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Need Some Help With Two Expansion Cards

404TimeNotFound

Experienced Member
Joined
Apr 9, 2014
Messages
54
Location
Fort Wayne, IN
The first card I'd simply like help identifying, it looks to be some form of display adapter, either CGA or EGA but I'm not entirely sure. 20151130_135651[1].jpg20151130_135614[1].jpg The second card is the one that's been bugging me for a few months. It's a Persyst Time Spectrum 384L Rev D. I know I have 384k of memory loaded onto it, that combined with the 256k on my main board should give me a total of 640k, but it only ever reaches 486k. I'm entirely unsure of what any of the dip switch settings should be and the most I've ever found about this card on the web is a magazine advertisement from the 80's. Help with the switch settings or even why it won't utilize all the memory I've put on ti would be much appreciated. 20151130_135700[1].jpg
 
486K is not a likely number. Are you sure that's what it reads?

When you boot this computer *without* the card does it reaD 256k?
 
Maybe 448KB? Could be one of the RAM chips on the Time Spectrum is either bad or needs to be re-seated in it's socket. You can use something like Checkit and force it to test 0 - 640KB and see what it sees / tests. It's possible that it's set to start too early, but I think bad RAM is also probable.

The other card, my first guess would be CGA card. It's got the composite ports, and lighten header, but lacks the ROM + big memory + crystals I'd expect from EGA. Not a confirmation, just that's what I'd expect it to be. Design reminds me a lot of my DTK cards from that era - something about the style of it.

Edit: Just realised OP confirmed 448KB after I posted :p
 
I don't receive an error after it stops at 448k, just proceeds to boot into DOS as it would normally. I will run Checkit later once I configure another system to write floppies.
 
CheckIt is going to tell you that there is 448K RAM installed and it all works OK.

Contrary to what's in a previous post you can't force CheckIt to test RAM that that isn't properly configured. :)
 
Any ideas on what the dip switch settings should be or where to find any documentary on this? Usually I'm able to figure something out about a card on the internet but this one is unusually illusive.
 
Most cards with DE9 and two RCA jacks are EGA. The two RCA jacks are not composite video; they are "feature connectors" which were never really used for anything.
 
It's quite possibly the start address, but not receiving an error message does not confirm this, which is why I suggested trying to use CheckIt to probe it, but if we've got switch settings now then go for that.

CheckIt is going to tell you that there is 448K RAM installed and it all works OK.

Contrary to what's in a previous post you can't force CheckIt to test RAM that that isn't properly configured. :)

Last time I used it I remember being able to manually override and enter my own memory ranges with Checkit 3.0.
I haven't checked conventional, but that's how I tested the extended memory between 1.5MB and 2.5MB on my IBM 5170 when the system was not picking it up.



Edit: video card looks very very similar to a DTK PII-164 Color Card http://www.ebay.ca/itm/DTK-P11-164-Color-Card-/121112425292?hash=item1c32dcf34c but his seems to be lacking the DTK label - so not sure - maybe made in the same factory?
 
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Woah that's it, heck of a guess there. Thank you all very much for your assistance with this. :)

Edit: Stone's guess with the switch settings was right on, the system now reads all 640k of memory.
 
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Last time I used it I remember being able to manually override and enter my own memory ranges with Checkit 3.0.
I haven't checked conventional, but that's how I tested the extended memory between 1.5MB and 2.5MB on my IBM 5170 when the system was not picking it up.
Yes, it works for conventional (base) memory as well. See [here].
 
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