VOGONS


First post, by bostonvintage1993

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Hi all,

I have been looking for the Micro Firmware BIOS files listed here for a very long time: https://www.rigacci.org/docs/biblio/online/fi … are/mfibios.htm All of the latest BIOS updates are available on the web, but they all require a previous version of the BIOS to be installed on the given system. I am looking for the non-update-only versions of these Micro Firmware BIOS for vintage systems. Or, a way to bypass the necessity for a previous Micro Firmware BIOS to be resident on the machine. I would really appreciate any help with this archival project, it would be awesome to archive these BIOS for future generations. Any reply would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much.

-bostonvintage1993

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Reply 1 of 6, by Horun

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I had a small collection but they were lost when a HD died. Your idea of collecting the few dozen known Micro Firmware bios updates is a novel idea.
TBH: I never found them that special since all they had were possible larger HD support on some boards (going from 540MB/2Gb max to 8.4Gb) . Which many did with later BIOS releases anyway....
Also: All were based on Phoenix BIOS (which I somewhat loathe compared to Award) and offered no better CPU support than the original boards BIOS so I never saved them in multi places.
Same as you: still have the access to the "upgrades" and what is even better is access to the original restore disks they released to get the specific boards back to booting if you bricked the bios while trying to update bios....
Because they charged a lot for their bios, and were very serialized so the "one use" are long gone and is no wonder they are rare.
Have stumbled on a few boards with them (how I got mine) and think Theretroweb has some that were commercially included and saved by members but to seek them out may be hard.
Ok rambled enough....

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 2 of 6, by RyanH-Nostalgia

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Hi there, I am new to vogons and I have a question for vogons user Horun, you mentioned that you have a motherboard with a Micro Firmware BIOS. what version number of BIOS do you currently have on yours?

Reply 3 of 6, by hyoenmadan

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Phoenix BIOSes have always allow to update board firmware in a "per module" basis. This is why "upgrade only" Micro Firmware files based in Phoenix BIOSes need the original chips acquired from them. Them aren't complete firmware images. The same applies to their "INT13H/Y2k upgrade" cards. Unless they offered a restore BIOS disk (some of them still check the serial burnt in the original chip, you will have to find a way to bypass the check and decrypt the restore file), you will forcefully need the original chip bought from them (if it failed, with your SerNo. you were entitled to order a new chip. You never got to get unlocked BIN files to flash on clean chips from them). That's why I also asked long time ago for anyone having a Micro Firmware INT13H/Y2K card to dump their chips before throwing their cards to the bin.

In general, USA firmware vendors have always been a hassle to work with. Not only Phoenix, but also General, Whiz, and all the OEM vendors which supply their own firmware to their devices. Taiwanese, like Award or AMI are more handy as most of their modbin tools leaked in customization kits, source leaks and such. Their updates generally are also complete binary images which can be flashed directly to clean chips.

Reply 4 of 6, by igully

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There is a simple reason why all these vendors are hesitant to freely supply their BIOSes or advice: it is part of their product portfolio and a relevant part of their income stream. They not only license you a default preconfigured "ROMs", but they also offer customization services, customer assistance services, upgrade services, and kits to automate "ROM" builds.

So yes, they are a hassle to work with because you are not their customer, just a user of their products in a niche segment. They are not being nasty, it is that they need to pay the bills and shareholders are always looking whom to blame with CEOs hunting for additional income and cost cutting opportunities. It is a very competitive market with lots of players and small margins.

Reply 5 of 6, by hyoenmadan

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igully wrote on 2024-09-30, 22:04:

So yes, they are a hassle to work with because you are not their customer, just a user of their products in a niche segment. They are not being nasty, it is that they need to pay the bills and shareholders are always looking whom to blame with CEOs hunting for additional income and cost cutting opportunities. It is a very competitive market with lots of players and small margins.

I never said they were being "nasties", I only said their products are a hassle to maintain (read recover, repair, upgrade or patch to fix code problems on them). After all they are business as you said, they can, and have their respectable motives for what they do.

But this "just one user of their products in a niche segment" also have, and gave his opinion on their ways and motives. I would care less if they can't meet their expectations of their shareholders. Just like this "one niche user" isn't their problem, their problems aren't MY problem. The reality for everyone in the retro repair community is that AMI and Award BIOSes from "white box OEM" board manufacturers are the most easy to work with, with Award BIOSes being the clear winners. From the recovery of missing ROM chips with with widely available, uncrypted binary images in the net, to even decompress, disassemble, patch, reassemble and recompress the binary images to solve code bugs in core functionality and features.

Now, I understand Micro Firmware special case, as their main business was offering firmware upgrade services, and resellers of specific products like PCMCIA Cardware drivers, Y2K/Int13 update cards, USB and Firewire stacks for DOS, etc. I get they had to protect their business. They weren't mainboard vendors. Also, there is the difficult, but existing alternative to get the original mainboard vendor firmware images for the boards their product updates, and generally is possible to make 3rd party patches for these vendor provided images, as these boards original BIOSes were mostly AMI or Award. People have a choice to dump and use Micro Firmware firmware images on other boards, or patch the originals coming with the board.

But I'm sorry I can't shred a tear and tell the same for the Phoenix conglomerate and their "poor poor" shareholders.

PD: Now, about the main topic... Probably everyone here already knows, but many CPU upgrade kits from Evergreen and others came with a CD which basically was a "repository" of complete and updated firmware images from Micro Firmware. It seems these are full binary images, but them are encrypted files, so them can't be used to directly flash to clean chips on boards without ROM, or with faulty ROM. But them still can be used to update working boards. And someone can dump the chips of the updated boards with the Micro Firmware utility for anyone requesting help for a board with a dead ROM chip.

Also, and unfortunately these CDs don't have all the files offered by Micro Firmware on them as well. The excluded files are mostly Phoenix BIOS ROMs again.

Reply 6 of 6, by vetz

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I had a look inside one of these upgrade files and to me it looks like the whole BIOS is contained inside INSTALL.EXE unencrypted along with an installation/flash utility to check for the BIOS string on the motherboard. I'm no expect in BIOS files, but I can read the strings as I can on a .bin file.

So to me if you have a TI866 programmer it could be possible to flash it directly if you extract the BIOS contents (or use a regular Phoenix BIOS flasher program). If someone has a compatible board it would be interesting to test out. To make a good verification, comparison with an actually flashed Micro Firmware BIOS dump would be of great help.

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