28 May
2008
28 May
'08
8:22 a.m.
Andrew et al,
For some time I've seen these extremely cheap PC diagnostics cards posted on
ebay
Search www.ebay.com for pc diagnostic isa
and you get something like this
http://cgi.ebay.com/PCI-USB-LPT-Analyzer-Diagnostic-POST-Test-Cards-ISA-PC_…
How about somebody get the ISA version of such a card and see if it's at all
useful.
I suppose it might be able to help you fault find a seemingle dead system
though I am somewhat suspicious.
Regards marcus.
--
marcus bennett amouses at gmail.com
28 May
28 May
1:32 p.m.
On Wed, 28 May 2008, Marcus Bennett wrote:
My favorite line of the description is:
"If the pivotal part is OK, you can have a test of the parts that
unimportant, this may not halt the work even if any error occurs"
How about somebody get the ISA version of such a card
and see if it's at all
useful.
I suppose it might be able to help you fault find a seemingle dead system
though I am somewhat suspicious.
What you have found is called a Power On Self Test card, or "POST card".
During the cold start process, the computer sends numbers at various
stages to a port. By putting in a card that decodes the port and displays
those numbers, you can see which stages of the start up process succeeded.
It will only work if the computer is making it at least partway through
the cold start boot process, and will certainly not tell you anything if
the CPU is dead, no matter what some brain-dead moron might say. (Well,
OK, some also have a few LEDs to tell you if the power supply is live,
etc.)
They used to be readily available from JDR, etc. In fact, one of the
magazines published a DIY version that was an exact match for the one that
JDR sold.
In addition to trouble-shooting boot problems, they can be incredibly
useful in software debugging, (not quite as useful as an NMI based
debugger). Sometimes, it isn't feasable to insert enough code to display
a "milestone" point on the video, but OUTing a value to a port can be
squeezed in in a lot more places. "The program made it to location L133,
therefore, the problem must be betwenn there and the next breakpoint."
"Why didn't it take that JG conditional jump?? Oh, yeah. 81H is
"ABOVE"
7FH, not "GREATER THAN""
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
1:46 p.m.
On Wednesday 28 May 2008 16:32, Fred Cisin wrote:
They used to be readily available from JDR, etc.
I remember people trying to sell us one back when we had the shop...
In fact, one of the magazines published a DIY version
that was an exact
match for the one that JDR sold.
Do you happen to recall any more detail on that? I've always wondered how
those worked, and a magazine article would be neat to see on it...
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
2:47 p.m.
[POST card]
On Wed, 28 May 2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
Do you happen to recall any more detail on that?
I've always wondered how
those worked, and a magazine article would be neat to see on it...
It's unlikely that I can find it in a reasonable time. However, with a
little looking around, . . .
http://members.tripod.com/~bbright/information/postcard.htm
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
29 May
29 May
2:31 p.m.
On Wednesday 28 May 2008 17:47, Fred Cisin wrote:
[POST card]
On Wed, 28 May 2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
Well, that's pretty nifty... Simple, too!
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
Do you happen to recall any more detail on that?
I've always wondered
how those worked, and a magazine article would be neat to see on it...
It's unlikely that I can find it in a reasonable time. However, with a
little looking around, . . .
http://members.tripod.com/~bbright/information/postcard.htm 
28 May
28 May
1:49 p.m.
Fred Cisin wrote:
What you have found is called a Power On Self Test
card, or "POST card".
During the cold start process, the computer sends numbers at various
stages to a port. By putting in a card that decodes the port and displays
those numbers, you can see which stages of the start up process succeeded.
It will only work if the computer is making it at least partway through
the cold start boot process, and will certainly not tell you anything if
the CPU is dead, no matter what some brain-dead moron might say. (Well,
OK, some also have a few LEDs to tell you if the power supply is live,
etc.)
It was my understanding that only AT-class machines (by age, not
necessarily by architecture type) wrote to that port. I've never seen a
PC or XT (or clone thereof) motherboard/BIOS write to that port.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
29 May
29 May
12:03 p.m.
> What you have found is called a Power On Self
Test card, or "POST card".
[...]
It was my understanding that only AT-class machines
(by age, not
necessarily by architecture type) wrote to that port. I've never seen a
PC or XT (or clone thereof) motherboard/BIOS write to that port.
Well, it's a different port address, but it's clear from the source
listings in the IBM PC/XT Techref that it writes out POSTcodes as the
tests progress.
Some (AT and later) clones used other port addresses, BTW.
Soem time ago there was a design fro a POSTcard in elektor magazine. It
was just a GAL for address decoding (equations not given, but very easy
to work out), an 8 bit latch to hold the POSTcodes as they are output,
and another GAL to decode that and drive a couple of 7 segment displays.
There was a DIP switch to select the IBM XT port, IBM AT port, and IIRC 2
or 3 of the odd clone ports.
-tony
9 Jun
9 Jun
12:01 a.m.
On Wed, 2008-05-28 at 13:32 -0700, Fred Cisin wrote:
In addition to trouble-shooting boot problems, they
can be incredibly
useful in software debugging, (not quite as useful as an NMI based
Sounds like a good use for those seemingly-pointless speed indicator
displays on old PCs, if only for the blinkylight value when booting...
Gordon
28 May
28 May
4:38 p.m.
Marcus Bennett wrote:
Andrew et al,
For some time I've seen these extremely cheap PC diagnostics cards posted on
ebay
Search www.ebay.com for pc diagnostic isa
and you get something like this
http://cgi.ebay.com/PCI-USB-LPT-Analyzer-Diagnostic-POST-Test-Cards-ISA-PC_…
How about somebody get the ISA version of such a card and see if it's at all
useful.
I suppose it might be able to help you fault find a seemingle dead system
though I am somewhat suspicious.
Regards marcus.
The ISA bus version is still available
Here's one;
http://www.winfordeng.com/products/pst44.php
=Dan
[ enjoy Memorial Day and Remember VFW Post 118 ]
[ Pittsburgh --- http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ]
5:12 p.m.
On Wed, 28 May 2008, Dan Roganti wrote:
The ISA bus version is still available
Here's one;
http://www.winfordeng.com/products/pst44.php
I have one in my junkpile that I come across every month or so while
looking for something else.
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
5:15 p.m.
Dan Roganti wrote about POST cards:
The ISA bus version is still available
Here's one;
http://www.winfordeng.com/products/pst44.php
Some of the recent ones support both PCI and ISA bus:
http://www.darkwire.com.au/html/standard_isa___pci_post_card.html
http://www.elstonsystems.com/prod/pc_post_diagnostic_card.html
http://www.pc-diagnostics.com/pc_diagnostics_tools/flippost_isa_pci_bus.sht…
Some of those don't appear to have switch settings to allow configuration
for port address 0x60 as used on the PC/XT and XT-compatible systems.
29 May
29 May
3:45 p.m.
Marcus Bennett wrote:
How about somebody get the ISA version of such a card
and see if it's
at all useful.
I suppose it might be able to help you fault find a seemingle dead
system though I am somewhat suspicious.
I have an ISA+PCI card of that sort (not that exact one). It's can be
useful to sort out whether you have good power, a CPU that works
at all etc.
Antonio
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11 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
amouses＠gmail.com -
arcarlini＠iee.org -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
gordonjcp＠gjcp.net -
ragooman＠comcast.net -
rtellason＠verizon.net -
trixter＠oldskool.org