VOGONS


First post, by Nikaotix

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I've got a C&T 386SX motherboard with the 82C711 integrated IDE/Floppy/Serial/Parallel controller chip, but the BIOS menu doesn't have configuration options for the chipset. I've looked at the datasheet and it's definitely possible to configure the peripherals at runtime, but I don't have much experience with x86 assembly language/building DOS executables. Before I jump down that rabbit hole, is there an existing utility for configuring this chipset in DOS?

Reply 1 of 6, by Horun

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Can you post a picture of your board ? For some older 386 boards there are utilities to alter items in BIOS but they are mostly board specific, do not know of one specific to the 82C711 chip.
added: most of the older 386/486 ISA boards have jumpers to enable/disable onboard parts, a few of mine do because their BIOS is too old to control things like later PCI BIOS boards.

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 Nikaotix

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Here's a link to the STASON page on my motherboard: https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/M/M … HING-BOARD.html - unless the W2/W3/W6 jumpers are used to enable/disable these features, there doesn't appear to be a way to do this via jumpers. I've found the datasheet for the 82C711 as well https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~theom/ris … docs/82c711.pdf, and that documents how an application could change the config. That datasheet also shows the jumper config options for this chip, and it doesn't seem like there are enough jumpers (W2/W3/W6) to even properly configure the peripherials that way.

Reply 3 of 6, by Horun

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I still would like a good picture of your board.... and just read through the datasheet, very flexible chips ! So my guess is you want to be able to alter the COM ports and Printer Port ?
From what I read the 82c711 used registers that could be programmed and the 82c712 was jumper set for those same functions.
Will dig around and see if some other C&T board has a 82c711 with some utility...

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 4 of 6, by jakethompson1

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Based on p. 46 of the datasheet you showed, you should be able to read the CR0-CR3 registers by running DEBUG and punching this in. When finished, the BX= value will be CR0 and CR1, and the CX= value will be CR2 and CR3. If you post back what they are you can cross-reference with the datasheet and see if they look like sensible values (i.e., is this working) and then figure out what about the configuration it is you want to change.

A
MOV DX,3F0
MOV AL,55
OUT DX,AL
OUT DX,AL
XOR AL,AL
OUT DX,AL
INC DX
IN AL,DX
MOV BH,AL
DEC DX
MOV AL,1
OUT DX,AL
INC DX
IN AL,DX
MOV BL,AL
DEC DX
MOV AL,2
OUT DX,AL
INC DX
IN AL,DX
MOV CH,AL
DEC DX
MOV AL,3
OUT DX,AL
INC DX
IN AL,DX
MOV CL,AL
DEC DX
MOV AL,AA
OUT DX,AL
INT3
<blank line here>
G

Reply 6 of 6, by Nikaotix

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Values are BX=BBBF and CX=ED00, which seem to make sense - the debug/test registers are all disabled. I think I can write out a text file that I can run with DEBUG at startup to disable the peripherals that I want disabled. I’ll update again once I have that working. Thanks for the help!