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Book 8088 discovery and modification thread

sergey said:
If it says "Quadtel", they are using Quadtel BIOS. If they have a stock of original Quadtel BIOS ROMs, that's probably OK from legal perspective, as someone already paid for the code to be flashed in these ICs, unless the licensing model was something like X dollars for each unit sold.

You can use simple DOS DEBUG command to dump the VGA BIOS. Something like that (skip comments in the parenthesis):

-M C000:0 8000 0100 (copy 32 KiB from VGA BIOS ROM to current CS segment)
-N VGA.BIN (set the output file name)
-R BX (BX:CX is the number of bytes to write, set BX - higher 16-bit to 0)
BX 0000
:0000
-R CX (set CX - lower 16-bit to 32 KiB)
CX 0000
:8000
-W (write to the file)
-Q (exit to DOS)

Copy VGA.BIN to your computer with an Internet connection... might be the most difficult part
Click to expand...
It may be that I don't have time tonight but I will do that for you over the weekend no problem.
 
sergey said:
If it says "Quadtel", they are using Quadtel BIOS. If they have a stock of original Quadtel BIOS ROMs, that's probably OK from legal perspective, as someone already paid for the code to be flashed in these ICs, unless the licensing model was something like X dollars for each unit sold.

You can use simple DOS DEBUG command to dump the VGA BIOS. Something like that (skip comments in the parenthesis):

-M C000:0 8000 0100 (copy 32 KiB from VGA BIOS ROM to current CS segment)
-N VGA.BIN (set the output file name)
-R BX (BX:CX is the number of bytes to write, set BX - higher 16-bit to 0)
BX 0000
:0000
-R CX (set CX - lower 16-bit to 32 KiB)
CX 0000
:8000
-W (write to the file)
-Q (exit to DOS)

Copy VGA.BIN to your computer with an Internet connection... might be the most difficult part
Click to expand...
Doing it right now. and.. @sergey Had to put it here ---> https://github.com/sorphin/Book8088Stuff

and as suspected:
Code: 
IBM VGA Compatible
CL-GD5429 VGA BIOS Version 1.00a  
Copyright 1992-1994 Cirrus Logic, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 1987-1990 Quadtel Corp. All Rights Reserved.
STB Systems, Inc.
VRGD5429
09/02/94

I've also come to the conclusion I was starting to have about the CH375 cards I have.. that they're a novelty at best.. Tried using it on this thing, and wind up in a perpetual 'accessing the usb stick' forever (whether with the original driver or Freddy's updated.. and then with a soft reboot I/O error because the chip is still stuck.
 
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sergey said:
Out of curiosity, can anyone who has Book8088 with VGA, dump the VGA BIOS extension, normally located at 0xC0000-0xC8000?
I personally doubt that they wrote their own VGA BIOS, so they use either / or:
- Open source VGA BIOS, e.g., one from QEMU... AFAIK this is for "emulator" only, and might not be usable on a real hardware. Also it is written in C language, so it might be slower than assembly-only implementation
- The original Cirrus Logic VGA BIOS. In contrast with Trident VGA that shows a splash screen with a copyright at the initialization for a relatively long period of time, Cirrus Logic prints it pretty quickly, and if the screen is cleared right away, the copyright notice would be difficult to see

Actually, more likely reason for using CL-GD542x might be availability of the ICs. My ISA SVGA card project and NuXT PC basically killed the supply of TVGA9000i ICs, or at least made the prices for it go up significantly. Sorry guys... ;)
Click to expand...
I'm lucky enough to have got a 9000i-3 card (a very nice compact 8/16 jumpered one) for a fairly okay price. So thats there in reserve or maybe to try out on the ISA8 board.

Question - has anyone come up with an enclosure for the ISA8 board? People are starting to look at using it as a riser for other projects now.
Also does anyone know of where or what is a nice simple FDC board (that just does 2 FDD's)?
 
Betamax80 said:
I'm lucky enough to have got a 9000i-3 card (a very nice compact 8/16 jumpered one) for a fairly okay price. So thats there in reserve or maybe to try out on the ISA8 board.

Question - has anyone come up with an enclosure for the ISA8 board? People are starting to look at using it as a riser for other projects now.
Also does anyone know of where or what is a nice simple FDC board (that just does 2 FDD's)?
Click to expand...
Sergeys does 2 (even his simple one).. Mine does up to 4. lol
 
Betamax80 said:
I saw the texelec one and the monster one on tindie are they the 2?
Click to expand...
Probably.. I don't sell anything on Tindie, I fab my own boards. Never bought anything from Texelec. That said, I just looked.. It appears the "Monster" is Sergey's own take on a quad. (copycat.. lol) and my quad was a reworked extension of his original! Anyway, the Texelec is probably a 2 drive.
 
sorphin said:
Probably.. I don't sell anything on Tindie, I fab my own boards. Never bought anything from Texelec. That said, I just looked.. It appears the "Monster" is Sergey's own take on a quad. (copycat.. lol) and my quad was a reworked extension of his original! Anyway, the Texelec is probably a 2 drive.
Click to expand...
Where is your storefront if you have?
 
Betamax80 said:
Where is your storefront if you have?
Click to expand...
I don't have one. I've posted threads on here before when i've had stuff. I still have extra boards for my initial rev of my quad controller and rom+DOC boards, but they're just the boards, parts would have to be ordered. Boards are cheap, and generally any I build I use in my (way too many) machines. To not hijack the thread any further, PM me if you want, etc.
 
Betamax80 said:
Question - has anyone come up with an enclosure for the ISA8 board? People are starting to look at using it as a riser for other projects now.
Click to expand...
Hack my Micro 8088 Case? :)
It is all OpenSCAD code...
Betamax80 said:
Also does anyone know of where or what is a nice simple FDC board (that just does 2 FDD's)?
Click to expand...
Here are a couple of my projects... I don't currently sell them, but Monster FDC might become available soon again. Todd Goodman at retrobrewcomputers.org might have ISA FDC and Serial PCBs for sale
Simple: ISA FDC and Serial
Up to 8 floppy drives: Monster FDC
 
sorphin said:
Doing it right now. and.. @sergey Had to put it here ---> https://github.com/sorphin/Book8088Stuff

and as suspected:
Code: 
IBM VGA Compatible
CL-GD5429 VGA BIOS Version 1.00a 
Copyright 1992-1994 Cirrus Logic, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 1987-1990 Quadtel Corp. All Rights Reserved.
STB Systems, Inc.
VRGD5429
09/02/94
Click to expand...
Thanks!
sorphin said:
I've also come to the conclusion I was starting to have about the CH375 cards I have.. that they're a novelty at best.. Tried using it on this thing, and wind up in a perpetual 'accessing the usb stick' forever (whether with the original driver or Freddy's updated.. and then with a soft reboot I/O error because the chip is still stuck.
Click to expand...
I was wondering about CH375... Do you think that is an issue with your particular cards, or in general with CH375?
 
sergey said:
I was wondering about CH375... Do you think that is an issue with your particular cards, or in general with CH375?
Click to expand...
TBH, I dunno.. I used the cards on a few diff machine, and they were 'fine'.. but usb stick size/partition size seems obviously very picky.. the one I was just trying in the book8088 I only did 2Gig.. I don't recall what size (diff stick that i have to find) that I was using on the isa cards (they're the usual suspects you see in the threads Freddy was talking about it all in). Considering the book8088 it's internal vs external isa cards.. I'd be more apt to point at the CH375).. even in the thread(s) they were more interested in the 376 or 77 or whatever it was. I guess I need to find my other usb stick to see what size it was.. I'm sure 2Gig is a bit much.. but I don't even have any usb sticks smaller than 16Gig now!

Actually, just tried w/ a 64M image slapped onto one.. yeah.. same issue (at least in the book8088)... copying a whopping 500k file.. sends it out to lunch and eventually what you see in the attached image...

As to the VGA display, I notice (at least on mine), when you power on, and the image comes up, it auto self-centers, and even after reboot.. so that's at least nice.

What are your thoughts on (as someone suggested as a mod in the first post of this thread), swapping out the 128k SRAM so that we can do similar/like the NuXT does where you can get some UMBs? I need to ping the seller to get a schematic, etc for the v2 since it's obviously a redo of the original to add the serial/parallel and the socketing for the video (and who knows what else).
 

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Some info out of the v2 manual, including the pinout of the video card socket...
 

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Retroplayer said:
Honestly, it might be easier to simply desolder the chip if you have the tools to remove it and re-install it.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I seriously doubt i can do that properly, so i will take the cutting route. Traces from 8051 to XT-IO are actually really long, so i have quite a field to experiment. They go on the other side of board inside of XT-IO socket, and that not exactly helpful too :(
--
For BIOS dump - https://github.com/jinshin/Book8088
I've made dumpbios util for this exact task.
--
Boot "floppy" - Worked for me on all images i've tried.
- Stellar Roards booting and working. CF card right now removed, as keyboard is not connected, so i cannot press "A".
 
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I'm happy to report that the SDLPT works really nicely - the driver seems efficient.
I got my version from "curtis electronics" in the UK. Is uses the NC100SD driver.
 
n0p said:
Boot "floppy" - Worked for me on all images i've tried.
- Stellar Roards booting and working. CF card right now removed, as keyboard is not connected, so i cannot press "A".
Click to expand...
What size drive did you put it on? Maybe that's mattering? I've noticed the CH375 being crappy to me in general right now.

For reference, image I'm using:
Code: 
MS-DOS_622_1.44m-1.img: DOS/MBR boot sector, code offset 0x3c+2, OEM-ID ")^<9sIHC" cached by Windows 9M, root entries 224, sectors 2880 (volumes <=32 MB), sectors/FAT 9, sectors/track 18, serial number 0x14ec0f67, unlabeled, FAT (12 bit), followed by FAT

which boots from a gotek (on other machines obvs) and in dosbox without issue.
 
sorphin said:
What size drive did you put it on? Maybe that's mattering? I've noticed the CH375 being crappy to me in general right now.

For reference, image I'm using:
Code: 
MS-DOS_622_1.44m-1.img: DOS/MBR boot sector, code offset 0x3c+2, OEM-ID ")^<9sIHC" cached by Windows 9M, root entries 224, sectors 2880 (volumes <=32 MB), sectors/FAT 9, sectors/track 18, serial number 0x14ec0f67, unlabeled, FAT (12 bit), followed by FAT

which boots from a gotek (on other machines obvs) and in dosbox without issue.
Click to expand...
I have read that the CH375 is fussy about the type of flash memory is actually in the usb stick.
 
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