Wait. Start over clean!

Ground is the reference point in point of view of voltages. Simplest circuit is one loop, Battery, resistor and load, anything in between like switch, or a transistor all in series.
When it becomes two or more circuit then this becomes 2 loops, but if you add one extra that defeats the one of loops, then you end up non-functional.

I did not say anything else extra. I was very specific about what you should create the circuit.

I repeat:

Place the resistor of 220 ohms between power good and ground. Explanation: This creates pull down circuit to keep power good low all the time and resistor value is chosen to limit current when power good is pulled high. Now to this circuit place a switch and one 10 ohms resistor between 5V (only!) in series with 5V and power good signal pin, that creates a circuit of two resistors and one switch. When this switch closes this pulls power good signal pin high to 5V level and computer comes out of permanently held in reset mode due to 220 ohm pulled the power good signal voltage low is now pulled high via 5V because 10 ohms resistor defeats the 220 ohms resistor and is now dissipating about 20mA current from 5V to ground via that switch in form of tiny heat which is safe.

Do not overthink or add extra. Just do it what I said.

Ground---220 ohm-----+----Switch----10 ohm----5V

The plus sign "+" goes to power good signal pin.

Cheers,

Cheers,

Finally the circuit for the olivetti PCS-11 has arrived and I have also understood the whole pinout of the power connector.

This is the pinout of the connector, the first pin at the top is the Key-lock, if I leave it disconnected (open) the pc stops at startup and asks to close the key-lock.
For simplicity I have connected it to the Power Good

This is also the scheme to manually generate the reset and the pinout of the connector

Did computer starts up this time?

Cheers,

If it can be useful here is the video of the PC startup with the post card inserted
http://www.dataino.it/vogons/video/VID_20210811_235322.mp4

Yes, still not correct on what is they are for, and a lecture:

Reset signal is to reset stuff, manual or automatic.
Power Good is a signal that power supply is going through intermediate voltages, there is a monitoring circuit in a power supply that controls the power good signal, as power supply starts up then once voltages stabilizes, the power good signal is sent from active high to low *LAST*. Power good is like "whoa, hold your tails while I (power supply) get ready". And this is good reason. If voltages are in intermediate state, can damage or lock up the computer, even blow the ICs somewhere else. Believe, me I have seen this happen!

Your is done same way but this is simpler circuit instead of doing complicated way doing power good signal. Remember this "power good" was IBM started this standard in 1984. But lot of computers from the beginning way back needs automatic reset to start correctly. All computers from the first computer had to be reset manually or automatic, because when everything was powered up, they were in garbage state so reset pulse is sent down to the everything and they go from confused state to beginning of "zero" and running in known in correct configuration then processor starts executing from zero address for example instead of starting in middle of video card's firmware for example. 😀

Apple II and IIe had to be manually reset by hand. Manual calculators has a lever to reset them to zero. Same concept!

The pico-power board have power good signal even in ATX pinout.

Power good is routed through a small circuit that converts this to operate the reset circuit of rest of the motherboard.

If the reset has a line over the word, this means active low. You need to convert power good signal from active low to active high in order to de-assert the reset. In other words when power good is held high the reset is held low till power supply circuit stabilizes then power good signal goes low, the reset is now de-asserted to high and computer starts.

You need a transistor and few resistors to convert high to low or low to high either way. You need a correct way of doing using power good converted to reset signal so this is done correctly and automatic.
Also add a push button connected to the reset pin for manual reset if computer crashes.

Keylock is meant for a key at the front panel to turn off the keyboard, majority of us don't use the keylock anyway. Wire that keylock pin held low permanently and forget it.

Cheers,

Verax wrote on 2021-07-23, 20:12:

Good evening 😀

So, i've just got my POST card as someone mentionned i should try it out to see what happends, so here we go the result :

Olivetti BIOS does not output anything on port 80h POST diagnostics cards. Instead they output on LPT1. In eBay sometimes there are LPT plugs with the LED display which work fine. Anyhow the codes you then will see are not the same as Phoenix, AMI and AWARD BIOS.

Thought I'd reply here to ask, since it's related to the Olivetti -

I moved my PCS-11 tonight and must have accidentally knocked the battery out. I reseated the battery + speaker and reconfigured the BIOS. But for some bizarre reason, the CPU is stuck at 8MHz instead of 16MHz. Any of you know what may be causing the CPU to be running at half speed?

I was thinking something along the lines of a Turbo mode, but there's no reference to CPU speed of any kind in the BIOS. Any clues?

PTherapist wrote on 2021-10-30, 21:43:

Thought I'd reply here to ask, since it's related to the Olivetti -

I moved my PCS-11 tonight and must have accidentally knocked the battery out. I reseated the battery + speaker and reconfigured the BIOS. But for some bizarre reason, the CPU is stuck at 8MHz instead of 16MHz. Any of you know what may be causing the CPU to be running at half speed?

I was thinking something along the lines of a Turbo mode, but there's no reference to CPU speed of any kind in the BIOS. Any clues?

have u see the advanced bios setup ?

Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Canc

dataino.it wrote on 2021-10-31, 10:48:

PTherapist wrote on 2021-10-30, 21:43:

Thought I'd reply here to ask, since it's related to the Olivetti -

I moved my PCS-11 tonight and must have accidentally knocked the battery out. I reseated the battery + speaker and reconfigured the BIOS. But for some bizarre reason, the CPU is stuck at 8MHz instead of 16MHz. Any of you know what may be causing the CPU to be running at half speed?

I was thinking something along the lines of a Turbo mode, but there's no reference to CPU speed of any kind in the BIOS. Any clues?

have u see the advanced bios setup ?

Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Canc

Thanks for this.

In all the years I've had this PC, I had no idea how to get into the extended setup, CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + DEL on a bog-standard keyboard did the trick. I set the frequency back to 16 and I was even able to increase the volume of the PC speaker something which I didn't even know was possible! Plus it let me clock the bus at 12MHz, to give a little speed boost. Very nice indeed.

Sorry for OT:

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-08-11, 22:52:

Yes, still not correct on what is they are for, and a lecture:
[...]
Apple II and IIe had to be manually reset by hand.

I hate to correct you.
But this is not fully true.
Only the Apple II revision 0 mainboard that was replaced in 1979 by Revision 1 did not have the reset circuit.
Many people upgraded their computers with a reset circuit, as well as some detail upgrades (more NTSC colors etc) that were described in the January 1978 "Red Book" and included in the Revision 1 board.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-08-11, 22:52:

Manual calculators has a lever to reset them to zero. Same concept!

Some early scientific calculators like my 1969 Compucorp have a reset key.
Later the "AC" (all clear) key became common, but this is no true hardware reset.

Hi mates i am new on vogons.

I want to help you with olivetti pcs 33 if possible and i want your help too.

I have an olivetti pcs33 with an operative power supply and video output. I can send info about the power supply if necesary.

My problem is that the conner hd is not been reconiced by the computer. I can use it with no problems in other similar machine but can configure it. I changed the battery and can't hold the date on the computer...

If any of you can help me i can give more info about my problem. Thanks

A lot of Olivetti fans here, nice!

This is a part of my collection: https://forum.classic-computing.de/gallery/in … -1st1-olivetti/

zannor wrote on 2021-12-02, 15:13:

Hi mates i am new on vogons. […]
Show full quote

Hi mates i am new on vogons.

I want to help you with olivetti pcs 33 if possible and i want your help too.

I have an olivetti pcs33 with an operative power supply and video output. I can send info about the power supply if necesary.

My problem is that the conner hd is not been reconiced by the computer. I can use it with no problems in other similar machine but can configure it. I changed the battery and can't hold the date on the computer...

If any of you can help me i can give more info about my problem. Thanks

did you enter the advanced bios with Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Del?

paradigital wrote on 2021-07-14, 18:05:

Ah, my father worked for Olivetti so all of my computers during my childhood were Olivetti. I currently own 5: […]
Show full quote

Ah, my father worked for Olivetti so all of my computers during my childhood were Olivetti. I currently own 5:

Quaderno PC-XT
Quaderno 33
Philos (Laptop)
PCS 33
PCS 11

As for the PSU, FlexATX is a form factor that happens to be around 1U in height so should fit in my PCS 11 case no problem. My bigger issue with the PCS 11 is that it’s a soft power switch built into the PSU, on a 386! I’m going to need to do something to power on, and keep on, an ATX class PSU. The internal power cable I’m just going to cut off the original PSU and solder onto the right rails of the FlexATX PSU. I won’t worry about -5v as I’ve tested the machine without it, and it’s fine, I won’t be using any ISA cards that require -5v.

I think a Micro ATX PSU would probably fit in the PCS 33 if the worst came to the worst, heck it would probably fit in the original PSU housing itself.

Hi!
I'm new on forum, Hello to every one!!!

I'm owner of old laptop Olivetti Philos 22 produced n early 90s. My name is Christopher, and I'm passionate of retro computers. Some weeks ago this laptop unfortunatelly stop working. I want to restore and repair it, but I cant find any schematics of this model on internet. I found that one of ICs on PSU board blow up, but because IC's package is damaged I cant read part number. Do You or may be someone from this forum have any service manuals or schematics (it would be the best), for this laptop (or maybe for other Philos - they can be similar) ?
I don't find anything on Internet, also I wrote an e-mail to Olivetti France - they answered that don't have service manuals, and to Olivetti Italy - without respond.
Kind Regards
Christopher

There was a period mid 90s where IBM did support for Olivetti, but it fell down the cracks a bit in the transition from support on "online services" like their BBS and Compuserve/Prodigy presences and the beginning of their full web support in about 1998. However, there are scraps and bits and pieces captured on sites like http://ps-2.kev009.com/ and ardent-tool.com

The Olivetti hardware division split from the software (banking mainly) division in the 90s where the software side became OlSy, and later bought out by Wang, and finally Getronics.

Unfortunately all my fathers contacts are in the software side of the business and not hardware.

Hello, I'm a new user on here and I'm trying to get an Olivetti PCS11 working. I'm unfamiliar with the machine and with PCs in general (I'm more familiar with 8 bit machines), so it would be great if someone on here could give me some advice.

When I received the machine, the PSU had no output. I have fixed this by fitting two new surface-mount electrolytic capacitors on the white power control daughterboard as shown early in this thread. I now have all the right voltages reaching the mainboard, but for some reason the Power Good signal is missing (well, it should be 5V but is actually 0.2V). As a temporary measure I have been able to get around this by manually connecting the +5V line to Power Good. This allows the machine to boot.

At first, I was able to get into the basic setup and extended setup screens, and I was also able to boot DOS from a floppy disc. The hard disc appeared to be dead, and I found that the head was stuck against some rubber bumpers inside the drive which had basically melted due to age. I have cleaned these up and freed the head, but the drive still doesn't work. This is not a big surprise, and I should be able to fit a CF card. However, I still have the following problems:

- On the Basic Setup screen, the battery appears flashing. I understand this means the battery is low on power, so I removed the lithium CR2032. I didn't have a new battery with solder tags, but I did have a CR2016 holder and 2016 battery, so I fitted that (protecting the top from contacting the frame using some insulation tape). In theory this battery should work I think, but I still get the "low battery" symbol.
- During the bootup sequence, the BIOS reports the hard drive as "Not present". I know the drive isn't working, but it is actually present. Fitting a CF card gave the same result, and I notice that in the video posted by dataino.it the same effect is seen. In the Extended Setup Screen I was able to select a drive size, but this did not help. Does anyone know how to make the machine recognise a hard drive?
- Whilst the floppy drive used to work, the machine now reports "Not present" for that as well.
- I could previously press Ctrl-Alt-Space-Del to enter the Extended Setup screen, but this no longer works. I can only get to the Basic Setup.

Any pointers would be great.

jms2 wrote on 2023-09-28, 12:02:

Hello, I'm a new user on here and I'm trying to get an Olivetti PCS11 working. I'm unfamiliar with the machine and with PCs in g […]
Show full quote

Hello, I'm a new user on here and I'm trying to get an Olivetti PCS11 working. I'm unfamiliar with the machine and with PCs in general (I'm more familiar with 8 bit machines), so it would be great if someone on here could give me some advice.

When I received the machine, the PSU had no output. I have fixed this by fitting two new surface-mount electrolytic capacitors on the white power control daughterboard as shown early in this thread. I now have all the right voltages reaching the mainboard, but for some reason the Power Good signal is missing (well, it should be 5V but is actually 0.2V). As a temporary measure I have been able to get around this by manually connecting the +5V line to Power Good. This allows the machine to boot.

At first, I was able to get into the basic setup and extended setup screens, and I was also able to boot DOS from a floppy disc. The hard disc appeared to be dead, and I found that the head was stuck against some rubber bumpers inside the drive which had basically melted due to age. I have cleaned these up and freed the head, but the drive still doesn't work. This is not a big surprise, and I should be able to fit a CF card. However, I still have the following problems:

- On the Basic Setup screen, the battery appears flashing. I understand this means the battery is low on power, so I removed the lithium CR2032. I didn't have a new battery with solder tags, but I did have a CR2016 holder and 2016 battery, so I fitted that (protecting the top from contacting the frame using some insulation tape). In theory this battery should work I think, but I still get the "low battery" symbol.
- During the bootup sequence, the BIOS reports the hard drive as "Not present". I know the drive isn't working, but it is actually present. Fitting a CF card gave the same result, and I notice that in the video posted by dataino.it the same effect is seen. In the Extended Setup Screen I was able to select a drive size, but this did not help. Does anyone know how to make the machine recognise a hard drive?
- Whilst the floppy drive used to work, the machine now reports "Not present" for that as well.
- I could previously press Ctrl-Alt-Space-Del to enter the Extended Setup screen, but this no longer works. I can only get to the Basic Setup.

Any pointers would be great.

Not sure about the battery thing, maybe somebody else can assist with that.

With regards to the HDD & Floppy not being detected -

The BIOS on the PCS-11 can be a bit temperamental, I often have it doing the exact same thing on mine. What I found helps for me, is to set both HDD & floppy to disabled in the basic setup and then reboot. Then enable them 1 at a time, rebooting each time.

For the CF card, you'll almost certainly need to enter settings manually for it to show up as present and the Olivetti BIOS is rather limited here. So trying to get the BIOS to recognise the full capacity of the CF card and have it show up as present will probably be futile. I ended up having to use Ontrack Disk Manager to enable use of a 1.2GB HDD, though XTIDE is the preferable option (I didn't have that at the time).

To get into the Extended Setup you press CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + DEL, not Space.

That's really helpful, thanks! I'll try your suggestions and see if I can get anywhere.

I think with the battery it is possible that my battery holder has some kind of fault and isn't making proper contact, or something. I have found that you can actually buy coin cells with solder tags welded on, so I will probably try that. Am I right in thinking that these are non-rechargeable lithium cells?

I'm not expecting to get the full capacity of any CF (or SD) card that I attach - in fact I was thinking about formatting to 40MB like the original to see if that helped. I actually tried a 512MB card at first, without luck.

I am kind of amazed it's actually CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + DEL, not Space (given that several posters on here have said Space is the right key), but it might explain why it apparently worked before but now doesn't. Maybe I was pressing Shift by accident.

Many thanks for your advice.