Vipersan wrote:

I'm currently erasing my eproms to use tonight ...but will wait for your verdict ..re --the Video bios before flashing anything.

Yes, it's the video BIOS. The version you posted uses the full 32K and will only work with the Phoenix main BIOS. The version in my T5200s is 24K (in a 32K EPROM) and will work with both Phoenix and Award main BIOSes.

I'll see if it's possible to mod the Award BIOS to run with the 32K video BIOS but I think the modded Phoenix main BIOS posted in my thread should run on your system.

Here is my Video BIOS:

You could replace your Video BIOS with the above if you want to try the Award BIOS as well.

IanB wrote:

Yes, it's the video BIOS. The version you posted uses the full 32K and will only work with the Phoenix main BIOS. The version in […]
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Vipersan wrote:

I'm currently erasing my eproms to use tonight ...but will wait for your verdict ..re --the Video bios before flashing anything.

Yes, it's the video BIOS. The version you posted uses the full 32K and will only work with the Phoenix main BIOS. The version in my T5200s is 24K (in a 32K EPROM) and will work with both Phoenix and Award main BIOSes.

I'll see if it's possible to mod the Award BIOS to run with the 32K video BIOS but I think the modded Phoenix main BIOS posted in my thread should run on your system.

Here is my Video BIOS:

T5200 Video BIOS 1988 24K 27C256.zip

You could replace your Video BIOS with the above if you want to try the Award BIOS as well.

Thanks Ian ..
I shall be doing some flashing tonight ....
😁
but dont tell my girlfriend..
🤣

Hi Ian ..
just letting you know ..
I flashed my 1024 eproms with T5200 Award 89 BIOS patch v1.1
The first failed to complete around 70% so that one will have to be UV dosed again..
The second completed and was fitted..
It failed to boot ..so I guess I'll have to pull the vga pcb again and flash the video bios with yours ..
I hope I can find a spare 27C256 to play with.
rgds
VS

Now I'm just confused ..
My bios with your Video Bios >> OK
Revised bios with My Video bios >> no boot
Revised bios with Your Video Bios >> no boot
So still something (hardware related ?) in my 5200 refuses to allow a revised bios to boot ..
rgds
VS

Vipersan wrote:

My bios with your Video Bios >> OK Revised bios with My Video bios >> no boot Revised bios with Your Video Bios >> no boot So st […]
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My bios with your Video Bios >> OK
Revised bios with My Video bios >> no boot
Revised bios with Your Video Bios >> no boot
So still something (hardware related ?) in my 5200 refuses to allow a revised bios to boot ..

What about T5200 Phoenix 89 BIOS patch v1.1 with either video bios? (That one is a patch of your main BIOS so should be compatible)

Do you get any signs of life, e.g. a beep or the flash of the 3 leds (caps lock, num lock , scroll lock) on the right hand side.

I'll do some more tests later ..once Ive erased the chips again..
rgds
VS

Having some real issues with erasing and programming these 1024 chips ..
only successfull 50% of the time and with only one of the chips ..
Anyhow ..I am trying again in about 20 minutes..
On the plus side ..I got a floppy drive that works with my T4900CT laptop ..
At least first indications are looking good ..
And it will fit physically ..
this is one very slim drive..
A TEAC - FD05HG ..
..yes it has a black bezzle ...but looks aren't everything.
😉
Running one of these laptops disassembled is a nightmare ..
See pics
rgds
VS

Making progress Ian ..
One of my 2x 1024 eproms is temperamental ..and refuses to fully flash ..
so I'm down to 1 ..and that one only programmed every other attempt..thus I then had 20 minute waits between flashes ..whilst I UV erased.
Finally got it programmed by increasing the pulse delay from 100 to 200us
I have my own video bios in atm ...and have entered bios ..and it looks different ..
I have it flashed with T5200 Phoenix 89 BIOS patch v1.1
I guess I'm good to go in that I have more options now ..
I'm removing the Conor now..and
I may try a different hard drive tomorrow ..assuming I can find setup details

I can't display bios on an external VGA monitor ..
I assume like the unpatched Phoenix ..the external vga drivers aren't loaded until the bios is setup and saved ?

rgds
VS

So ..I think I've done enough tonight ..
Disconnected the Connor and fitted an old hard drive from wayyy back ..
I remember using this one for a Band scanner project some 20+ years ago ..
I built hardware to scan satellite frequencies with a ramp generated voltage and 8 bit D to A ..and A to D to read back those values and display them on a PC screen.
Well ..I had to force the IDE connector on as the keyway locator pip is upside down ...BUT ..the Bios auto detected the Seagate ST3250A ..and the resident banscanner program auto ran ..
130mb HD.
Nice one Ian ..
it is obviously working ..but I didn't expect auto detection
rgds ..and goodnight ..
time for some ZZZzzzzs

Vipersan wrote:

Finally got it programmed by increasing the pulse delay from 100 to 200us
I have my own video bios in atm ...and have entered bios ..and it looks different ..
I have it flashed with T5200 Phoenix 89 BIOS patch v1.1

Success at last, I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever get anything to boot!
The option of "T5200 Phoenix 89 BIOS patch v1.1" with your original 32K Video BIOS was the one most likely to succeed as everything is original to your T5200 except my patches.
(There isn't anything different in the BIOS setup menu, the changes are all auto detecting)

Vipersan wrote:

I guess I'm good to go in that I have more options now ..
I'm removing the Conor now..and
I may try a different hard drive tomorrow ..assuming I can find setup details.

No setup details required, XTIDE auto detects the drive on startup, just plug it in and boot, the drive setting in the BIOS is ignored and can be set to "no drive"
Your boot screen should look something like this:

Vipersan wrote:

I can't display bios on an external VGA monitor ..
I assume like the unpatched Phoenix ..the external vga drivers aren't loaded until the bios is setup and saved ?

Yes, if you cleared the CMOS you have to setup the BIOS defaults from the plasma screen before VGA is activated (After the CMOS warning, press F2 to get into setup, then F5 for defaults, then F10 to save followed by Y to exit - This might be an issue with your T3200SX if it behaves the same way as you don't have the plasma screen ).

If you still have the machine disassembled, perhaps you could take some hires pics of the motherboard and the video/IO boards so I can compare with mine to see if there are any obvious hardware differences. (It would also be useful to do the same for the T3200SX to see how similar they are)

Ack... all that rom burning sounds scary.

My video bios is Phoenix on my T5200, so I assume the bios is also Phoenix.

I worked up the courage to open the back and remove the network card. It's an artisoft card, and no boot ROM installed. I ordered the paradise max ide controller, so I suppose I could try putting its rom in this card. This laptop is set up for a LANtastic network, and the net card has a jumper set to "C-NET" with another option being "E-NET". It has no RJ45 connector (just BNC and AAUI), so I'd need an AAUI to RJ45 adapter of some kind.

Sad news; my SB CT1350B sound blaster card is too long to fit in the 8 bit slot.
So, unless and until I can find an AdLib or an older (shorter) sound blaster, speakers only. (I may get one of those OPL2LPT boards, however).
Unless I can find an 8 bit network card, so I can put an ad lib in the 16 bit slot. But, this means I can put an XTIDE in the 8 bit slot if necessary.

I have a 3Com 3c590B-TPO net card I was going to put in in place of the artisoft card. But, it has no socket for a boot rom. There is a tiny chip on it labelled CY6264-70snc. I looked that up on the internet, and it seems its some kind of CMOS static ram. If so, it's probably only 64k. But, I'm wondering if it's supposed to be some kind of boot rom that's software programmable?

I need to order that battery for the cmos so I can work up the courage to open up the whole machine and replace it.

The hard drive only has 8mb left on it, but there's a ton of stuff on there I can delete. I just wanted to back up the hard drive before deleting anything.

Hey, IanB... that screenshot you gave... it shows the bios looking for a master and a slave hard drive. Would the updated rom allow for more than one hard drive? (assuming we used an appropriate cable).
Cause it would be great to have a larger capacity drive in the drive bay (even CF) and a 2nd CF or SD drive accessible through the floppy opening, or the ISA expansion plates in the back.

The default bios will only recognize drives with the name beginning with "CP"... is there a way one could make a CF card "lie", and identify itself as a conner drive?

Another thought... something I liked about early laptops, like the Toshiba T1000, the HP300, the Tandy 1100fd/hd and the Zenith Minisport, is that they had DOS in ROM.
Since I'm considering getting a burner and learning how to burn my own roms, would it be possible to create a bootable rom with DOS 6.22 on it for a vintage laptop like the T5200? And maybe WFW 3.11? Something like an XTIDE card with the bios rom and the boot rom on the same ISA card. Just yet another crazy thought...

Hamby wrote:

Hey, IanB... that screenshot you gave... it shows the bios looking for a master and a slave hard drive. Would the updated rom al […]
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Hey, IanB... that screenshot you gave... it shows the bios looking for a master and a slave hard drive. Would the updated rom allow for more than one hard drive? (assuming we used an appropriate cable).
Cause it would be great to have a larger capacity drive in the drive bay (even CF) and a 2nd CF or SD drive accessible through the floppy opening, or the ISA expansion plates in the back.

The default bios will only recognize drives with the name beginning with "CP"... is there a way one could make a CF card "lie", and identify itself as a conner drive?

Another thought... something I liked about early laptops, like the Toshiba T1000, the HP300, the Tandy 1100fd/hd and the Zenith Minisport, is that they had DOS in ROM.
Since I'm considering getting a burner and learning how to burn my own roms, would it be possible to create a bootable rom with DOS 6.22 on it for a vintage laptop like the T5200? And maybe WFW 3.11? Something like an XTIDE card with the bios rom and the boot rom on the same ISA card. Just yet another crazy thought...

Hi Hamby ..
Are you in the UK ?
I have some Atmel 1024 chips on order from China (AliExpress).
It will be a while before they get here ...slow boat etc etc
If you like I'll flash you a modded bios when they arrive.
but you will have to exercise some patience.
rgds
VS

IanB wrote:

Success at last, I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever get anything to boot! The option of "T5200 Phoenix 89 BIOS patch v1.1" […]
Show full quote

Vipersan wrote:

Finally got it programmed by increasing the pulse delay from 100 to 200us
I have my own video bios in atm ...and have entered bios ..and it looks different ..
I have it flashed with T5200 Phoenix 89 BIOS patch v1.1

Success at last, I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever get anything to boot!
The option of "T5200 Phoenix 89 BIOS patch v1.1" with your original 32K Video BIOS was the one most likely to succeed as everything is original to your T5200 except my patches.
(There isn't anything different in the BIOS setup menu, the changes are all auto detecting)

Vipersan wrote:

I guess I'm good to go in that I have more options now ..
I'm removing the Conor now..and
I may try a different hard drive tomorrow ..assuming I can find setup details.

No setup details required, XTIDE auto detects the drive on startup, just plug it in and boot, the drive setting in the BIOS is ignored and can be set to "no drive"
Your boot screen should look something like this:

XTIDE boot.jpg

Vipersan wrote:

I can't display bios on an external VGA monitor ..
I assume like the unpatched Phoenix ..the external vga drivers aren't loaded until the bios is setup and saved ?

Yes, if you cleared the CMOS you have to setup the BIOS defaults from the plasma screen before VGA is activated (After the CMOS warning, press F2 to get into setup, then F5 for defaults, then F10 to save followed by Y to exit - This might be an issue with your T3200SX if it behaves the same way as you don't have the plasma screen ).

If you still have the machine disassembled, perhaps you could take some hires pics of the motherboard and the video/IO boards so I can compare with mine to see if there are any obvious hardware differences. (It would also be useful to do the same for the T3200SX to see how similar they are)

My camera isn't the best Ian ..but I'll take some close ups of the mobo first chance I get..
rgds
VS

Regarding the reset BIOS in the T3200SX:

Both my original BIOS 03C and the modified one do indeed use the external display after all settings are erased. So when the battery was removed to erase the settings and then reattached, my T3200SX does mirror the display to the external CRT. Apparently, at least for these BIOSes, this seems to be standard.

But even if not, the exact keystrokes that you use on the T5200 to apply standard settings and reboot are the same as with the T3200SX from what I can gather.

jaZz_KCS wrote:

Regarding the reset BIOS in the T3200SX:

Both my original BIOS 03C and the modified one do indeed use the external display after all settings are erased. So when the battery was removed to erase the settings and then reattached, my T3200SX does mirror the display to the external CRT. Apparently, at least for these BIOSes, this seems to be standard.

But even if not, the exact keystrokes that you use on the T5200 to apply standard settings and reboot are the same as with the T3200SX from what I can gather.

Good to know JZ
thanks..

Hamby wrote:

Ack... all that rom burning sounds scary.

It's usually pretty straightforward but with EPROMs you need a UV eraser box as well as the programmer unlike today's flash memory which can be erased in situ.

Hamby wrote:

My video bios is Phoenix on my T5200, so I assume the bios is also Phoenix.

No, the video BIOS is always Phoenix but the main BIOS could be Award or Phoenix
The easy way to tell the difference is to check the memory count message on bootup:
One memory count value = Award ("MEMORY TEST XXXXXKB")
Two memory count values = Phoenix ("640K Base Memory, XXXXXXK Extended")

Hamby wrote:

Sad news; my SB CT1350B sound blaster card is too long to fit in the 8 bit slot.
So, unless and until I can find an AdLib or an older (shorter) sound blaster, speakers only. (I may get one of those OPL2LPT boards, however).
Unless I can find an 8 bit network card, so I can put an ad lib in the 16 bit slot. But, this means I can put an XTIDE in the 8 bit slot if necessary

Most of the 16 bit sound cards are actually 8 bit! (16 bit means 16 bit samples, not necessarily 16 bit bus)
If you look at images of cards online, often they won't have the pads on the edge connector for 16 bit data bus operation, and even when they do it's often just for an on board IDE connector. The cards do make use of other signals on the 16 bit extension of the ISA bus for extra interrupt and DMA operations but as long as you configure the card to use only the interrupts and dma available on the 8 bit bus it should work in an 8 bit slot. I have such a card on order so will let you know if it works.
An example here:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/ESS-AUDIODRIVE-ES186 … ED/222780090917
As you can see the card is shorter than the full 16 bit ISA and has no pads on the one side of the 16 bit extension. It will have pads on the other side but they are only extra IRQ and DMA options.

Hamby wrote:

I have a 3Com 3c590B-TPO net card I was going to put in in place of the artisoft card. But, it has no socket for a boot rom. There is a tiny chip on it labelled CY6264-70snc. I looked that up on the internet, and it seems its some kind of CMOS static ram. If so, it's probably only 64k. But, I'm wondering if it's supposed to be some kind of boot rom that's software programmable?

That's probably used as a buffer for network traffic. If you're looking to get an XTIDE EPROM, then your best option would be to get an EPROM with the patched BIOS instead as that will work and has built in XTIDE that will use the existing internal IDE interface.

Hamby wrote:

that screenshot you gave... it shows the bios looking for a master and a slave hard drive. Would the updated rom allow for more than one hard drive? (assuming we used an appropriate cable).
Cause it would be great to have a larger capacity drive in the drive bay (even CF) and a 2nd CF or SD drive accessible through the floppy opening, or the ISA expansion plates in the back.
The default bios will only recognize drives with the name beginning with "CP"... is there a way one could make a CF card "lie", and identify itself as a conner drive?

XTIDE in the patched BIOS supports both master and slave and I have used it with dual compact flash drives. Your idea of an internal HD and a slave CF should work but I haven't tested it.

Back to the T4900CT again ..
just received the second ultra slim floppy drive I ordered ..
A Mitsumi D353F3 ..which also looks like it might fit ..
This one has a white bezzel ..
All looking promising..
Thanks for helping with this issue JZ
rgds
VS

Just ordered one of these
claimed checked and wiped £20
Seagate Medalist ST32122A 2GB Internal
Hopefully my new bios will cope with it ..
this should be as much storage as I need for the T5200/100

Why not go the CF/SD adapter route? If you already have one adapter of this type, then this (especially SD2IDE) would be much cheaper. Albeit if you don't, then a HDD replacement would be the way to go.

I have SD2IDE 2.5" and 3.5" adapters in almost all my laptop machines. But this is due to the reason that I - one year ago - got a really got deal for 10x SD2IDE adapters, cheap. So whenever I got to the point of having to replace an HDD, I took one of my spare adapters and just bought a 2-16GB SD card for 6-10 bucks 😁

Also regarding the super slim-drive. I knew that model number sounded familiar...
This here is the Mitsumi D353M3D that I found in my stash

Looks like you bought the slim version of the D353. It should have a standard 26-pin flat-ribbon pinout and be compatible with the T4900. Looking forward to the results.