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Mid Atlantic IBM Expanded Memory Card Driver

Covers: New York, Pensylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC.
I have 3 memory cards in my 5170, the stock 128K card and two AST card.

Do I need them? No, I just wanted to see if I could. I’ve got an intel card I may try to put in there too just to see how close to 16MB I can get.

An actual 16MB card with SIMMs is probably a better way of getting there. :)
 
Trixter said:
Wait, what? I understand that ATs typically need an expansion to get to 640K or more, as they only have 512K on the motherboard, but what's the second memory expansion? And if you have a second one, why are you trying to add a third?

As for moving the ROM, it's possible you have a ROM on your Intel 8/16 LAN card that can be moved (if it's there and enabled) by running the SOFTSET2 program that comes with it. The VGA ROM should be at either C000 or C800; it would be odd to have it at Dxxx.

I have a ROM dumper here: http://ftp.oldskool.org/pub/misc/Software/Utils/ROM_Dumper/
Try running it and then examining the dumped ROM binary it finds at D000 to see what adapter it belongs to (there's usually a copyright string, like "Phoenix", or "WDC/Western Digital", etc. That can help you identify what card is providing the ROM.
Click to expand...
Each AST expansion only adds 1.5 megs of extended RAM. Since the IBM card is a true IBM expanded memory card, I thought why not add that.

Using QRAM's Manifest, here is what I found, assuming accuracy:

IMG_3270.JPEG
IMG_3271.JPEG
 
jafir said:
I have 3 memory cards in my 5170, the stock 128K card and two AST card.

Do I need them? No, I just wanted to see if I could. I’ve got an intel card I may try to put in there too just to see how close to 16MB I can get.

An actual 16MB card with SIMMs is probably a better way of getting there. :)
Click to expand...
I found one of those cards, without the SIMMs, for what I call "stupid money".
 
Trixter said:
Right, but without dumping the roms (see above) and looking at them in a hex editor, you don't know what's providing them and whether they can be relocated.
Click to expand...
Here is what the ROM Dumper was able to pull; using the -full switch:

1. C000C5FF.ROM = PhoenixVIEW VGA Compatible BIOS (VGA Card)
2. F000F7FF.ROM = 62X0280COPR IBM CORP., 1981, 1985 (assume IBM BIOS?)
3. F800FFFF.ROM = 62X0280COPR IBM CORP,, 1981, 1985 (assume also BIOS?)
 

Attachments

  • ROMS.zip
    53.1 KB · Views: 0
Frame is basically just shorthand for consecutive p0/p1/p2/p3. So you would use:

device=c:\dos\xma2ems.sys frame=e000
or
device=c:\dos\xma2ems.sys p0=e000 p1=e400 p2=e800 p3=ec00

I would leave out p254/p255 until you get the driver to load.
 
Plasma said:
Frame is basically just shorthand for consecutive p0/p1/p2/p3. So you would use:

device=c:\dos\xma2ems.sys frame=e000
or
device=c:\dos\xma2ems.sys p0=e000 p1=e400 p2=e800 p3=ec00

I would leave out p254/p255 until you get the driver to load.
Click to expand...
Both lines tested in config.sys separately, the adapter would test up to 1024K and then fail...
 
Plasma said:
Very strange :cautious:
Click to expand...
I went in and ran Manifest to show me the memory map with nothing loaded; no autoexec and no config. I found some available memory at C800 so I adjusted the device line to:

DEVICE=C:\DOS\XMA2EMS.SYS FRAME=C800 (and behold it worked, it was the only frame the system showed available along with a bunch of pages...)

IMG_3275.JPEG
 
So you have a ROM at C000, the VGA card, which we suspected.

D000 isn't actually a ROM; I didn't look at the manifest report closely enough. D000 looks unused but then D400-DFFF appears to be adapter RAM provided by the second memory card you have installed.

This is all very strange, but if it now appears to be working, you should run EMS testing programs to ensure that you have actual EMS. I uploaded some here: http://ftp.oldskool.org/pub/misc/Software/Utils/EMS/testems.zip
 
That raises the question - if the high RAM from D400-DFFF reported by manifest is real - what about the 32k of high RAM it reports at C800??

Since the AST cards he has are XMS only, it doesn't make sense they would expose any memory in the UMA
 
Trixter said:
So you have a ROM at C000, the VGA card, which we suspected.

D000 isn't actually a ROM; I didn't look at the manifest report closely enough. D000 looks unused but then D400-DFFF appears to be adapter RAM provided by the second memory card you have installed.

This is all very strange, but if it now appears to be working, you should run EMS testing programs to ensure that you have actual EMS. I uploaded some here: http://ftp.oldskool.org/pub/misc/Software/Utils/EMS/testems.zip
Click to expand...
I am very impressed by how thorough, at least in appearance, the Borland EMS test is. The only test the failed was the last test, something about Function 19, Non-volatile handles not supported.
 
maxtherabbit said:
That raises the question - if the high RAM from D400-DFFF reported by manifest is real - what about the 32k of high RAM it reports at C800??

Since the AST cards he has are XMS only, it doesn't make sense they would expose any memory in the UMA
Click to expand...

The entire thing is very odd and not typical usage at all, and I wash my hands of it :)
 
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