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286 Phoenix bios & can I use it in an IBM 5170?

offensive_Jerk

offensive_Jerk

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I pulled these 4 ROMs out of a clone board that had battery corrosion.

Would there be any chance of damage if I tried them in a 6 mhz 5170?

Compatibility Software
(C) 1985, 1986/E
Phoenix Software Assoc. Ltd.
38589

cant read all of the chips but two say
NMC27CP128Q
 

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Most 286 BIOS's from Phoenix and other BIOS manufacturers copied the IBM 5170 BIOS for compatibility and so therefore can work on the original 5170 hardware. There is a chance that your BIOS may not work on it but the chance of damage is minimal. There is a later Phoenix BIOS from 1990 that is known to work on the 5170 posted here: https://minuszerodegrees.net/bios/bios.htm#5170 and has been demonstrated working on an IBM 5170 Type 1 computer here:
. Be aware that there can be the same timing problems with booting modern hard drive replacements e.g. XT-IDE that the original IBM BIOS experiences. The linked Pheonix BIOS from 1990 does not suffer from that problem, it would be interesting to learn if your older version works.
 
So trying to figure out how to install and dump these ROMs. Should I expect the second pair of ROMs to be BASIC?

I am guessing I should put the ROM with the yellow sticker in U37, and I'll try "PHX 5RC 305" in U37 as the first pair.

Here's what I came up with:

U17
Low
E0000

U37
High
E8000

U27
Low
F0000

U47
High
F8000

If I were to dump the ROM in U17:
DEBUG:
-N E0000LOW.BIN

-R BX
BX 0000
:0000
-R CX
CX 0000
:8000

-M E000:0 8000 0100
-W 0100
 
offensive_Jerk said:
cant read all of the chips but two say
NMC27CP128Q
Click to expand...
The two "Award" ones. 27128-class (16 KB). What I normally see is two 27256-class (32 KB) for the BIOS.

I do not think that you should assume that both sets are 27128-class, because maybe someone just added the second set(Phoenix) see to see if anything extra popped on the boot screen, and left the second set in, even though they saw nothing.

offensive_Jerk said:
Should I expect the second pair of ROMs to be BASIC?
Click to expand...
Based on the labels on them, I would not.
Surely, "Compatibility Software" is not Phoenix' name for BASIC.
Maybe someone on these forums knows what that Phoenix Compatibility Software is.

offensive_Jerk said:
So trying to figure out how to install and dump these ROMs.
Click to expand...
So, putting them onto an early IBM 5170 motherboard. (Because you do not possess an EPROM programmer.)

Your 5170 motherboard is of type 1 motherboard. That can be configured to support 27128-class ROMs/EPROMs via shunt block U131. The ROM-socket-to-memory mapping is shown at [here].

I think this is 'give it a go and see' if the 5170 motherboard (configured for 27128-class ROMs/EPROMs) boots with:
- Award H in socket U47
- Award L in socket U27
- Phoenix H in socket U37
- Phoenix L in socket U17

No certainty.
 
Ok that confirms it, the ROMs are 16k each as signified by the 27128 designation so you need all 4 chips together to create a single 64k BIOS. It looks like the other sets says Award on it so it appears to be part of a different set of BIOS chips than the Phoenix ones do but if you took them all out of another 286 motherboard then they must go together. One pair goes in non-adjacent sockets, the other pair goes in the other pair of sockets. If you remember how the chips went in the other motherboard, they probably go in the same order on the 5170, as the other 286 motherboard is likely a close copy of the 5170 board. Yellow one goes in the bottom socket, skip a socket, then the other set go in the other 2 sockets, high then low.
 
It. Actually. Booted.

I managed to destroy the socket for shunt block U131, but I soldered bridges across it.

I didn't even change parameters and it booted right into DOS.
 

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I do not remember how the ROMS were installed in the other machine, that was years ago, but I installed them as you suggested.
 
Was this test worth all the effort you think?
Other than my own amusement of course.

Checkit3 shows
ROM BIOS: AWARD
DATE: 04/10/87
 
offensive_Jerk said:
It. Actually. Booted.
Click to expand...
"286 Modular BIOS Version 3.00"

The later versions of 3.03 and 3.03GS are at [here]. Version 3.03 is a 32 KB sized BIOS, comprising of two 16 KB ROM's. So for your earlier version of 3.00, it expected is that you can remove the two Phoenix Compatibility Software ROM's, and the motherboard will still boot.

offensive_Jerk said:
Was this test worth all the effort you think?
Click to expand...
To be established is: What is Phoenix Compatibility Software. What does it add? Does a dump of it already exist somewhere?
 
CTRL + ALT + ESC gets you into setup mode.

There is an option for speed select, low, no change, and fast.

Neither report a difference in displayed megahertz or the benchmark results in Checkit3
 

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I turned the all the storage drives to NONE in SETUP and get
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER
 
offensive_Jerk said:
There is an option for speed select, low, no change, and fast.

Neither report a difference in displayed megahertz or the benchmark results in Checkit3
Click to expand...
Either:
1. The motherboard hardware has no turbo/non-turbo functionality, or
2. It does, but the functionality is software switched using a different way to what is programmed in the BIOS of '286 Modular BIOS Version 3.00'.

offensive_Jerk said:
I turned the all the storage drives to NONE in SETUP and get
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER
Click to expand...
Expected. The BIOS found nothing to boot from.
 
Checkit3 is reporting:
E000H to 000H 96k system ROM

Not sure how that is possible.

When I hit 'enter' in the memory map that it's when it shows the ROM BIOS AWARD
 
Trying to use DEBUG crashes the computer with RAM PARITY ERROR OFFENSING SEGMENT : 1000

I tried this:

N E0000LOW.BIN

-R BX
BX 0000
:0000
-R CX
CX 0000
:4000

-M E000:0 8000 0100
-W 0100
 
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