Re: Xi 8088 by Segey Kiselev

Posted on 2023-08-27, 15:05

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Having completed a second Xi 8088 build, I have more to add. I encountered a lot more stability issues this time. It seems like there was a big jump in instability when plugging in older ISA cards using lots of TTL chips. For example, stability was fine using a Trident VGA card but swapping to an …

---

Re: Xi 8088 by Segey Kiselev

Posted on 2023-07-27, 20:50

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If anybody is building a Xi 8088 and has been having an issue dialing in the frequency of the OSC crystal, I have a suggestion. On both of the boards I have built, adjusting C54 would give a much higher frequency than required, making it impossible to get to 14.31818mhz. My assessment is that this …

---

Re: Xi 8088 by Segey Kiselev

Posted on 2022-05-15, 08:20

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-05-15, 03:00: I have no idea what "smbaker's pcb" is or where to look for it so I'm blindly guessing here It's mentioned earlier in the thread but I guess it's a lot of pages now. Link

---

Re: Xi 8088 by Segey Kiselev

Posted on 2022-05-14, 15:37

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So the termination is simply 220R to +5V on all IRQ/DRQ lines and IOCHRDY? No, the other way around - I terminated all lines on SMBaker's pcb except those. This is the active terminator board regulated to 2.7v, using 220 ohm packs. Anything that said NC on the table in the linked pdf, I cut the leg …

---

Re: Xi 8088 by Segey Kiselev

Posted on 2022-05-14, 07:58

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I just wanted to share my success in building the Xi 8088 for those who are hesitant about taking this project on. I did have some stability issues as first, but after building SMBaker's active termination board, it has been soak tested on turbo (8 mhz) for hours without hanging once. A few …

---

Re: Apollo Pro 133A - Incompatibility with Riva TNT2 M64?

Posted on 2022-04-17, 20:46

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a build with almost identical specs to you: TNT2 M64, 256mb ram, Windows 98SE and a Pentium II 400mhz. My motherboard is using a different but related chipset (Apollo Pro+). It's running fine for me, and I think the relevant difference is that I am using much older drivers. Try Detonator 2.08 …

---

Re: XT and 16-bit VGA cards

Posted on 2022-03-11, 12:11

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a Trident 8900D card which unfortunately does not seem to work in an XT clone system even with the 8-bit jumpers set, which I assume is due to the bios containing AT instructions as mentioned above. The bios is marked C4.5. I wonder if it would be possible to downgrade the bios to a …

---

Re: FIC 486-GIO-VP SMI/IRQ secondary IDE issue

Posted on 2022-01-13, 23:01

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Issue resolved. I believe the secondary IDE issue is not solvable but I managed to get a drive detected and working as a primary slave after wasting some time with another drive which turned out to have some subtle fault that caused it to hang.

---

Re: FIC 486-GIO-VP SMI/IRQ secondary IDE issue

Posted on 2022-01-13, 19:27

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Still no luck I'm afraid. I'm thinking now that there is no way of avoiding a conflict with IRQ15 because the BIOS always listens for it; you either use it for power management or disconnect it entirely. There's no option to keep it connected but open for something else. I guess I would need to use …

---

Re: FIC 486-GIO-VP SMI/IRQ secondary IDE issue

Posted on 2022-01-06, 11:46

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This is the section in the manual on the SMI jumper settings (attached). So far I have just been using the two configurations shown, but after toning these jumpers out with my meter I found that when JP2 is set in the 2-3 position, it disconnects IRQ15 from the chipset. After trying JX2 in the 2-3 …

---

Re: FIC 486-GIO-VP SMI/IRQ secondary IDE issue

Posted on 2022-01-06, 00:01

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've tested with two sound cards - an OPTi 82C929A card and an ALS100 card. The drivers for both cards insert the line to initialise the second IDE channel right at the top of config.sys. I've tested with two ribbon cables in case one was bad, and with three different drives. I've mostly tested …

---

FIC 486-GIO-VP SMI/IRQ secondary IDE issue

Posted on 2022-01-05, 20:49

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've been working on a 486 build lately using the FIC 486-GIO-VP . Most things work great so far: it's running a i486DX2-66 (SX911), using the latest BIOS image, ISA sound card works fine, VLB video card works fine, no issues with the onboard FDD or IDE. Seems very stable. However, I have been …

---

Re: The elusive Toshiba laptop HDD connector

Posted on 2021-10-15, 11:26

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There were some long postage delays in receiving the second version of the board, but I have it now and it seems to work just fine. I currently have a CF card installed in my Tecra 510CDT using one of those dirt-cheap adapters, and it boots into DOS 6.22 with no problems. A 2.5 inch drive will also …

---

Re: The elusive Toshiba laptop HDD connector

Posted on 2021-09-08, 22:18

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just a little bit too tall, even after trying to rescue the board by filing it down. I think the revised version will work, although it will probably be a bit fiddly to solder without melting the plastic on the connector. If I knew what I was doing it might make more sense to make it a printed flex …

---

Re: The elusive Toshiba laptop HDD connector

Posted on 2021-09-08, 16:55

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got the PCBs back from the fab but unfortunately I overestimated the amount of space available in the laptop so I've had to squash everything together and order another prototype. Will share gerbers if I get it working.

---

Re: Windows 95 keeps Removing wallpaper

Posted on 2021-09-08, 16:45

by

by SanguineBrah

in Milliways

in Milliways

IEAK sounds like a handy thing to have around. One more reinstall and I've solved my problem. This time, I used the lite version of the unofficial service pack instead of the full one. I still don't know which component was responsible but at least it's working as expected now.

---

Re: Windows 95 keeps Removing wallpaper

Posted on 2021-09-06, 21:40

by

by SanguineBrah

in Milliways

in Milliways

Apologies if this is considered unwarranted necro but I think I have some useful information to add. I was having an identical issue to the above, also using OSR 2.5. After a few reinstalls, I narrowed down the problem to the unofficial service pack. Without it, I am able to set and retain a (bmp) …

---

Re: Toshiba Portege 660cdt - anyone have manuals

Posted on 2021-08-29, 13:40

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Minus Zero Degrees have the maintenance manual for the 620CT (http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/manuals/Toshi … ce%20Manual.pdf), which isn't exactly right but it's from the 600 series so I'm guessing much of it is applicable.

---

The elusive Toshiba laptop HDD connector

Posted on 2021-08-28, 17:42

by

by SanguineBrah

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I recently picked up a Toshiba Tecra 510CDT for pretty cheap but most of these things had the hard drive caddy tossed before sale, presumably in the name of data security, and mine is no exception. Those of you that have tried to find one of these caddys, with its unusual connector bridging the …

---