kishy
Veteran Member
Several years ago, I picked up a Scantech LCD-286 which is a lunchbox/luggable 286 with integrated monochrome LCD and a keyboard that clips onto the front. Cool unit. All the internals are typical desktop parts except for the power supply, which is AT equivalent, but unique form factor. The chassis is very similar (can tell the design was drafted by the same pen) to that used by later Dolch network analyzers (e.g. PAC 586, PAC 64, PAC 65) and the power supply is interchangeable with them.
As I received the unit, it has an Ethernet NIC, packet driver, and MTCP on it...which was wonderful. Having seen improvements to IRCjr on my other vintage hardware, I wanted to put the newest release on the machine. Mike has released a handful of versions since the one that was on it.
Using FTPSRV, I started transferring the new files into a new folder, and I'd then manipulate the files on the unit locally, which is how I did the same to my two PS/2s. The FTP connection kept blowing up for no apparent reason with no helpful errors (transfers failing inexplicably, disconnecting, and so on) so I decided to move the files by floppy, which is easy enough. I put the new files on a 1.44MB disk via a proven-reliable USB floppy drive with my modern laptop, put the disk in the 286's 1.44MB drive, deleted the existing MTCP files (insert cringe here), then tried to access A:. No go. The cursor sat there blinking, the drive briefly made a seek sound, the light got stuck on and nothing would happen.
I figured OK, maybe it doesn't like that disk. Repeated with another. Same result.
Swapped the drive (2 more times) as well as removed unnecessary ISA cards in case of an IO conflict of some kind, still the same.
Had a lightbulb moment, tried the same with a 720K disk. Now, if I type A: and hit enter, it changes to an A: prompt unlike before. This is progress.
However, a Copy or DIR command locks it up the same as with the 1.44MB disk.
I tried a 1.44MB MS-DOS boot floppy in the 286 and it just hangs after POST, drive LED locked on, no activity happening, blinking cursor on the screen. It does not fail with any type of error, just hangs.
I tried writing a 720K boot floppy with WinImage (put up a bit of a fight handling the 720K disk, but it did it, kind of) and tried booting from it, the WinImage bootloader text displayed saying the disk was not bootable and it then handed off the boot to the hard drive. Smells like some sort of high density support issue. Problem is I don't own any natively 720K drives, they're all HD.
This unit has an Award BIOS, "286 Modular BIOS V3.03HD 11/12/87" which is Copyright 1987 Award Software. It is branded Scantech Computer on the POST screen.
The setup menu, which from a quick Google is notoriously hard to gain access to (CTRL+ALT+ESC but it's pretty much impossible to get into it unless you first cause a keyboard error to make the system wait long enough to accept that key combo), offers the following options for diskettes 1 and 2: none, 360M, 1.2M, 720K, 1.4M.
Am I correct in thinking this sounds like a BIOS with broken/defective high density floppy support?
Any suggestions for how to get files onto the machine? Once MTCP is back on it, the floppy drive is largely irrelevant (at least for now).
The HDD is not recognized via a USB-IDE device. It's a very old drive and I've had the same experience with other very old drives before. Also, this BIOS uses type numbers, so I can't just grab a newer drive and put the files on that, then put that drive into it. I might have a couple laptop drives that are supported by the type number system but I'll have to dig a little (same issue may exist with being unrecognized by USB-IDE devices).
As I received the unit, it has an Ethernet NIC, packet driver, and MTCP on it...which was wonderful. Having seen improvements to IRCjr on my other vintage hardware, I wanted to put the newest release on the machine. Mike has released a handful of versions since the one that was on it.
Using FTPSRV, I started transferring the new files into a new folder, and I'd then manipulate the files on the unit locally, which is how I did the same to my two PS/2s. The FTP connection kept blowing up for no apparent reason with no helpful errors (transfers failing inexplicably, disconnecting, and so on) so I decided to move the files by floppy, which is easy enough. I put the new files on a 1.44MB disk via a proven-reliable USB floppy drive with my modern laptop, put the disk in the 286's 1.44MB drive, deleted the existing MTCP files (insert cringe here), then tried to access A:. No go. The cursor sat there blinking, the drive briefly made a seek sound, the light got stuck on and nothing would happen.
I figured OK, maybe it doesn't like that disk. Repeated with another. Same result.
Swapped the drive (2 more times) as well as removed unnecessary ISA cards in case of an IO conflict of some kind, still the same.
Had a lightbulb moment, tried the same with a 720K disk. Now, if I type A: and hit enter, it changes to an A: prompt unlike before. This is progress.
However, a Copy or DIR command locks it up the same as with the 1.44MB disk.
I tried a 1.44MB MS-DOS boot floppy in the 286 and it just hangs after POST, drive LED locked on, no activity happening, blinking cursor on the screen. It does not fail with any type of error, just hangs.
I tried writing a 720K boot floppy with WinImage (put up a bit of a fight handling the 720K disk, but it did it, kind of) and tried booting from it, the WinImage bootloader text displayed saying the disk was not bootable and it then handed off the boot to the hard drive. Smells like some sort of high density support issue. Problem is I don't own any natively 720K drives, they're all HD.
This unit has an Award BIOS, "286 Modular BIOS V3.03HD 11/12/87" which is Copyright 1987 Award Software. It is branded Scantech Computer on the POST screen.
The setup menu, which from a quick Google is notoriously hard to gain access to (CTRL+ALT+ESC but it's pretty much impossible to get into it unless you first cause a keyboard error to make the system wait long enough to accept that key combo), offers the following options for diskettes 1 and 2: none, 360M, 1.2M, 720K, 1.4M.
Am I correct in thinking this sounds like a BIOS with broken/defective high density floppy support?
Any suggestions for how to get files onto the machine? Once MTCP is back on it, the floppy drive is largely irrelevant (at least for now).
The HDD is not recognized via a USB-IDE device. It's a very old drive and I've had the same experience with other very old drives before. Also, this BIOS uses type numbers, so I can't just grab a newer drive and put the files on that, then put that drive into it. I might have a couple laptop drives that are supported by the type number system but I'll have to dig a little (same issue may exist with being unrecognized by USB-IDE devices).