VOGONS


First post, by Anonymous Coward

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The majority of the Baby Screamer motherboards I see out there are REV B, but I was pretty sure at least one person here on VOGONS has REV C. It's easy to tell if it's a REV C at first glance as the stickers covering the BIOS chips are black and silver, rather than silver and blue.

I would really like to get a BIOS dump from a REV C board. I own a REV B, and I am curious if the REV C BIOS will work in a REV B board and I want to see if there are any interesting upgrades. The main problem with the AMI BIOS on my board is that it doesn't really let you tinker around. It's more or less an OEM BIOS. There should be additional features to unlock, but I don't think AMISETUP worked on my board and I've been looking for V2.1 of the AMIBCP customisation utility for years without any luck. The missing feature I really need is the ability to adjust the ISA clock. The manual for the Baby Screamer indicates the ISA bus will operate at 1/4 the CPU speed regardless of which CPU you have, and there are no jumpers on the board to change it. I traced the CLK signal from the ISA bus through a few ICs and back to the chipset. According to the chipset manual, the ISA clock divider can be changed, so it's a mystery why AMI decided to lock that feature. Also, it would be nice to adjust memory timings, but admittedly performance is already top notch.

Recently the MR-BIOS repository was updated and included BIOS files for the VLSI Topcat chipset which the Baby Screamer uses, however Topcat does not include a cache controller, and the only Topcat BIOS which supports cache uses an i385 controller. It's not really clear what cache controller the Baby Screamer actually uses, but it appears like it might be a custom IC from AMI.

So, if you have a REV C board please send me a PM.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 1 of 4, by Anonymous Coward

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Okay, I found the member with the Rev C board. He hasn't been active for a year or two, but hopefully he'll reply to my PM. If I manage to get a dump of the BIOS I will post the results here.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 2 of 4, by Anonymous Coward

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Here it is.

It seems to be the same BIOS from the Rev B board.
Strangely it's dated 07/07/91. A 12/12/91 is available on Rev B.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 3 of 4, by Anonymous Coward

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Since several versions of AMIBCP has been found, I'd just like to note that the 07/07/91 release of the BIOS for this board needs AMIBCP V1.4, while the later 12/12/91 release requires AMIBCP V2.0. It's not really clear what was changed between the two releases, as all the options in the setup appear to be the same. Anyone know if there are AMI bulletins that explain the difference?

Also, I found two motherboards which use the same chipset and cache controller as the Baby Screamer. They are the Northgate Elegance SP, and the TP Enterprise Sonic 486. BIOS dumps from both boards had the same AMI BIOS dated 05/05/91, with more options hidden than the Baby Screamer. I think one of them allowed the setting of memory wait states using jumpers. The TP Enterprise cache controller reads "Northport Tech Inc 82SC380". The AMI Baby Screamer cache controller was remarked by AMI, so I assume Northport is the the company that actually made it. It would be nice if either of these two boards was available with Award BIOS. Sadly MR BIOS for the TOPCAT chipset only supports the i385 cache controller.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 4 of 4, by jakethompson1

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Anonymous Coward wrote on 2026-07-28, 13:16:

Since several versions of AMIBCP has been found, I'd just like to note that the 07/07/91 release of the BIOS for this board needs AMIBCP V1.4, while the later 12/12/91 release requires AMIBCP V2.0. It's not really clear what was changed between the two releases, as all the options in the setup appear to be the same. Anyone know if there are AMI bulletins that explain the difference?

https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ameri … MIBIOS_1993.pdf Appendix C