Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix.sco
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!maytag!xenitec!news
From: alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Alex Pournelle)
Subject: IDE, Panics, Traps
Submit-To: sco-list@uunet.uu.net
Organization: Workman & Associates
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 16:18:30 EST
Message-ID: <9011281618.AA03106@mamia.UUCP>
References: <1990Nov21.012836.12797@bagend.uucp> <1990Nov21.093114.15468@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us> <5857@crash.cts.com> <1990Nov25.035337.3088@bagend.uucp> <1990Nov25.151615.6118@mthvax.cs.miami.edu>
Resent-By: mmdf@xenitec.on.ca
Sender: news@xenitec.on.ca (xenitec.on.ca News Administrator)

max@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (Max Southall) writes:

>I've just finished working on a CompuAdd 20 MHz 286 machine with IDE
>interface builtin that had terrible problems running SCO Xenix 286. It came
>with an Award BIOS installed, and would generate PANIC and DOUBLE PANIC
>in multiuser mode anywhere from a few seconds after boot to a couple of
>hours at the longest, running 1 to 4 users.

>Not being able to obtain the details of Award's CMOS configuration, I
>modified the JLS bilingual BIOS we had earlier developed for similar problems
>on a 386 and wrote an extended CMOS setup program that allows configuration
>and display of virtually all the CS8221B registers. After installing this
>new version of the BIOS, and experimentation with register values, the
>system now works flawlessly at 20 MHz.

Also, did you get/try the SCO SLS 133 (which fixes some RLL drive
problems, and is popularly rumoured to fix other, AT/IDE drive problems)
on this system?  You can get it from SCO's BBS, or I could copy the disk
I got for you (E-mail-ing it?  Well, erm, I'm not very good at
that--USmail/UPS would be easier).

Other than selling your work to Award for a very great amount of money
:-{=} and congratulating yourself for a job well done (``just hacked the
BIOS''--the old hacker spirit lives!), have you considered doing a
free/share/commercial-ware product to let users at that there BIOS from
(say) DOS or (gasp!) XENIX?  Can I have a copy if you do?

I'd love such a hunk-a-code for the many BIOSes (Award and AMI: R U
lis'ning?) who don't include advanced setup.  Boy, would I!  The only
`advanced' setup I've seen is shareware with a return address of Taipei,
Taiwan, and my Chinese-English (& their programming) is very good.

>In any case, thanks to Alan Wendt (the box's frustrated owner) and Alex
>Pournelle (iconoclast at large) for providing the impetus for this
>solution.

You are quite welcome--good thing that "nn" has a huge bug, or I
wouldn't have seen this thankyou.  (Me--eager for praise?  Yes, me eager
for praise, UGH. ;-)  ``Wile E. Coyote: Iconoclast.'' It has a ring to
it...)

	Keep on computing,
		Alex
-- 
		Alex Pournelle, freelance thinker
		Also: Workman & Associates, Data recovery for PCs, Macs, others
		...elroy!grian!alex; BIX: alex; voice: (818) 791-7979
		fax: (818) 794-2297    bbs: 791-1013; 8N1 24/12/3