HORRAY!!! (And a little boo...)

From: jpero_at_cgo.wave.ca <(jpero_at_cgo.wave.ca)>
Date: Thu Nov 20 13:40:25 1997

> On Thu, 20 Nov 1997, HOTZE wrote:
>
> > I just got my XT working!!! (My first classic) Well... not really
> > working... I get a "601 Error", and then it says "Press F1 To Resume" I
> > remember a similiar error w/my current computer... I replaced the
> > keyboard when all was done. Just for a little interesting bit, the
> > manufacturer of the chip (I forget the term) on the keyboard is
> > Zilog.... same neon light style logo as way back when. Well anyway, I
> > would like to thank Max, who sent me the processor that got it working,
> > (Sorry, tried to e-mail him, and got an error) and I would like to know
> > if anyone can help w/ the 601 error.
> > Thanks,
>
> My boss, who used to work on these, says it's either a keyboard fail, or a
> harddisk fail. He's not sure.
>
Bassy, harsh LOUD BUZZ! (Air shakes and vases rattles...)

xyyy, where x is specific group and sub items within that group
stands for yyy. For 601 that means 6 is floppy system as whole and
01 is general adapter error.

This is floppy card controller fail. Clean all contacts and check
all jumpers on floppy both or one drives should be set as number 1
(physical number so 0 counts. 0,1,2,3), power. Make sure your
floppy controller card has that alone jumper is shorted. Your floppy
cable has Twisted part on that floppy cable connecter stands for A:
and UnTwisted one is B:. Either way the device as only one or on 2
drives, only one MUST have terminator resistor
installed. But 1.44 drive does not need it because it's already
built in.

You can borrow modern 16 bit multi i/o that has IDE on it card and
the 1.44 drive for testing! IDE does not matter it will not be used
because of IRQ 14 but the vital i/o part of serial and parallel and
floppy controller part will work on old PC and XT but the 1.44 will
just work as 720k mode due to 9 sectors as expected on 360k disks.
Make sure you already made several bootable 720k disks. I recommand
dos 5 to see all of the hd if the hd is larger than 32mb. And that
Dos 3.3 for least memory requirements and also supports 720k disks
but dos 5 will do well and easier to get.

I did that exactly like that on XT and it's successful. And much
easier to get and cheaper this way. So you can know your pc is good,
and allows you to have relaxed time to find proper components for it.

Greater problem: new keyboards today and I mean those that you can
get now no longer have XT support now. Better fix yours and keep 'em
jealously! :) Both PS/2 and PS/1 keyboards can support either
automatically. Other generics that does have one commonly have
switch selection or very rare non-ibm makes does automatically as
well.

Troll
Received on Thu Nov 20 1997 - 13:40:25 GMT