VOGONS


Tseng 4000AX Weird Characters

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Reply 20 of 39, by root42

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fsmith2003 wrote:

Ok great! I have everything ordered so will find out in a couple days. Also, one other question, I had some spare EEProms laying around for my XT-Ide and burned your files to them and those did not work. Is there a difference in the way an EEprom and Eprom function other than the re-programmability of the EEprom?

What size are those EEPROMs? XTIDE works with small 8KiB ROMs. VGA is IIRC 32KiB.

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Reply 21 of 39, by fsmith2003

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root42 wrote:
fsmith2003 wrote:

Ok great! I have everything ordered so will find out in a couple days. Also, one other question, I had some spare EEProms laying around for my XT-Ide and burned your files to them and those did not work. Is there a difference in the way an EEprom and Eprom function other than the re-programmability of the EEprom?

What size are those EEPROMs? XTIDE works with small 8KiB ROMs. VGA is IIRC 32KiB.

I used these EEPRoms which are the same ones I use to burn the bios for the XT-IDE. Amtel AT28C256 15PU. I just used the included xtidecfg.com software to do this.

Reply 22 of 39, by fsmith2003

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quicknick wrote:

It should. As I mentioned earlier, there's no indication about its size on the "sync bios" chip, so I've read it two times, first assuming it is a 27c256 and then as a 27c512. However, the 512kb image, if split in two, produces two identical files so that should mean the chip is also 256kbit in size.

How did you read the Sync chip? I have my programmer set up but I do not know what chip to choose in the software to read the Eprom. Keep getting a pin detect error.

Reply 24 of 39, by quicknick

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AT28C256 pinout is slightly different to the 27C256, so I guess that's why it didn't work.

As for the Sync chip, I'm pretty sure that it's a 256kbit too, so you can choose 27C256 (any brand, but I like the AMD ones 😁 ) and uncheck "Check ID".

Reply 25 of 39, by fsmith2003

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quicknick wrote:

AT28C256 pinout is slightly different to the 27C256, so I guess that's why it didn't work.

As for the Sync chip, I'm pretty sure that it's a 256kbit too, so you can choose 27C256 (any brand, but I like the AMD ones 😁 ) and uncheck "Check ID".

Well I got them both burned onto 27C256's and here is the result. Am I out of luck at this point or are there any other steps I could try? Also, is there a way to just modify my current bios at all through a hex editor or something to change the character set and re-burn it?

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Reply 26 of 39, by quicknick

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What have you used to burn the chips, your TL866 arrived already? If it did, please dump here the content of your chips. I don't have any spares now, but will get them and test my card with your BIOSes.

Reply 27 of 39, by fsmith2003

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quicknick wrote:

What have you used to burn the chips, your TL866 arrived already? If it did, please dump here the content of your chips. I don't have any spares now, but will get them and test my card with your BIOSes.

Yes, I did receive my TL866 already. Amazon Prime is a wonderful thing! Here are my files from my card.

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Reply 29 of 39, by fsmith2003

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quicknick wrote:

Your SyncBios is identical to mine. What happens if you leave the original Sync on the card and only replace the MainBios?

I did try that. Same result with the frequency issue and wavy screen.

Reply 30 of 39, by Tiido

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I think the problem is in the PLL chip (one in socket next to a crystal), on the photos I saw couple different ones and I imagine they're not 100% same.

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Reply 31 of 39, by fsmith2003

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Tiido wrote:

I think the problem is in the PLL chip (one in socket next to a crystal), on the photos I saw couple different ones and I imagine they're not 100% same.

It does appear we have different chips there yes. Would there be any way to reprogram mine to match his or are those a programmable IC?

Reply 32 of 39, by fsmith2003

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I came across this page but I don't understand any of it to be honest. Does anyone know if this would be helpful information toward solving my issue?

http://www.ctyme.com/intr/rb-0209.htm

Reply 33 of 39, by Predator99

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fsmith2003 wrote:

I came across this page but I don't understand any of it to be honest. Does anyone know if this would be helpful information toward solving my issue?

http://www.ctyme.com/intr/rb-0209.htm

Maybe it could help you try getting it running with another screen mode. But it will not help you getting at running at boot time.

What about the PLL Chip? Which do you have on your card and what is the one one the card you used the BIOS from?
I can also check my ET4000s if I find something matching...

Reply 34 of 39, by fsmith2003

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Predator99 wrote:
Maybe it could help you try getting it running with another screen mode. But it will not help you getting at running at boot tim […]
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fsmith2003 wrote:

I came across this page but I don't understand any of it to be honest. Does anyone know if this would be helpful information toward solving my issue?

http://www.ctyme.com/intr/rb-0209.htm

Maybe it could help you try getting it running with another screen mode. But it will not help you getting at running at boot time.

What about the PLL Chip? Which do you have on your card and what is the one one the card you used the BIOS from?
I can also check my ET4000s if I find something matching...

My PLL chip is a Chronotel CH9201TA-NC.
I am not quite able to make out the numbers on the chip that quicknick posted on the first page showing his.

Reply 35 of 39, by Predator99

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Sorry mine are very different...but maybe you can try anyway.

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Reply 36 of 39, by quicknick

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I'm sorry, that's really unfortunate, never expected it wouldn't work. Now at a closer look there are a few differences in the PLL area, but I feel there's a more important difference between the main video chips: yours is a TC6058AF, mine is TC6100AF (and PLL is ICS2494N).

Reply 37 of 39, by fsmith2003

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Your right. I hadn’t noticed the video chip difference. Hmmm. Well if anyone has a Tseng card with the TC6058AF out there would you mind uploading your bios?? Thanks for all the help so far though guys!

Reply 38 of 39, by fsmith2003

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Well I found a work around for my problem that didn't involve editing the bios! Just for anyone who may run into a similar issue here is what I did. Some of you may know of this already, but I found an old PC Mag on Google from September 13, 1988 which talks about a small program called FONTEDIT.COM. This program did exactly what I was needing done. It allows you to change the way the default character set looks by allowing you to manually re-draw the characters the way you would like them. I simply re-drew the ones that were different than usual back to their familiar state. It does not seem to take up any memory after adding this to my autoexec.bat and now its all good to go! Thanks for the help everyone.

Last edited by fsmith2003 on 2018-06-23, 14:40. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 39 of 39, by nekurahoka

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Awesome! I'm glad you found a solution.

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