26 Dec
2005
26 Dec
'05
2:17 a.m.
Anyone had experience with a Data Technologies DTC-1181? It appears to be an
8-bit ISA board that somehow enhances the on-board BIOS to handle drives larger
than 528MB through LBA. Does it work? If so, does it then go up to the
typical 8192MB barrier or does it go farther than that?
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
26 Dec
26 Dec
10:08 a.m.
Anyone had experience with a Data Technologies
DTC-1181? It appears to be an
8-bit ISA board that somehow enhances the on-board BIOS to handle drives larger
than 528MB through LBA. Does it work? If so, does it then go up to the
typical 8192MB barrier or does it go farther than that?
I have the docs for it kicking around here somewhere (single-page, I could scan it for
you
if you like - assuming I can find it). IIRC it will go up to the 30G barrier (but I could
be
wrong - it's been quite a while since I used it).
Btw, the board is just a ROM socket - I used to put the ROM itself (which IIRC is 8K)
into
the boot rom socket of my network cards on various 486 class machines - if you are not
using network boot, it saves a card slot.
And yes, it does work.
Dave
--
dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html
2:54 p.m.
On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 10:08:15 +0000
"Dave Dunfield" <dave04a at dunfield.com> wrote:
IOW it's just a ROM-based BIOS extension. I _want_ one of
those. And having such a card around for other ROM firmware
extension purposes would be cool, too. Unfortunately the ROM
contents is copyrighted, because otherwise that BIOS extension
upgrade would eliminate the need for the awful kludges like Disk
Manager on a lot of older systems.
Anyone had
experience with a Data Technologies DTC-1181? It appears to be an
8-bit ISA board that somehow enhances the on-board BIOS to handle drives larger
than 528MB through LBA. Does it work? If so, does it then go up to the
typical 8192MB barrier or does it go farther than that?
I have the docs for it kicking around here somewhere (single-page, I could scan it for
you
if you like - assuming I can find it). IIRC it will go up to the 30G barrier (but I could
be
wrong - it's been quite a while since I used it).
Btw, the board is just a ROM socket - I used to put the ROM itself (which IIRC is 8K)
into
the boot rom socket of my network cards on various 486 class machines - if you are not
using network boot, it saves a card slot.
3:31 p.m.
New subject: Cromemco Z2 and Electrical Safety
I am restoring a Cromemco Z2D and have spotted a couple of electrical
safety issues.
The machine was set up and the instructions were set up to fuse the
*Neutral* rather than Hot. I believe this is very bad, because if a fault
develops (say, a ground fault from hot to ground) you want that fuse to
blow so as not to start a fire. (If the neutral is fused, even if the fuse
blows, a hot to ground fault still has a current path thru the ground). As
the machine was shipped, and as the instructions were set up, they had the
AC hot coming in on the wrong side, such that neutral is fused, rather than
hot.
What happened was that they (Cromemco) had the Hot coming from the AC input
connected to their White wire, which was not fused. And the Neutral
coming from the AC input was connected to their Black wire, which was
fused. Also, the way they had it set up, the neutral wire connects to some
*GREEN* wires on the transformer, which is very misleading. (Worse yet, if
you fix the aforementioned problem by reversing the leads on the input
filter, you end up with HOT on those green wires.
And it wasn't just this unit. The instructions and diagrams in the manual
have it wrong. (The schematic is non-committal -- it doesn't identify hot
and neutral, just colors on the output side of the line filter).
What a bunch a maroons.....
---
Jay R. Jaeger The Computer Collection
cube1 at charter.net
5:12 p.m.
On 12/26/2005 at 10:08 AM Dave Dunfield wrote:
I have the docs for it kicking around here somewhere
(single-page, I could
scan it for you if you like - assuming I can find it). IIRC it will go up
to the
30G
barrier (but I could be wrong - it's been quite a
while since I used it).
AFAIK, the 1181 that I had limited you to 8GB, but there was a later
version called the 1181Y2K, which also had BIOS patches for Y2K
problems--that one may to the 32G limit. A very handy little card.
IIRC, you simply set your BIOS setup to a type "1" drive after
installation. Choice of BIOS segment is C800 or CC00. If you have any
third-party disk manager software already installed on the drive, be sure
to remove it first.
Cheers,
Chuck
2:34 p.m.
AFAIK, the 1181 that I had limited you to 8GB, but
there was a later
version called the 1181Y2K, which also had BIOS patches for Y2K
problems--that one may to the 32G limit. A very handy little card.
IIRC, you simply set your BIOS setup to a type "1" drive after
installation. Choice of BIOS segment is C800 or CC00. If you have any
third-party disk manager software already installed on the drive, be sure
to remove it first.
Found the doc - it makes no mention of the maximum drive size, which means
it likely is 8G (If it beat that limit, I'm sure they would have said so).
Rom is 16K, and the card can be jumpered for:
C8000-CBFFF
CC000-CFFFF
D8000-DBFFF
DC000-DFFFF
Docs say to set 'C' drive to type '1', and if present, set 'D' to
type '2'. I don't
recall if I never used it with 2 drives, but it worked well with one drive.
--
dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html
5:39 p.m.
Dave Dunfield wrote:
Wow - if it's just a ROM socket, that makes it a really implementation
of the PCjr cartridge slot! I knew us PCjr owners would be vindicated
one day!
Anyone had
experience with a Data Technologies DTC-1181? It appears to be an
8-bit ISA board that somehow enhances the on-board BIOS to handle drives larger
than 528MB through LBA. Does it work? If so, does it then go up to the
typical 8192MB barrier or does it go farther than that?
I have the docs for it kicking around here somewhere (single-page, I could scan it for
you
if you like - assuming I can find it). IIRC it will go up to the 30G barrier (but I could
be
wrong - it's been quite a while since I used it).
Btw, the board is just a ROM socket - I used to put the ROM itself (which IIRC is 8K)
into
the boot rom socket of my network cards on various 486 class machines - if you are not
using network boot, it saves a card slot.
And yes, it does work.
Dave
--
dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html
6:13 p.m.
Michael B. Brutman wrote:
Wow - if it's just a ROM socket, that makes it a
really implementation
of the PCjr cartridge slot! I knew us PCjr owners would be vindicated
one day!
I was too enthusiastic and should learn to proof read regularly. Make
that 'a really *UGLY* implementation' ....
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cclist＠sydex.com -
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