Old Award 286 Hi/Lo 32 kbyte Bios

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gamma123
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat 16 Mar, 2019 11:45 pm

Old Award 286 Hi/Lo 32 kbyte Bios

Post by gamma123 »

Hi, I am trying without success to get an older Award 286 Bios running. It is split into High / Low with 16 kb each. I combined the image to get a single 32 kb file. I also doubled the file to get 64 kb and tried it.

This applies i.e. for the 2suw001 image from chukaev. The file itself is OK, when flashed to an EPROM its running in my board.

I tried several machine, i.e.
AMI 286 clone (1990)
Award 286 clone (1990)
IBM AT (1984)
without success.

Anybody has an idea what I can do?

Many thanks!
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omarsis81
Posts: 945
Joined: Thu 17 Dec, 2015 6:20 pm

Re: Old Award 286 Hi/Lo 32 kbyte Bios

Post by omarsis81 »

I guess that joining the bios file is a wrong idea. The bios will look for another file that doesn't exit
There is already a couple of motherboards/computers that work with two file bios
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omarsis81
Posts: 945
Joined: Thu 17 Dec, 2015 6:20 pm

Re: Old Award 286 Hi/Lo 32 kbyte Bios

Post by omarsis81 »

You also need to know what chipset and super i/o that award bios uses
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ruben_balea
Posts: 191
Joined: Mon 08 May, 2017 11:24 pm
Location: Spain

Re: Old Award 286 Hi/Lo 32 kbyte Bios

Post by ruben_balea »

How did you combine both files?

If you used somewaht like copy /b low.bin + high.bin out.bin that won't work because the bytes on the output file must be copied alternating one from low file and other from high file, like LHLHLHLHLHLHL... :oops: well this isn't the more scientific explanation but I hope you understand what I mean.

You can use the ROMWak utility:

Code: Select all

Byte Merge Two Files (/m)
romwak /m <infile1> <infile2> <outfile>
Merges the bytes of infile1 and infile2 to create outfile.

The byte of infile1 is written, then the byte of infile2 is written; repeat for the entire length of the file.

:arrow: Download it here: https://github.com/freem/romwak/releases/tag/0.3c

If combining low and high doesn't work you can try to combine high and low instead or simply use romwak /f <infile> to flip the bytes of the combined rom file.
See also the readme for other commands.
gamma123
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat 16 Mar, 2019 11:45 pm

Re: Old Award 286 Hi/Lo 32 kbyte Bios

Post by gamma123 »

Hi Thanks for your replies!

I am not sure if the BIOS is very Chipset specific. Maybe apart of special functions like EMS access. I think at least the AMI/Award 286 clones should take the files from differnt machines?

I combined the files with WinHex (Tools-->Unify). Wrote a small program that can also do it, but Winhex is more user-friendly. Thanks for the hint with romwak!

And of course it should be possible to use a joined filed instead of a single one. BIOS/CPU do not know anything about files...
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ruben_balea
Posts: 191
Joined: Mon 08 May, 2017 11:24 pm
Location: Spain

Re: Old Award 286 Hi/Lo 32 kbyte Bios

Post by ruben_balea »

That's fine, WinHex is really useful to work with emulation related files, BIOS, disk images and so on.
I tried the 2suw001 BIOS on almost all available 286 machines without any success, perhaps it needs some feature present only on the original chipset :(
gamma123
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat 16 Mar, 2019 11:45 pm

Re: Old Award 286 Hi/Lo 32 kbyte Bios

Post by gamma123 »

Yes indeed, thanks for confirming the problem!

I think the issue is more related to the size (64 kb vs. 32 kb) than to chipset features? But I dont know how this is handled...
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