Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-17, 23:13

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got a Headland HT12 board on the way. The same seller who I got the PA286-SA1 board from had a HT12HS board from 'Eurosoft' in stock, so I made an offer (based on the fact I already bought a board from him) and he accepted. Total Hardware 99 has it listed as a "Unknown G2-12HS HT12" and Deksor's …

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-17, 19:22

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hey have you heard of our project UH19 ? http://www.win3x.org/uh19/ It's TH99's that we turned into a database that you can browse and that's also editable :) You can definitely help us document your board properly if you want. I think we could use the Peaktron board that's very similar to yours as …

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-17, 16:24

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

HT12 is a good chipset, so is VLSI Scamp. Try to find a different board that uses one of those I know about the HT12, mine served me well since around 1991/92! I've seen this one, it's a HT12 variant. Lots of ISA slots (but still baby AT), no signs of battery damage, at least 3 oscillator pads, …

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-17, 15:21

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Also, CheckIt 3 reports failures on the extended memory test:

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-17, 15:12

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Compared to the HT12 board it's horrendously slow, even at the same 16MHz clock speed. The fact that it isn't reliable at all at 16MHz with 0-wait enabled and fast 60ns RAM is pretty poor. The CPU/FPU benchmarks don't get much of a hit at 1-wait of course, because they're largely not RAM or Disk …

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-17, 12:31

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So I think that the source of the crashes may actually be coming from having a combination of 0-wait state enabled and system + video BIOS shadowing turned on. I'm trying various things that were locking up the system previously and without shadowing enabled they seem to be working okay. The DOS …

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-17, 10:13

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

ARGH!!!! Same damn thing. With 0-wait state when doing long directory listings (such as the DOS directory, or something like Norton Utilities 😎 you get random hard lockups. Switch back to 1-wait state and they complete every time; the only pause being the free-size calculation for the drive (slow as …

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-17, 10:00

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As expected, the performance of the system with 1-wait is dog slow. Norton SI drops from 12.1 to 9.3, Landmark CPU drops from a synthetic 24.6MHz to 18MHz, and so-on and so-on. Approximately 25% slower across the board, and disk IO is a pathetic 900KB/sec. Compared to my old rock-solid HT12 board, …

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-17, 09:33

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

On further testing I'm finding that this system has unreliable IO (both floppy and CF/hard drive) with the 0-wait setting left enabled. Just trying to get DOS 5 installed with 0-wait enabled results in random freezes and hangs whilst copying floppy contents to the hard drive / CF card during setup. …

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-16, 18:16

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Damn. Went to fit the Harris chip and the 40MHz crystal I was going to use has had a leg snapped off whilst in the box of other oscillators. It works perfectly on the 32MHz crystal, as you would expect (with identical benchmarks results since there is no architectural difference between AMD and …

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-16, 16:58

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

First round of benchmarks completed. This is at the standard 16MHz cpu speed with 0-wait enabled, no parity and shadowed video and system BIOS. - AMD N80L286-16S at stock 16MHz speed via 32MHz clock - Intel i287XL - 0 wait state enabled - system and video BIOS shadowed - 2x 60ns 4MB SIMM modules - …

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-16, 09:26

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Found a memory configuration larger than 4MB which works! The main jumper SW1 block needs the following jumpers set: SW1 J5 closed SW1 J6 closed SW1 J7 open SW1 J8 open According to the silkscreen on the board that configures one bank (J7/J8) for 4MB (J5/J6) memory module sizes. This results in 8MB …

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-16, 09:07

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Next steps on this is to fit a DIP socket for the oscillator so that I can run tests with various speeds (looking in my parts box I have 32, 38, 40 and 50MHz oscillators) and several processor brands and speeds (two AMD-16 with different date codes, a Harris-20 and a Harris-25). I expect, based on …

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-16, 08:59

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's interesting that this board requires better rated RAM at 0-wait @16MHz than the HT12 board did at the same. I'm wondering what this is going to mean at 20MHz and higher.....

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-16, 08:58

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Found four 60ns 1MB modules fitted to one of my Transputer interface boards (a Transtech TMB04 with 16x 30pin SIMM slots), I've swapped in the 70ns modules I was using on the 286 and fitted the 60ns sticks from the Transputer and with the zero wait jumper fitted the memory test completes every time …

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-16, 08:25

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's running an AMD 16mhz chip and standard 32mhz oscillator.

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-15, 23:06

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Can't seem to enable 0 wait states on this board - it works fine with the jumper open, but as soon as you enable it, the start-up memory test freaks out at random points each time you power on. It may be at 200kb one time, then 2400kb next, or 3891kb, you just don't know. This is despite using the …

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-15, 22:25

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

.... and now it works! What was it you ask? DRAM configuration? Dodgy video card? Nope. Turbo button. This board and the Peaktron PA286-SMT have a configuration jumper for turbo operation. By default the board came with this set to one of the two keyboard shortcut controls. I unjumpered it ( …

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Re: VESA mode programming from real mode

Posted on 2021-01-15, 21:27

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Yes, I'm aware there isn't a free() call in that function. There also isn't in the outer graphics library that is calling these vesa functions in turn - but as of right now its only running the once and exiting.

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Re: 286 dead, long live the 286! Peaktron PA286-SMT / Micro Systems PA286-SA1

Posted on 2021-01-15, 21:26

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm unable to get this to work at all :-( If I use SIMM modules then I really don't know what board settings I should be using; it will memory-error-beep at me every time. If I replace the 8x DIP chip DRAM modules that came with it, and set the board up with the same jumper settings that it had when …

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