• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

XT-IDE and SMC

D

David_M

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
647
Location
Melbourne, Australia
I tried to get XT-IDE running in an SMC network card and it just doesn't activate the rom.
The eprom works fine in a 3com network card and also in ne2000 knockoffs so I know the eprom is good.
I thought perhaps the card was faulty so I bought a new smc isa card, still shrink wrapped and it has thew same issue.
Has anyone been successful in getting an SMC card to work? Is there something non standard about them?
I've tried reading the rom while plugged into the card using debug and just get random garbage back.
 
Tronix said:
Perhaps you need to use a special SETUP utility for SMC network card. In it, allow the use of ROM and specify the starting ROM address. For example try this utility: http://www5.ncr.com/support/pcfiles/Networking_Software/ETHERNET/GEZ121.EXE and view around this page: http://www5.ncr.com/support/support_drivers_patches.asp?Class=pc_library_ethernet (EZSETUP file for SMC ISA adapters and other).
Click to expand...

Done that, I've even tried the hard config via the jumper blocks

Does anyone have a ROM image of any description that works in an SMC network card?
Or an actual SMC boot ROM, I'm thinking maybe they have a non standard pinout like some mask programmed roms.
 
Here's an idea; create a binary with the first word being 0, the next word being 1 etc all the way to the max size of the ROM (8 KB?) then burn that binary to a ROM and install it in the SMC card. Then dump it using debug or some other software and analyze the differences (or post it here if you need help).
 
I've looked at the data under debug there is nothing recognisable. Mostly 95% DE and a the odd byte that will be one bit different to a DE. Area's outside of the ROM range read as FF.
I checked the enable pins of the eprom on the card with a multimeter and the voltage dips a little from 5v when the memory range is accessed via debug, so that tells me the eprom is being accessed and select lines are not inverted.

I'm think its one of two problem, the SMC custom chip is not inserting wait states and the eprom is too slow or its not seeing something in the ROM that it wants to see and isn't placing the ROM data on the bus.

Hence why I'm trying to find somebody that has an SMC card with a ROM that works or an image file of a ROM that works.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top