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Need help, ATI WONDER XL 16 bit VGA BIOS dump!

S

Simone2013

Experienced Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2013
Messages
120
Location
Ravenna (Italy)
Hi to all, i "accidentally" lost half a BIOS of a VGA card. It's a ATI VGA WONDER XL (EXMVGAXLV1), Bios label "VGAWONDER XL" 112-14300-003
EVEN (C) 1992 (that i loose)
& ODD (C) 1992 (i have it)
It has memory range C000-C799 so it must be 16k (half 8k)
I already searched in google but no luck,
so i need a dump file of the bios so i can reflash it.... Anyone has it? help please!!!
 
Let me see what I can find. I might have what you need, but no way to dump them at the moment.

EDIT: Sorry, can't find the card.
 
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I would be fantastic! :) You can also use "debug.exe" from msdos,
Dumping memory range C000-C7FF (!) if you have a functional 16-bit slot!
Then i need only an eprom programmer, but it's another story...
 
Hello,

Is it a graphics card like this:
http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/rom/ATI VGA Wonder+ ROM version 1.03_70.jpg

I have posted mine VGA ATI XL bios on the minuszerodegrees website..
The website isnt my but from an other forum user who collecting ROM files from bioses.. So i help him. Ill give him the copys i made with my Eprom writer / reader..

Just look here: http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/rom/rom.htm

Write them to your eproms and it should work.. Even and ODD are included in the zip / rar file.
 
Robin4 said:
Hello,

Is it a graphics card like this:
http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/rom/ATI VGA Wonder+ ROM version 1.03_70.jpg

I have posted mine VGA ATI XL bios on the minuszerodegrees website..
The website isnt my but from an other forum user who collecting ROM files from bioses.. So i help him. Ill give him the copys i made with my Eprom writer / reader..

Just look here: http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/rom/rom.htm

Write them to your eproms and it should work.. Even and ODD are included in the zip / rar file.
Click to expand...
I wonder if he'd want the model 25 ROM, I got that dumped.
 
Thank you, i'll try it! What kind of Eprom burner should i use? Something that can handle various ROM, maybe? Any advice?
 
Thank you, I'll buy it! last thing: Bios should be 32k, (so are the images) but i had original 2 x ROM 27C256,
shouldn't be 32kbyte each? Also images from Robin4 are 8kbyte x 4 = 32 kbyte

And the other 32k? I miss something? any clue?

thank you all
 
Simone2013 said:
Thank you, I'll buy it! last thing: Bios should be 32k, (so are the images) but i had original 2 x ROM 27C256,
shouldn't be 32kbyte each? Also images from Robin4 are 8kbyte x 4 = 32 kbyte

And the other 32k? I miss something? any clue?

thank you all
Click to expand...

The BIOS images you were pointed to are for ATI Wonder + , not the ATI Wonder XL. Two different cards.
A little info about them at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATI_Wonder_series

Here is a pic of the ATI Wonder XL EXMVGAXLV1, similar but not the same as the ATI Wonder +
View attachment 15453
 
I've got an EXMVGAXLV1 here but the ROMs look like an older version:
Even: 11201122020 (c) 1991
Odd : 11211122020 (c) 1991
 
Now i understand! MikeS, batter an old version, Than nothing! Now the problem is, to dump it!
The debug method is no good, because the memory frame is only 32k. Something must be hided.
You'll need an Eprom burner/reader a think!
What a shame... :(
 
The ATI VGA Wonder XL came in two variants, one based on the ATI 28800-5 and one based on the ATI 28800-6. The BIOS provided by MikeS seems to match up with the part number of the ATI 28800-5 based board.

I don't know enough about the differences between the two chips and boards to know if the BIOS is cross-compatible. It seems like the ATI 28800-6 was designed for the XL24, and the ATI 28800-6 version of the regular XL seems to be an XL24 with mainly a different BIOS and RAMDAC. If the boards are more or less the same, it may well work, but you will of course need to replace both the odd and even bios and not only the broken half.

Robin4 said:
Hello,

Is it a graphics card like this:
http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/rom/ATI VGA Wonder+ ROM version 1.03_70.jpg

I have posted mine VGA ATI XL bios on the minuszerodegrees website..
The website isnt my but from an other forum user who collecting ROM files from bioses.. So i help him. Ill give him the copys i made with my Eprom writer / reader..

Just look here: http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/rom/rom.htm

Write them to your eproms and it should work.. Even and ODD are included in the zip / rar file.
Click to expand...
Great work, but the dump is unfortunately bad; much of the EPROM seems to be missing from the dump. The combined BIOS used on most VGA cards are either 32KB or 64KB, so to be sure you'll have to dump both chips as 27C256 32KB chips.

The 64KB ROM vs 32KB memory window is new to me... That means that I have to redump the ROMs for my XL24 and older VGA Wonder using a burner. Looking at thedata from MikeS's dump, I guess the last 4K of the ROM is either pageswitched or hardwiered to one of the pages based on the card configuration or something. Those tables sure looks like video parameters.
 
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Ok, ill try later to fix it if it would be a bad dump.

EDIT:

I sended these both biosses `even` and `odd` in one rar, or zip package to modem7.. So i dont know what he did with uploading it. It could be he only uploaded only the `even`part, and got forgot to also upload the `odd` part..
But from my heart i can tell i had send them both biosses. And dumped them separately.
 
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Robin4 said:
Ok, ill try later to fix it if it would be a bad dump.

EDIT:

I sended these both biosses `even` and `odd` in one rar, or zip package to modem7.. So i dont know what he did with uploading it. It could be he only uploaded only the `even`part, and got forgot to also upload the `odd` part..
But from my heart i can tell i had send them both biosses. And dumped them separately.
Click to expand...

Yes, but both dumps are only of the second 8KB chunk of each chip! The chips are 32KB each.

Code: 
1CEh index A4h (R/W):  ATI Register 24 (ATI24)                       (28800 +)
bit  0-3  ROM page 0
     4-7  ROM page 1

1CEh index A5h (R/W):  ATI Register 25 (ATI25)                       (28800 +)
bit  0-3  ROM page 2
     4-7  ROM page 3
So it's not only the last 4K that is pageswitched, but the entire second half of the ROM.
 
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I finally manager to burn BIOS and installing it, and i worked PERFECTLY! Thank you for your bios. If anyone has a newer bios i'll reburn to original (are EPROM too!). The card worked flawlessy on a 486 ISA pc.
The problem Now is that the card didn't work an a XT clone that i was intended to use.
This is somewhat OT because i must open a new thread, but i post here also.
The problem is that the build-in CGA card cannot be disabled (like for example on IBM), and I notice that the power on light stay on a bit more. Then the screen is all-black but pc is booted. No output on original CGA.
I managed to scan the video-ram (B800:0) and the result is that all attribuite bit on text mode are 0 ZERO! So text is black on black! In addition on VGA screen is displayed a column on & column off, in vertical (attached photo).
EGA 16 color mode ok.

Note that all video mode work perfectly on a 486!

1) all text mode (hercules included) doesn't display (color 0)
2) VGA with vertical "scanline" like effect
3) EGA, 640x480x16, 800x600x16, 1024x768x4 all work
4) hercules and CGA graphics bugged with XX/00/XX/00/XX/00... Bug (1byte ok, 1byte ZERO)
5) Another VGA card (Cirrus Logic GL-CD...) work on the same machine.
6) The VGA wonder has bene set to 8-bit mode (also i/o)
7) tested with all startup video mode (text hercules, text EGA, text VGA) but black displayed (machine boot, dir work)
8) tested also with dual video card boot (vga/CGA) primary/sec but no luck!
9) EDIT: if i change 00 byte i got NO TEXT displayed! So it must read from internal RAM!!!

So my thinking are... the problem is?
1) buggy card/Bios initialization (maybe) - but BIOS is hooked correctly on interrupts (verified)
2) interference in ram with built-in CGA card?
3) some sort of byte mask? Bad bios function vector?
4) buggy 8-bit mode?
5) ram paging settings are wrong?

The interference doesn't affect EGA... (graphic mode only)
VGA 320x200x256 it's like 1 byte read from RAM, 1 byte from VIDEO RAM! page is a000-afff? 800x600x16 is good but i suspect different management.
EGA seem to use always a000-afff, except for text mode that is wrong.

Any idea? Anyone had the same problem?
 

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