Hey ppgrainbow. There are two main software packages for PCMCIA support, which are Phoenix Card Manager and Systemsoft Cardsoft. However, I'm not sure they support that Toshiba ToPIC95 chip. Worth giving a try the latest versions of both.
You can download the softrawe on archive.org in the link in my signature.

Bondi wrote on 2023-12-28, 07:43:

Hey ppgrainbow. There are two main software packages for PCMCIA support, which are Phoenix Card Manager and Systemsoft Cardsoft. However, I'm not sure they support that Toshiba ToPIC95 chip. Worth giving a try the latest versions of both.
You can download the softrawe on archive.org in the link in my signature.

I'll try the Phoenix Card manager to see if it works under MS-DOS and I'll get back to you with the results! 😀

By the way, does anyone have a link to Phoenix Card Manager 4.02? It comes in two 1.44 MB diskettes and I can't seem to find it. 🙁

Cardsoft 5 supports the ToPic95 chip.
Note that in the Toshiba bios you can switch between 16bit pcmcia and Cardbus mode.

CardWare, from the same company that made the CBENAB and others pcmcia enablers, supports the chipset and pcmcia storage upto 2TB, it's not much expensive than the enabler on its own.

lolo799 wrote on 2023-12-29, 09:23:

Cardsoft 5 supports the ToPic95 chip.
Note that in the Toshiba bios you can switch between 16bit pcmcia and Cardbus mode.

CardWare, from the same company that made the CBENAB and others pcmcia enablers, supports the chipset and pcmcia storage upto 2TB, it's not much expensive than the enabler on its own.

The version of SystemSoft CardSoft 16/CardWizerd that I have installed on the Tecra 500CDT is version 4.11.02C which for some reason doesn't properly support PCMCIA storage cards above 1 GB.

Isn't there an updated version of SystemSoft CardSoft 16/CardWizerd that will be able to recognise CF drives above 1 GB? Just wondering. If you have found one, let me know. 😀

Bondi, I have tried to install the drivers for the Phoenix Card Manager 4.02 and Systemsoft Cardsoft 5.30.10 for the Toshiba Tecra 500CDT laptop's PCMCIA card which uses the Toshiba ToPIC95 chipset.

I haven't had much luck in getting the Cardsoft 5.30.10 drivers to work and when I tried to do so, I get this screenshot below:

When I tried to select the make of the PCMCIA adapter inside the machine, I get two "Do Not Install Socket Services" selections! 🙁

I did manage to get the wired network card regonised, but not the SanDisk Ultra 2 GB CF card.

What should I do, should I load the Toshiba ToPIC95 chipset driver in the CONFIG.SYS file? Just curious to ask.

ppgrainbow wrote on 2024-01-04, 03:14:

Bondi, I have tried to install the drivers for the Phoenix Card Manager 4.02 and Systemsoft Cardsoft 5.30.10 for the Toshiba Tec […]
Show full quote

Bondi, I have tried to install the drivers for the Phoenix Card Manager 4.02 and Systemsoft Cardsoft 5.30.10 for the Toshiba Tecra 500CDT laptop's PCMCIA card which uses the Toshiba ToPIC95 chipset.

I haven't had much luck in getting the Cardsoft 5.30.10 drivers to work and when I tried to do so, I get this screenshot below:

IMG_2024-01-03-19-01-23-604.jpg

When I tried to select the make of the PCMCIA adapter inside the machine, I get two "Do Not Install Socket Services" selections! 🙁

I did manage to get the wired network card regonised, but not the SanDisk Ultra 2 GB CF card.

What should I do, should I load the Toshiba ToPIC95 chipset driver in the CONFIG.SYS file? Just curious to ask.

From what I see Cardsoft did not reconnize the chip, as the Socket Services driver is responsible for PCIC support and setup installs relevant driver depending on the chip model.
You can check if there is a driver file in Cardsoft folder that is named somehow after Toshiba chip. SS driver files look like ss?????.exe/sys. If no you can try those with 365 number in the file name, which are Intel compatible. But I wouldn't put much hope it will work.

And did you thry Phoenix drivers? Also wonder what is special about 4.02 version vs 4.01?

You can put a device statement with the SSCBTO95.SYS in config.sys and check what it says during boot.

lolo799 wrote on 2024-01-04, 15:56:

You can put a device statement with the SSCBTO95.SYS in config.sys and check what it says during boot.

When I tried to load the SSCBTO95.SYS driver into line 18 of the CONFIG.SYS file, I get this error message:

Device Extension Services unavailable.

Upon starting MS-DOS, I had to hit the F8 key to go through all of the drivers that are loaded in the CONFIG.SYS file.

Isn't there another device driver that works with the Toshiba ToPIC95 PCMCIA/CardBus chipset that works with the Tecra 500CDT laptop?

Bondi wrote on 2024-01-04, 12:30:

From what I see Cardsoft did not reconnize the chip, as the Socket Services driver is responsible for PCIC support and setup ins […]
Show full quote

ppgrainbow wrote on 2024-01-04, 03:14:

Bondi, I have tried to install the drivers for the Phoenix Card Manager 4.02 and Systemsoft Cardsoft 5.30.10 for the Toshiba Tec […]
Show full quote

Bondi, I have tried to install the drivers for the Phoenix Card Manager 4.02 and Systemsoft Cardsoft 5.30.10 for the Toshiba Tecra 500CDT laptop's PCMCIA card which uses the Toshiba ToPIC95 chipset.

I haven't had much luck in getting the Cardsoft 5.30.10 drivers to work and when I tried to do so, I get this screenshot below:

IMG_2024-01-03-19-01-23-604.jpg

When I tried to select the make of the PCMCIA adapter inside the machine, I get two "Do Not Install Socket Services" selections! 🙁

I did manage to get the wired network card regonised, but not the SanDisk Ultra 2 GB CF card.

What should I do, should I load the Toshiba ToPIC95 chipset driver in the CONFIG.SYS file? Just curious to ask.

From what I see Cardsoft did not reconnize the chip, as the Socket Services driver is responsible for PCIC support and setup installs relevant driver depending on the chip model.
You can check if there is a driver file in Cardsoft folder that is named somehow after Toshiba chip. SS driver files look like ss?????.exe/sys. If no you can try those with 365 number in the file name, which are Intel compatible. But I wouldn't put much hope it will work.

And did you thry Phoenix drivers? Also wonder what is special about 4.02 version vs 4.01?

I try the Phoenix Card Manager 4.02 driver and it didn't work. PCM 4.02, released on January 9,1997 supported removable media larger than 504 MB as I have the SanDisk Ultra 2 GB CF card inserted in the PCMCIA slot.

In the bios, is it set as 16bit pcmcia or cardbus?

lolo799 wrote on 2024-01-06, 13:11:

In the bios, is it set as 16bit pcmcia or cardbus?

In the CMOS setup, the PC Card Controller Mode is set to PCIC (PCMCIA) compatible. At one point, I had changed it to CardBus/16-bit (16-bit multi-function card, CardBus and ZV port card) and it would neither recognise the Compact Flash card nor my Xircom CreditCard Ethernet IIps card.

By the way, I have tried the patched CBATA driver, but that only works if I get the PC Card Controller Mode to CardBus/16-bit. Does anyone have a patched version of the UNATA driver (without the 14-day evaluation period)?

I tried to patch the UNATA driver myself, but got a error message CRC32 error: version mismatch, or file is already patched! I can't afford to pay for a driver when I already spent over $450 during the Christmas holidays. 🙁

ppgrainbow wrote on 2024-01-04, 20:26:

Bondi wrote on 2024-01-04, 12:30:

From what I see Cardsoft did not reconnize the chip, as the Socket Services driver is responsible for PCIC support and setup ins […]
Show full quote

ppgrainbow wrote on 2024-01-04, 03:14:

Bondi, I have tried to install the drivers for the Phoenix Card Manager 4.02 and Systemsoft Cardsoft 5.30.10 for the Toshiba Tec […]
Show full quote

Bondi, I have tried to install the drivers for the Phoenix Card Manager 4.02 and Systemsoft Cardsoft 5.30.10 for the Toshiba Tecra 500CDT laptop's PCMCIA card which uses the Toshiba ToPIC95 chipset.

I haven't had much luck in getting the Cardsoft 5.30.10 drivers to work and when I tried to do so, I get this screenshot below:

IMG_2024-01-03-19-01-23-604.jpg

When I tried to select the make of the PCMCIA adapter inside the machine, I get two "Do Not Install Socket Services" selections! 🙁

I did manage to get the wired network card regonised, but not the SanDisk Ultra 2 GB CF card.

What should I do, should I load the Toshiba ToPIC95 chipset driver in the CONFIG.SYS file? Just curious to ask.

From what I see Cardsoft did not reconnize the chip, as the Socket Services driver is responsible for PCIC support and setup installs relevant driver depending on the chip model.
You can check if there is a driver file in Cardsoft folder that is named somehow after Toshiba chip. SS driver files look like ss?????.exe/sys. If no you can try those with 365 number in the file name, which are Intel compatible. But I wouldn't put much hope it will work.

And did you thry Phoenix drivers? Also wonder what is special about 4.02 version vs 4.01?

I try the Phoenix Card Manager 4.02 driver and it didn't work. PCM 4.02, released on January 9,1997 supported removable media larger than 504 MB as I have the SanDisk Ultra 2 GB CF card inserted in the PCMCIA slot.

Could you upload the 4.02 version of Phoenix drivers, please?

PS Sent you a PM re unata enabler.

ppgrainbow wrote on 2024-01-07, 07:32:

In the CMOS setup, the PC Card Controller Mode is set to PCIC (PCMCIA) compatible. At one point, I had changed it to CardBus/16- […]
Show full quote

lolo799 wrote on 2024-01-06, 13:11:

In the bios, is it set as 16bit pcmcia or cardbus?

In the CMOS setup, the PC Card Controller Mode is set to PCIC (PCMCIA) compatible. At one point, I had changed it to CardBus/16-bit (16-bit multi-function card, CardBus and ZV port card) and it would neither recognise the Compact Flash card nor my Xircom CreditCard Ethernet IIps card.

By the way, I have tried the patched CBATA driver, but that only works if I get the PC Card Controller Mode to CardBus/16-bit. Does anyone have a patched version of the UNATA driver (without the 14-day evaluation period)?

I tried to patch the UNATA driver myself, but got a error message CRC32 error: version mismatch, or file is already patched! I can't afford to pay for a driver when I already spent over $450 during the Christmas holidays. 🙁

It needs to be set to Cardbus for the SSCBTO95.SYS driver.

Bondi, lolo799. I think that I somehow solved my problem.

I had to load the CE2PD driver before I loaded the patched UNATA driver in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The UNATA driver managed to recongise the 2 GB compact flash card without problem! Now, if I can get the UNATA driver to play nice with the Xircom CreditCard Ethernet IIps card, then I probably won't have too much of a issue having to run software off of the 2 GB CF card. 😀

I'll update this reply with screenshots for the clarification.