AlessandroB wrote on 2024-07-30, 12:42:

The only my BIG Problem is the lack of time to study and try.... for example now i must quit this "game" for almost a week...

thanks a lot

EZ Drive 9.09 will be a big time saver if you are just doing Dos, Win3.x , & Win9x. It has a very high success rate on the first try, it's not going to require shadowing, EEPROM flashing, or UMB configuration, it's got almost all the same features as XTide Universal BIOS and it will likely be 3-5% faster that the best optimized XUB install on your system.

At the cost of a few KB of conventional memory, and having to do a special process to boot from floppies afterward. 😜

wierd_w wrote on 2024-07-30, 12:51:

At the cost of a few KB of conventional memory, and having to do a special process to boot from floppies afterward. 😜

Yes, it does consume 3KB of conventional memory and you have to hit the Ctrl key before you can boot from a floppy. Quite correct.

douglar wrote on 2024-07-30, 12:49:

EZ Drive 9.09 will be a big time saver if you are just doing Dos, Win3.x , & Win9x.

It's the third time I believe that DDO was proposed in a 3-page thread, but OP clearly said he doesn't want to take the software route.

AlessandroB wrote on 2024-07-28, 10:17:

I want to use only an Hardware solution.

He prefers to use a ROM that contains... oh wait 😄

konc wrote on 2024-07-30, 14:30:

It's the third time I believe that DDO was proposed in a 3-page thread, but OP clearly said he doesn't want to take the software […]
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douglar wrote on 2024-07-30, 12:49:

EZ Drive 9.09 will be a big time saver if you are just doing Dos, Win3.x , & Win9x.

It's the third time I believe that DDO was proposed in a 3-page thread, but OP clearly said he doesn't want to take the software route.

AlessandroB wrote on 2024-07-28, 10:17:

I want to use only an Hardware solution.

He prefers to use a ROM that contains... oh wait 😄

yes a prefer… i’m an hardware guy.

I did one last test before putting the project on hold. Inserting the red card (and with the eeprom inserted) and connecting a 4GB compact flash to the integrated ide ribbon on the maimbord... the computer stops at boot, about halfway, even before showing me the xt-ide bios

AlessandroB wrote on 2024-07-30, 14:56:

I did one last test before putting the project on hold. Inserting the red card (and with the eeprom inserted) and connecting a 4GB compact flash to the integrated ide ribbon on the maimbord... the computer stops at boot, about halfway, even before showing me the xt-ide bios

Looks like you are in for a challenge. I saw something similar on a 386sx once. Here's my notes on that issue, in case it helps you some how. I have a diagnostic card that gives extra visibility into the POST/BOOT process.

• Here is the troublesome board: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/jc-inf … -ii-model-2050b
• If a large drive was attached to the the ISA bus with the factory BIOS (Chips v2.3.1) and I made any entry into the BIOS drive table, the boot process would usually stick at a post code 70 followed by a drive controller error message, but sometimes it would get to post code 94, then start endlessly running the A: drive & hard lock.
• Replaced the factory ROM with MR Bios 1.65 V032B300 and it would autodetect the drive, even with cylinders over 1024, but it still wouldn't boot if the entry in the BIOS drive table had cylinders > 1024.
• I tried creating a drive with cylinders < 1024 in the BIOS drive table and installing EZDrive but it would lock at autodetect.
• Installed EZDrive on a drive on another computer and carried the drive over. The overlay would load but it would lock when trying to boot.
• Tried putting the XTIDE Universal BIOS 623 on a LAN adapter. It could detect the drive at boot but it locked when it tried to boot from the drive. Tried both the 386 & AT versions of XTide. Tried Dos 7.1 and Dos 7.1 with ez drive.
• I was finally able to get EZ drive installed if I left the BIOS drive table empty, used SIIG Enhanced BIOS instead of XUB: http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=1816
• At that point, everything worked fine with MR Bios, SIIG Enhanced BIOS 1.05, and EZ Drive 9.09. Needed all three to work. Couldn't find any other combination that worked.

Speaking of "Runnins DOS from a CF card":

One of the cutest little DOS systems I still have began life as an "AASTRA"
office telephone system - it was being used by a company I was working with,
and they decided to decommission it - naturally I brought it home.

It ran XP from a little 1or2gig flash memory card (which I have so
presumably I have all the drivers etc. that I'd need to put XT on it).
But.. under that card was a socket for a CF memory card. I put in a
64M card and it found it, looked like a hard drive - so I put DOS on
it! There's also a full IDE connector. Hardware it has:
Std PS2 Keyboard and Mouse ports
512M RAM
Via C7 1000mhz CPU ( so far seems quite 80x86 compatible)
Via-3058 AC97 Audio (haven't played with it)
- Audio IN/OUT jacks on back
Via-3043 LAN (I found a packet driver "FETPKT" which says "Via Rhine")
- RJ-45 on back
- This lets me use DDDLINK to eassily put stuff ON/OFF
4 USB ports on back
- BIOS natively supports USB Floppy, CDROM, Storage, Keyboard, Mouse
Never took the time to find out what video it has, BIOS mentioins AGP
but doesn't give more datail - I've got stuff that uses VGA 640x480 and that
works fine!

Photos attached
AASTRA .JPGi s the system itself (5.25" floppy drive on top to show size) - lower is back-panel
INSIDE.JPG is the mainboard

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

... I found a minimalist seabios implementation for a minnowboard max, and flashed it some time back, giving that atom based mini SoC realmode opportunity.

I have been meaning to test SBEMU on it for awhile now... it's stock with 2gb ram. A little high, but on the exact edge of acceptable.

It can boot from a microSD...