Zenith Z386-20

From: Captain Napalm <spc_at_armigeron.com>
Date: Wed Mar 19 20:12:39 1997

  At an auction this past Saturday, I picked up a Zenith Z386-20 (okay, it
might, just might, be 10 years old). It looks to be a decent system, and
today is the first day I've been able to play around with it, as I had to
scrape up some 72-pin SIMMS for memory.

  Upon turning the unit on, I get (if I recall - it doesn't stay very long
on the screen):

                 Bad CMOS configuration blah blah yada yada

  Then the screen goes blank and the system just sits there, fans spinning.

  I have some questions about the unit I figure I'd through out here before
going to alt.folklore.computers.

        1. It doesn't seem to even look at the keyboard. Do Zeniths use
           a proprietary keyboard, or is the POST routine not getting past
           the bad CMOS?

        2. The computer itself has a daughter board that contains the
           ROMs, a SmartBattery (DALLAS - DS1260-100 / 9816 / 3V
           Lithium battery), an Intel 8742 (Universal Peripheral Interface
           8-bit Slave uController) and other neat features (the 8 LEDs
           are a nice touch). The Smart battery can be removed, but I'm
           wondering if it's a common item and is easily replaced.

        3. The daughter board also contains the ROMs, and the one that's
           in there looks to be an EPROM. The markings are
                
                          TMS / 27C512JL / LPD8809.

           I'm mostly a software guy, so some of this hardware is puzzling
           to say the least.

  I'd like to get this system up and running.

  -spc (Oh, so it's www.zds.com and NOT www.zenith.com 8-)
Received on Wed Mar 19 1997 - 20:12:39 GMT