VOGONS


First post, by Luffym17

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I just recently found out about the AMI winbios and it looks awesome. However, I can't seem to find a ss7 motherboard with that particular bios. I'm only finding award bios. Any ideas? 😕

Reply 1 of 23, by meljor

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I have that on my 486 pci (acer/aopen ap43), never saw that on a 7 or super 7.

Edit: after searching Google i can find some s7 boards like pcchips m575 that used it, no ss7 up to now.. also a slot1 exists : P6SBA

Last edited by meljor on 2017-02-17, 10:37. Edited 1 time in total.

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asus p5a, k6-3+ @ 550mhz, voodoo2 12mb sli, gf2 gts, awe32
asus p3b-f, p3-700, voodoo3 3500TV agp, awe64
asus tusl2-c, p3-S 1,4ghz, voodoo5 5500, live!
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Reply 2 of 23, by Luffym17

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Nice. I've seen a few regular socket 7 motherboards with the AMI winbios. I'm buliding a 4 in 1 retro pc like phill did in his video with more of an at form factor and beige color scheme, and I thought that bios would be cool to have on it. I did find a slot 1 motherboard that has that bios with a pentium 3 on ebay, but I'm more interested in being able to under clock and overclock the processor instead of it being locked.

Reply 3 of 23, by meljor

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yeah, supermicro seemed to like it (using it on the slot1 board) but otherwise it was getting a bit old and the award became more popular. It was mostly seen on Sis based boards anyway it seems as that is all i can find and my 486 also has a sis chipset.

asus tx97-e, 233mmx, voodoo1, s3 virge ,sb16
asus p5a, k6-3+ @ 550mhz, voodoo2 12mb sli, gf2 gts, awe32
asus p3b-f, p3-700, voodoo3 3500TV agp, awe64
asus tusl2-c, p3-S 1,4ghz, voodoo5 5500, live!
asus a7n8x DL, barton cpu, 6800ultra, Voodoo3 pci, audigy1

Reply 4 of 23, by Luffym17

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Well, I am learning programming so I might just program my own bios that uses this interface for the asus p5a as that's the motherboard I'm looking at using. My build will probably be a hack job as I plan on using an at cases front bezel on an 8 way atx chassis. Its going to be a fun project all together. I'm pretty much building the retro computer of my dreams. When my build is finished, I plan on posting it here.

Reply 5 of 23, by Jo22

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I had it on my 486 machine with MS4143 mainboard (ALI chipset). PCem also has it, too.
In case you're wondering about it's graphics mode..
It's not using graphics mode actually, but rather text mode with special glyphs. 😉

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Reply 6 of 23, by .legaCy

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Jo22 wrote:

I had it on my 486 machine with MS4143 mainboard (ALI chipset). PCem also has it, too.
In case you're wondering about it's graphics mode..
It's not using graphics mode actually, but rather text mode with special glyphs. 😉

Text mode with special glyphs to simulate a graphics mode remember me of the first deskmate version.

Reply 8 of 23, by TheMobRules

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meljor wrote:

yeah, supermicro seemed to like it (using it on the slot1 board) but otherwise it was getting a bit old and the award became more popular. It was mostly seen on Sis based boards anyway it seems as that is all i can find and my 486 also has a sis chipset.

I also have the AMI WinBIOS in a couple of 486 boards with UMC chipset (one VLB and one PCI).

Luffym17 wrote:

Well, I am learning programming so I might just program my own bios that uses this interface for the asus p5a as that's the motherboard I'm looking at using.

I don't mean to discourage you, but how are you planning to do that? Programming a BIOS is not a trivial task, especially considering that the motherboard uses one with a completely different interface than the one you want. Patching a BIOS is one thing, but coding one from scratch is a LOT of work.

Reply 10 of 23, by Luffym17

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I get it wouldn't be an easy task. I honestly have been asking myself if it would be worth it or not tbh. Ether way, it looks like I may have to just deal with award bios. I looked into flashing an amibios on it but they never made one for the motherboard, and patching bios not made for the motherboard as I read can brick it. If I just have to deal with the bios, I can do that. Its just that the amibios looked so cool that I thought it would be cool to have it on my retro build, recoding the bios seems to be a bad idea since messing up on some vital code could brick the motherboard which I'm not sure I want to risk tbh.

Reply 12 of 23, by Luffym17

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Ah, I understand, as I said, I just found out about it and I like the interface cuz it just looks cool to me and award is kinda starting to get boring after seeing it on a pentium 4 machine. Maybe it wont bother me that much as I do know how to use the award bios.

Reply 13 of 23, by gdjacobs

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Try the pre WinBIOS stuff from AMI. It's awesome. The colors will make you blind.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 14 of 23, by Luffym17

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Actually, maybe I could use a slot 1 processor. Is there an unlocked 400mhz or 450mhz version of the Pentium ii. I could use for my project since I'm thinking of just using a Super Micro slot 1 motherboard for my retro pc instead. Just would rather use an unlocked processor for underclocking and overclocking.

Reply 17 of 23, by Tetrium

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Luffym17 wrote:

I just found an unlocked slot 1 processor on ebay. the SL2S7 Pentium ii at 400mhz! Now I can use a motherboard with the same bios and slot amount of 8!

What's the date code of your CPU and which multipliers do you have working? And which board are you testing it?

And do you have the actual CPU or did you mean you just ordered it and it hasn't arrived yet?

Btw I kinda liked that WinBios. It's kinda clunky but I thought it was an easy way to test mouses to see if they worked 🤣

meljor wrote:

I have that on my 486 pci (acer/aopen ap43), never saw that on a 7 or super 7.

Same here on my AP43, it was a big surprise to me as I wasn't really expecting a BIOS like that to even exist 😁

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Reply 18 of 23, by Luffym17

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I did some research on it and I read that it was unlocked so I'm thinking about ordering it with the motherboard. The board is a Super Micro Motherboard P6SBU and it even has onboard scsi.

Reply 19 of 23, by torindkflt

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IIRC, Ami WinBIOS was a very short-lived experiment of sorts, and fell out of favor because in the process of making it an "easier to use GUI" they had actually removed some functionality that power users demanded. Kinda like how Microsoft Bob had dumbed things down too much in their attempt to make Windows easier to use. That said, I highly doubt it survived into the SS7 era, as from the sound of it, it barely made it into vanilla socket 7 territory.

I've only ever seen two computers in person with WinBIOS on it, that being the 486 from my childhood and my current recreation of that system, both running a QDI motherboard with the Opti 895 chipset.