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Looking for WWSETUP.EXE for WANG PC 250/16

barney

Experienced Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
Messages
202
Location
Tampa, FL
I just bought a Wang PC 250/16 and on bootup it is looking for a WWSETUP.EXE program which I do not have. I assume this is some sort of BIOS setup utility. Does anybody have or know where to get this? Thanks.

Barney
 
Sweet! Do you have any pictures of it? I was thinking we could compare our Wangs... ;)

Seriously though, I've had mine since about 1997 and when I got it, it would always display "Checksum error on extended CMOS" during POST and tell me to run BIOS Setup. It would still boot just fine but to get rid of the annoying error message, I disconnected the battery in an attempt to force it to run Setup (no matter what I did I couldn't find the correct key combination to run Setup). I know, really stupid. That's when I learned that not all computers come with BIOS Setup in ROM. :confused:

I didn't have the Setup disk (obviously) and I couldn't find it anywhere on the Internet, so the computer was essentially bricked and stayed like that for quite a while. However, I did eventually find a generic CMOS specification for AT computers and info on how to program it so I managed to hack together a very simple BIOS Setup program in QuickBASIC. I can still remember the feeling of accomplishment when I got the damn thing to boot from the harddrive like nothing had happened. :D

A couple of years later I found a generic Setup program for computers with Phoenix BIOS (attached) so now I prefer to use that instead.

Anyway, the point of all this rambling is that I too am interested in getting the original BIOS Setup program for the 'Wang Microsystems PC 250/16'. I had been meaning to ask for it on this forum before but never got around to it for some reason.

Or, if someone has info on the CMOS, in particular the 'extended CMOS' ie bytes 65-128, I would be grateful for that too.

Oh, I almost forgot, my computer doesn't ask for WWSETUP.EXE, it just tells me to run the SETUP program. And I can't even find the string WWSETUP in the BIOS so I'm guessing your Wang has a different version of the BIOS? At bootup mine says "Phoenix 80286 ROM BIOS PLUS Version 3.10 07" at the top and further down it says "ROMBIOS Version 03.13.00"

Anyhow, I hope you'll find the attached program useful especially since I fear that's the closest we'll get to the "real" thing.

/Krille
 

Attachments

  • SETUP.ZIP
    13.2 KB · Views: 13
Cool. Thanks a lot. I will give the program a try and let you know how it works out.
 
Sweet! Do you have any pictures of it? I was thinking we could compare our Wangs... ;)

Seriously though, I've had mine since about 1997 and when I got it, it would always display "Checksum error on extended CMOS" during POST and tell me to run BIOS Setup. It would still boot just fine but to get rid of the annoying error message, I disconnected the battery in an attempt to force it to run Setup (no matter what I did I couldn't find the correct key combination to run Setup). I know, really stupid. That's when I learned that not all computers come with BIOS Setup in ROM. :confused:

I didn't have the Setup disk (obviously) and I couldn't find it anywhere on the Internet, so the computer was essentially bricked and stayed like that for quite a while. However, I did eventually find a generic CMOS specification for AT computers and info on how to program it so I managed to hack together a very simple BIOS Setup program in QuickBASIC. I can still remember the feeling of accomplishment when I got the damn thing to boot from the harddrive like nothing had happened. :D

A couple of years later I found a generic Setup program for computers with Phoenix BIOS (attached) so now I prefer to use that instead.

Anyway, the point of all this rambling is that I too am interested in getting the original BIOS Setup program for the 'Wang Microsystems PC 250/16'. I had been meaning to ask for it on this forum before but never got around to it for some reason.

Or, if someone has info on the CMOS, in particular the 'extended CMOS' ie bytes 65-128, I would be grateful for that too.

Oh, I almost forgot, my computer doesn't ask for WWSETUP.EXE, it just tells me to run the SETUP program. And I can't even find the string WWSETUP in the BIOS so I'm guessing your Wang has a different version of the BIOS? At bootup mine says "Phoenix 80286 ROM BIOS PLUS Version 3.10 07" at the top and further down it says "ROMBIOS Version 03.13.00"

Anyhow, I hope you'll find the attached program useful especially since I fear that's the closest we'll get to the "real" thing.

/Krille

Thanks Krille, your Setup.zip program worked. My wang is now running perfectly except for that annoying checksum error at the beginning. I just have to press F1 and it boots fine. One question though. What is the speed of the 286 processor in this computer. I assumed by the name of the computer it was a 16mhz but I have my suspicion that i may be slower than that. Do you know what it might by? Thanks.
 
Yes, the CPU is a 16 MHz processor made by AMD but it's actually running at 8 MHz due to that "Checksum error on extended CMOS".

You can fix this by clearing the extended CMOS by typing this into QBASIC (assuming you have QB installed - I don't know what DOS version you use) and then run it:
Code:
FOR I%=64TO 127:OUT&H70,I%:OUT&H71,0:NEXT

This will remove the annoying error message at boot and will also double the speed of the computer.

To answer your question in the other thread - 286 processors can address at most 16 MB RAM but I think (IIRC from reading the datasheet) that the NEAT chipset in these computers sets the limit at 8 MB (which is the amount of RAM I have in mine). You may want to verify this by looking up the datasheets for the NEAT chipset.

/Krille
 
That is some good info Krille, thanks. One question though. I don't know if I have QBasic, but I do have the Microsoft Basic that comes standard with Dos. Will that work or do I have to use QBasic?

One more question I have is do you know the switch settings for various memory configurations? I currently have 1MB on the motherboard and a card with an additional 2mb (8 slots with 256 memory modules installed). There are three different blocks of dip switches on this memory expansion card and each set has about 7 switches. I have absolutely no idea how I should have them set at. Could you tell me how your switches are set so I can max my machine out with 8mb also? Thanks.
 
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QBASIC is what comes standard with MS-DOS (from DOS version 5 if I'm not mistaken), earlier versions of DOS came with GW-BASIC (afaik). In any case, that line of code should work with pretty much any BASIC variant from Microsoft. If all else fails, I'll make a compiled version for you. :)

About that memory expansion card - is it made by Wang or some other company? Mine came with 4 x 256 KB SIMM's on the motherboard and I've since upgraded it to use 8 x 1 MB instead - in other words, I don't have any memory expansion card in mine (though I would like to have a LIM EMS 4.0 card to play with). Anyway, if you post a picture of your card maybe someone here may be able to help you.
 
I took a look and my motherboard and it also has 8 slots: 6 black memory slots and two white. Not really sure what the color scheme is all but no matter how much memory I put in these slots, the system only says that 1024k present. When you filled yours up with 8, 1mb memory modules, was there any type of jumper you had to configure? How did you get the system to accept all 8mb? I could be using the wrong type of memory also I suppose. I will take a picture of my ram expansion card and post it later.

By the way, when I boot up my machine says it has the same Bios as yours, except that my Rombios is version 3.12 instead of 3.13: "Phoenix 80286 ROM BIOS PLUS Version 3.10 07" at the top and further down it says "ROMBIOS Version 03.12.00".
 
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All 8 memory slots in mine are black and no, I didn't have to change any jumpers or anything. It should just autodetect the amount of RAM. Did you try removing that memory expansion card when you populated the memory slots on the motherboard?

A couple of old pictures of the inside of my Wang (sorry about the low quality).
P1000786.jpg
P1000774.jpg

I didn't know this but it seems I have parity RAM in it (the 9 chips per module?) and iirc the original modules had 3 chips (should also be parity RAM?). Not sure if this matters at all. I haven't experimented with the memory in that computer for many years. My advice is to make sure all modules are of the same type and to also test them to make sure they are OK.
 
That looks pretty much the same motherboard as I have except for those last two memory slots which are slightly slanted. On my motherboard they are white instead of black. The memory modules I used were also parity (9 chips on each one) and I did remove the large expansion card.

Here is what happened so far. I installed memory in all slots and I do see a change in the right direction. This time my machine is stating that I have a total of 4 meg (1 meg conventional and 3 meg Extended). Are there such thing as 512kb memory modules on 30 pin simms? I wonder if the guy mistakingly sold me smaller simms or maybe my older BIOS version (Version 03.12.00 instead of your Version 03.13.00) puts a 4mb limitation on my computer. Either way, when I get some pictures together I'll post them and show you my setup. It's pretty much almost unused. The inside of the computer is extremely immaculate.

Also with my Wang, it came with a CGA Graphics Card, an ethernet network card, parallel port card and 5 1/4 floppy drive. I installed a sound card, cdrom drive and a 3 1/2 floppy drive.
 
The easy way to figure the true capacity of a SIMM or DIMM is to look up the part numbers of the ICs thereon, and calculate the capacity by counting the number of chips.

I'm not saying that they don't exist, but I've never seen a 30 pin 512MB SIMM.
 
Yes, the CPU is a 16 MHz processor made by AMD but it's actually running at 8 MHz due to that "Checksum error on extended CMOS".

You can fix this by clearing the extended CMOS by typing this into QBASIC (assuming you have QB installed - I don't know what DOS version you use) and then run it:
Code:
FOR I%=64TO 127:OUT&H70,I%:OUT&H71,0:NEXT

This will remove the annoying error message at boot and will also double the speed of the computer.

To answer your question in the other thread - 286 processors can address at most 16 MB RAM but I think (IIRC from reading the datasheet) that the NEAT chipset in these computers sets the limit at 8 MB (which is the amount of RAM I have in mine). You may want to verify this by looking up the datasheets for the NEAT chipset.

/Krille

Well, I finally figured it out. I just pulled out the memory and gave them all a good re-seat. Now all 8mb are showing. This computer is about as finicky as an Amiga 2000.
 
Yes, I got it running at full speed with a full 8mb. I must say that the Wang is one sweet looking computer....i just wished it had another 5 1/4" bay.
 
At bootup mine says "Phoenix 80286 ROM BIOS PLUS Version 3.10 07" at the top and further down it says "ROMBIOS Version 03.13.00"

A while back I used Mike Brutman's PCJRCART to save a copy of the system BIOS in my Wang to have a backup if the ROMs should go bad for whatever reason. So now I figured I should upload it here in case someone needs it.

View attachment WANG_PC_250_16_BIOS.ZIP
 
always looking for wwsetup.exe (wang pc200/300)?

WolfgANG

I posted them up about a year ago.

http://www.baudband.net/downloads/wang_pc_config.zip

To use the Wang PC System Preparation Diskette, you need a Wang
PC 200/300 Series system with at least one diskette drive. The
following table lists the minimum BIOS (basic input/output system)
versions needed for each system:

---------------------------------------------------
System BIOS
---------------------------------------------------

PC 240, PC 280 Version 3.10.02
PC 380 Version 1.10.03
PC 381, PC 382 Version 1.10.05
PC 250/16, PC 280/12, PC 280/20 Version 3.10.00
PC 350/16S, PC 380/16S Version 1.10.00
---------------------------------------------------

Enjoy :)
 
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