All,
I just picked up this ISA RAM board, and I can’t find any details on it:
It seems to have had an optional second board that screws to this one, and connects via the rectangular header next to the card edge connector. I can’t find any significant markings on it, so I’m not sure of any details about it.
Has anyone seen it before?
Thanks!
- Alex
what happens if you put that into a pentium 1 motherboard?
I've seen them before I think they were popular in 286's
I cannot read the memory chips but is similar to an IBM 61x6720 1Mb expansion card (minus the parallel port), they made a 1Mb add-on for the IBM and assume there is also one for you ALR.
The jumpers would set which UMB 64k window the ram could be accesssed. It would typically use XMA2EMS.sys or similar to convert the ram to usable Expanded Ram.
Yes Sphere exactly ! They were designed for early IBM AT/286 motherboards.
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
Horun wrote on 2021-01-26, 01:53:I cannot read the memory chips but is similar to an IBM 61x6720 1Mb expansion card (minus the parallel port), they made a 1Mb add-on for the IBM and assume there is also one for you ALR.
The jumpers would set which UMB 64k window the ram could be accesssed. It would typically use XMA2EMS.sys or similar to convert the ram to usable Expanded Ram.
Yes Sphere exactly ! They were designed for early IBM AT/286 motherboards.
you mention a system file to use it but someone told me once that the bios was able to read his when it was counting memory?
Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-26, 02:54:Horun wrote on 2021-01-26, 01:53:I cannot read the memory chips but is similar to an IBM 61x6720 1Mb expansion card (minus the parallel port), they made a 1Mb add-on for the IBM and assume there is also one for you ALR.
The jumpers would set which UMB 64k window the ram could be accesssed. It would typically use XMA2EMS.sys or similar to convert the ram to usable Expanded Ram.
Yes Sphere exactly ! They were designed for early IBM AT/286 motherboards.you mention a system file to use it but someone told me once that the bios was able to read his when it was counting memory?
Not if it was designed for XMA/LIM expanded memory (it is a 1987 card 😀 ) then the motherboard will not see it. Is not like you added ram to a SIMM slot, it requires a device driver (like a old sound card, modem, etc).
Find out what motherboard they had. Some 286/386 may be able to see it (depending on the BIOS) but do not think any newer board will see it.
There were some 32bit add on memory cards for AST, etc that the system would see as regular ram but they used an extended ISA slot and a regular one AFAIK.
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
Horun wrote on 2021-01-26, 03:08:Not if it was designed for XMA/LIM expanded memory (it is a 1987 card :) ) then the motherboard will not see it. Is not like you […]
Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-26, 02:54:Horun wrote on 2021-01-26, 01:53:I cannot read the memory chips but is similar to an IBM 61x6720 1Mb expansion card (minus the parallel port), they made a 1Mb add-on for the IBM and assume there is also one for you ALR.
The jumpers would set which UMB 64k window the ram could be accesssed. It would typically use XMA2EMS.sys or similar to convert the ram to usable Expanded Ram.
Yes Sphere exactly ! They were designed for early IBM AT/286 motherboards.you mention a system file to use it but someone told me once that the bios was able to read his when it was counting memory?
Not if it was designed for XMA/LIM expanded memory (it is a 1987 card 😀 ) then the motherboard will not see it. Is not like you added ram to a SIMM slot, it requires a device driver (like a old sound card, modem, etc).
Find out what motherboard they had. Some 286/386 may be able to see it (depending on the BIOS) but do not think any newer board will see it.
There were some 32bit add on memory cards for AST, etc that the system would see as regular ram but they used an extended ISA slot and a regular one AFAIK.
makes sense.
If you run across something that you think would work in my pentium one motherboard let me know. Lol I would love to add 256mb of ram to the isa slot and do some (dissapointing) benchmarks haha
Thanks for the notes. The jumpers are labeled ‘w1’ and ‘w2’, very likely indeed picking which window to use for EMS. I’m still trying to figure out what the board is, so I can look for the driver for it. I had guessed that being made by ALR would make it easier to find, but that appears not to be the case.
Thanks!
- Alex
The connector seems to fit another ISA-style card to save a slot...I have a VGA with such connector.
This seems ineed to be a 286 RAM expansion card. I dont many dip/jumper, so this seems to have a fixed adress. Or is there a CMOS to store configuration data? 2 jumpers are not enough to select a starting adress...
You should put it in a 286 with low RAM (e.g. 512 kb) and see where the RAM on the card appears using testext
ISA XMS/EMS Memory Extension / Expansion cards: Now Running without Driver / Documentation :-)&
Dont think a driver is required...
With ‘w1’ jumpered, the card appears nowhere in the 16MB address space. I’ll set the jumper to ‘w2’, and try again.
I also noticed another jumper, near the backplate, labeled ‘w4’. It’s hidden by the tantalum cap, in the picture I posted, above. I’m not sure what that is for, either.
- Alex
