Little Guys: Episode 9
Added 2024-07-09 20:27:13 +0000 UTChttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAk5fd0WtMg
No, you didn't miss episode 8; I produce these in weird orders, for various reasons - in this case, because my last public video was over an hour and a half long and I don't want to release another video that length right after, so I shot and edited this one, then shot another that's a bit shorter which will become episode 8; I'll probably upload that later today.
This video was not supposed to be an hour and 20 minutes long. It was actually 1:40 before I cut a bunch of redundant crap out, but it's still just a lot of tangents off a central theme - and in any case, it ended up taking way, way, way longer than i intended. In the first batch of Little Guys, I produced like... 4 videos in one week? And I'd been hoping to do that again, but, I just ended up having too much to say about this one. And I mean, I could have spent time actually talking about the PBX portion, which would have eaten up at least another half hour - this is the abridged version.
I personally think 1:40 is unwieldy, but the entire point of this series is to be less heavily edited, so, I'm going with it anyway. I hope you enjoy it. Good luck!
Comments
Just a thought , could they be useing the game port interface's midi capability for midi hold music? Not sure how the port works for midi but just a thought but also seen pcm samples used over midi so maybe a way of having some basic speech with midi? With a sample say for the numbers and another one for "sorry the number" and so on
Simon Upton-Millard
2024-07-11 19:34:05 +0000 UTCWhy da comments on YouTube disabled?
Akshay Anand
2024-07-11 12:11:56 +0000 UTCFelt like that to me lmao Intel Inside? No, CyrixInstead. (Simpsons Card joke.png)
Akshay Anand
2024-07-11 12:08:09 +0000 UTCIs CyrixInstead a joke on Intel Inside?
Asaf Sagi
2024-07-11 07:52:35 +0000 UTCFor what it's worth, I think OS/2 chess wasn't very strong. White opened with knight to c3, which is kinda odd, and then at the end of that clip, gave up that knight for a pawn for no apparent reason. But, chess computers weren't very strong yet then anyway!
chrisjamesr77
2024-07-11 06:12:52 +0000 UTCI haven't had the chance to watch this video yet, but I love your videos regardless of length, and I think a lot of your viewers (or your Patreon supporters at the least) would have been perfectly happy with the 20 minutes of "redundant crap". Thanks for the work you do Gravis, you really do provide an enjoyable experience and it's always a great day for me when you release a new video!
trvs
2024-07-11 01:23:27 +0000 UTCThat old myth is getting me curious (where there's smoke there's fire) so I ran a little experiment. I installed freedos on a 386 qemu VM, ran debug.com and created a program that disables interrupts and then busy-loops : a⏎ cli⏎ jmp 101⏎ ⏎ g I then switched to the qemu monitor (pressing ctrl+alt+2) and entered the command sendkey alt+ctrl+delete Switched back to the emulated PC screen (ctrl+alt+1) and it wasn't rebooting Control experiment (without disabling interrupts) : Run debug.com, a⏎ jmp 100⏎ ⏎ g switch to the qemu monitor, send ctrl+alt+del, switch back to the emulated PC monitor, see the emulated PC booting. I don't know where the myth that ctrl-alt-del generates an NMI comes from, but yeah, it's definitely able to be masked.
Frederic Merizen
2024-07-10 19:34:27 +0000 UTCRegarding Faxback services, there is a novelty faxback service operating in Germany which answers to faxes using ChatGPT: +49 531 490590019 https://simple-fax.de/fax-ki Note: It's quite likely they do not support international connections because them calling back also causes them to pay for the long-distance fees.
Darius
2024-07-10 18:52:23 +0000 UTCWow, this appears to be a very widespread misconception. I've been seeing people assert that CAD generates an NMI for decades, but you're absolutely correct, confirmed with the PC tech manual.
Cathode Ray Dude
2024-07-10 17:11:50 +0000 UTClol I must have been getting tired
Cathode Ray Dude
2024-07-10 17:09:24 +0000 UTCYou were looking through the Duke nuke menus for detail settings - it did flash up at the top of one of the menus you dipped intoaafter you gave up
FliesLikeABrick
2024-07-10 16:27:06 +0000 UTCI’d just like to say how great it is to read all the feedback and technical knowledge that everyone here has to contribute.
Nageeb Twal
2024-07-10 15:02:02 +0000 UTCthe guy at TheRasteri youtube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/@TheRasteri ) had done stuff with pc104 boards and other exotic hardware. He made a sound blaster compatible card and pc104 to isa adapter by himself! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAPFUpOOPlM
Eugenio Dorigati
2024-07-10 12:18:31 +0000 UTCOh (sorry, I must be in a nitpicky mood today 😅): ctrl-alt-delete is even less special than that, it doesn't even cause an NMI. It's just a regular keyboard press, it triggers IRQ 1, and that is absoluty able to be masked. (Nitpick within a nitpick: on a PC Jr, key presses do trigger an NMI because IBM engineers are monsters and also cost cutting probably, but again that's all key presses, not just ctrl+alt+del)
Frederic Merizen
2024-07-10 10:56:29 +0000 UTCRe: ‘that poor CPU is struggling’ and double buffering (both around the 1h mark). The ISA bus and VGA card really are the limiting factors here. Standard vga cards only have 256 kB of video ram, that's not enough to fit two 640×480 (4 bit) frame buffers, so you can't just have two buffers in video ram and flip between them. Instead, if you're going to do double buffering you're going to have to have your on-screen buffer in video RAM, and your off-screen buffer in main RAM, meaning that your screen refreshes are going through the ISA bus bottleneck. With a crusty old 286 you're going to max out at about 2 megabytes per second (assuming you're spending all your CPU cycles just blasting data into your graphics card), and even with much faster CPUs you're going to hit a brick wall at maybe 2.5 megabytes per second. Which is not a lot of FPS if you're doing full-screen refreshes (my math says 17 FPS). At which point you're probably going to want to devote some of your CPU budget to keeping track of dirty screen regions instead, and just push those through the ISA bus. Probably makes sense on a 286, and even more so on a 486 as there is such a tremendous speed penalty for going through the ISA bus. Edited to add: on the other hand, on the SOC they should have been able to have a faster bus between the CPU and the graphics subcomponent, right?
Frederic Merizen
2024-07-10 10:42:23 +0000 UTCI love this video this so much. I’m a recovering telco guy, (25yrs of pbx & phone switching, now on the wagon) and had a few thoughts: - I serviced a ton of systems in industrial settings and restaurants. The grease/black residue reminded me of a server I once managed for a metal tool shop client. I think it might have been buildup of machine oil in the air from all the drills and lathes. Unless the goop layer was tacky, in which case that’s a sign it was likely in a kitchen. - The ports on the end of the backplane are 100% for expansion. You’d drop another chassis below it on a rack and use a ribbon + 4-6 pin power cable and presto! 8 more slots! - I had to think about the dedicated VMX-CPM cross-connect and my guess is that because the channels on the backplane likely use multiplexing in order to efficiently manage bandwidth, that could screw with the storage/retrieval of vmx audio so it would be convenient for the system to have dedicated 4-8 audio channels tied directly to the VMX board. I noticed a set of chips right next to the game port. Perhaps they’re a bank of pcm chips? - You’d probably be able to add a second drive using the 40-pin ide ribbon cables w/3 plugs that were used to daisy chain 2 ide devices on a single controller (ugh master/slave/CS jumper memories) - PBX PSUs are monsters. I have a few 500W ones with capacitors the size of coke cans. Still trying to find a practical use for them ⚡️. - I first ran Duke3d on my 486DX4-100 and it sucked so bad. Thanks for dredging up that shitty memory.
Nageeb Twal
2024-07-10 05:47:59 +0000 UTC8:38 I thought it was interesting the numbers went 7 to 9, on a video series that (until you explained) went from 7 to 9... 🤭
Scott Kemp
2024-07-10 05:00:40 +0000 UTCoh DUH, that makes so much sense. It enforces the uniqueness of that card.
Cathode Ray Dude
2024-07-10 04:46:47 +0000 UTCWatching the actual video now, I'm pretty sure what they're going for is making sure you don't try to put two CPC cards on the bus - this probably causes Bad Things To Happen. Unless I miss my guess, the official stack cable has a piece of plastic on it to block the CPC port on the secondary cabinet, too, which is why it's so weirdly close to it, even though there's all sorts of empty PCB real estate on the backplane.
EyeMWing
2024-07-10 04:45:37 +0000 UTCI remember a lot of MPC (Multimedia PC) logos and ads back in the early 90s when cd-roms were becoming popular, but I think that's a different, unrelated thing to the PC/AC 97 design standards. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_PC)
Kerne
2024-07-10 03:49:49 +0000 UTCLol, unfortunately I'm still into telephones as well.
Kerne
2024-07-10 03:23:53 +0000 UTCHoly spicy pillow Batman! The battery on the CPC card looks scary.
Rodney Hubbard
2024-07-10 01:15:45 +0000 UTC"I used to be into telephones but I'm recovering now" I was having a bad day at work and this line made me laugh for five minutes. Thank you! PS I work for a large Telcom.
Jonathan Blair
2024-07-09 22:52:37 +0000 UTCYaaaa this is just what I need tonight. Looking forward to it 🙏
Rom
2024-07-09 22:31:21 +0000 UTC1 hour and 40 minutes. You should stop making shorts and start creating full length videos. I can see that some people might think your videos are long, but I am not some people 😀
Simon Mikkelsen
2024-07-09 22:17:18 +0000 UTCTo enforce putting the CPU card in one specific slot in the chassis, so you can write your documentation around that assumption and make remote diagnostic support a little bit easier. I've seen other systems where it isn't bus connector location, but it is a different width.
EyeMWing
2024-07-09 22:12:30 +0000 UTC1:40 might be unwieldy, but I love unwieldy.
EyeMWing
2024-07-09 22:08:30 +0000 UTCI must admit I haven’t actually tried two cards in it but from what I can see it’s all passively connected - there’s no way a cheapo adapter like that is doing JBOD or RAID lol
Aidan Rayner
2024-07-09 21:21:46 +0000 UTCThat's rad though, I didn't know that existed! I gotta get one, there are plenty of applications
Cathode Ray Dude
2024-07-09 21:19:51 +0000 UTCI’m a simple person. I see a power supply with comically large capacitors, I leave a like and comment
Nicolas Wort
2024-07-09 21:18:44 +0000 UTCIn regards to the IDE port - I have a dual CF card to 44 pin IDE adapter that lets you use two cards on one machine. Would be an easy way to add two drives, although that wouldn’t let you connect a CD drive still
Aidan Rayner
2024-07-09 21:17:36 +0000 UTCThat's not in dispute, the question is why one would want that. It's a very simple, straight bus, and every card has access to every trace. why would the CPU card want fewer traces, or to get them in a different order? why wouldn't you just rearrange them as needed on the card?
Cathode Ray Dude
2024-07-09 20:46:25 +0000 UTCLove the series! I don't mind the runtime but I understand your points. I will say I would love to hear a crash course on PBX stuff at some point. Of course if you ever have the time and energy!
Zen The Fox
2024-07-09 20:46:18 +0000 UTCI mean if your audience listens to you describe the history of scanners then you should be assured they'll listen to you talk about anything 😂
Xaviette Katzenfrau
2024-07-09 20:42:56 +0000 UTCI think the CPU socket is lower than the others as a key system. Pin layout on that card is probably different than the other line cards.
E.J. Bevenour
2024-07-09 20:42:46 +0000 UTCLove these little guys.
ChiraFox
2024-07-09 20:35:57 +0000 UTC
