DistantStar001 Posted March 6, 2020 Author Share Posted March 6, 2020 6 hours ago, save2600 said: Is there not an option to edit in the bottom left of your first post? Should read: + Quote Edit Sadly, no. The Edit option disappears after a few hours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 1 hour ago, DistantStar001 said: Sadly, no. The Edit option disappears after a few hours. If you become a subscriber, ability to edit your posts is much longer. Or can ask a mod to either edit the post or allow you to edit the post... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DistantStar001 Posted March 7, 2020 Author Share Posted March 7, 2020 OK. So update: I've replaced the battery with a AA holder and a new 3.6v lithium ion. Now, whatever BIOS settings I put in are retained after power off. Yay! Unfortunately, i still don't know what settings I'm supposed to use to configure the hard drive. On 3/5/2020 at 1:55 AM, wierd_w said: Psst... archive.org It has all you seek and more... https://archive.org/details/MSDOS6.22_201905 I did manage to write the DOS 6.22 install disks (by the way thank you for this), and the computer starts DOS and goes to the setup without a problem. Unfortunately, every setting I've used thus far for the hard drive has resulted in a device C failure message. Below are four pictures of my hard drive, which include all the identifying marks I could find. As far as I can tell, this is an IDE drive with a 40 pin interface, but I have no idea what the capacity is. Any ideas on how to set this up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boxpressed Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 This is your HDD. Its geometry is listed too. Can you plug these figures into the BIOS setup? https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/conner/CP-3104-104MB-3-5-HH-IDE-AT.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DistantStar001 Posted March 7, 2020 Author Share Posted March 7, 2020 13 minutes ago, boxpressed said: This is your HDD. Its geometry is listed too. Can you plug these figures into the BIOS setup? https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/conner/CP-3104-104MB-3-5-HH-IDE-AT.html Thanks, I've giving it a try, but I've run into an issue. I'm going with the 47 User Type, since none of the other settings match any of the information in the link. However, so far I've only identified 3 of the five figures that my BIOS is asking for (listed in order below). Cyln = 7761 Head = 81 WPcom = ? (retained 1250, but I'm not sure that's right. LZone = 512 Sect = ? (nothing I've tried has been retained) The "Size" of the drive is listing as 0 MB, and so far it won't let me alter that. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong. The question is: What is it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boxpressed Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 10 minutes ago, DistantStar001 said: Thanks, I've giving it a try, but I've run into an issue. I'm going with the 47 User Type, since none of the other settings match any of the information in the link. However, so far I've only identified 3 of the five figures that my BIOS is asking for (listed in order below). Cyln = 7761 Head = 81 WPcom = ? (retained 1250, but I'm not sure that's right. LZone = 512 Sect = ? (nothing I've tried has been retained) The "Size" of the drive is listing as 0 MB, and so far it won't let me alter that. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong. The question is: What is it? Try this: https://www.computerhope.com/hdd/hdd0037.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DistantStar001 Posted March 7, 2020 Author Share Posted March 7, 2020 (edited) Success!!! It's installing DOS 6.22 as I type! Thank you!!! Edited March 7, 2020 by DistantStar001 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 Every 486 I've seen with AMIBIOS has a "Detect Hard Drive" option, though on 386s I haven't seen that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DistantStar001 Posted March 7, 2020 Author Share Posted March 7, 2020 OK. So DOS is installed as is Windows 3.0, but I still have a problem. None of my serial mice are being recognized. So new questions: Is there something that I'm supposed to install (like a driver or controller)? Do I even have a serial port? There's a 9 pin D male connector on the back that I assumed was serial. Was I wrong? So far I've tried 3 mice. One is marked Microsoft Serial Mouse 2.0A, the second is Logitech M/Nc M-M34. The third was a Commodore Tank mouse that I figured wouldn't do anything, but at that point I figured what the heck. The worst thing that could happen was being proven right. Note: both the Microsoft and Logitech are rated 12v. Does a serial even have that? or do I need to find something 5v? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 (edited) For the software you might want to check here: https://winworldpc.com/product/microsoft-mouse/9x Start with version 9 or 8. IIRC I have 8.20 on my DX2/50. There is a readme.exe and/or readme.txt on the disk image itself for more information. Version 11 is for Windows 95/98. And in your DOS folder, you should have something called MSD.exe. It's Microsoft Diagnostics that can tell you more information about your machine. I have this in my CONFIG.SYS file.. DEVICEHIGH=C:\MOUSE\MOUSE.SYS or DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\MOUSE.SYS ..depending on where you install the mouse software. The mouse is going to steal power from the rs-232 signal lines. That's why it's got such a low-power consumption 10 or so milliamps. Edited March 7, 2020 by Keatah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wierd_w Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 Your bios splash screen clearly shows that both serial ports are activated on your 8bit IO card. You may need one of these installed. https://www.amazon.com/SinLoon-Bracket-Extension-Adapter-Motherboard/dp/B01M2921NI/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=dual+idc+10+pin+serial+bracket&qid=1583570155&sr=8-2 Its IDC-10 cables would attach to the "Async1" and "Async2" headers on your IO card. The mouse would plug into one of those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 (edited) My understanding is dos and windows have independent mouse drivers. When DOS boots do you see any messages about a mouse driver loading? In windows do you see a cursor that doesn't move or no cursor at all? If a dos mouse driver loads I think you can test it in msd.exe or the dos text/basic editor. Edited March 7, 2020 by mr_me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wierd_w Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 Just grab ctmouse. It supports basically every kind of mouse there is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 On 3/6/2020 at 1:53 AM, DistantStar001 said: Just noticed that! Sorry for the typo. How do I fix it? It might be too late to change it if you are not a subscriber. Try this: first, scroll up to the top of the topic. Mouse-over the title and see if it highlights and a pop-up "Click and hold to edit title" appears. You can also see if there is an EDIT button at the bottom of your first post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DistantStar001 Posted March 7, 2020 Author Share Posted March 7, 2020 (edited) 12 hours ago, Keatah said: For the software you might want to check here: https://winworldpc.com/product/microsoft-mouse/9x Start with version 9 or 8. IIRC I have 8.20 on my DX2/50. There is a readme.exe and/or readme.txt on the disk image itself for more information. Version 11 is for Windows 95/98. And in your DOS folder, you should have something called MSD.exe. It's Microsoft Diagnostics that can tell you more information about your machine. I have this in my CONFIG.SYS file.. DEVICEHIGH=C:\MOUSE\MOUSE.SYS or DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\MOUSE.SYS ..depending on where you install the mouse software. The mouse is going to steal power from the rs-232 signal lines. That's why it's got such a low-power consumption 10 or so milliamps. Thank you. I installed v.9 and after several hours and three mice with nothing but an error message telling me that there was no mouse detected, I pulled the serial card and moved a jumper over two pins and success!!! Note: my problem was two fold: first, I didn't have the drivers installed, and second, my card wasn't configured right. I never would have figured out the later until I addressed the former. So again, thank you!!! Edited March 7, 2020 by DistantStar001 Additional information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wierd_w Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 5 hours ago, DistantStar001 said: Thank you. I installed v.9 and after several hours and three mice with nothing but an error message telling me that there was no mouse detected, I pulled the serial card and moved a jumper over two pins and success!!! Note: my problem was two fold: first, I didn't have the drivers installed, and second, my card wasn't configured right. I never would have figured out the later until I addressed the former. So again, thank you!!! Wait-- Did you just fiddle blindly with those jumpers, or did the tularc documentation I found actually fit that card? O.o It was not a perfect match, so I suspected it was incorrect--- Was it actually correct for that card!? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DistantStar001 Posted March 8, 2020 Author Share Posted March 8, 2020 (edited) 5 hours ago, wierd_w said: Wait-- Did you just fiddle blindly with those jumpers, or did the tularc documentation I found actually fit that card? O.o It was not a perfect match, so I suspected it was incorrect--- Was it actually correct for that card!? I was actually never able to confirm the card to the documentation one way or the other. As for blindly fiddling... Not quite. When I looked at the jumpers circled, I noticed that the upper six were divided into two groups (three and three separated by two by two pins in the middle), with a seventh jumper underneath that was one pin from the left and three from the right. And then you pointed out that my BIOS splash screen indicated that two serial ports were active on the computer, even though there are four ports on the card (two female seen in the picture, and two male connected by ribbon cables to ASYN 1 and ASYN 2). So I decided to test a hypothesis based on the available information. I figured that the six upper jumpers were controlling the behavior of the two sets of ports, and that the one lower was acting as a selector between them. By this time, I had already tried swapping the cables for the male ports on the card with no luck. So I tried moving the "selector" jumper over so that it was one from the right and three from the left to see if the ports I wanted would work. They did! ? So, not exactly fiddling, as much as an educated guess that paid off. I figured that the worst thing that could happen is that it didn't work, at which point I could just put it back. Edited March 8, 2020 by DistantStar001 Correction Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 (edited) A day late, but not a dollar short. Your card is likely a clone of the AD450 2-Serial / 1-Parallel / 1-Game model. Or the AD450 is a clone of your card! https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/io-cards/U-Z/UNIDENTIFIED-Multi-I-O-card-AD450-AT-I-O-CARD.html Easier to read http://kab00m.ru/lib/docs/JumperSet/i/U-Z/50195.htm Edited March 8, 2020 by Keatah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wierd_w Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 Wow, I somehow missed it! Still, from the sounds of it, this system is gonna run like it has constipation, since all the L2 cache chips sound like they have been pulled. I should look more closely at the chip IDs on Phil's image of that board. The OP will be well served to populate those sockets and set the right jumpers. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 (edited) 5 hours ago, DistantStar001 said: And then you pointed out that my BIOS splash screen indicated that two serial ports were active on the computer, even though there are four ports on the card (two female seen in the picture, and two male connected by ribbon cables to ASYN 1 and ASYN 2). The two male ports built into the card are probably a game port and a parallel port. Asyn1 and asyn2 are the only two serial ports. Edited March 8, 2020 by mr_me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 (edited) 34 minutes ago, wierd_w said: Wow, I somehow missed it! Still, from the sounds of it, this system is gonna run like it has constipation, since all the L2 cache chips sound like they have been pulled. I should look more closely at the chip IDs on Phil's image of that board. The OP will be well served to populate those sockets and set the right jumpers. Probably just has 128kB cache rather than the full 256kB cache, as long as the other bank is populated. That would be okay. Edited March 8, 2020 by mr_me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wierd_w Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 (edited) According to him, it just contains the tag. Quote That seems to be my board, marked FX-3000 Rev 1.0. Although only one of the sockets (the lowest outer one) in the upper right corner is populated. (when referring to the image from Phil's computer lab-- The chips implicated are the cache chips. I should probably double check his bios splash to see how much it says is there.) *edit again* According to his splash screen you are right, contains 128k L2. Not ideal, but at least it wont run like concrete. I wonder what he's talking about then? Edited March 8, 2020 by wierd_w Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 (edited) In most 486 systems the cache is direct-mapped. It depends on the chipset, but that was the common configuration. This means that the cache size is proportional to the main memory size. A 64K cache would cover up to 16MB RAM. 128K covers 32MB, and 256K covers 64MB. Its size and presence/absence is typically set by jumpers and dip switches. Thing is if they're set to specify X size of external cache and that cache isn't present, most chipsets will report it to the BIOS but actually ignore the missing chips and go straight to main memory. The board will function. I don't recall if the 9th chip in the external cache bank is for TAG or PARITY. Static RAMS used to be quite expensive. And I suspect someone pulled them out of this system at one time to sell or use elsewhere. And that was that. My recommendation is to look at the numbers on the one remaining chip and go buy 8 more of them. All the while making sure the speed grade and manufacturer is the same. If you have to buy 9 because it's a different brand from the one existing-now chip, then do that. I would also recommend getting 256KB, if you upgrade memory later you'll be covered. The chipset will ignore what can't be direct mapped. No gain. No loss. BTW: Most 486 caches are write through unless otherwise specified. This applies to L1 inside the 486, and the L2 on the motherboard. This means the CPU writes through to main memory directly. And the cache is there to buffer reads only. That's why a board can work without L2 cache even though the chipset has the feature turned on. The chipset doesn't buffer write data in the cache. But it will check there for read data, and if not found, it just goes to main memory. Presence or absence of L2 cache, on my DX2/50 ISA-only system, means about 20% speed difference. I'm using chips labeled: AT&T ATT7C199P-15 9208T 04 ..where -xx is the speed (in nanoseconds) and that number should be matched to what you have in that 9th socket. They should all be the same speed. My system came from the factory with 15ns/66MHz cache chips. Commonly available static ram speeds in the early 486 era were: 20ns - 50MHz 15ns - 66MHz 12ns - 83MHz This is the datasheet for what I'm using. AT&T ATT7C199P-15 DSAP0027017.pdf It may or may not apply to you. You'll have to post a photo of the cache area or transcribe the numbers on the 9th chip exactly. IDT and Cypress Semiconductor were also popular manufacturers of these parts. You can learn more about your system by finding the mobo manual or the chipset's datasheets. In lieu of the manual, an option is that the chipset datasheet may indicate what lines are connected to the jumper pins so you can set them for the right cache size. Hope that all makes sense. Edited March 8, 2020 by Keatah 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted March 8, 2020 Share Posted March 8, 2020 BTW IIRC this mobo will support DX4 and AMD586In most 486 systems the cache is direct-mapped. It depends on the chipset, but that was the common configuration. And I checked, it is TAG ram. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted March 10, 2020 Share Posted March 10, 2020 Obtaining a manual for your board may be difficult, but this related information for your board may be helpful: https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/E/ELITEGROUP-COMPUTER-SYSTEMS-INC-486-US-3486.html http://www.elhvb.com/webhq/models/486isa/us3486.txt.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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