Ack... all that rom burning sounds scary.
My video bios is Phoenix on my T5200, so I assume the bios is also Phoenix.
I worked up the courage to open the back and remove the network card. It's an artisoft card, and no boot ROM installed. I ordered the paradise max ide controller, so I suppose I could try putting its rom in this card. This laptop is set up for a LANtastic network, and the net card has a jumper set to "C-NET" with another option being "E-NET". It has no RJ45 connector (just BNC and AAUI), so I'd need an AAUI to RJ45 adapter of some kind.
Sad news; my SB CT1350B sound blaster card is too long to fit in the 8 bit slot.
So, unless and until I can find an AdLib or an older (shorter) sound blaster, speakers only. (I may get one of those OPL2LPT boards, however).
Unless I can find an 8 bit network card, so I can put an ad lib in the 16 bit slot. But, this means I can put an XTIDE in the 8 bit slot if necessary.
I have a 3Com 3c590B-TPO net card I was going to put in in place of the artisoft card. But, it has no socket for a boot rom. There is a tiny chip on it labelled CY6264-70snc. I looked that up on the internet, and it seems its some kind of CMOS static ram. If so, it's probably only 64k. But, I'm wondering if it's supposed to be some kind of boot rom that's software programmable?
I need to order that battery for the cmos so I can work up the courage to open up the whole machine and replace it.
The hard drive only has 8mb left on it, but there's a ton of stuff on there I can delete. I just wanted to back up the hard drive before deleting anything.