VOGONS


First post, by Jed118

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Hey all, I just rebuilt a very similar computer to what I had in 1996 as a teenager and yeah, super amped about this NCR 386, SX 16 (mine was a DX back in the day) and the nostalgia is very very strong here!

qVq5k4n.jpg

CqbWLeB.jpg

There's a card in every slot! And it does have USB! I wonder if this is causing some DMA conflict with the scanner...

HAUJc8v.jpg

In any case, how do I enter the Type 47 and Type 46 CHS values? Is there a trick? Somehow in my pile of old stuff I found a Type 45 hard disk (42Mb) that actually worked, but I'm sure the old Maxtor 8057A will die one day. I mean, there is an active Adaptec controller on the soundcard so I can always SCSI2SD it, but I would like to be able to enter the values.

0SguUZk.jpg

Any ideas? I tried all those things at the bottom of the screen, tab, arrow keys, etc. Nothing allows me to move into the fields marked 0.

Youtube channel- The Kombinator
What's for sale? my eBay!

Reply 1 of 3, by fastopen

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Hi,

Rare things on this computer... First it seems external case (from NCR PC810 and 386 ones) is fitted on NCR PC8 chasis because as I remember that orange button is from PC8 version. Second that BIOS is not the genuine NCR bios, so it is possible that maybe inside the computer someone put another BIOS chip on your NCR card, if it is a NCR card. If you share some inside pictures I can clarify you. NCR bios for these computers does not accept CHS configurations, only types 1 to 47

regards

Last edited by fastopen on 2023-11-17, 23:59. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 2 of 3, by maxtherabbit

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

it may simply not be possible, not all BIOS allows custom type entry

sometimes you had to actually patch the values directly into the EPROM with a programmer

Reply 3 of 3, by Jed118

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I played with it some more, and for now, I will leave it, as I plan on swapping in a DX-20 or 25 MHz with a better BIOS. The original motherboard that came with it had some bodging done to some kind of resistor network on a 4x4 slot, I don't know what went on there but it looked melted. The OG board didn't POST, so I put in this random SX 16 386 which was at least era correct. I need also to get a volume control knob, and I also added a turbo and reset switch above the LED lights, I had no idea the power LED turned orange with turbo off - on my original system, I didn't know of any way to enable the turbo.

Youtube channel- The Kombinator
What's for sale? my eBay!