Just thought I would pass along something I spent the past few frustrating days on…. I have for a few weeks being writing a PC compatible BIOS for our 8086 etc. card combinations so that you can boot any standard MS-DOS version from our cards setup. In particular the ZFDC S-100 Floppy disk controller, IDE controller and 8086 board. To recap see them here:- http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Index%20Page.htm I finally solved what the problem where I could read single sided MS-DOS V2.10 5" (360K) disk but not a Double sided same disk. What had me baffled was the fact that I had no problem with PC CPM-86 DS disks. Long story short.... The problem had to do with the way CPM & MS-DOS do disk sides. In CPM-86 I had 1-9 sectors on one side and for side B sectors were "called" 10-18. i.e. there was no special set side command. In MS-DOS of course the side in in DH. As is usually the case, very simple and obvious when you find it! Now I will move on to higher DOS versions and 1.44 disks etc. One thing this experience did do, is force me to add an extensive debug stream to a serial terminal . Displays all INT’s / registers etc. info etc. if requested. I got back a nice e-mail from the SMT outfit www.proto-advantage.com (we both graduated from Mc. Master University there), so I am about to have them stick 3 of the VGA SMT Cirrus Logic chips to their 0.1” adaptor boards. After the 80286 I think a super VGA S-100 board will be our next board. What I have not yet decided is if I should first do a wire-wrap PC ISA board here first or just go straight to S-100. |