Wanted: IBM 5160 bios

[JoJo_ReloadeD]

I'm trying to resurrect a xt-clone board that is (I think) the same as the 5160 board.

Its bios eprom has died, so I need a bios image to program a eprom to make it work. Its a 27c64, so it'll be a 8kb image.

Does anybody has this bios and willing to help ? :)

Thanks ;)

[modem7]

There are 5160 ROM images at http://members.dodo.com.au/~slappanel555/bios.htm

You'll see that the images are larger than 8k.

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?t=9693 shows the layout of the three revisions.

If an 8KB chip is all you can use in the motherboard then I suggest that you try the last 8K of U18 of the first BIOS revision.
You won't have BASIC but you wouldn't have had it in your faulty BIOS.

For this to work, the 8K BIOS in your motherboard must be addressed at FE00:0 I'm sure that must be the case because the power-on reset vector is always at FFFF:0

On power up, the BIOS will calculate the 8 bit checksum of the BIOS, and if not 00, will report a 'F800 ROM' error. The BIOS is programmed to read the 32K from F800:0 whereas you want it just to read the 8K from FE00:0. So this is a potential problem (which with effort can be overcome if needed).

For now, adjust the last byte in the 8K BIOS so that the 8 bit checksum becomes 00. If your motherboard is such that zeros are read from 24K block at address F800:0, then the overall 8 bit checksum (32K at F800:0) will be 00 and the BIOS will be 'happy'.

You may see a 'F600 ROM' error because the BIOS will be looking at the checksum of the 8K block at F600:0. Again, if your motherboard is such that zeros are read from that block of memory, the BIOS will be 'happy'.

Give it go and see what happens. If you see a ROM error, then I can doctor the BIOS for you so that it skips the checksum checks.

It may be far easier for someone else here to provide a copy of the 8K sized BIOS from their clone XT motherboard. I might have one, but it will take a bit of searching.

[modem7]

Another possible problem in using the 5160 BIOS. The 5160 BIOS is designed for an XT running at 4.77 MHz. Parts of the 5160 BIOS may become unreliable on XT clones running at a higher speed.
Why? In the 5160 BIOS are bits of code like the following.
OUT CMD_PORT,AL ; send command
NOP ; short delay
IN AL,STATUS_PORT ; fetch status

The actual delay period resulting from the NOP might be adequate on a 4.77 MHz 5160, but not on a machine running at 8 MHz.

[MikeS]

I'm trying to resurrect a xt-clone board that is (I think) the same as the 5160 board.

Its bios eprom has died, so I need a bios image to program a eprom to make it work. Its a 27c64, so it'll be a 8kb image.

Does anybody has this bios and willing to help ? :)

Thanks ;)
-------
Here's a Phoenix XT clone BIOS V2.51 dated 01/21/87, for a Micro Universe board V1.0B.

Put your name/model at 06B8H if you wish (and adjust the checksum accordingly).

Good luck,

mike

[Plasma]

Here is the BIOS I am using in my XT: http://www.phatcode.net/downloads.php?id=101

It's a modification I made of the "generic" turbo XT BIOS floating around, with some more features and a nicer bootup screen.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, that's great. I've been looking for the Phoenix 2.51 BIOS for a while. Thanks for posting. The Turbo XT 2.0 BIOS looks interesting too. I'll be sure to try both of them out. Do any of you guys have a very late copy of AWARD XT BIOS? I think the version I am looking for is 3.1.

[JoJo_ReloadeD]

Thanks to all, seeing the bios size of the 5160 I think my board is a 5150 clone (It uses a 27c64 to store the bios, 8k image). So I flashed the 5150 bios, and this happened:

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/8350/hpim3645ds6.jpg

Alive at last! But it's complaining about some missing roms, the basic ones, so I flashed it too...

http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/732/hpim3647rh0.jpg

And got it working, but there's one issue. It can't boot.

I've connected it several floppy controllers and yes, the floppy led blinks, but it does not try to boot the disk, it goes directly to basic.

It only has one set of dip switch, that I've configured properly (I think), colour monitor 80x25, no coprocessor, more than 256k (I have 640k) and one floppy disk.

Here's some photos of the board, do you think it's a 5150 clone??

http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/2027/hpim3652mi2.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/9752/hpim3650tv6.jpg

Later I'll test the phoenix bios, I'm short of 27c64's :) but I'd rather prefer using the 5150 one :cool:

P.S.

Everytime I turn it on it tells me a 131 error, that is a 'Cassette wrap test failed.', do you think this would be the reason of not booting ?

[dongfeng]

That's an XT Clone board! The 5150 had 5 ISA slots, whereas the XT had 6. I think I have one of the same boards :)

The errors are probably caused by the 5150 BIOS.

It probably has a 'turbo' mode, 4.77/8MHz if it is the same as mine. Going from memory I think mine has a Phoenix BIOS, but I'll be the end of the month until I can dig it out again (it's at my parents place). I'll try to dig out some pictures later, I am pretty sure I have some.

Here are the DIP switch settings for an XT:

http://www.howard81.co.uk/upload/vcf/xt/xtdips.gif

[JoJo_ReloadeD]

That's an XT Clone board! The 5150 had 5 ISA slots, whereas the XT had 6. I think I have one of the same boards :)

The errors are probably caused by the 5150 BIOS.

It probably has a 'turbo' mode, 4.77/8MHz if it is the same as mine. Going from memory I think mine has a Phoenix BIOS, but I'll be the end of the month until I can dig it out again (it's at my parents place). I'll try to dig out some pictures later, I am pretty sure I have some.

Here are the DIP switch settings for an XT:

http://www.howard81.co.uk/upload/vcf/xt/xtdips.gif

It has 8 isa slots, so it isn't a exact clone of a 5150 or 5160... it doesn't have turbo mode, only operates at 4,77, and its bios is the same size as the 5150, and yep, I've configured the dip switch following that info :)

[dongfeng]

Sorry, I mis-typed... XT is 8-slots!

[MikeS]

Since it has 8 normally-spaced slots and, more to the point, no cassette hardware, it's obviously an XT clone, so just exactly why do you insist on putting in a 5150 BIOS which is almost certain to be incompatible in some way?

Just curious: how many of you have ever seen a 5150 *clone*, i.e. complete with cassette hardware, non-standard slot spacing and BASIC?

m

[modem7]

Thanks to all, seeing the bios size of the 5160 I think my board is a 5150 clone (It uses a 27c64 to store the bios, 8k image).
Not necessarily. The Phoenix XT BIOS that was posted is 8K in size.

So I flashed the 5150 bios, and this happened:
The 5150 BIOS is expecting hardware found on the 5150 motherboard, such as a cassette port and a second set of switches. Your board has neither. That is why you are seeing the 'Cassette wrap test failed.' error.

Everytime I turn it on it tells me a 131 error, that is a 'Cassette wrap test failed.', do you think this would be the reason of not booting ?
No, that won't be why it is not booting.

If your board was a 5150 clone, I'm sure the engineers would have made it 100% compatible with the 5150 at the hardware level (as was the norm in those days). And so the lack of cassette port and lack of the second switch bank indicate to me that you have a clone 5160 board.

I suggest that use the posted Phoenix XT BIOS.

[JoJo_ReloadeD]

I flashed the clone bios and worked like a charm! thanks to all! :D