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First post, by Grandiloquence

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First of all, hello, I'm Chris. This is my first post here despite lurking for several years and enjoying the varied discussions about old PC tech!

I was hoping that someone may be able to help me out with a question regarding an industrial PC I'm attempting to set up.

I have 3 backplanes, 2 are passive and one is active.
In the ISA slot I have a 486 based board which doesn't have video output.

I have placed a PCI Matrox graphics card in one of the PCI slots. The ISA board emits a couple of beeps, the kind that tell me the settings are wrong as the RTC is dead. I get no display on the monitor.
I know the graphics card works as it was tested on another computer.
This happens on all three backplanes.

Am I on a hiding to nothing here? Have I misunderstood how the pc is set up?

Thanks in advance.

Reply 1 of 6, by BitWrangler

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I think you're asking an ISA system to speak through an ISA bus to a PCI card, which doesn't sound likely. An ISA VGA card may be a better bet.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 2 of 6, by BloodyCactus

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if the 486 SBC does not have PCI capability in the chipset, it wont see the PCI slot. What SBC are you running. I've run SBCs in backplanes, but the ones I have had that see PCI ok were full PICMG boards not just plain ISA SBC's. (My 486 SBC would only see ISA).

--/\-[ Stu : Bloody Cactus :: [ https://bloodycactus.com :: http://kråketær.com ]-/\--

Reply 4 of 6, by dionb

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Grandiloquence wrote on 2021-07-13, 19:44:

Thanks for the replies. The board is an ICL EY5AC41297. I will grab an ISA graphics card and see what happens.

According to the FCC that's an ICL "Accelerator Board". I can't find much more on it, but it may not be a complete Single Board Computer (SBC) designed to be used in a backplane like that. The 'couple of beeps' could be a good sign though - but exactly how many beeps (and are some short and some long)? That card is trying to talk to you! Some good pictures could also help given the lack of results googling the FCC ID.

Reply 5 of 6, by Grandiloquence

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I'll get some pictures up when I get a minute. It beeps twice with a keyboard connected.
With no keyboard it beeps twice and then a third beep a couple of seconds later.
It has a couple of "Symphony" chips on it, a soldered in 486 SX CPU and an overdrive socket.

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