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Help with Sergey's 8-Bit FDC and Serial Port board.

"You have an XT-IDE card. If you have a serial port on your IBM XT (or XT clone), and have certain other hardware, then consider the use of a serial drive - see [here]."

I've bought a USB to serial cable, waiting on a null modem and will try that. Slight problem, modern pc downstairs and 5150 5160 upstairs.
 
Summary of work so far.

IBM XT 5160 motherboard, V-20, 8087, Super XT BIOS.

AT PSU

CGA with composite out.

Memory card

XT-IDE with DOM

XT-FDC with Gotek

EtherLink II NIC

DOS 6.22, mTCP

I'll post addresses and IRQs later
 
I can't get the XT-IDE and the XT-FDC to work together.

I've removed the XT-FDC and put in a full height 360 kb FDD.

All works. I think I can use a 3.5" 1.44 FDD and it will work as a 720 kp disk.

I'll use the XT-FDC in the 5150
 
fjk61011 said:
Summary of work so far.

IBM XT 5160 motherboard, V-20, 8087, Super XT BIOS.

AT PSU

CGA with composite out.

Memory card

XT-IDE with DOM

XT-FDC with Gotek

EtherLink II NIC

DOS 6.22, mTCP

I'll post addresses and IRQs later
Click to expand...
This setup worked before but doesn't now. I'm beginning to think there is something wrong about the design of the XT-FDC. I'll trudge on and see what I can do.
 
OK, using the DTK XT clone and a reflashed ISA XT-FDC and Serial Port, both the ISA XT-FDC and Serial Port, and the XT-IDE splash screens show including the F2 Option.

Is it possible that an address conflict damages the XT-FDC BIOS?
 
OK. I've transfered the xt-ide and xt-fdc to the XT 5160 and both work. I am installing dos 6.22 at the moment. Using a Gotek.
 
fjk61011 said:
Is it possible that an address conflict damages the XT-FDC BIOS?
Click to expand...
Maybe try a different AT28C64.

But on the question of 'damage' to the Multi-Floppy BIOS, I have been meaning to get back to some experimentation that I did earlier. From memory, earlier, when adding a second drive to the Multi-Floppy BIOS, it was possible for me to create a conflict there. The "Press F2 to run ..." would not appear, and a BIOS re-flash was the only remedy. Something like that.
 
fjk61011 said:
I can't get the XT-IDE and the XT-FDC to work together.
Click to expand...
fjk61011 said:
The press F2 appears and dissappear between boots
Click to expand...

What XT-FDC are you using ?, Your original Sergey's FDC or the NEW Sergey's FDC or is it the same issue with both FDC's ?.

modem7 said:
But on the question of 'damage' to the Multi-Floppy BIOS, I have been meaning to get back to some experimentation that I did earlier. From memory, earlier, when adding a second drive to the Multi-Floppy BIOS, it was possible for me to create a conflict there. The "Press F2 to run ..." would not appear, and a BIOS re-flash was the only remedy. Something like that.
Click to expand...
Was this with the XT-IDE/XUB installed or not installed ?
 
It's been many years since i last used Sergey's FDC BIOS on a regular basis, Back then i used the FDC BIOS in a ROM Board, Or i used a spare Rev 1 XT-IDE PCB as a ROM board, Because i never did order the parts to build the FDC i bought from Sergey over 10 years ago.

Back then i built and kept several different FDC BIOS's to cater for different floppy drive setups, If i swapped floppy drives i just re-flashed the EEprom with the correct BIOS setup for the Floppy drives i was using, Because the F2 setup option of the BIOS did not work with the EEprom my ROM boards use and when using the XUB it clobbered the F2 setup of the FDC bios when using the FDC BIOS in the AT28C64 it was written to work with.
 
Malc said:
It's been many years since i last used Sergey's FDC BIOS on a regular basis, Back then i used the FDC BIOS in a ROM Board, Or i used a spare Rev 1 XT-IDE PCB as a ROM board, Because i never did order the parts to build the FDC i bought from Sergey over 10 years ago.

Back then i built and kept several different FDC BIOS's to cater for different floppy drive setups, If i swapped floppy drives i just re-flashed the EEprom with the correct BIOS setup for the Floppy drives i was using, Because the F2 setup option of the BIOS did not work with the EEprom my ROM boards use and when using the XUB it clobbered the F2 setup of the FDC bios when using the FDC BIOS in the AT28C64 it was written to work with.
Click to expand...
Modem7 said to refer to. It as an ISa controller and serial card. Works now in combination with xt-ide. Here is an observation. I can change the dip switches on Xt-ide without using xtidecfg an it still works. My at28 c64 b have arrived
 
Malc said:
It's been many years since i last used Sergey's FDC BIOS on a regular basis, Back then i used the FDC BIOS in a ROM Board, Or i used a spare Rev 1 XT-IDE PCB as a ROM board, Because i never did order the parts to build the FDC i bought from Sergey over 10 years ago.

Back then i built and kept several different FDC BIOS's to cater for different floppy drive setups, If i swapped floppy drives i just re-flashed the EEprom with the correct BIOS setup for the Floppy drives i was using, Because the F2 setup option of the BIOS did not work with the EEprom my ROM boards use and when using the XUB it clobbered the F2 setup of the FDC bios when using the FDC BIOS in the AT28C64 it was written to work with.
Click to expand...
Clever. Was thinking the same about xtide messing with xtfdc bios
 
modem7 said:
But on the question of 'damage' to the Multi-Floppy BIOS, I have been meaning to get back to some experimentation that I did earlier. From memory, earlier, when adding a second drive to the Multi-Floppy BIOS, it was possible for me to create a conflict there. The "Press F2 to run ..." would not appear, and a BIOS re-flash was the only remedy. Something like that.
Click to expand...
Malc said:
Was this with the XT-IDE/XUB installed or not installed ?
Click to expand...
Not installed. 'Bare bones' configuration.

I just now tried to replicate what I saw before, a state where I had to re-flash the BIOS, but I was unsuccessful.

Because I know that down the track, I will need to refamiliarise myself with the behaviour of the Multi-Floppy BIOS, I have added my observations to [here].

In reviewing those observations, I am wondering now whether I was sometimes seeing the "Press F2 to run the Multi-Floppy BIOS configuration utility" text, and not realising that after 2 seconds of that showing, that pressing F2 would not work (even though the "Press F2 ..." text was still displayed). That together with the long 30 second timeout.
If this BIOS is be modified later, I suggest that after the 2 second period, that something like "Looking for a boot floppy in A: ...' be displayed, ideally overwriting the "Press F2 to run ..." line.
 
I don't recall having any issue's with the bios when not using the XUB, The issue i recall was with the 'F2 config option' and using the XUB which is why i kept different FDC BIOS's configured for different floppy drives and just re-flashed when i swapped drives which wasn't very often, But yeah you don't get long to 'press F2' for the configuration.

It's been so long since i had the need to use it i should refamillarise myself also.
 
fjk61011 said:
I'll be missing for awhile. My sister is very ill. I tried my gq-4×4 to flash a AT28C64 but when I read it it was all FF
Click to expand...
Sorry to hear about your sister, My little Niece was recently diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, Life can be so challenging at times. Can you not try flashing the AT28C64 in situ using XTIDECFG.COM ?
 
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