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Dumped a bunch of random BIOS chips from old ISA/PCI cards/mobos- Need advice

GearTechWolf

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Joined
Apr 24, 2015
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Anywhere I should offer them up to? And how can I ID them if they don't list copyright data or have surviving paper labels?
 
Most of the commercial ones have those, yeah. Is there anybody that hosts/maintains a collection of such things online?
 
Sure! Some of them are dumps from chips used during development of programming for thermo-forming machines from a couple of my dad's prior workplaces (EA, DSC-7, CAM, BELT, RUN, and A4), the 100-119 are of unknown origin but may be from similar developmental work, the LCD BD roms are from this old ISA VGA/internal-LCD card (S LCD BD 91406 48.51112.000-SB TAIWAN) that has the DS1230 non-volatile SRAM module I posted a thread about (one of them has a bad checksum, that's why I saved it in a variety of formats, but it made no difference) AND A 26-pin card-edge connector for an early internal LCD screen (according to replies when I tried to ID it), and the rest should be from a random variety of older PCI video, audio, modem, and misc cards that had been badly weathered by improper storage, so I broke them down for parts.
Quite a mix of UV-Erasable EPROMs, permanent ROMs, and misc, from all sorts of vintage manufacturers, including a few 40-pin chips that wouldn't fit in my EP1132 and a handful of smaller chips that weren't in the device-list of the version of software I have (BPWSoft-03).
(possibly some aren't ROMs at all, haven't looked them up yet)
 

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  • BIOS-Chip dumps.zip
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Minor update, dumped the rom from an Ecolabs Quantum Controller (Quantum CPU-C) board that I picked up years ago from a recycling center.
Back then I'd theorized it was some sort of alarm-system panel with its Optrex DMC16230 LCD panel, eight daughter-boards with a variety of inputs/outputs, and numerous LED indicators.
Turns out Ecolab does sanitation, water treatment, sterilization equipment and similar stuff, so this was likely a controller for such a machine.
Anyhow, here's the rom included in an updated ZIP for those curious. I'll keep adding more dumps and uploading updated ZIPs as I locate new ones.
 

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  • BIOS-Chip dumps.zip
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Well, I remembered some other roms I could dump, so it's time for another minor update!
I have an old industrial-control motherboard, a NEMATRON CORPORATION ASSY 110A0041 with a P80C31BH microcontroller, just like that ECOLAB board!
The Nematron has either a 286 or 386 main processor, with a PLCC CHIPs chipset, and various 40-pin dip controllers for floppy, HDD, and etc.
(only ISA, no PCI, and no onboard VGA, just that EGA-BIOS ROM and a Paradise 40-pin chip, which I think is for video?)
If anyone wants pictures, chip-lists, and such-like for the square-foot+ Neatron board, let me know and I'll make a separate thread for it!
For now, I'll make a new ZIP with just the four Nematron roms so as not to use up excess storage space.
 

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  • Nematron ROMs.zip
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Dumped the HI/LO BIOS chips from my Sinclair PC500 (AKA AMSTRAD PC1512), here they are.
 

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  • Amstrad PC1512 BIOS.zip
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With some advice on using the generic profiles in my EPROM-reader software, I got all the ROMs I failed to read the first round (excepting the DIP40 ones that don't fit, of course) and at least eight more I dug out of my clutter. including a huge old (IBM?) 486 ISA-only board with a full-length memory riser-board, a Venus Virge S3 DX PCI VGA card (with memory-doubling daughter-board installed), a Promise Technologies EIDE PRO ISA card, a massive full-length triple-decker Vermont Microsystems 48KHZ Image Manager 1024 Model 1B1 CGA ISA card with 1MB of video ram (capable of running VersaCAD!), a Willow Peripherals VGA-TV dual-card (one 16-bit EISA, one 8-bit ISA, the BIOS is from the EISA card), a SIIG EIDE Master ISA+I/O CN2424 16-bit ISA card, and an Adaptec AHA-2940 PCI SCSI CARD. Oh, and another one from my dad's work, labeled 'FEED'.
Enjoy perusing their data! (I'll take pictures of whatever cards folks show interest in, also need to archive the 5-1/4 floppies for some of them)
 

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  • BIOS-chip Dumps 2.zip
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There is something wrong with 'Amstrad 40044-1'.
See below.

( I see 40043-1/40044-1 ROM images hosted at [here], but they contain the code repeated four times [27256 in use?] )

View attachment 1250248
Oh, it's duplicated line-by-line? That's weird! I think that one failed a verify-check.
Have to see about pulling it and trying again some time. Good to hear they're hosted somewhere!
I can see about comparing that code to my chips, see if I can get a successful verify.
I have yet to be able to power up that computer as the monitor/power-supply was destroyed when it was 'decommissioned' by the employees at the PC-repair place it was traded-in/dumped/left for recycling at.
They smashed the tube, ripped out all the big heat-sinks (taking components and chunks of PCB with them), but fortunately left the PC itself alone/undamaged.
I still salvaged what was left of the monitor/power-supply unit, in hopes of eventually rebuilding it. (I have/found schematics)
I have found an article where one guy got a PC1512 powered up with an ATX supply and connected to a VGA monitor through a Chinese converter circuit that can handle the combined-sync CGA and its weird 50KHZ signal.
Anyhow, thanks for pointing out the error, I'll see if I can correct it!
 
I appreciate this - dumps of video BIOSes and character ROMs (especially from peculiar display hardware like the VMI Image Manager 1024!) are right up my alley. :)

Have to point out that some of the dumps appear to be very partial. In the last archive: 'Cardex1 VGA BIOS' is 8K long, and the two '1993 CIRRUS LOGIC' ones are 8K and 16K (filenames would indicate 64K and 128K respectively, which makes more sense).

Also... others seem to have a single bit constantly stuck ON, which is apparent when you try view them as bitmaps. In these examples bit 3 is always set, which generates those vertical lines:

1671377503884.png
 
Huh, maybe I need to clean some pins on the chips and/or clean the ZIF socket before trying them again?
The ones that are too small are probably because I used the wrong generic profile for reading them, as I couldn't find a datasheet to tell me the size of those chips. (the Cirrus Logic files are both from the same chip, I think)
Could I trouble you to provide a full list of those that need to be re-dumped? Alternately, I could just re-dump all of them, take a while though.
Seems bit-3 and bit-4 are some of the ones having issues. Some of the chips are a bit weathered, so I should've expected issues and ran verify on 'em all.
Edit: Actually, the cirrus-logic chip was read using the 64k and 128k profiles, that's why it's in the file-names. Not sure why they're so small.
 
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Could I trouble you to provide a full list of those that need to be re-dumped? Alternately, I could just re-dump all of them, take a while though.

I had a quick look through, and these are the ones that appear faulty to me:

'Aristo' (bit 3 always on)
'1878-ODD REV-G1-44' (bit 3 always on)
'EISA-S1 U22' (bit 7 always on)
'IWS-4000 REL 2-0 EGA U55' (overdump? - 32K, should probably be 16K; the first 16 are junk)
'64V 3DX BIOS' (too small)
'1993 CIRRUS LOGIC and QUADTEL BIOS-128K' (too small)
'1993 CIRRUS LOGIC and QUADTEL BIOS-64K' (too small)
'Cardex1 VGA BIOS' (too small)

There's also the PC1512 which was already pointed out, and a few others which just contain the same repeating character, but you seem to have noted those in the filenames already ('A4' 'EA' etc).

Edit: Actually, the cirrus-logic chip was read using the 64k and 128k profiles, that's why it's in the file-names. Not sure why they're so small.

The sizes would match up if "k" meant bits rather than bytes... just a thought.
 
Some ROMs might need a chip enable or output enable to be read too. For example the mask roms in my Compaq Portable and Deskpro both needed me to hook up a jumper wire to read them with a generic profile, because my TL866 didn't include a profile for the exact part.
 
I had a quick look through, and these are the ones that appear faulty to me:
Thank you kindly, that's very helpful!
'IWS-4000 REL 2-0 EGA U55' (overdump? - 32K, should probably be 16K; the first 16 are junk)
I'll check what size that chip is/should be if I can find a datasheet, maybe they just used an over-large chip and filled the unused space with junk?
'64V 3DX BIOS' (too small)
'Cardex1 VGA BIOS' (too small)
Why are those two deemed too small? I'll check datasheets on them as well, if I can.
There's also the PC1512 which was already pointed out, and a few others which just contain the same repeating character, but you seem to have noted those in the filenames already ('A4' 'EA' etc).
Those ones with the repeating characters just seem to have been programmed that way, maybe for a specific kind of testing?
The sizes would match up if "k" meant bits rather than bytes... just a thought.
Oh! That's likely the case, yeah. Guess I'll dump that one with the largest generic profile (for the number of pins) and see how that goes.
Hopefully I can figure out whether it's a pin/socket/programmer issue or a ROM-damage issue.
 
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