access to BIOS of DECpc

From: Dan Williams <williams.dan_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed Oct 20 04:36:04 2004

On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 22:49:12 +0200, Gooijen H <gooi_at_oce.nl> wrote:
> Hi all,
> I have this DECpc 320P which has a 40 Mb hard disk in it.
> I installed a 420 Mb hard disk, but it keeps being recognized as 40 Mb.
> I can not find a way to get into the BIOS, and those old PC's normally
> had a "utility floppy" to get access to the BIOS ... fdisk says 40 Mb.
>
> I guess it is OT as it is a PCP11-CA notebook computer from DIGITAL
> with a 386 CPU and a sticker on it from DECcare (valid to Jun 1994),
> so it must be at least 10 years old :-)
> This beastie has a black&white screen (no colors), but the name is just
> perfect (PCP*11*) and I would like to run E11/SIMH on it, but 40 Mb is
> a little small and I have this 420 Mb disk ...
>
> Who can tell me how to get into the BIOS (assuming that I can from there
> change the hard disk drive parameters) ; a ZIP-file with the utility disk
> would also be very welcome!
>
> TIA,
> - Henk, PA8PDP.
>
I know these machines only have 46 or so built in geometries of disk
type. If your hard drive doesn't match these then I think your out of
luck. But you still need the setup program. Have you tried
ftp.digital.com ?

Dan
Received on Wed Oct 20 2004 - 04:36:04 BST