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Reply 161 of 385, by Anonymous Coward

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It means no chipset. Instead, all chipset functions are implemented in discrete logic ICs.

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V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 163 of 385, by Anonymous Coward

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VLSI312 actually refers to Microid Research's name for a VLSI BIOS for the TOPCAT chipset. I think 312 is the version number, not the name of the chipset it runs on.

VLSI301 VLSI Technology 386 Topcat - Intel 82340 non-cache
VLSI302 VLSI Technology 386 Topcat - Intel 82340 non-cache with 82C106 IPC
VLSI312 VLSI Technology 386 Topcat - Intel 82340 with 82385 cache and 82C106 IPC

VLSI401 VLSI Technology 386 Topcat - Intel 82340
VLSI402 VLSI Technology 386 Topcat - Intel 82340 with 82C106 IPC
VLSI404 VLSI Technology 386 Topcat - Intel 82340 with 82C106 IPC

Plus VLSI312 needs an i385 cache controller and 82C106 I/O controller, which your board doesn't have. The best choice would actually be the VLSI301. If you download the archive and open the vlsi.txt file it gives you slightly better information about what each BIOS file supports, which in this case is TOPCAT and TOPCATsx. Intel licensed the TOPCAT from VLSI, and they call theirs the 82340DX and 82340SX. I believe the VLSI models are 330 for the DX chipset, and 320 for the SX chipset.

-----------------------
VLSI TOPCAT / Intel-340
-----------------------

Filename Port Description
-------- ------- ---------------------------------------------------------
V019B301 VLSI301 386 SX/DX, non-cache
V019B302 VLSI302 386 SX/DX, non-cache, with 82C106 combo chip
V019B312 VLSI312 386 SX/DX, 385 cache, with 82C106 combo chip
V019B401 VLSI401 486
V019B402 VLSI402 486, with 82C106 combo chip
V019B404 VLSI404 486, with 82C106, on-board COM2 inhibited for SCO

I think TOPCATsx is not the same product as SCAMP, but you can always try and see what happens.

"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 164 of 385, by Sedrosken

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I find myself a little overwhelmed at the sheer amount of stuff to sift through for this. Would anyone by chance know what would work with a UMC480 chipset? Chips are 82C481BF and 82C482AF. I'm not sure what revision that makes my chipset. I'd probably just go for trial and error, as I imagine the worst that'd happen with the wrong BIOS is unstable operation or not passing POST, but I really only have one shot at this as I'm probably going to have a chip (from all I can tell just probably a normal 27C512) delivered to a friend for him to make use of his programmer.

Nanto: H61H2-AM3, 4GB, GTS250 1GB, SB0730, 512GB SSD, XP USP4
Rithwic: EP-61BXM-A, Celeron 300A@450, 768MB, GF2MX400/V2, YMF744, 128GB SD2IDE, 98SE (Kex)
Cragstone: Alaris Cougar, 486BL2-66, 16MB, GD5428 VLB, CT2800, 16GB SD2IDE, 95CNOIE

Reply 165 of 385, by Sedrosken

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So after some preliminary sifting I've narrowed it down to these:

V037B401 UMC_401 UMC WriteBack 82C48X 486 WriteBack, Rev 0 *ONLY*
V037B402 UMC_402 UMC WriteBack 82C48X 486 WriteBack, Rev A,B *ONLY*
V037B404 UMC_404 UMC WriteBack 82C48X 486 WriteBack, Rev A,B *ONLY* x037B402 (TL-)

I think that the Turbo LED should be active low, since I have my power LED hooked to the turbo LED pins and turbo being on should put it in slow mode for the MR-BIOS (it's the opposite for my AMIBIOS, I operate with turbo on because it's inverted and weird for some reason). I'm also still not sure what revision my chipset is... the chips of note are the UM82C481BF (other markings 9302-US and NB1463), UM82C482AF (other markings 9252-AA and KA1471), and UM82C206F (other markings 9252-CA and NA2417). I've deduced that the 9302 and 9252 are date codes -- 2nd week of '93, and 52nd week of '92, meaning my board actually hails from, at earliest, early to mid 1993. Kind of a late DOP for such a... basic 486 board. Knowing this DOP, I'm inclined to say it's a Rev B, but again, I just don't really know how to tell for sure. I'm sorry to keep asking what I feel like are probably stupid questions, but like I said, I really only have one shot at this. I've confirmed (by pulling my existing BIOS) that the chip is indeed just a normal 27C512.

I believe I've narrowed it down to the last one, now... but I guess I'll hold onto the others just in case. I'm going to do the copy /b such+such output method to make a 128K ROM for it... since the image is 64K. Is that what I'm supposed to do or is there another method for these?

Nanto: H61H2-AM3, 4GB, GTS250 1GB, SB0730, 512GB SSD, XP USP4
Rithwic: EP-61BXM-A, Celeron 300A@450, 768MB, GF2MX400/V2, YMF744, 128GB SD2IDE, 98SE (Kex)
Cragstone: Alaris Cougar, 486BL2-66, 16MB, GD5428 VLB, CT2800, 16GB SD2IDE, 95CNOIE

Reply 166 of 385, by jesolo

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A 27C512 ROM chip equates to 64KB. Therefore, if you a 64KB image, just burn it to a 27C512 EEPROM and replace it with the one on your motherboard.

I wouldn't overwrite the existing one.

Reply 167 of 385, by Sedrosken

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jesolo wrote on 2020-07-27, 08:40:

A 27C512 ROM chip equates to 64KB. Therefore, if you a 64KB image, just burn it to a 27C512 EEPROM and replace it with the one on your motherboard.

I wouldn't overwrite the existing one.

Oh wow I completely bungled that! I'm not sure how I divided 512 by 8 and came up with 128, but that's exactly what I did... Yeah I have a spare 27C512 coming that should do the trick. I'll make sure to re-send the image to my friend with the programmer and make sure he uses the 64K one.

Nanto: H61H2-AM3, 4GB, GTS250 1GB, SB0730, 512GB SSD, XP USP4
Rithwic: EP-61BXM-A, Celeron 300A@450, 768MB, GF2MX400/V2, YMF744, 128GB SD2IDE, 98SE (Kex)
Cragstone: Alaris Cougar, 486BL2-66, 16MB, GD5428 VLB, CT2800, 16GB SD2IDE, 95CNOIE

Reply 171 of 385, by root42

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My new 486 board has a Microid Research BIOS. I will have a look at home which chipset it has and dump the BIOS, just in case. Wonderful that people are collecting the images now! I was so happy to see that the MR BIOS of this board supports HDDs (and therefore CF cards) larger than 504MiB!

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Reply 172 of 385, by root42

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Here is the BIOS of my OPTI-82C493 (number on the chipset BIOS says OPTI-428) based 486 board. I think it's the board shown below, the CPU and SIMM slot arrangement fits exactly.

Filename
MRBIOS.BIO.zip
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40.57 KiB
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99 downloads
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Fair use/fair dealing exception
Bildschirmfoto 2020-08-24 um 22.33.19.png
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Bildschirmfoto 2020-08-24 um 22.33.19.png
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457.89 KiB
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2023 views
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CC-BY-4.0

Attachments

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80486DX@33 MHz, 16 MiB RAM, Tseng ET4000 1 MiB, SnarkBarker & GUSar Lite, PC MIDI Card+X2+SC55+MT32, OSSC

Reply 173 of 385, by MRVFONE

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Has anyone had issues getting into the MR BIOS menu?? Mine says to press ESC.... But nothing happnes. Tryed a diffrent keyboard.. no change. The leds blink on the keyboards when there pluged in etc.... Have to see if i can find an old DIN type plug just in case...

Reply 174 of 385, by Anonymous Coward

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Try CTRL-ALT-ESC to see what happens.

"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 175 of 385, by jokker

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I gave the OPTI 495sx chipset BIOS a shot in my 386/486 board and while I can get into the BIOS no problem, once it hits the boot stage it usually prints random stuff to the screen or it's totally black and locks up.

That's the board I'm got
https://www.elhvb.com/webhq/models/486vlb3/opti495.txt.html

Reply 176 of 385, by bjwil1991

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That is unusual. I have an M326 V5.2 board that locks up at any spot: BIOS, storage boot (hard drive or floppy drive), and so on and I'm not sure if it's a BIOS malfunction or not correct for it, which is an AMI BIOS.

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Reply 177 of 385, by Cyberdyne

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In reality, can i use same chipset BIOS for other model motherboard. Like an 486 ISA VLB board. I have a ALI M1429 based motherboard, and i just want to experiment.

I am aroused about any X86 motherboard that has full functional ISA slot. I think i have problem. Not really into that original (Turbo) XT,286,386 and CGA/EGA stuff. So just a DOS nut.

Reply 178 of 385, by mt777

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MRVFONE wrote on 2020-08-25, 08:50:

Has anyone had issues getting into the MR BIOS menu?? Mine says to press ESC.... But nothing happnes. Tryed a diffrent keyboard.. no change. The leds blink on the keyboards when there pluged in etc.... Have to see if i can find an old DIN type plug just in case...

I had similiar problems with asus 386 when FPU was improper set via jumper

Reply 179 of 385, by Sedrosken

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The UM480 variants all seem to lock up with my GA-486VM. The variant I settled on earlier in the thread comes the closest to working completely -- it detects the CPU fine, detects the proper amount of RAM and L2, and then locks up before I can even get into setup. I'm assuming it has something to do with how my DX4 OverDrive behaves -- apparently it "helpfully" disables L2 on machines it deems not fully compatible. Whether that means it just doesn't like having 16K L1, or something else is at play, I don't know. However, I'm honestly willing to just let sleeping dogs lie at this point and use my original AMIBIOS with no L2, since in my testing with my DX2-66 having L2 enabled dramatically increased my RAM access times to the point that with it enabled, the numbers were higher in benchmarks, but with it disabled the machine felt faster and was more consistent. I got more out of setting my RAM to 0WS than I ever did from having L2 anyway.

Nanto: H61H2-AM3, 4GB, GTS250 1GB, SB0730, 512GB SSD, XP USP4
Rithwic: EP-61BXM-A, Celeron 300A@450, 768MB, GF2MX400/V2, YMF744, 128GB SD2IDE, 98SE (Kex)
Cragstone: Alaris Cougar, 486BL2-66, 16MB, GD5428 VLB, CT2800, 16GB SD2IDE, 95CNOIE