Surely you have an old motherboard laying around that isnt any good right? Just salvage its chip and go!

I don't unfortunately 🙁

It's easier and better to use the right size EPROM depending on the size of the file. The XTIDE V1.1.5 bios is 8K in size, so use a 27C64 for that. Some of the files in the V2.0 bios are 12K in size, so you'll need a 27C128 for those files. If you're going to use EPROMs bigger than the file size, you'll more than likely need to burn multiple copies of the file into the EPROM. For example if you're burning an 8K file into a 27C128 (16K in size) You'll have to burn the file at address 0x0000H. You'll also have to burn the file starting at address 0x2000H. This is to ensure that the file is always read, depending on how the ROM socket on the network card addresses the EPROM.

Remember to run the network card setup program to configure the address of the EPROM and the size of the EPROM. If you don't do this, the PC will not read the XTIDE bios at startup.

Thanks orcish75

So that chip would do, despite being larger than I need? It seems to be kinda hard to find decently priced smaller chips so If I can just fill out the empty space with more copies of the bios, that's fine.

For example if you're burning an 8K file into a 27C128 (16K in size) You'll have to burn the file at address 0x0000H. You'll also have to burn the file starting at address 0x2000H.

Usually the easiest way to to that is, from a DOS prompt or the Windows CMD shell, do "COPY /b image8k.bin+image8k.bin image16k.bin" (of course replacing the file names with your own). That'll append two copies of the rom image one after the other. That won't work for, say, getting a 12K image onto a 32k chip or whatever, but it's good for anything that multiplies evenly, like making an 8k image into a 16k (make a doubled copy) or 32k (quadrupled copy).

However, there's another, more significant problem. You want to use an EEPROM, but that 3C509 (I'm assuming that's what it is, since a 3C905 is a 10/100 PCI card) was only designed for EPROMs. Fortunately the 27E512 is pin-compatible with the old EPROMs... but that still leaves you with the problem of how to get the image onto the chip, as the 3C509 has no provisions for writing to the chip on-card. And since the chip is not pin-compatible with most other EEPROMs or flash chips, you can't just pop it into a different board and flash it there... you're pretty much stuck having to use an external programmer, which eliminates most of the advantage an EEPROM would have over a regular EPROM.

Your options here are pretty much limited to either A.) buying an EPROM programmer or finding someone who has one and is willing to burn a chip for you, or B.) finding a different card that supports regular EEPROMs and will allow flashing the chip on-card, and then using a 28C64 or whatever is appropriate.

Argh, didn't realise it didn't take EEPROMS. It must not be a 3c905 then as it definitely is ISA. I'll have a look at the card in there when I get home. It's definitely a 3com but I'm sure I have a few other ISA socketed cards I can try identify.

I've tried to do the network card as a bios flasher before. I ended up actually killing the bios and bricking 2 motherboards. Check your local craigslist http://dublin.craigslist.org/ if you ask around if someone has a proper bios programmer, buy them a 6-pack and you will be happier in the long run. Plus you will make a friend!

It must be a 3C509 as Old Thrashbarg mentioned above. This is exactly the card I'm using for my V1.1.5 XTIDE bios that I'm using with my A2286 bridgeboard in my Amiga 2000. I'm using the XTIDE bios to boot DOS 6.22 off a 4GB CF card that I've got connected to the secondary IDE port on my SB16. I've got a bunch of 27C64's and 27C128's on order from EBay. It's gonna take about 3-4 weeks to arrive in South Africa, but I'll gladly burn a couple EPROMs for you with both versions of XTIDE and send them to you.

Just had a look, yep it's a 3C509-TPO 😀

orcish75, I'd really appreciate if you could hook me up with a programmed EPROM chip 😀

I wasn't aware that you could use the IDE port on an SB16 for a hard drive, even with an XTIDE bios - aren't they all a Pre IDE connector that only work with specific brands of CD Rom drives?

This machine already has a hard drive that I want to keep in the machine, using another drive as secondary. The ribbon cable to the hard drive only has one connector on it, so I assume I can just replace that with a dual connector ribbon lead - or is it possible that the controller on the motherboard can only handle one drive?

Sure, no problem, I'll definitely send you the EPROMS once I receive them. 😀

The XTIDE bios is an amazing piece of software. It auto-detects hard drives on primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary interfaces. It allows you to boot from any interface as well as having a boot menu if you have more than one drive you'd like to boot from. The V1.1.5 has a 8GB drive limit while the V2.x version has a 120GB drive limit.

The IDE controller on the SB16 (and other soundcards) are true IDE controllers but they're usually hard-wired to secondary or tertiary. They also aren't DMA interfaces so you're restricted to PIO transfer modes for IDE devices. Older PC bioses only allowed booting from the primary interface, so the IDE interface on the soundcard was primarily used for CD-ROM drives.

There shouldn't be a problem with getting a dual connector IDE cable and using it on your PC. There might be an issue with older drives not working properly with a slave device, particularly a CF card. You'll just have to play around with the drives once you get the XTIDE bios. If worst comes to worst, just plug the CF card into a soundcard IDE port on it's own and you should be OK.

In your PC bios, you'll have to set the HDD type to none so that the XTIDE bios can take control of it.

Ah I didn't know that about the SB16 port 😀

Do you have something like Paypal so I can give you some money to cover the chip + postage?

Yup, I have PayPal, I'll give you the details once I've received the EPROMS and programmed and tested them for you. Our customs department is useless here, it'll take a couple of days for something to arrive and then it'll sit at customs for 2-3 weeks before they release it.

I ordered the EPROMS on Thursday, so they should be here at the end of the month. I'll keep in contact in this thread.

Cheers! 😀

Or you can use this websites private message system. Just saying...

Ah I didn't know that about the SB16 port

Note that not all SB16s have an IDE port. A lot of them did only come with the proprietary CDROM interfaces. Some had both, and some even had SCSI instead.

Read the documentation for the network card you plan on using to program with. It should tell you specifically what chip to buy. This is what I did with my Intel network card that had a bios slot.

You can also get around the hard drive limitation by using a software bios extender such as a DDO. See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_drive_overlay

Installing a DDO on my 486 cut my DOOM 1.9 demo3 performance from ~2800 realtics to ~3400 realtics.

@ sirlemonhead

I've FINALLY received the EPROMs, I've programmed a V1 and V2 ROM for you. I've really been battling with the V2 ROM though, my 286 bridgeboard just will not initialise the ROM. It works on one of my 440BX boards, so I know the ROM is definitely working. I've double, triple checked all settings, tried different ROM addresses on the NIC, double checked the checksum byte in the ROM and all is good. I'm hoping it'll work in your 386 straight away without issues.

PM me your postal address and I'll get it shipped tomorrow.

Cheers!