VOGONS


First post, by theelf

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Hi, im looking to build the best possible computer with classic AMI color bios, socket 3... or i dont know if any pentium board exist with this bios

ami_bios_color_1992_2.jpg

any advice for boards are welcome!! in case socket 3, when i say best, i say for example 3.3v support etc PCI maybe? no idea whaat was the ami color bios top

thanks

Reply 2 of 5, by jakethompson1

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As bakemono mentioned there are some Socket 4 with it. The 08/08/93 date should be the last Color BIOS.
If modern means LBA, the 4DMU-HL3S (a fairly ordinary VLB 486 5V motherboard) has an update to add LBA. Some have diffed it to try and figure out how to backport LBA to other 08/08/93 AMIBIOS but it's just too much that was changed.
PCI would have required extensive changes to the BIOS, I doubt there is any Color with PCI.
The memory test gets annoying past 32MB or so, so it's kind of fitting for a DX2-66 with 16MB or 32MB.

Reply 3 of 5, by theelf

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bakemono wrote on Today, 01:00:

Maybe something like this? https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/ami-ex … vlb-pentium-s75

Hard to be sure if it is AMI Color BIOS without actually booting it up

Hi!! thanks, i always believe ami color bios are 64k max, thats why when i look at theretroweb discard any ami bios over 64k because i believe is a winbios, maybe im wrong!

jakethompson1 wrote on Today, 04:11:
As bakemono mentioned there are some Socket 4 with it. The 08/08/93 date should be the last Color BIOS. If modern means LBA, the […]
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As bakemono mentioned there are some Socket 4 with it. The 08/08/93 date should be the last Color BIOS.
If modern means LBA, the 4DMU-HL3S (a fairly ordinary VLB 486 5V motherboard) has an update to add LBA. Some have diffed it to try and figure out how to backport LBA to other 08/08/93 AMIBIOS but it's just too much that was changed.
PCI would have required extensive changes to the BIOS, I doubt there is any Color with PCI.
The memory test gets annoying past 32MB or so, so it's kind of fitting for a DX2-66 with 16MB or 32MB.

thanks, i dont care about LBA, I use 32GB CF card, they work well even in 286 using EZdrive. What i need is for example, in case of socket 3, use AMD 5x86 without any interposer (i dont have one) or socket 4 to use a pentium 90 or 100

About PCI is not a need but yes VLB a must, ISA is too slow

Ram 8mb or 16is fine, in fact for sure i will use 8mb, is enough for DOS+Win3.1 that i use

Reply 4 of 5, by MagefromAntares

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Hi,

I think the arrow pattern before the ":Sel" text at the bottom is specific for the AMI Colour BIOS, previous versions I think used "=" instead of ":" and later versions only have the up down arrows not the two side ones, so to check if it is AMI Colour BIOS you can do it this way:

grep -P "\x19\x1A\x18\x1B:Sel" <ROM FILE NAME>

Obviously I cannot check it with all the existing BIOS files available, so there might be exceptions, or there might be versions where that part of the ROM is compressed, but this seems to be the best method I have found.

"A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it." - Dune

Reply 5 of 5, by maxtherabbit

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bakemono wrote on Today, 01:00:

Maybe something like this? https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/ami-ex … vlb-pentium-s75

Hard to be sure if it is AMI Color BIOS without actually booting it up

Totally and completely off topic but... this quote from the manual of that board struck me as interesting:

The American Megatrends Excalibur VLB Pentium motherboard has two expansion slots for VL-Bus adapter cards. These slots are standard ISA 16-bit slots with an inline 16-bit MCA expansion socket. The two connectors make up the VL-Bus connector.

I think this is the only time I've seen a VLB implementer refer to the recycled MCA connector in their product as such.