VOGONS


First post, by tegrady

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Hi, I just ran across an auction for this item.

I cannot figure out what it is though. The box calls it "Add-On Card for '88 '286 Personal Computer". The card itself says "CK-1" and C/N 800310. The main chip is UM82C8167 and it has an onboard battery. There is no i/o port on it.

Here are the photos. Any idea what this is?

Thanks.

Reply 1 of 7, by Arkady

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It's a clock/calendar card for IBM PC/XT and compatibles.
With a bit of luck, you will be able to set time and date with the MS-DOS commands or you will need a specific driver.

Reply 2 of 7, by jesolo

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Just to add to the above.
Older PC's didn't come with real time clocks so when you shut down and restarted the PC, you had to enter the date and time again.
This card kept the date and time settings and was loaded via a driver upon start up.

Reply 3 of 7, by tegrady

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Thanks for the info! Sounds like I have no use for this card...

Reply 4 of 7, by Ozzuneoj

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A lot of times add-on boards would have multiple functions, including an RTC like this. I'm not sure when PCs started having them built into the motherboard as standard, but my IBM 5150 has an AST SixPak Plus that has provides 384K memory expansion, RTC, serial, parallel and a gameport on one board. Having just a single tiny card just for the RTC alone doesn't seem like a terribly interesting use of limited ISA slots in older boards.

Now for some blitting from the back buffer.

Reply 5 of 7, by Zup

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RTC was made standard with XTs, so they could keep HDD and floppy configuration.

Multi I/O was standard with Pentium 2 (maybe MMX?). Before that, only few morherboards had integrated IDE/floppy/com ports. Through 286/386/486 and Pentium, I've seen computers with integrated ports, but it was not usual.

Gameports were usually a sound card thing, so they got integrated at the same time (Pentium MMX?).

I have traveled across the universe and through the years to find Her.
Sometimes going all the way is just a start...

I'm selling some stuff!

Reply 6 of 7, by naevity

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I know this thread of 6 years old, but I just found this exact card in my Tandy 1000TX that I pulled from my parents attic where it sat since the early 90s. After some lots of searching asking questions someone pointed me to MinusZeroDegrees .net which had a bunch of RTC programs. Thankfully the original hard drive was working and I was able to find a reference to IMPCLOCK in an old autoexec.bat (specifically the one below). I popped in a new battery, configured autoexec.bat to use the new programs and it's keeping time again!

TIMER/I to set the time
TIMER/S to put saved time to system clock
IMPCLOCK to display the clock on the screen

Hope it helps anyone searching in the future

Card ??????
RTC software IMPCLOCK.zip
" " Displays "CLOCK V2.1A IMPERIAL INT'L CO. NOV 1985"
https://www.minuszerodegrees.net/rtc/unknown2/IMPCLOCK.zip

Reply 7 of 7, by Ozzuneoj

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naevity wrote on 2023-01-08, 14:50:
I know this thread of 6 years old, but I just found this exact card in my Tandy 1000TX that I pulled from my parents attic where […]
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I know this thread of 6 years old, but I just found this exact card in my Tandy 1000TX that I pulled from my parents attic where it sat since the early 90s. After some lots of searching asking questions someone pointed me to MinusZeroDegrees .net which had a bunch of RTC programs. Thankfully the original hard drive was working and I was able to find a reference to IMPCLOCK in an old autoexec.bat (specifically the one below). I popped in a new battery, configured autoexec.bat to use the new programs and it's keeping time again!

TIMER/I to set the time
TIMER/S to put saved time to system clock
IMPCLOCK to display the clock on the screen

Hope it helps anyone searching in the future

Card ??????
RTC software IMPCLOCK.zip
" " Displays "CLOCK V2.1A IMPERIAL INT'L CO. NOV 1985"
https://www.minuszerodegrees.net/rtc/unknown2/IMPCLOCK.zip

In my opinion, it is totally okay to bump a 6 year old thread for this purpose. Thank you for your contribution! 😀

Now for some blitting from the back buffer.