Original canonical IBM EGA with 64 KB of video RAM

Susanin79 wrote on 2022-02-22, 21:35:

Original canonical IBM EGA with 64 KB of video RAM

Please try this version 2.21:

Thank you!
Now it is much better. FDD is OK and it does not crash while detecting videoadapter
see debug attached

Susanin79 wrote on 2022-02-22, 23:12:

Thank you!
Now it is much better. FDD is OK and it does not crash while detecting videoadapter
see debug attached

Perfect 😀 Thanks for the feedback!

Tested this on an original IBM PC/AT.

Was pleased with how well it worked. Enumerated the RAM from my third party expansion card correctly, even.

It did not like trying to inspect my video card, however. Caused the whole system to glitch out. It's some generic EGA card, I'll have to check the model again and post it.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2022-04-29, 15:31:

Tested this on an original IBM PC/AT.

Was pleased with how well it worked. Enumerated the RAM from my third party expansion card correctly, even.

It did not like trying to inspect my video card, however. Caused the whole system to glitch out. It's some generic EGA card, I'll have to check the model again and post it.

Thanks for the feedback. Would be great if you could attach a report file + DBG. Also if it's possible to spot at which "Checking.." the glitch happened.

I tested on EMM’s 8088 system, mostly no issues, but it did say there was a 5.25 inch floppy drive (and controller), but I have neither a controller nor a drive. It also didn’t detect Sergey Kiselev’s network card unless I had the packet driver installed. Also not sure about my sound card, it is a Blasterboard, it showed up as an Adlib board.

Next test, my Tandy 1000TX with hard card.

Fziffle wrote on 2022-06-30, 22:48:

I tested on EMM’s 8088 system, mostly no issues, but it did say there was a 5.25 inch floppy drive (and controller), but I have neither a controller nor a drive. It also didn’t detect Sergey Kiselev’s network card unless I had the packet driver installed. Also not sure about my sound card, it is a Blasterboard, it showed up as an Adlib board.

Next test, my Tandy 1000TX with hard card.

Thanks for the feedback. Could you please attach the LOG+DBG file of that system? I will check that to see if there's something I can improve..

Attached are the files for EMM8088 machine, after network packet driver loaded.

Note that the network card is configured for jumperless configuration, and is configured by RSET8019.EXE.

Schematics, info on EMM8088: https://github.com/homebrew8088/8088-PC-Compatible
Schematics, info on network card: https://github.com/skiselev/isa8_eth
Schematics, info on BlasterBoad: https://github.com/labs-lv/blasterboard

Note the keyboard controller wasn't detected, datasheet on it is in the repo, https://github.com/homebrew8088/8088-PC-Compa … conrtroller.pdf

Fziffle wrote on 2022-07-01, 12:33:

Attached are the files for EMM8088 machine, after network packet driver loaded. […]
Show full quote

Attached are the files for EMM8088 machine, after network packet driver loaded.

Note that the network card is configured for jumperless configuration, and is configured by RSET8019.EXE.

Schematics, info on EMM8088: https://github.com/homebrew8088/8088-PC-Compatible
Schematics, info on network card: https://github.com/skiselev/isa8_eth
Schematics, info on BlasterBoad: https://github.com/labs-lv/blasterboard

Note the keyboard controller wasn't detected, datasheet on it is in the repo, https://github.com/homebrew8088/8088-PC-Compa … conrtroller.pdf

Thanks! I should be able to ID the network card as ISA8 Ethernet, but probably won't be able to improve the other things.
BlasterBoad should be SB-compatible so I'm wondering why it wasn't found as such. Could you try the latest HWiNFO16 version?

I assume that I have the latest, downloaded from hwinfo.com, verion 6.20 (even though report shows 1.7)

That's the version bundled with latest HWiNFO for DOS, but a newer HWINFO16 version can be found in the initial post of this thread: Introducing HWiNFO16 (for 8086/88/186/188/286)

OK, attached is the updated version from the start of the thread.

Fziffle wrote on 2022-07-03, 14:18:

OK, attached is the updated version from the start of the thread.

Thanks. I'm looking into the misreporting of floppy drive but according to the 8088-PC BIOS source code you provided above it seems that it's a problem of the BIOS which always report a floppy drive present:
https://github.com/homebrew8088/8088-PC-Compa … os_data.asm#L15

Actually, I’m using the universal v40 bios from hakfoo, up a level in the repo, which then points to https://github.com/homebrew8088/8088-PC-Compa … hakfoo_modified. But still, I can see your point. Have you tried probing the ports for the floppy controller? I recall seeing one newer 8 bit ISA floppy controller that had two controllers on it… don’t know why you’d want that myna floppies. Ok, maybe I do. One 360k, one 720k, one 1.2mb, one 1.4mb, one 8 inch single density , one 8 inch double density double sided…

Mumak,

I re-ran the test on my IBM PC/AT 5170.

It has this EGA card: http://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/component … 499-g2-gc201-pc

Attached are the debug and log files. The report screen is not much help since it just displays the same glitched out characters that I see on the monitor.

Update:

I ran it again using the 2.21 version attached above. Now it doesn't glitch out, but it also doesn't know what model my EGA card is. Just says Unknown. Not that that's a huge problem, this one is pretty obscure.

Logs attached again.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2022-09-24, 22:24:

Update:

I ran it again using the 2.21 version attached above. Now it doesn't glitch out, but it also doesn't know what model my EGA card is. Just says Unknown. Not that that's a huge problem, this one is pretty obscure.

Logs attached again.

Thanks. I don't think it's possible to identify model of such early cards using software. They all share the same register layout and don't have any unique registers that would allow to determine a difference using software.

Tried it last night and it was great. I have a question thou, why can't I select the video card?

dominusprog wrote on 2023-11-09, 07:46:

Tried it last night and it was great. I have a question thou, why can't I select the video card?

What exactly do you mean? Which video card is that?