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Getting a DTK Peer-2030 computer running

although for better performance, when you have the 4MB configuration going, try changing the setting to {Wait State = 0}{Page Interleave = Enable}.
I can't find where in the manual it points out where the wait state jumper is and where the interleave jumper is.

I found a very interesting mechanical-push-to-toggle-open CD-ROM drive in my inventory. This is a neat computer to put that into. Thankfully, it's a Mitsubishi, so I know explicitly which header on the SB16 to use.

I found a Molex-to-Berg adaptor, but to get the CF card adaptor mounted to an expansion slot window, I needed to order a 40-pin IDE extension. I ordered 4 on eBay to give me enough for future builds.
 
It appears that the PEER-2030 was a complete computer, but the motherboard it contains was also sold separately as the PPM-2030C, similar to how the Data 1000 contains the PIM-TB10-Z.

I'm not sure it was necessary since that PEER-2030 manual seems to contain everything, but I thought I would scan the manuals I have for this board and BIOS.


The BIOS manual looks like it's for many NEAT chipset motherboards, since they all end in N. I've got another similar manual I haven't scanned yet that seems to be for 386 board with a different chipset, they all end in S, so maybe a "standard" chipset? I'm not really sure, but the S BIOS manual doesn't show the NEAT Chip menu shown above.
 
Thankfully, it's a Mitsubishi, so I know explicitly which header on the SB16 to use.
Correction: The SB16 and the CD-ROM drive are both Mutsumi, not Mitsubishi.
Those settings are in the CMOS SETUP.
Thanks. I changed that in the BIOS.

Next, the CD-ROM drive. I’ve set the SB16 jumper to Mutsumi brand drive, connected it to the SB16 using a 2-connector IDE ribbon cable, and connected it to Molex for power. I verified the IDE cable is oriented correctly on the card and the drive.

I tried running the SB16 installation disk again but it didn’t say or do anything about a CD-ROM drive.

I can’t check the drive for power with the eject button because there is none; it’s a mechanical-push-to-toggle door. However, when I flip the chunky power switch on or off, I see the laser head of the drive makes the tiniest little jump. And the amber drive light flashes once during boot.

From a boot disk I made a couple years ago from bootdisk.com a couple years ago, I copied CD1.SYS, CD2.SYS, CD3.SYS, and CD4.SYS to the C:\DOS directory.

Also following the bootdisk.com files, I added the following to CONFIG.SYS:
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\CD1.SYS /D:BANANA

And to AUTOEXEC.BAT:
LH MSCDEX.EXE /D:banana /L:R

Booting results in running the CD-ROM driver, but it fails to find a CD drive.
 
Only early Mitsumi drives use the Mitsumi interface. Later ones will be IDE/ATAPI. Make sure your drive is not ATAPI.

If it actually uses the Mitsumi interface, you will also need the Mitsumi driver.

If you have an ATAPI drive, then you will need to connect it to a real IDE port.
 
Only early Mitsumi drives use the Mitsumi interface. Later ones will be IDE/ATAPI. Make sure your drive is not ATAPI.

If it actually uses the Mitsumi interface, you will also need the Mitsumi driver.

If you have an ATAPI drive, then you will need to connect it to a real IDE port.
The manufacturer's sticker on the bottom of the CD-ROM drive says it is a Mitsumi CRMC-LU005S made in June 1993. Here is a demo of someone else's same model number.

Their video description:
This special 1x drive from Mitsumi had proprietary interface and a special way of loading the disc. It originally came with it's own ISA card, but it can be connected with old Soundcards if they have a Mitsumi CD-ROM connector (Soundblaster AWE32 CT2760 have this). Drivers can be found on the Soundblaster install discs or in this thread:
https://vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?17453-Mitsumi-CD-ROM-(wonky!)-Help-Needed
(404'd!)
1665811393732.png

Continuing:
Specifications:
Data transfer: 150kb/sec
Access time: 340ms
Cache size: 64kb
My drive is manufactured in Feb. 1993, but drivers are from 1992. It was one of the first CD-ROM drives on the marked. Norwegian advertisement from June 1993: https://img.gfx.no/1121/1121341/HP0013.563x785!.jpg
1665811446289.png
Does not read CD-R media so it is not very useful today. Still a nice curiosity.

According to this article for the LU005S from July 24, 2021, it looks like I need the driver file MTMCDE.SYS which it links to.

Also according to that article, the Mitsumi CD audio cords were standard shape, but non-standard pin order (even among their own models), and using a cord with pins not ordered properly for it can destroy the CD-ROM drive. 🙄 Well, that means I'll have to get a CD audio cord, check continuity to verify pin position, and probably rewire it.

Quoting almost the whole article here because this is highly technical and unable to be found elsewhere.
Posted by: Quintus
Posted on July 24, 2021

Introduction:

Back in the days where CDROM is a luxury every manufacturer had their own way to interface with drive and PC. Mitsumi is one of those.
In this how-to you will find how to configure and install your Mitsumi LU005S CDROM drive. The driver files provided are only for this particular model.
Mitsumi-LU005S-HIghScreen286-1024x768.jpg
Oliver’s HighScreen 286 PC with Mitsumi CDROM installed.

Interfaces:

CD-ROM interfaces come in two varieties: with and without DMA and IRQ. And so does the Mitsumi interface. The original drive controllers have support for DMA
and IRQ and need the MTMCDE.SYS driver.
Soundcards typically connected the drive directly through to the ISA bus with some address translation but no
DMA or IRQ. If you are using a soundcard, check if the traces from the CD-ROM drive connector go to some fat IC. If not, it does not support DMA and IRQ.
In this case, use MTMCDE.SYS.
Mitsumi_CD-ROM_Interface_ISA-1024x854.jpg
One of the supplied interface cards for Mitsumi drives.

Installation:

For the DMA-less variant, add to your config.sys:
DEVICEHIGH=C:\PATH\TO\MTMCDS.SYS /D:MSCD001 /P:<ioaddress> /A:0
/P: sets the I/O address in hexadecimal. No leading 0x
The I/O address that has been found to work with the specific soundcard used was 0x340. On this soundcard this address was fixed and could not be changed. This might be different for your specific soundcard, a different address used, a way to configure it using jumpers or a configuration program for the card. Try to find documentation on it, if you are having trouble.
For the DMA enabled variant, add this:
DEVICEHIGH=C:\PATH\TO\MTMCDE.SYS /D:MSCD001 /P:<ioaddress> /A:0 /M:20 /T:<dma> /I:<irq>
/M: sets the buffer size, can be as high as 64.
/T: sets the DMA channel, in decimal.
/I: sets the IRQ, in decimal.
In both cases, add to your autoexec.bat:
LH C:\PATH\TO\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001 /M:10
Sane defaults are:
Address: 0x340
IRQ: 10
DMA: 4
If your machine has no secondary IDE channel, you are free to use the hardware resources commonly used for it: IRQ 15, address 0x170h

Settings:

To find your configuration for the cards seen above or to re-configure it you can use this sheet:
Mitsumi-Interface-Card-Settings.jpg

Setup:

All you need to do is place the appropriate driver .SYS file and MSCDEX.EXE somewhere and add the needed entries to AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS.
To run SETUP.EXE from your local hard drive, fool it into thinking it runs from a different drive by using the ASSIGN command.

Connecting audio:

There is another weird quirk you need to know about: the audio connector.
Computers of this age did not have enough throughput to stream the raw audio data digitally from the drive to the soundcard and an analog audio cable has to be used to connect CD drive and soundcard / the Mitsumi controller.
Like there were many different CD drive interfaces (Sony, Panasonic, Mitsumi, ..), each also had their own implementation of this cable.
The later default ATAPI/IDE cable was reversible, as was the Sony cable it was based on: ground leads in the middle with the audio signals on each side. You would reverse left and right channels if you have the plug the wrong way around, but it would work.
The Mitsumi cable however is not reversible: channel – ground – channel – ground.
If the cable is the wrong way around, you would short out the audio and get no sound, potentially damaging your drive. Those connectors are keyed, so you’d think that there is no danger of doing so. However, the LU005S has a different orientation from later Mitsumi drives. Yes. They reversed the pinout of the cable at one point.
If you do not get any sound, chances are your soundcard adheres to the other, later pinout. You might need to desolder the connector from your soundcard and put it back on the other way around.
Check where the signal and ground traces from the connector on the soundcard lead
to, to verify that this is indeed the case for your soundcard.

Pinouts:

1665811898449.png
 
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I used the SETUP.EXE file in the file from unitedandco.net. I had it put the CD-ROM driver files into C:\MITSUMI. The following lines are now in my files.

CONFIG.SYS:
DEVICE=C:\MITSUMI\MTMCDE.SYS /D:MSCD001 /P:300 /A:0
I have a choice of either MTMCDE.SYS or MTMCDS.SYS (whichever one is correct depends on whether the SB16 controls the DMA of the CD-ROM drive connected to it). In either case, the response right now during boot is "CD-ROM is not detected or different, driver not loaded." For MTMCDE.SYS, I am missing a few parameters in the command line.

AUTOEXEC.BAT:
C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001 /M:10
Since the line in CONFIG.SYS cannot execute to set the device name MSCD001, naturally the line in AUTOEXEC.BAT cannot execute by calling that name.

The SoundBlaster 16 is set to Base I/O 220h, MPU401: 300h, IRQ 5, DMA 1,5.
 
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You are loading the CD driver at port 300 which is your MPU-401 port. The Mitsumi port is going to be 310, 320, 340, or 350.
 
The first question is: Does a SoundBlaster 16 assign a DMA channel for a CD-ROM connected to it, or not?

Because MTMCDE.SYS is for DMA transfer;
MTMCDS.SYS is for non-DMA transfer.

According to the SB16 manual (page 1-8), the SB16 uses:
200h-207h for the game port
220h-22Fh for the audio interface
330h-331h for the MPU-401 UART MIDI
338h-33Bh for the stereo music synthesizer
1E8h-1EFh for the IDE port “(tertiary)”

Does it mean the CD-ROM header?
Tertiary to what?

It also says the SB16 uses:
IRQ 11 for the IDE CD-ROM interface

Does this mean that I should use MTMCDS.SYS?

Page 1-7 of the manual says that the CD-ROM IDE DMA is software-configurable. Since the SB16 installation software didn’t even mention a CD-ROM, does that mean that the “software” that configures it is AUTOEXEC.BAT?

The SB line from AUTOEXEC.BAT currently says this and has since before I tried putting in the CD-ROM:
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
 
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Why is that the first question? It should be trivial to get the non-DMA driver working if you have the correct port. Then you can mess with DMA.
 
Because I think I need to know what file I need to start with. Or don’t I need to know which file first?
 
I don't understand. MTMCDS.SYS is for non-DMA. Start with that. Once you find the correct port and it's working, then investigate DMA.
 
I've encountered a strange problem. The problem is that I can no longer run the SETUP.EXE from either of the floppy drives. 😑

I don't know what caused it. I can't think of any reason this event would have caused it: During the running of SETUP.EXE, when it was prompting me for something, I decided to reboot. That was the most recent time I was able to load it from a floppy.

My drive A is a 1.2 MB. My drive B is a 1.44 MB. I had always been running it from drive B.

When I run SETUP.EXE from drive A, I get this:
1666057156268.png

When I run SETUP.EXE from drive B, I get this:
1666057180447.png

When I run SETUP.EXE from drive C, I get this, which is what it should look like:
1666057205752.png

There are no memory errors during the POST. It still sees all 4 MB.

Unfortunately, the fan documentation that came with it says you can't run it from drive C. The file does its things expecting itself to be on a floppy. And even if I did, I wouldn't be sure there wasn't some latent error waiting to happen days from now regarding the floppy drive(s).

I can reformat floppies in drive B with no problem. I can copy files to drive B with no problem. I can't run this file from it anymore. Even after multiple hard boots, I still get the same screens above.

Now what? 😭
 
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It seems like it's trying to create a temporary file. Maybe there's not enough free space on the floppy?

Also in your earlier post you are looking at the wrong manual. There are many SB16 versions, that manual is for one with an IDE port. The SB16 cards with Panasonic/Sony/Mitsumi ports are "SB16 MCD" (Multi-CD). And there are several versions of those: CT1750, CT1759, CT2230, CT2239, CT2260.
 
The exact model of the SB16 that I have in this unit is CT2230.

I tried the disks in another computer or two and they worked fine. I tired loading other games and utilities in the TDK and encountered similar problems. Sometimes with "Parity error but segment not found?" What the heck does that mean? (Reminds me of "Command failed successfully" in WinXP.) Examples:
  • Jones in the Fast Lane loaded and played fine from a 1.2 MB. floppy
  • Wheel of Fortune stopped loading on the title screen from a 360 kB. floppy.
  • The Wizard and the Princess loaded the title screen but went no further from a 360 kB. floppy.
  • PC Shell 5.5 would not run from a 360 kB. floppy.
  • Hugo 2 would not run from a 1.44 MB. floppy.
  • Hugo 3 would not run from a 1.44 MB. floppy.
My conclusion at the moment is that something else has gone wrong with the controller card that only affects the floppy drive portion of the card. I removed the controller card, checked continuity on the bodge contacts, and reinserted the card and reconnected all the wires. Perhaps some component on the controller card went bad when I turned the computer off that time? I'm at a loss right now. Please advise.
 

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"Parity error but segment not found"

When I read that, I said to myself, "Those two things together don't make sense. It's like something a virus writer might display to bamboozle 'non-technical folk'.

But the error message is actually listed in the manual for your computer. The motherboard BIOS is generating the error. The cause is simply the motherboard detecting a RAM parity error. You appear to have a RAM related problem.

Some suggestions:
- Clean edge connectors.
- Try taking the wait states back to 1, and turning off page interleaving.
- Rule out two of the sticks by going back to a 2MB configuration
 
The cause is simply the motherboard detecting a RAM parity error. You appear to have a RAM related problem.
That is way more welcome to hear than some unknown component blowing on the controller card. But very, very unexpected. Why would there be a memory error in running a program if there was no memory error in the start-up test?

Does the computer put data loaded from each different drive in a different segment of the RAM? That would certainly explain the pattern I’ve got.

Some suggestions:
- Clean edge connectors.
- Try taking the wait states back to 1, and turning off page interleaving.
- Rule out two of the sticks by going back to a 2MB configuration
I removed the memory sticks. I sprayed Deoxit on the memory sockets and the stick contacts, and wiped the contacts. One of the new stick’s contacts were very dirty despite being clean to the naked eye.

I put the wait state back to 1 and disabled page interleaving.

I put in all 4 sticks again. Same errors, same pattern, unfortunately.

I removed the 2 new sticks. I am now able to partially get through the SETUP.EXE, but it hangs up after I say Y or N to whether I want to keep the existing command line in CONFIG.SYS. That is when using drive B. When using drive A, it almost hangs up just before it asks me that question, then it spews a screen of seemingly random ASCII on the screen. Pressing a key spews identically more.

(I’m gently removing the sticks with a plastic tool from my IFIXIT kit each time, but it does make me a little nervous each time.)

(This is the most bizarre symptom I’ve ever seen for an error! I would have totally given up on this by now without the knowledge I’ve gotten from these forums.)

So, what should I try next with the RAM? Is it possible one or more of the parity chips has failed? If so, is there an easy way to test the chip(s)?
 
You may have noticed that I wrote "You appear to have a RAM related problem." rather than "You have a RAM related problem." One of a few possibilities. There are no definates. I think a RAM related problem should be quick to disprove. You are down to 2 sticks. Swap those out for the other 2 sticks. And of course, the sticks are only part of the RAM subsystem.

Note that the RAM check in the POST is usually crude. For example, it may not be checking that a write to one location is also not writing to another location. Perhaps run a decent RAM diagnostic to thoroughly checkout the RAM subsystem.

But yes, a program can trigger a parity check error. For example, someone here was getting a PARITY CHECK 1 message when running 3C503.EXE The cause turned out to be that 3C503.EXE was testing DMA transfers in DMA demand mode. The fix was to run 3C503.EXE with the /S switch so that the DMA test would be done in single-byte mode.

Throwing out a bunch of general thoughts:
- Multiple problems?
- A computer virus?
- Hardware problems? Test with decent diagnostics.
- Are certain symptoms only happening on the subject computer, or do they happen on other computers as well?
- Minimum version of DOS required for some things.
- Some programs do not properly run in a DOS box within Windows.
- Something sitting in RAM (launched via CONFIG.SYS/AUTOEXEC.BAT) causing interference.
 
Throwing out a bunch of general thoughts:
- Multiple problems?
Could be anything. Only investigation and time will tell.
- A computer virus?
Conceivable. I ran the virus checker in CheckIt 3.0 and it found nothing. If there are other virus checkers to recommend, please do.
- Hardware problems? Test with decent diagnostics.
CheckIt 3.0.
- Are certain symptoms only happening on the subject computer, or do they happen on other computers as well?
Only this computer, the DTK Peer-2030, is affected.
- Minimum version of DOS required for some things.
I'm using DOS 6.22 and it was working fine until 3 or 4 days ago, whichever day that was.
- Some programs do not properly run in a DOS box within Windows.
Not using Windows; only DOS.
- Something sitting in RAM (launched via CONFIG.SYS/AUTOEXEC.BAT) causing interference.
Conceivable. Does the order of command lines in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT matter?

I ran a few tasks in CheckIt 3.0: floppy reading, virus check on drive C, and memory tests. It did report parity error in memory, but didn't report anything elase that I can see or give any further detail. The log file is attached.

I tried to turn on the Peer-2030 to copy CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT to attach to this post, it gave an hard drisk error at boot. I retried a couple times, and now the computer doesn't power up at all! I checked that the power cord was plugged in on both ends, and that other stuff (the monitor) on that same outlet were still working.

Pardon my momentary venting: Arrrrrrrrgh!
L6EO.gif

So does this mean a capacitor on the motherboard immediately after the power supply is likely to have blown? There was no pop or smoke, but I know those are not necessary. Could a failing capacitor there have been a cause of the memory errors reading from the floppy drives?
 

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And about 20 minutes later, I flip the switch again and I can boot fine from the hard drive and run SETUP.EXE from drive B. I am back to the problem of it halting after the question of if I want to keep the existing command line in CONFIG.SYS.

There may have been a power fluctuation in my neighborhood. It's rather notorious for that happening every now and then. I noticed my next door neighbor's natural gas generator had turned itself on for a moment.

Here are CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT.
 

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