Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!samsung!emory!gatech!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!mcs.kent.edu!neoucom.edu!wtm From: wtm@uhura.neoucom.EDU (Bill Mayhew) Newsgroups: comp.sys.att Subject: Re: Adding Hardrive & Controller to 6300 (M24)? Message-ID: <1991May03.044817.17089@uhura.neoucom.EDU> Date: 3 May 91 04:48:17 GMT References: <1991Apr30.003112.1552@uhura.neoucom.EDU> <14613@adobe.UUCP> Organization: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine Lines: 381 What follows is an article that was posted by George Wilkin. The attachment describes several speed-up tricks such as backing off the dram refresh, switching to a V-30 CPU and installing an EGA monitor. An address is enclosed for a person who used to and still may have bus correction cards available that fixed the reversed byte order that cuases 16 bit wide writes that plagues some EGA hardware. I can personally attest to the benefits of backing off the DRAM refresh and installing the V30. Note that a V30 is a much more significant gain versus an 8086 than a V20 is versus an 8088. I'm also using a Taxan 640 monitor with an STB EGA card. I don't have the bus corrector mentioned in the article. ==Bill Bill Mayhew NEOUCOM Computer Services Department Rootstown, OH 44272-9995 USA phone: 216-325-2511 wtm@uhura.neoucom.edu ....!uunet!aablue!neoucom!wtm via internet: (140.220.001.001) ---------------- enclosure follows -------------------- Path: neoucom!spl1!laidbak!att!ihnp4!ihlpf!gpw From: gpw@ihlpf.ATT.COM (Wilkin) Newsgroups: att.sys.pc6300,comp.sys.att Subject: 6300 upgrade options(286 and EGA) Message-ID: <5457@ihlpf.ATT.COM> Date: 28 Jul 88 14:38:33 GMT Reply-To: gpw@ihlpf.UUCP (Wilkin,G.P.) Distribution: usa Organization: AT&T Network Systems Lines: 336 Xref: neoucom comp.sys.att:4195 ============================================================== Not the 6300 Newsletter George Wilkin ============================================================== This month: Speed and Graphics!!!! Subject: SOTA MOTHERCARD 5.0/5.0A James Butts Subject: SOTA 286 ACCEL. CARDS David Gay Subject: MAGNAVOX 873 James Butts Subject: V30/QFRESH 6300 UPGRADE David Gay Subject: EGA/VGA FIXES FOR 6300 David Gay Subject: Pinout for Taxan 9 pin Bob Eberly / George Wilkin to 25 pin AT&T cable I was reading the AT&T Hotline BBS [1-201-769-5616] and found this info, it is very useful. gpw Please post the MultiSync cable pinout if you have a copy. Date: 07-16-88 (23:47) Number: 1536 Subject: SOTA MOTHERCARD 5.0/5.0A From: JAMES BUTTS After reading the West Coast newsletter (NEWS8801.arc) I picked up a copy of Personal Computing (July, 1988). There is a complete review of accelerator boards, & the Sota 5.0 is reviewed. It is compared to several other boards plus a Compaq Portable (1) & Compaq 386/20 (5). The review speaks very favorably to the Sota 5.0 & even suggests it is able to run head-to-head with 386 boards. In the product chart, following the article, the 5.0a is noted & listed as compatible with the AT&T 6300. In overall value the Sota 5.0 is rated the highest of the 286 boards (Inboard 386/PC is top rated but NOT compatible with AT&T) at 8.2 on a scale of 1-10. I will put together a text file if others are interested in this article. =-=-=- Jim -=-=-= P.S. - Sota 408-245-3366 $895 Date: 07-17-88 (02:06) Number: 1539 Subject: SOTA 286 ACCEL. CARDS From: David Gay ======================================================================= SOTA 286 Accelerators for AT&T PC6300 now available ======================================================================= The SOTA (State Of The Art) Technology Inc. 80286 accelerator card for the AT&T 6300 is now available. It is called the SOTA286i, and there are 10Mhz and 12.5Mhz versions. SOTA also makes an 80286 "computer on a board" called the SOTA Mothercard 5.0A, which goes in an AT&T (that's what the "A" stands for) and REALLY soups up a PC6300. I have never actually seen one of these animals, but I have gathered a lot of info from a guy called Bill Todd in San Jose who specializes in upgrading AT&T 6300 systems. This guy HAS tested the above hardware in PC6300s and posted the test results for downloading from his TODD PC3 BBS 1-408-263-9015 (1200 baud). I downloaded these results, which are quite impressive, and uploaded them to this BBS. A BRIEF summary follows. >>>>>>>Look for a file called SOTA286I.ARC for more info.<<<<<<<<<<<< Pricing info: SOTA286i 80286 accelerator with 16K SRAM cache, socket for your 8086, and 2 foot cable to reach the 8086 socket on your motherboard: 10 Mhz 80286 - $495 SALE! $299 if you order before July 31! 12.5 Mhz 80286 - $595 SALE! $399 if you order before July 31! SOTA Mothercard 5.0A with 1Meg of zero wait state on-board memory, will supposedly run OS/2 out of the box!?!? 10 Mhz 80286 - $895 or $995 <- I have seen different prices 12.5 Mhz 80286 - $995 or $1095 <- from different sources here.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PC TECH JOURNAL's ATPERF BENCHMARK RUN ON AT&T 6300 with HARDWARE: PC/AT 339 AT&T 6300 SOTA286i SOTA5.0A SOTA5.0A 8Mhz V30/QFRESH 12.5Mhz 10Mhz 12.5Mhz Avg instruction fetch 1.0 0.79 1.83 1.08 1.36 Avg Ram read time 1.0 0.78 8.65 1.09 1.37 Avg Ram write time 1.0 0.24 0.51 1.08 1.36 Avg ROM read time 1.0 0.16 0.15 1.09 1.37 Avg video write time 1.0 1.75 1.69 1.13 1.06 80286 CPU clock rate 1.0 0.66 1.52 1.21 1.52 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Order from: SOTA Technology Inc. or TODD PC3 657 N. Pastoria Ave. 1920 North Star Pl. Sunnyvale, CA 94086 San Jose, CA 95131 408-245-3366 408-263-8925 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DISCLAIMER: I have not purchased these products, I am not making any endorsements, I do not work for either SOTA or Bill Todd. Your mileage may vary. I am passing this information along to the AT&T community because the above mentioned concerns seem to be providing a viable upgrade path for those of us with aging 6300s who want to get some more bang out of the old box. --David Gay----- Date: 07-27-88 (23:53) Number: 1649 Subject: MAGNAVOX 873 From: James Butts Jeff, With the AT&T cable the hookup is simple!!! (Use the part # in my message! As for the horizontal prob., I would hope it was just a factory prob. in set up. The are 2 master trim pots, 1 reads H.POS 22K & the other reads H.POS 33K. The 22K refers to 22khz scan (Ithink) & 33K refers to 33Khz scan?! The 22K may have been set without checking the 33K (as you know AT&T is 35Khz). Since I was operating on that band, it had to be set properly. There is an external knob, right up front, that allows you to get alot of horizontal adjustment with no prob. I would like to guarantee no probs., but I don't know. Good luck, =-=-=- Jim -=-=-= Date: 07-26-88 (23:35) Number: 1633 Subject: MAGNAVOX 873 From: James Butts I am now running a Magnavox 873 Multimode monitor with my native video controler board! The dealer I bought it from did not know about the AT&T adapter cord (Part #: 4613990288) so I followed the diagram for the NEC (posted in files as MULTSYNC.ARC) & was successful in building my own. ($12.00 in Radio Shack parts & 1 1/2 hrs. work). If your good with an ohmmeter & soldering iron, go for it! (One point, it is 9 DB FEMALE to 25 DB MALE for Magnavox!) I had one prob., horizontal centering, but found the master trim pot. on the mainboard on the right (facing monitor side). It could have just been a poor setup at factory, not a real problem. (CAREFUL - you need to be comfortable working on the INSIDES of a $500 monitor - HOT CHASSIS! HIGH VOLTAGE!) It really wasn't any problem once I located the pot. (no schematic). The monitor is beautiful (made by JVC) & still operates in 640x400 AT&T monochrome mode! I would recommend it 100% if I only knew about the horizontal centering problem?!?!?!? One dealer told me it is out of production already, but the dealer I ordered from (Computer Mail Order) did not say this! Good luck, I hope this helps!! =-=-=- Jim -=-=-= Date: 07-17-88 (00:50) Number: 1537 Subject: V30/QFRESH 6300 UPGRADE From: David Gay ===================================================================== Replacing 8086 with 8Mhz NEC V30 and using QFRESH, by David Gay ===================================================================== This is certainly the cheapest, easiest method of increasing the performance of a 6300. Don't worry about a 10Mhz version, as PC Mag suggested way back. The 8mHz V30 ($12) works like a charm, and increases performance significantly. Just pull the 8086 from the motherboard, pop in the V30, and you're running! In addition, if you use PC Mags QFRESH utility (see below), you can get additional performance gains for FREE by postponing the Dynamic RAM refresh. PC Mag Labs Benchmarks 8086 V30 V30/QFRESH RATIO 128K NOP Loop: 4.56 4.61 4.34 1.05 Do-Nothing Loop: 6.26 5.22 4.61 1.36 Integer Add Loop: 5.21 3.95 3.57 1.46 Integer Multiply Loop: 5.77 2.91 2.53 2.28 String Sort and Move: 5.87 4.39 3.95 1.49 Prime Number Sieve: 8.24 6.04 5.88 1.40 8086 Instruction Mix: 18.24 13.41 11.64 1.57 Floating Point w/o 8087: 72.72 55.69 49.54 1.48 Conventional Memory Read: 3.57 1.98 1.75 2.04 Conventional Memory Write: 3.57 2.03 1.21 2.95 ---cut below here and save as QFRESH.SCR----------------------------- N QFRESH.COM A 100 MOV AL,74 OUT 43,AL MOV AL,FF OUT 41,AL MOV AL,02 OUT 41,AL INT 20 <----------this is a blank line, erase this comment R CX E W Q <----------this is a blank line, erase this comment ---cut above here and save as QFRESH.SCR---------------------------- At the DOS prompt, with DEBUG pathed, enter: DEBUG < QFRESH.SCR this creates QFRESH.COM, which you then run, or put in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The low byte value of FF in line 5 and of the high byte value of 02 in line 7 may have to be changed for your own machine. See other messages on this board for other people's values which work with a stock 8086, and also read the original PC Magazine article: Vol 7, No. 13, July 1988, p. 331., which explains what is going on here. - Hope this helps some of you people out there. This board has helped me a lot, so i thought I'd return the favor a bit. ---david---- Date: 07-17-88 (00:55) Number: 1538 Subject: EGA/VGA FIXES FOR 6300 From: David Gay ===================================================================== Adding EGA/VGA board to a PC 6300, by David Gay ===================================================================== If you call the AT&T Hotline up and ask about putting an EGA or VGA board in a 6300, they will tell you you shouldn't do it, but will sell you a $35 chip to disable your native video board anyway. There is only one problem with this: the EGA/VGA card will only work with certain software. The problem stems from the 6300's Olivetti-designed 16bit to 8bit "bus converter" board which allows the 16bit 8086 to talk with the 8bit cards which you put in the expansion slots. When the 8086 sends out 16bits at a time, this converter chops it up into two 8bit bytes and passes it along to the card. Trouble is, when Olivetti designed the thing, they chose the wrong order to send the bytes out, as compared with IBM's later designs. OOPS. For a lot of text based programs and even some low-performance graphics programs, this is not a problem, since they talk to the video card 8bits at a time. But in the case of high-performance graphics programs like Generic CADD, Microsoft Windows and Word, EGA Paint, etc., your expensive new EGA card just will not work. But, hold on, there is a solution! Of course, AT&T did not provide the solution, but thank God for the free enterprise system, and for hardware hackers out in Silicon Valley. A hardware fix for the 6300 bus problem has been developed by W. Allen of Cupertino, CA. The 6300 BUSS CORRECTION KIT contains hardware that disables the resident video board (so you don't need to give AT&T the $35 mentioned above) AND corrects the way the In/Out words are written to the bus, thereby allowing EGA/VGA cards to work correctly on the AT&T 6300. All kits come complete with the required hardware and good installation instructions. I ordered one of these kits from W. Allen, received it in a week, and put it into my 6300 in 15 minutes. The Paradise EGA / NEC Multisync combo that would not run GENERIC CADD or MICROSOFT WINDOWS before installation now gave me perfect performance. I highly recommend this fix, and congratulate W. Allen for providing a solution to a problem which the technical might of AT&T has chosen to ignore, rather than to solve. To order your Buss Correction Kit, send $45 check or money order to: W. ALLEN ASSOCIATES 10120 Lockwood Drive Cupertino, CA 95014 (408) 257-9739 Postage and Handling is included. Send money order for faster processing. A CAVEAT, AND ANOTHER SOLUTION: In its infinite wisdom, Olivetti designed the 8bit expansion bus to operate at 4Mhz!!!! That is a little bit slower than the original IBM PC. Consequently, EGA ROM BIOS video operations, such as text scrolling are INCREDIBLY SLOW when you hook up a EGA card in the AT&T. Fortunately, there is a solution. A program called RAM4EGA copies the EGA ROM BIOS into Ram on the motherboard and makes it resident. Video writes which use the bios are speeded up to about the speed of the original AT&T display adapter on my system. The information on this useful utility follows: RAM4EGA Version 1.10 (C) 1988 - DLF Solutions! This Device Driver will relocate EGA ROM at Address C000:0000 to RAM, and fix up the vector table to point to the "Shadow RAM". This will be of benefit to 16 and 32 bit machines (80286/80386) that are slowed by 8 bit access to the EGA Video Adapter Card. Since this Driver searches the low memory vector table for references to the EGA ROM BIOS Segment it MUST be the first Device entered in your CONFIG.SYS file (Device=RAM4EGA.SYS). If EGA ROM BIOS is not found at Address C000:0000 it will do nothing, otherwise it will dramatically speed up Video BIOS Routines. As always, use this at your own risk, however, I would be interested in hearing about any problems. Douglas L. Fraleigh 1405 Sadlers Wells Dr. Herndon, VA 22070 Hopefully, this utility has been uploaded to the BBS where you read or download this file. It should be a file called RAM4EGA1.ARC. Good Luck upgrading your 6300!!! ---I hope this file helps some of you folks out there---- ---David--- Subject: Pinout for Taxan 9 pin Bob Eberly / George Wilkin to 25 pin AT&T cable How to make a cable to connect the 318 to the TAXAN or STB Card. The connections for a 318 to these cards should follow this example which is for a TAXAN 557 Gold Card. (The Paradise Card will NOT work with the 318 monitor. The pinouts to connect the AT&T 318 monitor with the 25 pin connector to a Taxan Gold Card (9 pin) are as follows: 25 9 Lead PIN PIN Designation 1 8 H. Sync 2 1 SG 3 9 V. Sync 4 3 Red 5 4 Green 6 5 Blue 7 6 Intensity 8 7 NC 9 - NC 10 - NC 11 - NC 12 - NC 13 - Degauss 14 2 SG 15 2 SG 16 2 SG 17 2 SG 18 2 SG 19 2 SG 20 - NC 21 - NC 22 - NC 23 - NC 24 - NC 25 - NC SG = Signal Ground NC = No Connection NOTE: If you use paired cable leads connect one lead as the lead designation and the other as the SG. This provides a shielding effect and helps eliminate any video interference. Bob Eberly Most multifrequency monitors can handle AT&T's 400 line, 25 KHz video signal with plenty to spare. In particular, a Magnavox Multimode with a cable (from Magnavox) for the AT&T indigenous video card, works fine. -- George Wilkin AT&T Network Systems,(IH MAIN BL) 2000 N. Naperville Rd. Rm IH4A157 Naperville, IL. 60566-7033 att!ihlpf!gpw work ph# (312) 979-4317 -- Bill Mayhew NEOUCOM Computer Services Department Rootstown, OH 44272-9995 USA phone: 216-325-2511 wtm@uhura.neoucom.edu ....!uunet!aablue!neoucom!wtm via internet: (140.220.001.001)