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sanyo MBC...

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First post, by whaka

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no, not a 550 series, but... 25 Plus. it was a kind of teaser 😁
don't look for it on google, you'll find nothing at all. this is what we can call a kind of "VINTAGE COLLECTOR RARE" machine, priceless...

so, it's a "semi AT" clone, as it's a 286 @ 12,5 Mhz, but with only 8-bit isa slot. but got an onboard ide xt interface, and vga. it's really a compromise machine...
i had the chance to get it with original manuals, dos floppy, keyboard, and his box. and it's a nice looking little pc, from my personal taste.

but of course, i got an issue with it. it doesn't want to see any extended ram.
this machine use a mix of zip chip and 2 regular 30 pin socket, for acheving 4MB.
so, i got a set of zip chip... first try was wrong, i used 256kbit x4, and he doesn't support them, so got 1mbit x1 and this time, it's ok.
the onboard 1MB are 256x4 zip chip, by the way... that's why i tried that first.

when you add extended ram, the onboard ram is disabled.
so, at boot it scan for the 640 + 384 reserved ram, till here, it's ok... he see the external chips and use them for the base ram, but he didn't scan beyond 640KB...
what can be wrong in this case ? it's a bit like if the bios don't have the ability to go beyond.

i checked the zip and simm pinout, to see if it's ok, and it is.
the pcb silkscreen give the simm and zip references : MB85230 for simm module, which use standard pinout, and 811000 for the zip.
811000 give nothing on google, but i guess it's 81C1000, and you find the schematics for them. and they are standard pinout zip.

all is configured by switches, all is set according to the manual.
so, for the moment, i give up. i don't understand what happen here. if you have some ideas...
thanls 😀

Reply 1 of 3, by Anonymous Coward

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Maybe the extra RAM can only be used as EMS or RAMdrive.
Most of the 286s I know of with 8-bit slots are limited to only 1MB of directly addressable memory.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 2 of 3, by whaka

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you maybe right, someone else suggest me the same.
i tried to see with qram if something happen, but it's a no go, it just hang when run optimize for the first time.
i don't know if he require something more proprietary driver. if you know something i can try ?
he actually run pc dos 7.

for the 8 bit slots, i think it's mostly because the chassis don't allow 16 bit to fit... they reused the same chassis as the MBC 16/17 series, and it's a short one.
the motherboard itself is very short.

if this can help, he use a phoenix bios version 1.02.10 - 01. with a very minimalistic setup menu, just for set time and date, and confirm if 287 is here or not.
and the chipset seems to be a chips and technologies F82C230.

Reply 3 of 3, by whaka

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hmmm i finally found something about the chipset... and in fact, this machine is more a PS/2 model 30 8086 clone than an AT.
http://www.bitsavers.org/components/chipsAndT … orm_Catalog.pdf

so, you think sanyo made the choice to only limit extra ram as ems only ?
sad they don't say anything about this in their manual.