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Book 8088 discovery and modification thread
- Thread starter Retroplayer
- Start date
n0p
Experienced Member
OK, back to discoveries 
As i found that my Eizo display "almost" supports 15Khz i decided to check a one display model we have that has VGA input.
So i made another pass-though Book-VGA connector cable, put in into Book V1 and checked it on one of our Iiyama displays (it was really the only one that for some reason still has VGA)
To my absolute surprise, display made in 2019 worked with CGA sync
Nothing in specs tells about it.
Brightness is still low and VGA picture itself shows some interference, so input is not that good, but hey, it works and without any convertor!
Well, Area5150 end effect didn't work, so i just guess it's doing some black sync magic there, that would work only on real CGA monitor.
As i found that my Eizo display "almost" supports 15Khz i decided to check a one display model we have that has VGA input.
So i made another pass-though Book-VGA connector cable, put in into Book V1 and checked it on one of our Iiyama displays (it was really the only one that for some reason still has VGA)
To my absolute surprise, display made in 2019 worked with CGA sync
Nothing in specs tells about it.
Brightness is still low and VGA picture itself shows some interference, so input is not that good, but hey, it works and without any convertor!
Well, Area5150 end effect didn't work, so i just guess it's doing some black sync magic there, that would work only on real CGA monitor.
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n0p
Experienced Member
Well, i'm quite puzzled now.
I've disassembled my V2 to check Turbo functionality.
First, i isolated pin 2 on CPLD chip , but tucked a thin wire to it's pin, so it could be possible to connect a pulldown resistor there:
Next, i created a bootable "floppy" with Landmark test in batch mode (no keyboard). And it showed turbo speed right away:
Just in case, i measured voltage on the wire and it shows 2.7V so the pin is definitely floating. But anyway Turbo works.
For more proof, two tests (Turbo on/off) on my V1, same NEC CPU (it looks like it didn't detect frequency on the fly, but cpu speed is definitely turbo and second photo):
And a quick check with insulation removed from pin 2:
Fun stuff: look at the label on CPLD :D
I've disassembled my V2 to check Turbo functionality.
First, i isolated pin 2 on CPLD chip , but tucked a thin wire to it's pin, so it could be possible to connect a pulldown resistor there:
Next, i created a bootable "floppy" with Landmark test in batch mode (no keyboard). And it showed turbo speed right away:
Just in case, i measured voltage on the wire and it shows 2.7V so the pin is definitely floating. But anyway Turbo works.
For more proof, two tests (Turbo on/off) on my V1, same NEC CPU (it looks like it didn't detect frequency on the fly, but cpu speed is definitely turbo and second photo):
And a quick check with insulation removed from pin 2:
Fun stuff: look at the label on CPLD :D
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It would be cool if somebody can design a box combining controller and 3.5 drive together and all that beauty could be connected to the ISA pins at the back. I tried multiple storages connected to USB...
Only CF (card readers) and USB sticks work.... No FDDs... I have several.
off topic: I also tried to connect ZIP or floppy to iPAD via USB-C - no luck....In fact the light is on and check is on, but it doesn't show up in Files, but that's another story.
I can connect floppy to WiFi USB/SD reader and it actually can read from any phone, tablet or pc... speed is ok. But that's off the topic anyway.
All operations I need with a floppy I usually do with Toshiba T1100plus with book 8088 CF card in it. Then when I'm done I swap the cards.
But I still miss floppy drive on book 8088
Only CF (card readers) and USB sticks work.... No FDDs... I have several.
off topic: I also tried to connect ZIP or floppy to iPAD via USB-C - no luck....In fact the light is on and check is on, but it doesn't show up in Files, but that's another story.
I can connect floppy to WiFi USB/SD reader and it actually can read from any phone, tablet or pc... speed is ok. But that's off the topic anyway.
All operations I need with a floppy I usually do with Toshiba T1100plus with book 8088 CF card in it. Then when I'm done I swap the cards.
But I still miss floppy drive on book 8088
Hi All,
Thanks for having this amazing forum. I have received my V2 a while back, but so far I have not managed to get it up and running. When it first arrived it would just continous beep and show some garbled pixels on the screen when powered on. Then the seller sent me new lcd board that I installed, now it still won’t boot and it is still beeping like crazy. Only improvement now is that when I power on it first shows VGA in the top left corner of the screen and then it shows no signal in the center of the screen. I have removed and reseated the VGA card, I have tried replacing the CPU with another NEC V20 from ebay, but that did not make any difference. I have once again messaged the seller and got the answer that he will come with a satisfactory answer.
Meanwhile if any of you have an idea I am open to try.
kind regards,
Xander
The Netherlands
Thanks for having this amazing forum. I have received my V2 a while back, but so far I have not managed to get it up and running. When it first arrived it would just continous beep and show some garbled pixels on the screen when powered on. Then the seller sent me new lcd board that I installed, now it still won’t boot and it is still beeping like crazy. Only improvement now is that when I power on it first shows VGA in the top left corner of the screen and then it shows no signal in the center of the screen. I have removed and reseated the VGA card, I have tried replacing the CPU with another NEC V20 from ebay, but that did not make any difference. I have once again messaged the seller and got the answer that he will come with a satisfactory answer.
Meanwhile if any of you have an idea I am open to try.
kind regards,
Xander
The Netherlands
n0p
Experienced Member
Hi and welcome!
I'm quite sure you need to ask for replacement mainboard. Offering the LCD board seems to be a part of seller "standard response protocol"
Is the behavior (constant beep) the same if you remove video card?
I too received non working Book V2, and after proving my point, that basically was videos of problems, seller sent the mainboard together with bottom case part, so that was easy fix.
Indeed the result without the vga card is the same. I will wait out then what the response is from the seller.Hi and welcome!
I'm quite sure you need to ask for replacement mainboard. Offering the LCD seems to be a part of seller "standard response protocol"
Is the behavior (constant beep) the same if you remove video card?
I too received non working Book V2, and after proving my point, that basically was videos of problems, seller sent the mainboard together with bottom case part, so that was easy fix.
Hi and welcome!
I'm quite sure you need to ask for replacement mainboard. Offering the LCD board seems to be a part of seller "standard response protocol"
Is the behavior (constant beep) the same if you remove video card?
I too received non working Book V2, and after proving my point, that basically was videos of problems, seller sent the mainboard together with bottom case part, so that was easy fix.
While waiting for the seller to respond you may want to try re-seating all of the socketed chips.
Especially the BIOS chip.
I just had great success on my V2 using n0p's modified BIOS.
Home
BIOS for Book8088. Contribute to jinshin/8088_bios development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
allowing me to format and install DOS 5 on a blank CF card.
n0p
Experienced Member
I just had great success on my V2 using n0p's modified BIOS.
I used rufus to copy a DOS 5.0 install floppy image to a 1GB flash drive and after a couple of tries it booted
Home
BIOS for Book8088. Contribute to jinshin/8088_bios development by creating an account on GitHub.
allowing me to format and install DOS 5 on a blank CF card.
Good, would you share why it didn't work on first try? drive not detected or it somehow stuck on boot?
n0p
Experienced Member
If you feel adventurous (and i'm actually serious) - can you put your Book in fridge for about 10-15 minutes and then try turning it on? If that would work, some chip definitely lived it's life.
We finally found it for the v2 (n0p and I)... with my cut trace, a 100ohm resistor between ground and the trace running to the CPLD turns on turbo (with the LED turned on).
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n0p
Experienced Member
Was worth trying. Sometimes old chip become alive when cold.
Ok so I re-created the event.Hmmm. hard to remember exactly because it happened so fast
I had an un-partitioned CF card inserted and it seemed to want me to run bios setup first.
Then I got a boot error from the floppy image (after a cold boot) but it worked after a warm boot.
When (cold/power-on) booting with a CF card that has never had the "BIOS/CMOS" setup info written to it,
After the memory check, the banner at the top of the screen doesn't have the "A>>[FDD A]" option.
And the system boot (or attempts to boot) from the CF card then the flash drive is mounted as D:
When followed by a warm (ctrl+alt+del) boot, the "A>>[FDD A]" option appears and hitting "A" boots from the flash image successfully.
Hope this helps.
that's because n0p's bios creates that 'setup data' to be able to handle things like the usb boot capability. If you were go to into setup at boot and make changes it'd write it then as well.
Also from Landmark Speed Test.
