I have just emailed Herbert Oppman (the authority on NexGen systems) to see whether he still has the versions in the first post. If he does, I will post them here and add them to the VOGONS Driver Library

n0m4d wrote on 2019-08-30, 21:14:

i have only this one

If that can edit Pentium or P2/P3 era BIOS, I would love a copy please.

I found a download for version 7.5 and 7.6 last night.
Dunno if it will work on an old 386 BIOS though.

http://www.aionsolution.com/it-support/others/bios-editor/

Some links are broken, but thanks to archive.org it can be downloaded here 😀
https://web.archive.org/web/20070106085807/ht … /tool_8_RC1.rar

Feiopa, are you still around? Im keen to grab what ever versions you have so I can try them out 😀
Im not sure if you have the above versions, but these links provide version 3.3 and 7.6
I got version 7.5 from another site, need to go to my history and grab it, but I can share it here if required.

Since this thread was started, I have a whole bunch of different BIOS modding tools. One included in one of the packs is mybcp ... folder structure makes it look like it was made by Herbert Oppmann. Source code is there and everything:

I'm looking for some more stuff right now and also running a .zip password cracker on some 20MB file I downloaded quite a while ago. No clue what is in it or how long it will take to crack.

Here is an ftp that looks like it has a lot of what I have, including the above:
ftp://ftp.kazachya.net/Pub/--=%20%7B%20TREIBE … /Bios/!Flasher/

I believe AMI was contacted about purchasing old copies of AMIBCP at least once. I can't remember the exact answer, but it was either negative or no reply. I guess it wouldn't hurt to try again. Does anyone have contacts at AMI?

I checked out the contents of Hebert Oppmann mybcp.zip. IT has two folders, BCP94 and MYBCP. Neither folder contains any text files. I presume BCP94 works with AMI BIOSes from 1994, and MYBCP is a mystery. What we really need is something that works on BIOSes from 1990-1993, but I am sceptical either or these programs will do the job. I think we already have a copy of AMIBCP from 1994 and it's not backward compatible.

Just for the record, I tried both of these executables with AMIBIOS ROMs from 1990 and 1991, neither could be read with an error message stating the ROM image is not 128kb. I suspect this tool can only open WinBIOS ROM images 128kb in length.

feipoa wrote on 2019-08-31, 04:10:

It would be nice to get a hold of every version between 1.0 and 5.0, but I'm feeling pretty pessimistic about this. The odds are about as good as finding a MR BIOS image for the VLSI topcat.

That was found. So maybe there is some hope afterall!

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2020-08-11, 00:03:

I believe AMI was contacted about purchasing old copies of AMIBCP at least once. I can't remember the exact answer, but it was either negative or no reply. I guess it wouldn't hurt to try again. Does anyone have contacts at AMI?

I reckon it comes down to speaking to the right person at the company.
Perhaps some youtuber in the community such as David Murray or LGR might have better luck if they were able to interview someone from the company or someone who even used to work there who coded these ROMs to begin with.

Supposedly version 7.5 for DOS can edit roms from the early 90s, so I will check on my BIOS later today.

nzoomed wrote on 2020-08-11, 01:22:

Supposedly version 7.5 for DOS can edit roms from the early 90s, so I will check on my BIOS later today.

Who told you that?

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2020-08-11, 01:43:

nzoomed wrote on 2020-08-11, 01:22:

Supposedly version 7.5 for DOS can edit roms from the early 90s, so I will check on my BIOS later today.

Who told you that?

Was reading comments on a forum, but I question that its accurate, but all I know is it will only run on DOS.

From what I can tell, the version numbers for DOS are different than the windows versions. Some forums are listing windows versions 2.x that do newer BIOS than 7.x versions that only run on DOS and support older ROMs

Looking on old forum posts dsted around 2005, version 2.4x appears to have been a new release at the time, yet my version 7.5 is older

Correct. DOS version numbers do not correlate with Windows version numbers.
I highly doubt v7.5 for DOS will read v1.x and v2.x ROMs. I am pretty sure that either Feipoa or myself tried at some point.

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2020-08-11, 02:27:

Correct. DOS version numbers do not correlate with Windows version numbers.
I highly doubt v7.5 for DOS will read v1.x and v2.x ROMs. I am pretty sure that either Feipoa or myself tried at some point.

I'll report back anyway.

What versions does you or feipoa have?
I'm going through a bunch of broken links and trying to see if i can get them through archive.org.

For example there is one dated 1994 here:

http://www.weste.net/2005/2-22/10582452137.html

1994 is to late for most 486 and 386 systems. In 1994 award started becoming popular.

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2020-08-11, 06:42:

1994 is to late for most 486 and 386 systems. In 1994 award started becoming popular.

Yes quite true.
Anyway, i was able to run the AMISETUP program dated around 1991 and it worked, but it was not able to unlock any features that were not already there.

So I doubt that the AMIBCP would be able to give me anything else of use, unless it includes different modules to install.

Does anyone here have experience with a hex editor in modifying BIOS'?

I think it should be possible to at least change the timing values for the preset "fast" and "slow" options if nothing else.

If you want to mod the bios you need to figure out how to recalculate the checksum.

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2020-08-11, 09:40:

If you want to mod the bios you need to figure out how to recalculate the checksum.

I was reading a bit about this. From reading other threads, it appears to be possible.

I heard the ami checksum calculation is more convoluted than others. I have the source code, but I can’t figure it out.

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2020-08-11, 12:03:

I heard the ami checksum calculation is more convoluted than others. I have the source code, but I can’t figure it out.

Wasnt the checksum there just so the BIOS flash utility could verify it was not going to brick your BIOS when flashing it?
If you were to use an EPROM programmer, would it not just work fine?
Im not sure of all the ins and outs but I thought it was just a protection measure to verify it was not a corrupt image?

Yes, it's meant to be a protection measure, but I believe AMI made it more complicated in order to stop peopling from fiddling.
Award on the other hand is relatively easy to figure out.
I tried a number of checksum calculators and I wasn't able to get anywhere.

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2020-08-11, 00:07:

feipoa wrote on 2019-08-31, 04:10:

It would be nice to get a hold of every version between 1.0 and 5.0, but I'm feeling pretty pessimistic about this. The odds are about as good as finding a MR BIOS image for the VLSI topcat.

That was found. So maybe there is some hope afterall!

Wait. They found topcat mr bios?

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2020-08-11, 12:03:

I heard the ami checksum calculation is more convoluted than others. I have the source code, but I can’t figure it out.

Which source code? If it is different then the AMIBCP94 code, then I would love to take a look at it.