2 Aug
2009
2 Aug
'09
11:24 a.m.
> Get a copy of the IBM PC Technical Reference
Manual.
> Schematics
> Source code for the BIOS
> Maybe one of Scott Mueller's R&U
On Sat, 1 Aug 2009, Chris M wrote:
The 2nd and 4th suggestions are good ones.
Sorry, I should have used more than an indent to indicate inclusion.
There are NOT 4 suggestions, there are TWO.
The IBM PC Technical Reference Manual INCLUDES schematics and source code
for the BIOS.
BTW, V2.02 had a lot of improvements over V1.0, but when the PS/2 (no, not
the Sony) came along, IBM stopped putting a lot of the good stuff in the
Tech Ref.
The first one isn't likely
to lead to any fault finding skills in the immediate. The 3rd one is
absolutely goofy!! LOL LOL. What possible help would the bios sources
provide for someone trying to troubleshoot a mobo?
Sure helped me a lot. Once I had my 5150, soon thereafter I started trying
to build XTs by buying Taiwan bare motherboards (mostly infringinf copies
of IBM's) and soldering Augat sockets to them. Since that was also to
improve my ability to solder, they did sometimes need troubleshooting.
By looking at the boot code in the BIOS, I was able to determine how far
it was getting in the boot process, and therefore some hints of what to
look at. When P.O.S.T. cards came out, that made that much easier.
BTW, "mobo"??? I had an uncle who worked at IBM. I don't particularly
rely on anything he said about PCs, but I once asked him WHY IBM would NOT
use the term "motherboard". He claimed that it was because some exec had
seen on TV a Black Panther speech from Merritt College, and was very upset
by the frequent use of "MOTHER-[bleep]", often shortened to just
"MOTHER".
He might not even have known what was [bleep]ed.
BTW, when the 5150 first came out, I started in on twenty years of
teaching programming at Merritt College.
The point is _most_ of us aren't going to plumb
the depths as you or
someone like Chuck did in the old days.
. . . when we walked 10 miles through the snow uphill, both ways, . . .
in brainstorming sessions). I bought the tech ref for
the tandy 2000 as
soon as I could, but all it helped me with in the first 6 months was to
determine the value of a capacitor that self immolated in the p/s. The
average person is not going to learn how to troubleshoot a uP board by
reading the tech refs from the getgo, IMHO. I suggested the Sam's
Photofact things offlist (can you say test points?). Hopefully as good
would be some of the texts that taught troubleshooting as a certificate
course.
OK
In my day, there weren't any good PC troubleshooting guides.
The IBM Hardware Reference guide was just a board swapping text!
In those days, the Tech Ref was the ONLY reference available.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com