VOGONS


First post, by Nic-93

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Has anyone here had a similar problem and figured out how to have the computer be possible to show video again?
if i wait for a while after, the floppy drive lights up and the computer does a bleep, bleep, code if waiting long enough.

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Reply 1 of 25, by matze79

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Ah i misunderstand.. this is some kind of error code..
somewhere i had information about this..

Maybe you can find the Information on Hewlett Packards Sites ?
3-4 Years ago i could find stuff for old workstations on hp`s ftp..

https://www.retrokits.de - blog, retro projects, hdd clicker, diy soundcards etc
https://www.retroianer.de - german retro computer board

Reply 4 of 25, by andrea

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Is this it?
http://sup.xenya.si/sup/info/digital/MDS/jun9 … PC/A0823SVB.PDF

That beep is certainly weird, assuming it uses a Phoenix bios I can't say if it's 2-1-1 or 3-1-1. Are RAM and video card known to be good?

Nic-93 wrote on 2020-02-07, 20:06:

Oh, yeah, should possibly add that the disk drive keeps making that seek noise as if waiting for a disk to be inserted but once i do, it does noting and the beeping stops.

It may be looking for a crisis disk to recover a corrupted bios.

Andrea

Reply 5 of 25, by Nic-93

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I did some small modifications like adding in a hard disk with 131 megabyte of space and gave it more SIMM ram around 40 meg, the video card and rest is stock, no change to it.
is it even possible to download the crisis disk?

Reply 6 of 25, by Nic-93

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Found the model-specific disk and placed it on my disk emulator and was asking for it and seemed to read fine, gives out this error code after its been reading the disk for a little, then reset's.

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Reply 8 of 25, by Horun

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You need the NCR SDMS scsi driver package for the onboard scsi adapter. Not sure which version would apply to your board but would assume version either 3.x or 4.x . You need to look at the scsi BIOS version during boot and see what number it is. If it is NCR Bios 3.x. then you need v3.
v3: http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=405&menustate=0
If by chance it is NCR or Symbios Logic Bios v4 then you can still use SDMS v3 but SDMS v4 would be better. You cannot use V4 SDMS with a V3 BIOS..

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 9 of 25, by Nic-93

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As far i know its version 3 of the bios, this is all the info from the bios boot am given.
did remember to take a bios picture of the version number.
would i need to add them in a specific way/order?

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Reply 10 of 25, by Horun

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Yes that is v3 bios. Are you trying to make a boot disk that has cdrom support ?
In config.sys add these lines in this order some where after Himem.sys and make sure those files are on the floppy:
DEVICE=MINICAM.SYS
DEVICE=SCSIDISK.SYS
DEVICE=CDROM.SYS /D:MSCD001

In autoexec.bat add this line and make sure the file is on the floppy:
MSCDEX /D:MSCD001

added: let us know if it works or if you get an error. Not knowing the exact scsi chipset makes it a bit trial and error.

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 11 of 25, by Nic-93

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Am in some sense trying to make a scsi boot disk to work for windows 95, ive read in the manual for this computer it did have an dedicated boot disk to start setup, but im worried it barely exist's.

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    This is the tower am trying to get running again.
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Reply 12 of 25, by Horun

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Nice looking tower. I have a NEC dual Pentium that looks similar, also has onboard scsi. If you have a regular Win95 CD then all you need is a DOS 6.22 (Or Dos 7) boot floppy and add those files and lines. You should be able to access the cdrom and run setup.

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 14 of 25, by H3nrik V!

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Beautiful computer - I had one of those back in the day ..

Is it with the cpus on a daughterboard?

Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀

Reply 17 of 25, by leileilol

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Celebris support's pretty hard to find to begin with, with DEC's site being excluded and DEC historians wanting to scrub out their last ditch consumer market history which included their Intel x86 workstation lines that had relatively higher price tags for not much more inside...

apsosig.png
long live PCem

Reply 19 of 25, by bellarmine

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WOW, nice machine - the Digital Equipment XL-5100! My Dad bought one of these brand new cutting edge in 1995 - fully decked out with 32MB RAM ($1500 extra!!), 1GB SCSI drive, 4MB Diamond Stealth video and CD-ROM and tape drives. Our first Pentium, and our 2nd computer after our XT...😮) Cost him quite a few thousand - still have the machine in pristine condition with box and still runs great.

Dual-processor capable daughtercard with 6 simm slots, upgradable to Pentium Pro (Celebris XL 6180 for muchos denarios). A nice feature is when power management is active (power.exe in autoexec, I forget?), pressing CTRL+ALT+ESC (I think, it's been a few years), puts the computer in sort-of standby 1.0 - hard drive and ALL fans stopped - nice and quiet! Just check 1st time that the CPU stays cool, it isn't like modern standby.

I still have all the original docs, boxes, disks etc, also gleaned DEC's website before it went down. Real time capsule, NEVER had Win95 on it only WfW 3.11, how about that? Guess one day I should get some of it out and upload it. If you really get stuck and need some info let me know and I'll try and dig the stuff out of storage for you....😮)

It's a shame what happened to DEC. Never thought buying from the 2nd biggest computer manufacturer (to IBM) and would be out of business 4 years later! Thanks for making my day seeing my Dad's machine, so rare I've almost never seen another!

Cheers@! Bellarmine

When working on a job, you have 3 criteria: Fast, Good, and Cheap (i.e., Quick, High Quality, and Low Cost). Only 2 out of 3 are practical.