13 Feb
2006
13 Feb
'06
7:24 a.m.
All:
I have an old Compaq 386 that I use for various tasks in the
shop. The Compaq BIOS has a fixed hard drive table and no "type 47 - user"
entry. So, I just used whatever I had for a drive in stock and I picked the
entry closest to the drive size.
This brings up an interesting query. I remember way back when, people sold
BIOS upgrade cards that provided a BIOS extension so that you could use hard
drives not originally designed for the computer. What were these boards
called?
Rich
Rich Cini
Collector of classic computers
Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project
Web site: <http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/>
http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/
/************************************************************/
13 Feb
13 Feb
10:52 a.m.
On 2/13/2006 at 10:24 AM Richard A. Cini wrote:
This brings up an interesting query. I remember way
back when, people sold
BIOS upgrade cards that provided a BIOS extension so that you could use
hard drives not originally designed for the computer. What were these
boards
called?
Are you thinking of a DTC 1181? No controller, just a ROM on a card. Some
later models also provide BIOS Y2K fixes.
Cheers,
Chuck
1:12 p.m.
I didn't remember the manufacturer but that's the kind of card I was
thinking of. Thanks a lot.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2006 1:53 PM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: BIOS upgrade cards
On 2/13/2006 at 10:24 AM Richard A. Cini wrote:
This brings up an interesting query. I remember way
back when, people sold
BIOS upgrade cards that provided a BIOS extension so that you could use
hard drives not originally designed for the computer. What were these
boards
called?
Are you thinking of a DTC 1181? No controller, just a ROM on a card. Some
later models also provide BIOS Y2K fixes.
Cheers,
Chuck
2:50 p.m.
On Mon, 13 Feb 2006, Richard A. Cini wrote:
This brings up an interesting query. I remember way
back when, people sold
BIOS upgrade cards that provided a BIOS extension so that you could use hard
drives not originally designed for the computer. What were these boards
called?
An ability to add an extra ROM chip is handy.
You COULD edit your existing BIOS, and burn a new ROM.
In the 5150, there was room for 48K of ROMs, with 40K being used. There
were a few aftermarket add-on ROMs.
An extra board with ROM(s) would be handy.
But, if you can manage to boot an OS with the existing hardware, it is
trivial to write a TSR that can augment or supplant part or all of the
ROM(s)
3:29 p.m.
On 2/13/2006 at 2:50 PM Fred Cisin wrote:
An ability to add an extra ROM chip is handy.
You COULD edit your existing BIOS, and burn a new ROM.
In the 5150, there was room for 48K of ROMs, with 40K being used. There
were a few aftermarket add-on ROMs.
An extra board with ROM(s) would be handy.
But, if you can manage to boot an OS with the existing hardware, it is
trivial to write a TSR that can augment or supplant part or all of the
ROM(s)
What wasn't clear is if this was a 386 with an onboard hard disk
controller. If not, I'd simply try to find a controller with its own BIOS
and save a slot.
Cheers,
Chuck
4:47 p.m.
New subject: extra rom sockets was Re: BIOS upgrade cards
--- Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
...there was room for 48K of ROMs, with
40K being used (IBM 5150)
therefore anything you plug into those extra rom
sockets would allow you to access them and create a
"hex dump" if that's the right term, and save it to
disk. ISTR Intel having some sort of hex format for
rom images.
I'm not saying the code (rom) you plug into the board
has to be useful (or useable). Just that you could
read it?
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15 Feb
15 Feb
4:19 p.m.
New subject: extra rom sockets was Re: BIOS upgrade cards
--- Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
I think so. There would be two caveats, though :
1) The ROM would have ot have the right pinout (although I am pretty sure
IBM used a standard one).
2) The ROM had better not look like a valid BIOS extension ROM (i.e. have
the right header and checksum) if you don't want it to be executed at
boot-up.
-tony
...there was room for 48K of ROMs, with
40K being used (IBM 5150)
therefore anything you plug into those extra rom
sockets would allow you to access them and create a
"hex dump" if that's the right term, and save it to
disk. ISTR Intel having some sort of hex format for
rom images.
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