rest of images here

No one here have one of these? I think they also went under the "Sirius" brand (in the UK at least)

some say it is a Toshiba T3100 clone, you can find manuals for T3100 by googling. the maintenance manual may tell how to open the case fully.

Even if it is an attempt at a clone of the T3100, it's definitely not assembled the same way (The T3100 does not have a 16-bit ISA slot, as this system does). A closer analogy might be a Toshiba T3200, which DOES have an ISA slot (two, actually). But, the construction would still be different between them because the T3200 is physically larger/wider than this Victor system (The T3200 is wide enough to have a numeric keypad in addition to the main keyboard). Unfortunately, the Toshiba service manuals would likely be of no help with disassembling this one. My guess would be they were trying to copy at most the form factor, with no regards to the internals.

Hello my03,

With the Victor you have to carefully remove the cover on the lower screen with a screwdriver. There are several screws underneath. Then pull out both plugs. Then you can take off the arm. Only then can you remove the housing. I see you have a newer version of the Bios Low and Hi. than from my Victor. Do you have a possibility to create a dump of the two Eproms and send it to me? That would be nice. Since unfortunately you can't find anything about the Victor on the internet. Mine works great too.

Best regards Hornsk

Hey Hornsk001, thanks for the advice. I did manage to open it to some extent, enough to reach the bios-batteries that i wanted to replace. While i did put a "Saft" battery in there, it still complains that it can't remember the settings so i will re-wire the battery quite soon (with fresh cabling).

Unfortunately, i dont have an eprom reader available (but this is something that i have a need for anyway so i probably will try to acquire one). If you can wait for a short while, i will probably get hold of something that can dump out the contents of these 😀

Hey My03,
Yes that would help me a lot, because your EPROM is the latest for the V286P, I have a feeling we are the only two who take care of the Victor V286P. I just removed the old battery and put in a CR2032. Since then, the memory works. Thank you very much for helping me.

Hornsko01, finally did some research and will get (most probably) an TL866 programmer. Will keep you in touch later on 😀

Hello my03,

TL866 that's a good promer. I have a Willem, it works great too. I'm looking forward to the new eprom. Nice that you keep me up to date.
Best regards Hornsk

TL866 landed in the mail today so i'll give it a shot this evening Hornsk 😀

Hornsk001, you got PM 😀

Hi, thanks for the roms. I'm going to burn it soon, I'm not at home at the moment. I will then let you know if it works. bg Daniel

my03 wrote on 2021-05-11, 18:55:

Hornsk001, you got PM 😀

hello my03,

unfortunately the newer version of your eprom does not work in my v286p. I suspect yours already has vga. mine only has cga. my v286p works with your eprom but without any output on the screen. Does your external screen socket have 15 pins or 9?

Best regards Daniel

Hornsk001 wrote on 2021-08-12, 19:13:

hello my03, […]
Show full quote

my03 wrote on 2021-05-11, 18:55:

Hornsk001, you got PM 😀

hello my03,

unfortunately the newer version of your eprom does not work in my v286p. I suspect yours already has vga. mine only has cga. my v286p works with your eprom but without any output on the screen. Does your external screen socket have 15 pins or 9?

Best regards Daniel

Hi,

i checked and 0n my unit i have the vga connector (15-pin).

br

Hello,

I have the CGA version and just bought the VGA version on eBay (shipping ongoing).

The CGA version powers on but usually doesn't display anything on screen (both on the plasma internal monitor and on an external one). On very rare occasion I made it display the setup screen (see photo) but with scrambled characters on the date. It's not possible to input a correct date and when I confirm, the computer freezes and doesn't display anything after a cold restart.
I suspect a corrupted BIOS to be the culprit.

@Hornsk001 would it be possible to post in this thread your BIOS dump? I can post the VGA version one when I receive the machine.

Cheers.

xmamat wrote on 2022-11-04, 14:09:

Hello, […]
Show full quote

Hello,

I have the CGA version and just bought the VGA version on eBay (shipping ongoing).

The CGA version powers on but usually doesn't display anything on screen (both on the plasma internal monitor and on an external one). On very rare occasion I made it display the setup screen (see photo) but with scrambled characters on the date. It's not possible to input a correct date and when I confirm, the computer freezes and doesn't display anything after a cold restart.
I suspect a corrupted BIOS to be the culprit.

@Hornsk001 would it be possible to post in this thread your BIOS dump? I can post the VGA version one when I receive the machine.

Cheers.

hey xmamat,

if you have anything later than 2.06 (VGA bios), then please give us a shout here also 😀

btw, with these now ancient harddrives failing (i have two V286p and one of them has a completely dead HDD), are there any options that connects natively (HDD interface) or is it "just" the xt-ide option that is out there?

My VGA V286P finally arrived. It has the same VER2.06P BIOS as yours.

Regarding the HDD replacement, I haven't opened the machine yet but it says here it's 3.5 inches RLL ST-506 drive: pretty difficult to find, especially in working condition. So I guess the best solution is indeed XT-IDE based, or with a bootable SCSI ISA adapter such as Adaptec AHA-1542 if you can manage to pass the 50-pin ribbon cable inside the case.