free, but I might in the future swap it out for my Terratec EWS64 XL sacrificing SB16 compatibility and MT-32 emulation for a front panel with a wavetable connector.

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Mancomb ████good, Internet ██████ @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Although these faster CPUs work, and even a Geforce FX 5900 XT running at 5950 Ultra speeds is accompanying them, the weakness of the system is the SDR-133 RAM. CPU and GPU would love RAM that os twice or even thrice as fast.

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