Lack of floating point on Micronics 386/33Mhz w/Interactive rel 3.2

[Chris Lewis]

In article <958 at dms.UUCP> morris at dms.UUCP (Jim Morris) writes:
> From article <8529 at portia.Stanford.EDU>, by jeff at portia.Stanford.EDU (Jeff McDonald):
> > I recently purchased a Micronics 386/33 Mhz board and incorporated it...
> > <reports FPU problems with Interactive Unix, blames Bios> deleted
 
> I have the same system and BIOS and it runs SCO Xenix/386 2.3.2 with
> no problem. It seems to know that there is no FPU, so I doubt it is
> the BIOS at fault, sounds more like Interactive Unix???

386/ix at least until recently trusted the BIOS to tell it whether a
a FPU existed or not.  *Some* BIOSes always get it wrong (old versions of
AMI).  Other BIOSes are fooled by bad jumper settings.  Other BIOSes 
trust what's in the CMOS (an AST 386 we worked with once).

The versions of Phoenix BIOS that we've used checks automatically and so 
far has *never* gotten it wrong.

One frequent symptom is system hangs/crashes during FP usage.   Particularly
the /etc/dfspace (uses awk) in /etc/profile....  But some times the system
won't boot at all.

> Or check that all the jumpers associated with the FPU are set
> correctly, failing that call Micronics Tech support at (408) 732 9240.

Double check your jumpers and use the system's config program to make
sure that the CMOS doesn't think you have a FPU.  That ought to fix it.
If not, apparently ISC does have a program that will fix this even if the
BIOS lies.  And if none of this solves your problem, get an FPU....

This has been a known "gotcha" for over two years.
-- 
Chris Lewis, Elegant Communications Inc, {uunet!attcan,utzoo}!lsuc!eci386!clewis
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