Hehe you cant compare this. When I remember 100 g of chocolate cost 0,49 DM in the 80s ... now its 1,29€ 😉 Therefore it would be around 1000€. Which is still quite cheap for an up to date PC with Harddisk and Monitor.

Scanned the Manual.
TCI Trident Computer Inc. Oct 01 1987

Wiring diagrams are exactly the same I posted above.

Point taken! 😀 Ironically, used computers such as the Amiga now cost a fortune (again).
Now, they cost about the same as they did back in the 80s when they were new. Or even more.
That's why I mentioned the date for the exchange rate, btw. There are so many things to take into account,
to make a proper comparison, though. 😅 For example, inflation or how wealthy a country's population is at some given point in time..

Jo22 wrote:

Point taken! :) Ironically, used computers such as the Amiga now cost a fortune (again). Now, they cost about the same as they […]
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Point taken! 😀 Ironically, used computers such as the Amiga now cost a fortune (again).
Now, they cost about the same as they did back in the 80s when they were new. Or even more.
That's why I mentioned the date for the exchange rate, btw. There are so many things to take into account,
to make a proper comparison, though. 😅 For example, inflation or how wealthy a country's population is at some given point in time..

Yeah... I remember when we Danes, would drive to the German border. In order to buy cheap candy and stuff.
We still do, to an extend. The exchange rate was something in the neighbourhood of 4 Danish Kroner for 1 DM.

It's insane that Amiga's are this expensive today. 1200's in mint condition cost the same as new back then.
Though mint condition 500's only half of what they would cost when brand new. 600's about 3/4'th.
Yet the big box Amiga's (2000/3000/4000) are like 2 or 3 times more and the tower models even more.

If one can find it, then what would a tricked out Commodore A4000 Tower perhaps cost these day's?
I bet the asking price would be insanely high, as there were only produced some 200 computers in all.
My bet is at least 2500 to 2800 US Dollars for a completely tricked out mint condition. Perhaps even more.

Next one 😀 From this lot:

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Believe it or not, it looks like new and working perfectly (as most other boards from this lot). Battery also in good shape. Seller made a bad photo with the board lying on the street.

It a MORSE KP-286

BIOS is again the AMI Diagnostic ROM...will post image file later.

03/20/89 ROM DIAGNOSTICS.(C)1987, American Megatrends Inc.All rights reserved. 1346 Oakbrook Drive, Suite 120,Norcross, GA 30093, Phone-(404)-263-8181.

Got another Manual - 1€ from Ebay...

Seems to be exactly for this board...November 1988

I've found in an old floppy disk that came with my 286 which has a Suntac mobo something rather interesting :

Thanks for your upload Deksor! Seems to be the same revision I posted before.

Next boards are from this lot
Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

I have 3 of them running again in the meantime. The 4th one still stops on random error codes. They are labeled "SB-286" "SUP 1989 G". When taking a look at them they are the boards with the most features so far. They accept 3 differnt kinds of RAMs. And there even an (unpopulated) option for onboard parallel + serial ports.

Strange thing is: My keyboards do not fit. Seem to be non-standard DIN connector. Did not figure out the exact reason so far, but I assume the holes are smaller than usual.

BIOS is AMI.

(C)AMI Date :-04/25/89 (C)1985-1989, American Megatrends Inc.
SSUN-1120-04/25/89-K0
1987 AMI, for SUPERCOM

skyline486: Do you have your board running in the mean time?

Predator99 wrote:

The manual also does not really match to this exact kind of baord layout. The board in the manual does not seem to have SIP sockets.

Magitronic B236 80286 Suntac Manual.pdf

So..not a good deal, but nice to have. If somebody interested anyway, the dealer has more of these boards available...

I am sure you saw my post over in the "What retro activity did you get up to today?" thread:

What retro activity did you get up to today?

That manual you uploaded is the EXACT Suntac board that is in my beast and so super thanks for uploading it here!!! A weird thing with my Phoenix BIOS chips that are in this board is I have to manually type the amount of memory into the BIOS so it does not post with errors. Even though dip switches 6, 7 & 8 are set correctly (640K+384K Mode 3) and the memory counts up correctly in the post test you still have enter the memory values in manually in the BIOS. It was driving me crazy as the BIOS states to use the arrow keys to change the values and the numeric keypad does not work in the BIOS either so it took me awhile to figure out: 1.) You have to type the memory values in manually 2.) You can only use the top row number keys on the keyboard.

Grrr... 🤣 - Anyway on my way to getting this beast fully operational.

I have a few Suntac 286 boards coming from several 286 computers I bought as a job lot. (Details on the systems are here.)

I have two working boards so far, the other ones need repair. Here is the first one with 2MB RAM.

The second one with 4MB RAM (It also came with 2MB but I added the RAM chips from a non-working board to make a total of 4MB)

BIOS on both boards is Phoenix 3.10.22:

Thanks 😉 I think your BIOS is the most up to date so far 😉 Can you add an image please? You can extract it with NSSI or also debug.exe, let me know if you need instructions.

I'm not so familiar with the process of making images but I have NSSI, so I'll try to figure it out next time I have access to the system and post my results here.

I've finally managed to make an image of the Bios from the above board (Phoenix 3.10.22):

MMaximus wrote:

I've finally managed to make an image of the Bios from the above board (Phoenix 3.10.22):

phoenix.zip

Thanks for the upload again! I have splitted your image in the HO/LI portions and tested in my board. It powers up, but I am not able to enter Setup. Every time I press F2 it reboots...

I assume the image is not complete and the file needs to be 128kb in size. Its similar to the AMI Diagnostic ROM I posted above. This one powers up with the 64kb part only, but you are not able to enter the diagnostic menu.

Therefore: Can you please try to dump the ROM area from E000:0000 to F000:FFFF? This should give a 128kb file.

Thanks!

If you tell me how to proceed I can certainly try! But please note that on this board I haven't been able to find a way to enter setup. The only way seems to be changing the configuration e.g. removing one floppy drive - then there will be a prompt saying "press F2 to enter setup".

MMaximus wrote:

But please note that on this board I haven't been able to find a way to enter setup. The only way seems to be changing the configuration e.g. removing one floppy drive - then there will be a prompt saying "press F2 to enter setup".

Same here on mine. I have to do the same thing. I've tried Ctrl-Alt-Esc and a bunch of other common key combos.

MMaximus wrote:

If you tell me how to proceed I can certainly try! But please note that on this board I haven't been able to find a way to enter setup. The only way seems to be changing the configuration e.g. removing one floppy drive - then there will be a prompt saying "press F2 to enter setup".

OK, with NSSI you can try "Save ROM modules" and see which files are generated.

Or use debug.exe. Type:

debug e000.rom
rcx
ffff
w e000:0
q

And post the file e000.rom. This file will be also 64k, but I will combine with the one you already provided.

Ups..had an idea where the mistake is. Had to switch the jumper on the Mainboard from 27128 to 27256. Now it reads the whole chip and I can enter Setup:

No BIOS at E000...

Also attach the Hi/Lo files of your image for programming.

Thanks again!

liqmat wrote:

MMaximus wrote:

But please note that on this board I haven't been able to find a way to enter setup. The only way seems to be changing the configuration e.g. removing one floppy drive - then there will be a prompt saying "press F2 to enter setup".

Same here on mine. I have to do the same thing. I've tried Ctrl-Alt-Esc and a bunch of other common key combos.

Crtl-Alt-Esc works 😉

Wait until all 3 Keyboard LEDs flashed simultaneous after Video card initialization. Then press Ctrl-Alt and keep it pressed. Then continiously hit the ESC-key (maybe 2x per second). Then the "...F2 for Setup.." message appears.

Beautiful collection. Thanks for sharing.
I have one Suntac based mobo as well. Still works like charm. I don't quite remember how I got it, but it was many years ago. In fact it's my only working 286 mobo right now, because it seems I have bad luck buying them - last one I bought had minor battery leak dammage which I thought I fixed only to watch a small firework show when I turned on the power, another one I describe in another topic here, third one is lost in the shipping 🙁 and fourth still didn't arrived. I'm ordering these things like crazy for the same reason you did (I learned most things I know on a machine like this).

Here is my Suntac-286P motherboard: https://i.imgur.com/pgORBr7.jpg

One of the early boards to incorporate HDD and FDD controller. Also all chips (but CPU and chipset) are socket mounted which is a good thing.