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From: jwbirdsa@amc-gw.amc.com (James Birdsall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: BIOS / memory question
Message-ID: <5087@amc-gw.amc.com>
Date: 23 Jan 91 01:29:26 GMT
References: <4011@eastapps.East.Sun.COM>
Reply-To: jwbirdsa@europa.amc.com (James Birdsall)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Applied Microsystems, Redmond, WA
Lines: 23

In article <4011@eastapps.East.Sun.COM> chris@egghead.East.Sun.COM (Chris Kordish - Norwalk CT SE/SysAdm) writes:
>2)  SLOT 8 on a "vanilla" IBM XT - Can I use any card in this slot ? Or is it
>    dedicated for use with maybe an IRMA type of card or some other kind of
>    communications/protocol transfer device.

Slot 8 on the original IBM XT is not interchangeable with other slots.
According to a technical reference I dimly remember reading, the card in
slot 8 must respond with a "card selected signal" when selected. In the
years since then, I've never figured out what this was supposed to mean.

I have tried lots of cards in slot 8. The only one that has ever worked is
an original IBM serial port card which has a jumper for slot 8 operation. I
believe there was also an IBM 3270 card which had a switch for slot 8
operation. Cards which have failed to work are: video cards, drive
controllers, other serial cards, parallel port cards, memory cards.

Translation: it's almost useless. :(

-- 
James W. Birdsall   WORK: jwbirdsa@amc.com   {uunet,uw-coco}!amc-gw!jwbirdsa
HOME: {uunet,uw-coco}!amc-gw!picarefy!jwbirdsa OTHER: 71261.1731@compuserve.com
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