Help with older 386 motherboard - Samsung Sensor PC - VLSI

Help with older 386 motherboard - Samsung Sensor PC - VLSI - VL82C320 / VL82C331

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First post, by MRVFONE

Posted on 2022-05-31, 05:48

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Hello,

I have a LPX Motherboard from a Samsung Sensor 386 SX 16 PC. It was the 2nd 386 i ever owned back in the day when i was a kid. So a few years ago i saw a motherboard from one of these PCs for sale so i jumped on it. Unfortunately its case had already been binned.

Its a Intel 386 SX 16 MHZ soldered to the motherboard. Chips set is VLSI 9110AV / 9110AT and Chips and Tech F82c710. It has a WDC WD90c11 VGA onboard... but i think its just a stock ISA version.

I have been trying to find datasheets on the main VLSI chips with no success. I was hopeing maybe some one has a 386 motherboard based on the same chipset. Or close to it.

I don't know is Samsung built the motherboard.. or some one else did for them.

I have attached a pic of the motherboard and a copy of its dumped BIOS image in case that's useful to some one.

I have looked through the Mr BIOS achive with no luck.... BUT i wasn't expecting to find a bios for a board so old.

Thanks for any help, Tim.

Attachments

Filename

SAM386.rar

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25.75 KiB

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57 downloads

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Fair use/fair dealing exception
Filename

sam-sensor-mobo.jpg

File size

442.2 KiB

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Public domain

Last edited by MRVFONE on 2022-05-31, 07:18. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 12, by darry

Posted on 2022-05-31, 06:14

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The BIOS ROM contains the following text :

1Phoenix Technologies  ROM Based Setup Program  Written by Eric A. Shoaf-Enge 
2
3 Phoenix Technologies Ltd.         
4  System Configuration Setup V4.02

and a quick Internet search for "Eric A. Shoaf-Enge" returns this :
https://www.whitepages.com/name/Eric-A-Enge/S … -MA/Pr84gra2W3j

Whether this is the same person as the one referenced in BIOS, whether the contact info is still current, whether that person would take kindly to being contacted about this and, finally, whether he could provide any useful/interesting info are all open questions .

Reply 2 of 12, by MRVFONE

Posted on 2022-05-31, 07:13

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Well looks like i read the chips wrong!! OPPS! its actually a VL82C320 and a VL82C331 !!! Thanks guys for noticeing this.... now i might find more info! Maybe even its "Name" of the chipset....

9110 must be the date code? 10 week 1991 ??

Tim.

Reply 3 of 12, by mkarcher

Posted on 2022-05-31, 12:49

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MRVFONE wrote on 2022-05-31, 07:13:

Well looks like i read the chips wrong!! OPPS! its actually a VL82C320 and a VL82C331 !!! Thanks guys for noticeing this.... now i might find more info! Maybe even its "Name" of the chipset....

You should find more info now. That's the TOPCAT chipset by VLSI, in the "SX" variant, datasheets are available on the Interwebz. These chips were later licensed to Intel and also manufactured as Intel 82343 and 82344.

Reply 4 of 12, by MRVFONE

Posted on 2022-06-01, 06:08

MRVFONE Offline

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1                         
2// 80386 BIOS Version 3.10 Rev. 2.06 (BIOS not original, works in PEM 2530)
3	// additional info from chukaev.ru54.com: CPUBT-S26361-D548 (Siemens?) - Chipset: VL82C320A, VL82C331, VL16C452B - CPU: NG80386SX-20, socket for 80387SX
4	ROM_SYSTEM_BIOS(1, "pem2530", "DTK PEM 2530")
5	ROMX_LOAD( "386-dtk pem-2530-high_32k.bin", 0x10000, 0x8000, CRC(56a822c0) SHA1(b65797c0f87a0815b393758af9c059e6d7172ae9), ROM_SKIP(1) | ROM_BIOS(1))
6	ROMX_LOAD( "386-dtk pem-2530-low_32k.bin", 0x10001, 0x8000, CRC(8688d883) SHA1(c3034c8b343786cb89de48fb2f4992160414f89e), ROM_SKIP(1) | ROM_BIOS(1))
7

I found this in Mame Source. https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/s … /drivers/at.cpp

But i can't find these 2 files in pem2530.zip ?????

Tim.

Reply 5 of 12, by Anonymous Coward

Posted on 2022-06-01, 08:33

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I'm pretty sure MR-BIOS for Topcat SX is available.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 6 of 12, by MRVFONE

Posted on 2022-06-01, 09:52

MRVFONE Offline

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The issue i'm seeing is not all BIOS support the com/lpt/ps2 etc ports expansion chip that my board has with it. So i'm trying to find as many as i can and see what works.... i'm trying to download the full mame copy to see if it has these bios file in it. So far i have been unable to find anywere free that i can just download both files....

Reply 7 of 12, by thecheese2022

Posted on 2022-08-13, 18:14

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could you take motherboard picture front and back?

Reply 8 of 12, by rasz_pl

Posted on 2022-08-14, 00:51

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pcem_v10_clean_roms_pack.7z\pcem_v10_clean_roms_pack\roms.zip\dtk386\3cto001.bin
NEAT CHIP SET CONFIGURATION
DTK Corp. 386sx COMPUTER
DTK 386sx Chipset ROM BIOS Version 4.26
(C)1988/90 Datatech Enterprises Co., Ltd.
#96120590N

so probably not the file you are looking for

here is teh PEM one Re: 80386 BIOS image collection

Open Source AT&T Globalyst/NCR/FIC 486-GAC-2 proprietary Cache Module reproduction

Reply 9 of 12, by Horun

Posted on 2022-11-25, 23:03

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Found the Samsung Setup and memory driver for Sensor 386, uploaded to Vogons with my collection of old Samsung stuff: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … 963&menustate=0
SETUP386.EXE 19,917 Setup Program Samsung Sensor 386
MEMSP386.EXE 24,651 Memory Manager Sensor 386

Inside the Setup.exe has:
" Phoenix Technologies ROM Based Setup Program Written by Eric A. Shoaf-Enge .9.X... Phoenix Technologies Ltd. .. System Configuration Setup V4.02"

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 10 of 12, by Horun

Posted on 2023-10-23, 01:18

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Anonymous Coward wrote on 2022-06-01, 08:33:

I'm pretty sure MR-BIOS for Topcat SX is available.

Sorry to necro but have not found any MR TOPCAT bios, if you have a link would be nice 😀

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 11 of 12, by Anonymous Coward

Posted on 2023-10-23, 05:43

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V019B301 VLSI301 VLSI TOPCAT / Intel-340 386 SX/DX, non-cache
V019B302 VLSI302 VLSI TOPCAT / Intel-340 386 SX/DX, non-cache, with 82C106 combo chip
V019B312 VLSI312 VLSI TOPCAT / Intel-340 386 SX/DX, 385 cache, with 82C106 combo chip

These notes indicate the ROMS are for both the SX and DX version.
I assume your board is cacheless, so try the first one.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 12 of 12, by majestyk

Posted on 2023-10-23, 05:48

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There are 3 different files for 3xx and 3 for 4xx VLSI Topcat. The files should be easy to find in the common MR BIOS collections :

They are all 64K, so need to be split here for 2 x 32K EPROMs.

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