Couple errata: - The cable DOES closely resemble DMS-59, but those cables all had a single pin missing. This doesn't, so it's actually a 60-pin connector, making it more similar to the 60-pin v.35 cables used in T1 routers (etc.) Thanks to @toodarkpark for pointing that out, I should have known that! - Yes, it's a Cirrus Logic SVGA chip, not a Chips & Technologies. Look, everything that can't do 3D blends together. :p
Cirrus and C&T were like the decent-ish 2D cards especially in the embedded/mobile space, I'm surprised Trident sort of outlasted them, Trident has always seemed to inspire the feeling of "well at least it has a VGA output" , not that Trident last much longer though they released a few "3D" chips and at least made it into the early 2000s, their "3D" was awful just like any other card that wasn't Nvidia, ATI or 3dfx. Trident, NeoMagic, and SMI all tried to break into the 3D chips for laptops market and all failed miserably, By about 2003 Intel graphics seemed to be the norm on Intel Laptops without an IGP, and AMD without dGPUs were usually ATI or S3/VIA until S3 finally disappeared then Nvidia chipsets along with ATI started becoming more common in AMD laptops.
@@AnyasJunkyard Yep that's it, it does appear to be an LFH-60 (Molex Low Force Helix 60 pin). There's apparently variants of it with 80, 160 and 200 pins too. I've spent quite some time researching the connector since the Compaq Contura Aero uses the same connector for its dock connector, the only way to get VGA output on it.
its so obvious by your expressions and tone of voice that the changes in the studio and warehouse have made making videos fun again for you, and i'm so happy to see it. i think i speak for everyone that a happy CRD is a happy fanbase.
Yes, Yes! The owner of the museum has noticed your interest, unlocked the cabinet, and is showing you all the weird stuff! This is top quality content!
Eurorack and CompactPCI are both based on the same standard "single-height" (3U) Eurocard chassis. There's a whole lot of other equipment that uses this form factor too, e.g. modular measurement equipment for use with LabVIEW.
@@paulyearley1084 you can get them - especially when no backplane is needed - for scrap metal prices. i put everything inside them, didn't feel special doing so until i found out about this eurorack audio scam charging ripoff prices for e-waste chassis xD
Even as an avid IA glazer and copyright hater IA is not without fault in either of those situations, I don't think they should be given a free pass for the sake of dogma, the access to their database and zendesk were leaked through a git repo on a dev server that was public for 2 years, and over a week after the compromise went public (they knew for longer) they didnt rotate their secrets, in the case of the book publishers they removed the lending limits on books during the pandemic, meaning instead of loaning 1:1 with physical owned books - emulating a physical library - they allowed unlimited copies to be made, I think this was an obviously bad idea for the sake of the existence of the archive even though it was based. And now 5 million books have been removed from lending entirely. Their entire defense was that digital scans were derivative works and "fair use" under copyright law. Ffs. if you give them a free pass they won't get better and they will keep making these mistakes.
This hits close to home for me as I work for a company that makes PXI equipment, which is just CompactPCI for electronic test & measurement (PCI Extensions for Instrumentation). You can get all sorts of modular test gear in the CompactPCI form factor under the PXI banner including DMMs, oscilloscopes, function generators, programmable power supplies, relay multiplexers, etc, a lot of which would probably work in your chassis. There is even PXIe (PCI Express) on some chassis which I believe is test industry specific. It's fun to game on $16k of test equipment, and thanks to this video I'll have to start cramming modular synthesisers in too.
Yeah you were onto something. Seeing you fully in the shot interacting with the subject does make the content a lot more engaging, compared to the previous episodes where the shot was only bench.
I just want to say, phenomenal work. No idea how much this second space cost you but imo as a single fan it was worth it because this was great. I actually loved the workbench videos but the vibes here mixed with the better viewing angles make it even more fun to watch!
Castle of the Winds. Man, what a game. Just like you, I found it on a shareware disc and played it on windows 3.1, and it dominated my gaming experience as a 7 year old or whatever I was. About 8 years ago I found out the sequel, constantly advertised in-game, became freeware and actually available by the developer and I screamed because I wanted to see dragons and use bastard swords soooo bad. Truly the maximum potential of the Compact PCI has now been reached.
11:45 - Yep, desktop "classic Pentium" went up to 200 MHz, desktop Pentium MMX up to 233 MHz. The mobile MMX versions went up to *_300_* MHz. (The "Tillamook" core, on its own custom "mobile card" interface that also held the 430TX chipset and L2 cache - which means the vendor removed the Tillamook CPU from the Intel-supplied card to re-mount all the pieces to their own custom board!)
This video spoke to me on multiple levels - the Eurorack stuff and Castle of the Winds namely. I too didn't know Castle of the Winds was a roguelike, and it had been so long since I've played it I never thought much about it, but it was cool to get the history lesson.
This new format looks fantastic - it's a big step up! Also, props for the Castle of the Winds demonstration. I remember buying the full version of that, the two non-shareware Jill of the Jungle episodes, and Overkill from the Epic's e-catalog and being sent four floppies.
The fun thing I found about about hardware form factors is that a standard 19” telecom rack is the exact same width as a standard full size hotel sheet pan and therefore cooling rack. Because I turned an empty half height SGI Itanium chassis into a smoker. I can slide whatever food I’m smoking in on some full size cooling racks easy peasy.
I used to bake the cookies at a hotel(supposed to be front desk but kitchen always fucked us over on cookies) and used those racks all the time, idk how I never made that connection. they were just premade Otis Spunkmeyer dough btw
my guess would be that AT&T set the 19" standard in 1922 because 19" + 8 to 12" for arms, elbows, and maneuver room carrying equipment through a commercial doorway of 36-48" just made sense, same as in a kitchen or recording studio when those industries adopted the same ..also cause bending metal is bending metal and if you do so on scale its probably best if everything is the same size.
@@AgentAsteriski I learned from XKCD that standard beehive honeycomb frames are also the correct size to fit in a 19-inch rack, perhaps you should leave them an opportunity to make their own honey someday 🙂
SkyX seems to be a TCP accelerator. Since satellite links have such high latency you don't want TCP replay/go-back-n/ACK type messages going through the satellite link. These boxes probably establish a new TCP link at the ground station and use different protocols through the satellite link, essentially a man-in-the-middle of your connection.
I dont comment much but straight up your videos when I see they are here they make my day! There something about your presentation it never gets old! I love the warehouse too that was a great idea!
I actually work at a company that makes cPCI cards and you got it all right for the most part. Just some quick thoughts. That red slot is usually what we refer to as the SYSCON slot, because the bus master has to go there. Usually this is some kind of SBC, but you could in theory put anything there provided it can perform bus arbitration and act as a system controller. The picture you showed of the 6u chassis is interesting because it has two SYSCON slots, which are bridged by some sort of PCI switch on the backplane. Sort of like a PLX chip it allows for multiple system controllers on the same bus, although to access the children of the other syscon, you have to go through the switch, and then through the other syscon. It is common for those additional pins you mentioned to simply be a passthrough straight to the back side of the backplane, so you can insert what is called an RTM or rear transition module. You are correct that a manufacturer would define this pinout themselves, but provided the backplane is a "passthrough" backplane, and your RTM matches with your SBC, the system should "just work". But like you said you do have to be careful, it's not always immediately obvious that a backplane is passthrough or if it is routing something else point to point on those pins, for example it is common to have Ethernet routed on those pins, and they go directly to another slot in the chassis.
Huh! So the red slot actually has access to different signals, presumably. This is what I get for not having the spec! (someone has since sent me an old copy I need to review, heh) Thank you so much for all the info!
This is the way! Everything looks so premium now that you’ve added some more space. I’m glad my Patreon contribution has helped make this happen even if it’s just a drop in the bucket. Keep it up good sir. I know you probably are not that interested but I think a post holiday stream/donate a thon may be in order. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I’d love to watch and be part of another and it can only help you out imo. Even if it’s on the second channel I’m in there like swimwear
RE the SCSI port, my brother-in-law is an engineer for the auto industry. One of the many job anecdotes he's told me over the years is that they had a very expensive and perfectly useful piece of diagnostic equipment that could output Data to a PC, and it used a SCSI interface. They had to keep a very old computer running in order to make sure that that tool didn't become obsolete because it was five figures to replace it with an updated one. I bet you that external front-facing SCSI port was for a specialized industrial peripheral of some kind.
That rack, though. It's giving strong Eurorack, especially Doepfer vibes. In that world, vertical is measured in "U" with almost everything being 3U but occasionally small utility modules being 1U tiles. Horizontal units are measured in HP, where 1HP is very slightly (and maddeningly) more than 5mm. So measure how wide the card is in centimeters and double it, and that's the HP, more-or-less. ETA: Haha, you got there, too. And yes, when Doepfer standardized the Eurorack spec, it was based on computer rack hardware because that was readily available. Sadly, even though I am in the market for a decent Eurorack case, repurposing an old CompactPCI case doesn't appear particularly cheap; there are current-gen cases on eBay for more than a grand... Maybe something to set up a craigslist alert for, to save on shipping, but the perfect era for pulling this off for cheap was probably fifteen years ago when even the industrial P5 users were retiring their racks.
Hence the last 5-10 minutes of the video. I really hope someone does getting around to throwing some Eurorack modules into one of these things - it seems like it would actually be pretty darn cool.
this standard goes wayyyy back to early telecom, doepfer just adopted it because it was convenient. it's also very convenient for me since i just got 416HP of rack for about 100 dollars by buying them from a eurocard case manufacturuer instead of a synth shop where you'd pay a LOT more. API's series 500 is also based on eurocard but the two have diverged just enough that you can't put 500 series modules into a eurorack case. the screw holes don't line up anymore.
@@famitory A lot of eurorack cases I've seen have sliding nuts in TS rail, rather than fixed-position screw holes. What manufacturer of eurocard cases sells to the consumer? I'm in the market myself.
It's less maddening when you realize that 1HP is 1/5th of an inch. (But yes, Eurocard and its derivatives like Eurorack being a wild mix of metric and US dimensions is pretty annoying)
@@oasntet schroff are the standard from what i remember. keyword is Vector Rails watch out because in eurocard 2.5mm screws are standard instead of the 3mm used in eurorack, so if you get those nutstrips you wont be able to use any of the screws included in the box with modules as for marketplaces you want component sellers like mouser and digikey.
Hell yeah, Castle of the Winds! I had Vol. 1 from a shareware disc and played the crap out of it, wondering if I'd ever see the mentioned sequel. Turns out I found it at a big box store's electronics section a couple years later (shoutout to Bigg's Hypermarket, RIP) and still have the 3.5" disc floating around somewhere. Funnily enough, we play the game completely differently. I always maxed INT and got Magic Arrow first to spellsling from a distance while running like a wimp down the hallways. And finding traps with my face.
I think your on a gold mine with your Compact PCI Euro Card rig. It needs more attention. I also love your double entendre pun. This new work space is a grate investment for your headspace. Just remember to get a piece of acrylic to stop the tape and other objects from falling down behind your large rack... .>.> ...good video.
I'm using one of those office PCs with a DMS-59 graphics card! It's the only spare Radeon card I have with analog out, and I use the PC to play emulated games on my CRT TV with Retroarch and CRT SwitchRes. In the end, the chain is Optiplex -> DMS-59 -> DVI to VGA cable -> 15KHz VGA to composite/S-Video converter -> TV. It's not the most cursed hookup, but it's *my* cursed hookup and I love it.
Hey there - I work for a company that designs and manufactures single-board computers, including for CompactPCI! Fascinating equipment, I love how modular and user-serviceable everything is.
If you like this, you'll love PXI and VXI. These are both long lived setups for automated test gear. Many of them have integrated PCs in their racks. But the hardware that connects to it varies wildly. Everything from a multimeter to fancy digital testers. Even oscilloscopes. And these things have been around so long, you can find PCs with 486s (or maybe even older) to the latest stuff from Intel.
The only time I've encountered VXI was two 19" racks full of Keysight SERDES pattern generators and protocol analyzers. Sadly no little guy as the VXI connection was made to a desktop with a long daisy chain of Firewire. This was an actual industry standard thing that bridged the five minutes between the GPIB and gigabit Ethernet LXI eras.
Fun fact: connexion is also an archaic spelling of connection, not just some corporate branding. If you read novels written at least like 150 years ago, you're likely to encounter it.
I'm an automation engineer. I program and support automated equipment for factories. I actually got tasked at one point to support a machine that had a 68k and VME bus. It ran a tablet pill press. The date in the cabinet was 1998. I wasn't given the source code, or the programming software, or any documentation on it. I told them I couldn't support it and it was over. It would have been a cool project to work on though.
Making a LAN between the two PCs in the same rack is what I'd call "vlan" - "very local area networking" EDIT: the Euro-Rack format was (is?) very popular for industrial small production runs. If you have only a few hundred of devices to make for a select customer, this would be the way to go: cases are readily available, backplanes can be 1:1 off the shelf or customized using wire wrap... THe company I worked for swore by them in the 1990s.
I work in that area and yes, one of the form factors that we use is modules for a 3U Eurocard rack. Those aren't too frequently ordered, as 19" racks aren't very common around heavy industrial equipment so most customers prefer standalone boxes, but we design PCBs to be 100mm wide whenever we can just to have that option if required. Do note that _Eurorack_ is a standard specifically for modular synthesizers.
@@musashigundoh OK, I was unaware of the "Eurorack" term specifically for synth use... I'm not a native speaker so some terms blend together. We used to refer to the cards as "Eurokarte" or "Euro Einschub".
@@atkelar You were correct on the first one, Eurokarte/Eurocard is a very old and very common standard for fitting PCBs into 3U/6U/9U chassis with optional 96-pin backplane connectors on the rear. It spawned a whole bunch of derivatives, including the titular CompactPCI (fixed 160mm depth and a different backplane connector), Eurorack (very shallow depth, no backplane, 3mm mounting screws instead of 2.5mm), and a whole bunch of proprietary ones.
honestly i wish that eurorack had kept the backplane connectors in some capacity because even in the era of keyed connectors people are STILL frying modules by plugging them in wrong. plus a proper backplane connector would have had the trace width to properly use the pins rather than doubling up power across pairs of lines. imagine the utopia of having clock/run lines to go with the cv/gate bus lines! come on folks API 500 series is doing it and they're really not any more or less expensive than eurorack.
I think Doepfer did what he did for price and ease of manufacturing. Those connectors + guides cant be cheap. Also, it would be much harder to make skiff friendly modules. Would be cool though, I do agree.
Loving the new warehouse vids in style and concept. What I do miss from the bench videos is the overhead cam (not that it would've done much good here, but still). I just enjoyed getting in closer to the action on some of the stuff. I'm sure you'll get the angles figured out in due time. The warehouse has good potential for this sort of informal demonstrating and it really does feel like when I go over to a friend's place and they show me some weird curiosity.
Yeah, I need new furniture to make this work right, I just figured it didn't make any sense to put out *nothing* while waiting to get The Perfect Setup
@@CathodeRayDudeyeah, if we waited until we were 100% prepared to do everything, would we ever really do anything? I love the content you make either way 🔥
Regarding SCSI for industrial use. In the past SCSI was also used for connecting scanners. Now in the place where I work we have a couple of machine's with "modern" (Read: Adaptec SCSI adapter with on PCB PCIe-PCI bridge) connecting to a node on the control system and gets process data out of it for the historian. For audio: Use the USB port ;). Win2K Ships with a generic USB audio driver. Just enable the Windows Audio service in the service manager. That is disabled by default on server editions.
So. The spacing is identical to Eurorack modular synth standard. My immediate thought has been confirmed and I'm 100% sure they both use the same screw rails.
Yeah, 'Castle of the Winds'! I must have a retail copy of that game lying around somewhere. It was also my first computer RPG, before I got to switch to table top and potato chips.
37:00 COTW finally someone who I can really relate to 🤩... I'd love to know a thing or two about the old 16b Windows APIs (and how to disassemble/decompile it) and find out how it was made...
Btw. assuming this really is EDO RAM you will absolutely need both memory modules to get this machine to do anything. EDO RAM (and everything else before SDRAM) is only 32 bits wide but Pentiums have a 64 bit data bus, so they insist on talking to two memory modules in parallel. This is why you always had to install memory modules pairwise in early Pentium machines.
Yup, I was actually preparing to say that before I busted the tabs off and got completely distracted. probably if I hadn't thought to tape the stick back in, I would have gone "-oh wait, no, that won't work" a minute later, heh
The Little Guys i interact with on a daily basis are Posiflex all-in-one touchscreen PCs for my works POS system. Most of them are getting close to 10 years of continuous operation, and even the resistive screen ones are still in surprisingly good shape. The little guy I'm more curious about is our "StarBox" which is an SD-WAN from Star2Star that allows our Polycom phones and previously existing computer and internet equipment to all work together in harmony, but from what I've gathered it's an entire computer of its own just headless and remotely managed sadly.
Yep! In an industrial computer setting remote boot is probably the main method. That's because you need to be able to control and monitor them from remote. If you actually have to go to the machine physically that would be a ladt resort.
Studio in a box, that reminds of some dedicated PC’s from the late 90’s that ran BeOS. Devices like the Tascam SX-1 and the izRadar multitrack recorders. Those are a kind of big “little guys”. They are fully self-contained Digital audio workstations with bespoke built-in audio interfaces. Pretty neat machines. Nowerdays many portable grooveboxes aim to be a studio in a box but they aren’t pc’s but ARM based devices.
It's apparently the same screw rails. Bonus points for the fact you can just use power modules as PSUs but put them on THE BACK, so they don't interfere.
The connectors on that (and a lot of other passive backplane systems) use those kinds of square pin connectors. That design actually goes back to before the apollo program - Curious Marc and the AGC video series show similar connectors being used for the AGC components IIRC. I wouldn't be surprised to find modular radar and military communications systems in the 40's and 50s having a similar type block connector for modular components (albeit larger-pinned). Amphenol makes a ton of military/aerospace/industrial connectors similar to it - and I believe they even sell/sold a CompactPCI backplane.
![Little Guys 7: The Cop-puter [Motorola MW800]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EP3aKEG79DM/mqdefault.jpg)
Couple errata:
- The cable DOES closely resemble DMS-59, but those cables all had a single pin missing. This doesn't, so it's actually a 60-pin connector, making it more similar to the 60-pin v.35 cables used in T1 routers (etc.) Thanks to @toodarkpark for pointing that out, I should have known that!
- Yes, it's a Cirrus Logic SVGA chip, not a Chips & Technologies. Look, everything that can't do 3D blends together. :p
Cirrus and C&T were like the decent-ish 2D cards especially in the embedded/mobile space, I'm surprised Trident sort of outlasted them, Trident has always seemed to inspire the feeling of "well at least it has a VGA output" , not that Trident last much longer though they released a few "3D" chips and at least made it into the early 2000s, their "3D" was awful just like any other card that wasn't Nvidia, ATI or 3dfx. Trident, NeoMagic, and SMI all tried to break into the 3D chips for laptops market and all failed miserably, By about 2003 Intel graphics seemed to be the norm on Intel Laptops without an IGP, and AMD without dGPUs were usually ATI or S3/VIA until S3 finally disappeared then Nvidia chipsets along with ATI started becoming more common in AMD laptops.
32:52 Up to Server 2003, IIS was enabled by default on server installations (MS03-007). Yes, really.
Sounds like an ultra-cursed implementation of LFH-60
@@AnyasJunkyard Yep that's it, it does appear to be an LFH-60 (Molex Low Force Helix 60 pin). There's apparently variants of it with 80, 160 and 200 pins too.
I've spent quite some time researching the connector since the Compaq Contura Aero uses the same connector for its dock connector, the only way to get VGA output on it.
Compaq Aero 486 laptops have that same connector for port replicator / dock...
Mr. C.R. Dude... I could watch you discussing water boiling for 2 hours and I wouldn't leave my chair. You are the best!
its so obvious by your expressions and tone of voice that the changes in the studio and warehouse have made making videos fun again for you, and i'm so happy to see it. i think i speak for everyone that a happy CRD is a happy fanbase.
Agreed, its always heart warming to see creators regain their spark
“Godspeed. Use a voltmeter.”
Words to live by.
It's like a friendly "use protection" between nerds.
14:24 "you know what? let's gaff tape it" t-shirt design right there
All for it but ... for goodness sake get kapton tape!
loving the new presentation. you're totally right, doing videos in this way in your new room makes things way more engaging!
yeah, very good setup for vids like this. loving it
Yes, Yes! The owner of the museum has noticed your interest, unlocked the cabinet, and is showing you all the weird stuff! This is top quality content!
Saw it - my mind instantly went "Eurorack! Eurorack! Does it fit Eurorack?" 😸
it would
Eurorack and CompactPCI are both based on the same standard "single-height" (3U) Eurocard chassis.
There's a whole lot of other equipment that uses this form factor too, e.g. modular measurement equipment for use with LabVIEW.
Yup. This thing. First minute.
Same - that was the first thought in my head. I'm glad it's not just me.
That said, this would be a rad case for a synth
@@paulyearley1084 you can get them - especially when no backplane is needed - for scrap metal prices. i put everything inside them, didn't feel special doing so until i found out about this eurorack audio scam charging ripoff prices for e-waste chassis xD
the people taking down IA, whether it be book publishers, or the hackers, are the lowest of the low.
Even as an avid IA glazer and copyright hater IA is not without fault in either of those situations, I don't think they should be given a free pass for the sake of dogma, the access to their database and zendesk were leaked through a git repo on a dev server that was public for 2 years, and over a week after the compromise went public (they knew for longer) they didnt rotate their secrets, in the case of the book publishers they removed the lending limits on books during the pandemic, meaning instead of loaning 1:1 with physical owned books - emulating a physical library - they allowed unlimited copies to be made, I think this was an obviously bad idea for the sake of the existence of the archive even though it was based. And now 5 million books have been removed from lending entirely. Their entire defense was that digital scans were derivative works and "fair use" under copyright law. Ffs. if you give them a free pass they won't get better and they will keep making these mistakes.
@@nixietubes I still think they should get a free pass IMO.
they did something stupid
either way library genesis for books goated
@@nixietubes I would rather fix the real problem, Copyright.
@@davidmiller9485 exactly
@@nixietubes "they broke the law"
Bad laws should be broken.
This hits close to home for me as I work for a company that makes PXI equipment, which is just CompactPCI for electronic test & measurement (PCI Extensions for Instrumentation). You can get all sorts of modular test gear in the CompactPCI form factor under the PXI banner including DMMs, oscilloscopes, function generators, programmable power supplies, relay multiplexers, etc, a lot of which would probably work in your chassis. There is even PXIe (PCI Express) on some chassis which I believe is test industry specific. It's fun to game on $16k of test equipment, and thanks to this video I'll have to start cramming modular synthesisers in too.
imagining a mordax data feeling incredibly self consious mounted next to a Big Boy oscilloscope that can do 10 gigasamples
Bonus points for pronouncing Moog correctly!
His girlfriend is a modular synth nerd, he's BOUND to get the pronunciation right lol
I am Woof, son of Moog.
Yeah you were onto something. Seeing you fully in the shot interacting with the subject does make the content a lot more engaging, compared to the previous episodes where the shot was only bench.
I just want to say, phenomenal work. No idea how much this second space cost you but imo as a single fan it was worth it because this was great. I actually loved the workbench videos but the vibes here mixed with the better viewing angles make it even more fun to watch!
Castle of the Winds. Man, what a game. Just like you, I found it on a shareware disc and played it on windows 3.1, and it dominated my gaming experience as a 7 year old or whatever I was. About 8 years ago I found out the sequel, constantly advertised in-game, became freeware and actually available by the developer and I screamed because I wanted to see dragons and use bastard swords soooo bad.
Truly the maximum potential of the Compact PCI has now been reached.
22:40 😳🤯🤦
*_I HAVE BEEN USING 68-PIN SCSI FOR 30 YEARS, AND I NEVER NOTICED THAT THE INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CONNECTORS ARE PHYSICALLY IDENTICAL!_*
the way you walked up remined me of the Korean dude walking up to a refrigerator in his store and him saying " i love refrigerators "
Funny, I thought Tech Connections was the true refrigerator lover
I live in Central Florida, homeland of Appliance Direct. We all love Sam Pak.
If you didn't buy Direct, *YOU PAID TOO MUCH!*
11:45 - Yep, desktop "classic Pentium" went up to 200 MHz, desktop Pentium MMX up to 233 MHz. The mobile MMX versions went up to *_300_* MHz. (The "Tillamook" core, on its own custom "mobile card" interface that also held the 430TX chipset and L2 cache - which means the vendor removed the Tillamook CPU from the Intel-supplied card to re-mount all the pieces to their own custom board!)
This is such a great example of how to use your new space. I love the video!
This video spoke to me on multiple levels - the Eurorack stuff and Castle of the Winds namely. I too didn't know Castle of the Winds was a roguelike, and it had been so long since I've played it I never thought much about it, but it was cool to get the history lesson.
you put so much love, live and enthusiasm in your videos... much repsect, i just love it.
s/repsect/respect, lol. i wonder what rep-sect would be :) .... repsectoids from outer space... yay.
"But again, wrong gender"
Story of my life...
This new format looks fantastic - it's a big step up!
Also, props for the Castle of the Winds demonstration. I remember buying the full version of that, the two non-shareware Jill of the Jungle episodes, and Overkill from the Epic's e-catalog and being sent four floppies.
The fun thing I found about about hardware form factors is that a standard 19” telecom rack is the exact same width as a standard full size hotel sheet pan and therefore cooling rack. Because I turned an empty half height SGI Itanium chassis into a smoker. I can slide whatever food I’m smoking in on some full size cooling racks easy peasy.
For some reason I read "bed pan".
I used to bake the cookies at a hotel(supposed to be front desk but kitchen always fucked us over on cookies) and used those racks all the time, idk how I never made that connection.
they were just premade Otis Spunkmeyer dough btw
my guess would be that AT&T set the 19" standard in 1922 because 19" + 8 to 12" for arms, elbows, and maneuver room carrying equipment through a commercial doorway of 36-48" just made sense, same as in a kitchen or recording studio when those industries adopted the same ..also cause bending metal is bending metal and if you do so on scale its probably best if everything is the same size.
@@AgentAsteriski
I learned from XKCD that standard beehive honeycomb frames are also the correct size to fit in a 19-inch rack, perhaps you should leave them an opportunity to make their own honey someday 🙂
What a good idea for an old server rack!
Your energy at the end of this makes me happy that our boy gets to pull out his toys and play again. Thank you for taking us with you.
i absolutely love the running joke with the image used for any time there is two of something
"I mean, it's rackable for crissake!" 🤣🤣🤣 Love the new studio addition and format.
Loving the new space and presentation format. Your enthusiasm is shining bright! Congratulations and looking forward to many more excellent videos.
SkyX seems to be a TCP accelerator. Since satellite links have such high latency you don't want TCP replay/go-back-n/ACK type messages going through the satellite link. These boxes probably establish a new TCP link at the ground station and use different protocols through the satellite link, essentially a man-in-the-middle of your connection.
That makes a ton of sense, thank you!
Somebody seems to be in a much improved mood.
Babe, Wake up, Another episode of little guys just dropped!
Those bespoke Hydra style I/O cables are a nightmare and a half, always.
This is really fun, I love the new warehouse setup and the eurocard stuff at the end was pretty neat.
Loving this new location and format for Little Guys
I dont comment much but straight up your videos when I see they are here they make my day! There something about your presentation it never gets old! I love the warehouse too that was a great idea!
That breakout cable is the best thing I have ever seen.
I actually work at a company that makes cPCI cards and you got it all right for the most part. Just some quick thoughts. That red slot is usually what we refer to as the SYSCON slot, because the bus master has to go there. Usually this is some kind of SBC, but you could in theory put anything there provided it can perform bus arbitration and act as a system controller. The picture you showed of the 6u chassis is interesting because it has two SYSCON slots, which are bridged by some sort of PCI switch on the backplane. Sort of like a PLX chip it allows for multiple system controllers on the same bus, although to access the children of the other syscon, you have to go through the switch, and then through the other syscon. It is common for those additional pins you mentioned to simply be a passthrough straight to the back side of the backplane, so you can insert what is called an RTM or rear transition module. You are correct that a manufacturer would define this pinout themselves, but provided the backplane is a "passthrough" backplane, and your RTM matches with your SBC, the system should "just work". But like you said you do have to be careful, it's not always immediately obvious that a backplane is passthrough or if it is routing something else point to point on those pins, for example it is common to have Ethernet routed on those pins, and they go directly to another slot in the chassis.
Huh! So the red slot actually has access to different signals, presumably. This is what I get for not having the spec! (someone has since sent me an old copy I need to review, heh)
Thank you so much for all the info!
I wasn’t expecting this Little Guys episode to be so musically compelling 🤯
What a wonderful wacky chassis format. I enjoyed exploring it with you!
...brilliant vid! you knocked it outta the park. Loving the new 'warehouse' scheme
Little Guys Season 2: _Big Changes, Same Little Guys_
Season 4?
@@Just.A.T-Rex edited the comment for clarification, should've had it that way when I initially typed it.
This is a lovely topic! Thank you for that. These little devices are mostly overlooked, yet they have a lot of charm.
Great to see castle of the winds getting some love! That’s the first shareware title I ever paid for.
Good time had!
Appreciating the warehouse "set" setup
you know what i dont care about the little guys its just fun to watch you chortle and be so positive all the time.
This is the way! Everything looks so premium now that you’ve added some more space. I’m glad my Patreon contribution has helped make this happen even if it’s just a drop in the bucket. Keep it up good sir. I know you probably are not that interested but I think a post holiday stream/donate a thon may be in order. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I’d love to watch and be part of another and it can only help you out imo. Even if it’s on the second channel I’m in there like swimwear
RE the SCSI port, my brother-in-law is an engineer for the auto industry. One of the many job anecdotes he's told me over the years is that they had a very expensive and perfectly useful piece of diagnostic equipment that could output Data to a PC, and it used a SCSI interface. They had to keep a very old computer running in order to make sure that that tool didn't become obsolete because it was five figures to replace it with an updated one. I bet you that external front-facing SCSI port was for a specialized industrial peripheral of some kind.
I love your enthusiasm and this format. Thanks!
That rack, though. It's giving strong Eurorack, especially Doepfer vibes.
In that world, vertical is measured in "U" with almost everything being 3U but occasionally small utility modules being 1U tiles. Horizontal units are measured in HP, where 1HP is very slightly (and maddeningly) more than 5mm. So measure how wide the card is in centimeters and double it, and that's the HP, more-or-less.
ETA: Haha, you got there, too. And yes, when Doepfer standardized the Eurorack spec, it was based on computer rack hardware because that was readily available. Sadly, even though I am in the market for a decent Eurorack case, repurposing an old CompactPCI case doesn't appear particularly cheap; there are current-gen cases on eBay for more than a grand... Maybe something to set up a craigslist alert for, to save on shipping, but the perfect era for pulling this off for cheap was probably fifteen years ago when even the industrial P5 users were retiring their racks.
Hence the last 5-10 minutes of the video. I really hope someone does getting around to throwing some Eurorack modules into one of these things - it seems like it would actually be pretty darn cool.
this standard goes wayyyy back to early telecom, doepfer just adopted it because it was convenient. it's also very convenient for me since i just got 416HP of rack for about 100 dollars by buying them from a eurocard case manufacturuer instead of a synth shop where you'd pay a LOT more.
API's series 500 is also based on eurocard but the two have diverged just enough that you can't put 500 series modules into a eurorack case. the screw holes don't line up anymore.
@@famitory A lot of eurorack cases I've seen have sliding nuts in TS rail, rather than fixed-position screw holes.
What manufacturer of eurocard cases sells to the consumer? I'm in the market myself.
It's less maddening when you realize that 1HP is 1/5th of an inch.
(But yes, Eurocard and its derivatives like Eurorack being a wild mix of metric and US dimensions is pretty annoying)
@@oasntet schroff are the standard from what i remember. keyword is Vector Rails
watch out because in eurocard 2.5mm screws are standard instead of the 3mm used in eurorack, so if you get those nutstrips you wont be able to use any of the screws included in the box with modules
as for marketplaces you want component sellers like mouser and digikey.
Best 'Little Guys' yet...... I have rack envy !
@18:19 "you can very easily snap off one of the very tiny pins on here"
@18:55 *yanks cable out of port sideways*
😭😭😭
Another banger of a video. How cool was that thing!
Nice Capstone billboard placement there. :D Glad you're able to keep the ship sailing, just giving you a friendly jab. ;)
I thoiught that the best thing of the video would have been the tape but alas seeing you geek out over the rack synth hybrid was really endearing
Castle of the winds baybeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
i hope the gaff tape becomes a recurring character on this show.
27:15 that was a real *gaffe* you made there chief...
Hell yeah, Castle of the Winds! I had Vol. 1 from a shareware disc and played the crap out of it, wondering if I'd ever see the mentioned sequel. Turns out I found it at a big box store's electronics section a couple years later (shoutout to Bigg's Hypermarket, RIP) and still have the 3.5" disc floating around somewhere.
Funnily enough, we play the game completely differently. I always maxed INT and got Magic Arrow first to spellsling from a distance while running like a wimp down the hallways. And finding traps with my face.
One of your funniest episodes yet! Well done!
I think your on a gold mine with your Compact PCI Euro Card rig. It needs more attention. I also love your double entendre pun.
This new work space is a grate investment for your headspace. Just remember to get a piece of acrylic to stop the tape and other objects from falling down behind your large rack... .>.> ...good video.
I'm using one of those office PCs with a DMS-59 graphics card! It's the only spare Radeon card I have with analog out, and I use the PC to play emulated games on my CRT TV with Retroarch and CRT SwitchRes. In the end, the chain is Optiplex -> DMS-59 -> DVI to VGA cable -> 15KHz VGA to composite/S-Video converter -> TV. It's not the most cursed hookup, but it's *my* cursed hookup and I love it.
Hey there - I work for a company that designs and manufactures single-board computers, including for CompactPCI! Fascinating equipment, I love how modular and user-serviceable everything is.
If you like this, you'll love PXI and VXI. These are both long lived setups for automated test gear. Many of them have integrated PCs in their racks. But the hardware that connects to it varies wildly. Everything from a multimeter to fancy digital testers. Even oscilloscopes. And these things have been around so long, you can find PCs with 486s (or maybe even older) to the latest stuff from Intel.
I absolutely DO love PXI/VXI and have been stopping myself from trying to buy a system on ebay until I have time to really think it through hahaha
Seconding! as someone who has worked with the PXIe variant. Such a wild world of adding things to PCs
The only time I've encountered VXI was two 19" racks full of Keysight SERDES pattern generators and protocol analyzers. Sadly no little guy as the VXI connection was made to a desktop with a long daisy chain of Firewire. This was an actual industry standard thing that bridged the five minutes between the GPIB and gigabit Ethernet LXI eras.
"Sitting there playing Minecraft"
I was playing Minecraft right when you said that.
Wouldn't the server family be waiting tables at Denny's?
No, no, wait - you were banging with that synth track. Moar plz.
Fun fact: connexion is also an archaic spelling of connection, not just some corporate branding. If you read novels written at least like 150 years ago, you're likely to encounter it.
This is great and all... But WE MUST KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ROLL OF GAFFER TAPE THAT FELL BEHIND THE SHELF!!
i was NOT expecting Castle of the Winds!
I'm an automation engineer. I program and support automated equipment for factories.
I actually got tasked at one point to support a machine that had a 68k and VME bus.
It ran a tablet pill press. The date in the cabinet was 1998.
I wasn't given the source code, or the programming software, or any documentation on it. I told them I couldn't support it and it was over. It would have been a cool project to work on though.
Making a LAN between the two PCs in the same rack is what I'd call "vlan" - "very local area networking"
EDIT: the Euro-Rack format was (is?) very popular for industrial small production runs. If you have only a few hundred of devices to make for a select customer, this would be the way to go: cases are readily available, backplanes can be 1:1 off the shelf or customized using wire wrap... THe company I worked for swore by them in the 1990s.
I work in that area and yes, one of the form factors that we use is modules for a 3U Eurocard rack. Those aren't too frequently ordered, as 19" racks aren't very common around heavy industrial equipment so most customers prefer standalone boxes, but we design PCBs to be 100mm wide whenever we can just to have that option if required.
Do note that _Eurorack_ is a standard specifically for modular synthesizers.
@@musashigundoh OK, I was unaware of the "Eurorack" term specifically for synth use... I'm not a native speaker so some terms blend together. We used to refer to the cards as "Eurokarte" or "Euro Einschub".
@@atkelar You were correct on the first one, Eurokarte/Eurocard is a very old and very common standard for fitting PCBs into 3U/6U/9U chassis with optional 96-pin backplane connectors on the rear. It spawned a whole bunch of derivatives, including the titular CompactPCI (fixed 160mm depth and a different backplane connector), Eurorack (very shallow depth, no backplane, 3mm mounting screws instead of 2.5mm), and a whole bunch of proprietary ones.
How about calling it "can" ("chassis area networking", but also because both machines are in the same tin can)
Don't forget to retrieve that roll of tape behind the shelf. If you're like me, you already forgot twice.
I am grinning like a nutter. Loving it matey. I know just THE nerd to have a go at synth. Forwarding the URL now!
honestly i wish that eurorack had kept the backplane connectors in some capacity because even in the era of keyed connectors people are STILL frying modules by plugging them in wrong. plus a proper backplane connector would have had the trace width to properly use the pins rather than doubling up power across pairs of lines. imagine the utopia of having clock/run lines to go with the cv/gate bus lines! come on folks API 500 series is doing it and they're really not any more or less expensive than eurorack.
I think Doepfer did what he did for price and ease of manufacturing. Those connectors + guides cant be cheap. Also, it would be much harder to make skiff friendly modules. Would be cool though, I do agree.
Loving the new warehouse vids in style and concept. What I do miss from the bench videos is the overhead cam (not that it would've done much good here, but still). I just enjoyed getting in closer to the action on some of the stuff. I'm sure you'll get the angles figured out in due time. The warehouse has good potential for this sort of informal demonstrating and it really does feel like when I go over to a friend's place and they show me some weird curiosity.
Yeah, I need new furniture to make this work right, I just figured it didn't make any sense to put out *nothing* while waiting to get The Perfect Setup
@@CathodeRayDudeyeah, if we waited until we were 100% prepared to do everything, would we ever really do anything? I love the content you make either way 🔥
Regarding SCSI for industrial use. In the past SCSI was also used for connecting scanners. Now in the place where I work we have a couple of machine's with "modern" (Read: Adaptec SCSI adapter with on PCB PCIe-PCI bridge) connecting to a node on the control system and gets process data out of it for the historian.
For audio: Use the USB port ;). Win2K Ships with a generic USB audio driver. Just enable the Windows Audio service in the service manager. That is disabled by default on server editions.
Love the new storage!
10:40: IIRC the width of the cards were called 4T, 8T, 12T... Where a "T" is always 5.08mm or 0.2 inches.
ahhh, interesting. I'll keep that in mind!
That would explain the expression of "Fits it to a T".
So. The spacing is identical to Eurorack modular synth standard. My immediate thought has been confirmed and I'm 100% sure they both use the same screw rails.
Yeah, 'Castle of the Winds'! I must have a retail copy of that game lying around somewhere. It was also my first computer RPG, before I got to switch to table top and potato chips.
Yeah I've got a copy hanging around, too 🙂
Now that im at the end, my first thought was Eurorack.
Install an old copy of Cakewalk and open source Chromeo's first album.
This is a far more interesting environment to make your videos in. Looking good.
seriously this is one of the bst videos u-v ever done !!
Oh snap, Castle of the Winds. Now that's what I call shareware!
Love an unexpected synth moment
37:00 COTW finally someone who I can really relate to 🤩... I'd love to know a thing or two about the old 16b Windows APIs (and how to disassemble/decompile it) and find out how it was made...
Castle of the Winds is also an early notable release by the company that is now known as Epic Games - they dropped the “mega” somewhere along the way
43:43 Now I have this earworm coming back of that This Is Sparta techno remix. Thanks!
Btw. assuming this really is EDO RAM you will absolutely need both memory modules to get this machine to do anything. EDO RAM (and everything else before SDRAM) is only 32 bits wide but Pentiums have a 64 bit data bus, so they insist on talking to two memory modules in parallel. This is why you always had to install memory modules pairwise in early Pentium machines.
Yup, I was actually preparing to say that before I busted the tabs off and got completely distracted. probably if I hadn't thought to tape the stick back in, I would have gone "-oh wait, no, that won't work" a minute later, heh
The return of Compact Boys.
The Little Guys i interact with on a daily basis are Posiflex all-in-one touchscreen PCs for my works POS system. Most of them are getting close to 10 years of continuous operation, and even the resistive screen ones are still in surprisingly good shape. The little guy I'm more curious about is our "StarBox" which is an SD-WAN from Star2Star that allows our Polycom phones and previously existing computer and internet equipment to all work together in harmony, but from what I've gathered it's an entire computer of its own just headless and remotely managed sadly.
Makes total sense that it has two network ports when you find out that it was meant to be a network router.
holy shit castle of the winds. holy shiiiiitttttt. i loved that shit on the shareware discs.
Yep! In an industrial computer setting remote boot is probably the main method. That's because you need to be able to control and monitor them from remote. If you actually have to go to the machine physically that would be a ladt resort.
someone needs to make a eurorack sized sound canvas for that thing. maybe throw in a sampler module, mixer, and reverb. instant studio-in-a-box.
FACT
Studio in a box, that reminds of some dedicated PC’s from the late 90’s that ran BeOS. Devices like the Tascam SX-1 and the izRadar multitrack recorders. Those are a kind of big “little guys”. They are fully self-contained Digital audio workstations with bespoke built-in audio interfaces. Pretty neat machines. Nowerdays many portable grooveboxes aim to be a studio in a box but they aren’t pc’s but ARM based devices.
disting EX can load soundfonts so that's your sound canvas solved
and for the sound canvas or GM compatible rompler I guess an SCB-55 could work...
It's apparently the same screw rails. Bonus points for the fact you can just use power modules as PSUs but put them on THE BACK, so they don't interfere.
It strikes me that if is the new format for Little Guys / bench videos, we'll no longer see any evil spirit invasions. This is quite saddening.
The connectors on that (and a lot of other passive backplane systems) use those kinds of square pin connectors. That design actually goes back to before the apollo program - Curious Marc and the AGC video series show similar connectors being used for the AGC components IIRC. I wouldn't be surprised to find modular radar and military communications systems in the 40's and 50s having a similar type block connector for modular components (albeit larger-pinned). Amphenol makes a ton of military/aerospace/industrial connectors similar to it - and I believe they even sell/sold a CompactPCI backplane.
Little guys need love too!
Mentats are a chem in Fallout that temporarily buff one mental stat. They come in Berry, Grape, and Orange flavors!
Im not sure whats reboot about this, but i love this series (along with quickstart) and im happy youre making more
New location, I think
Thanks for reminding me to check the Internet Archive! It is now online but the login system remains disabled, so no new uploads for the time being.