17 Mar
1997
17 Mar
'97
6:33 p.m.
On 19-Mar-97, classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu wrote:
Upon turning the unit on, I get (if I recall - it
doesn't stay very long
on the screen):
Bad CMOS configuration blah blah yada yada
Then the screen goes blank and the system just sits there, fans spinning.
I have some questions about the unit I figure I'd through out here before
going to alt.folklore.computers.
If the 386 BIOS goes by the same keystrokes and such as the Z-248 '286
BIOS, you should hit Ctrl-Alt-INSERT as the machine powers up to access the
built-in BIOS setup.
1. It doesn't seem to even look at the keyboard.
Do Zeniths use
a proprietary keyboard, or is the POST routine not getting past
the bad CMOS?
No, Zenith systems do not use a non-standard keyboard. It sounds likely
that it may not be getting that far.
2. The computer itself has a daughter board that
contains the
ROMs, a SmartBattery (DALLAS - DS1260-100 / 9816 / 3V
Lithium battery), an Intel 8742 (Universal Peripheral Interface
8-bit Slave uController) and other neat features (the 8 LEDs
are a nice touch). The Smart battery can be removed, but I'm
wondering if it's a common item and is easily replaced.
If you remove the cover and watch the 8 LED's, you'll be able to watch them
progress from all dark, to all lit up as each POST test is completed. I know
on some Z-248's I've seen, there are even little captions silkscreened on the
board next to the LED so that you can tell which part of the test it's on. On
the Z-248 though, the LED's are on the main backplane board, on which the
processor, memory, I/O, diskcontroller, and any other board, plugs into.
Hope this helps at least a little. All of my experiece is with the 286
powered Z-248, but hopefully at least some of it will help you out.
Jeff jeffh(a)eleventh.com
--
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Collector of classic home computers:
Amiga 1000, Atari 800, Atari 800XL, Atari Mega-ST/2, Commodore
C-128, Commodore Plus/4, Commodore VIC-20, Kaypro 2X, Mattel
Aquarius, Osbourne Executive, Sinclair ZX-81, TI-99/4A, Timex-
Sinclair 1000, TRS-80 Color Computer-3, and a TRS-80 Model 4.
Plus Atari SuperPong and Atari 2600VCS game consoles.