Uncreative Labs

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 2:18 am

Greetings again, i have one of the above mentioned computers and am trying to figure out what the hell the 2nd floppy connector is for, even the board says it's for a 3rd floppy, but i can't get it working with dos, and the AST bios doesn't see it as such, do i need a special driver for it? If so, where can i find it, also anyone know where i can find origional software disks, or atleast copies or the system software for this thing?

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

If you're lucky, some of the software, and maybe some documentation, may be here (you'll have to dig down to find it):

http://www.ari-service.com/default.asp

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 6:51 pm

I've examined this site before, but it doesn't really have what i need.
It's a good computer, but hampered by 10mb of ram right now, i'd like to find a ramboard to max it out, also, can i use a 3mb EMS board in it? I have an Everex EV-159. But i really want to figure out this floppy port

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

AST's were a little "quirky". They supported some things pretty well, but lot's of times needed some patch to get them working properly (as you could see from the numerous TSB's on the ARI-Service site). I've got an old Texas Instruments Bravo 386sx-16 (built by AST) that uses a Ramboard to bring it up to 10MB, so I'd suppose the EMS board you speak of should work. You might find some more info here:

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/m386_1.html

which is a mirror of the old TH99 site, but according to this:

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/A/AST-RESEARCH-INC-386-PREMIUM-386-25.html

it just states that it's an "Auxillary floppy drive interface"...

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 8:05 pm

Fascinating, my cpu card has 10mb on it, i'd like the ramboard to use it's 3mb of EMS to take the load off of system ram, it'd be even better if i could find an XMS board aswell, but i may have to track down an ast part. What can you come up with about that 3rd floppy interface?

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 8:31 pm

I also have another post pertaining to another topic, one i'm about to post on,
I have a sony MFD-63W-70D
I'd like to use it in a normal PC to test it, I've found on tv-dog that it wants power through the cable, BUT it has a power connecter, can i tape over the grounds? that it wants on the cable? and just have it work? or do i have to hotwire it like they say

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Uh, those EV159s also do extended memory. I think you'll find most 16-bit memory expansion boards can work in this way. I've owned 3 of them (I think I still have two).

Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 12:54 am

hmm, i'd love to know how to set up the ev-159 to do extended, but the ast refuses to even recognize it during the memory count. But strange errors occur in dos and such, so i think it sees it, but just doesn't know what to do with it, i have the jumper settings for it, but all it offers are configuring the EMS ports and the memory size. all banks are populated with 256k chips, and there are 6 banks @ 512kb each, for 3mb. it'd be nice to make it see the card, then i wouldn't have to worry about tracking down an ast memory board

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Where are you getting your jumper settings from?

It's been a long time, but I remember that first you had to run the software configuration for it and tell it how you want it set. It would then provide you with the settings for all three banks of switches. It also has a diagnostics program that can isolate bad chips on the board.

If you're using settings from TH99, it's probably incomplete.

Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 1:14 am

do you have the program and diags perhaps? i'm not sure where to start looking for those

TH99 has served me well, also STATSON has more settings for things in general

Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 1:29 am

This gets better and better, i JUST found software for the EV-158A on Mpoli's FTP. Card is close, but not identical..

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Yes, you can find the software you need on DriverGuide. The product is listed under its alternate name "RAM 3000 Deluxe"

Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 1:40 am

wow, thank you Smile

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:54 am

Thank you for your help with the memory card, i also solved my tandy drive issue, i actually came across one of the expansion drives at my used parts seller, 15$ and it was mine, new without box

But i've another one, i got a Cheetah Card Fast PC-AT 640k/2.5mb memory board and want to stuff it in my ast with the ev-159, but the settings for this one are MORE elusive. It's got 2.5mb of 60ns DIP ram on it and this would make the ast FLY if i can get it to work. The speed may even be worth pulling the everex card out..

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

"and this would make the ast FLY if i can get it to work"

I'm assuming you mean that in "relative" terms. Few machines I have in the 386/486 class would fly on a decent OS...