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Archiving Motherboard Information and BIOS Software

oldpcguy

Experienced Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2021
Messages
366
This is somewhat of a two part post. I have an old Packard Bell 80486 system board for which the battery leaked and damaged the board. I have attempted to do some basic repaid (essentially removal of the battery and cleaning the board) but that was insufficient to resurrect it. I do not have the inclination to delve into repairing this board further so I am going to e-waste it. Before doing so I would like to archive the information for the system / board so others may benefit from it. Specifically the jumper settings (both on the board and the decal on the underside of the top case) along with the BIOS code (retrieved from the ROM and converted into a file which can be used to burn PROMs). This leads to the two questions:
  1. I have take detailed, high resolution photos of the motherboard and jumper decal which can aid someone in knowing how to configure this system / motherboard should they need. As mentioned above, I also would like to retrieve the BIOS ROM code. Is there a central location where this kind of information is archived? If so can someone point me to it?
  2. What are the ethics / legality of retrieving the BIOS code and making it available on a public archive? I understand this is old code that no one is likely to care about but I do like to respect copyrights so I have mixed feelings on this.
I would appreciate anyone's thoughts / feedback on this.
 
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