IDE, Panics, Traps

[Alex Pournelle]

max at mthvax.cs.miami.edu (Max Southall) writes:

>I've just finished working on a CompuAdd 20 MHz 286 machine with IDE
>interface builtin that had terrible problems running SCO Xenix 286. It came
>with an Award BIOS installed, and would generate PANIC and DOUBLE PANIC
>in multiuser mode anywhere from a few seconds after boot to a couple of
>hours at the longest, running 1 to 4 users.

>Not being able to obtain the details of Award's CMOS configuration, I
>modified the JLS bilingual BIOS we had earlier developed for similar problems
>on a 386 and wrote an extended CMOS setup program that allows configuration
>and display of virtually all the CS8221B registers. After installing this
>new version of the BIOS, and experimentation with register values, the
>system now works flawlessly at 20 MHz.

Also, did you get/try the SCO SLS 133 (which fixes some RLL drive
problems, and is popularly rumoured to fix other, AT/IDE drive problems)
on this system?  You can get it from SCO's BBS, or I could copy the disk
I got for you (E-mail-ing it?  Well, erm, I'm not very good at
that--USmail/UPS would be easier).

Other than selling your work to Award for a very great amount of money
:-{=} and congratulating yourself for a job well done (``just hacked the
BIOS''--the old hacker spirit lives!), have you considered doing a
free/share/commercial-ware product to let users at that there BIOS from
(say) DOS or (gasp!) XENIX?  Can I have a copy if you do?

I'd love such a hunk-a-code for the many BIOSes (Award and AMI: R U
lis'ning?) who don't include advanced setup.  Boy, would I!  The only
`advanced' setup I've seen is shareware with a return address of Taipei,
Taiwan, and my Chinese-English (& their programming) is very good.

>In any case, thanks to Alan Wendt (the box's frustrated owner) and Alex
>Pournelle (iconoclast at large) for providing the impetus for this
>solution.

You are quite welcome--good thing that "nn" has a huge bug, or I
wouldn't have seen this thankyou.  (Me--eager for praise?  Yes, me eager
for praise, UGH. ;-)  ``Wile E. Coyote: Iconoclast.'' It has a ring to
it...)

	Keep on computing,
		Alex
-- 
		Alex Pournelle, freelance thinker
		Also: Workman & Associates, Data recovery for PCs, Macs, others
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