[Patch] 8088 Zenith Data SupersPORT
Posted: Sun 16 Dec, 2018 6:36 pm
Finally I got the [8088] Zenith Data SupersPORT running...
The problem was the very special memory handling of this machine.
The SupersPort has a so called Scratchpad RAM. It is used by the Monitor program to temporarily store intermediate information used by the CPU and BIOS.
It is located from F0000H to F3FFFH in upper memory.
The BIOS (therefore) starts at F8000H, not as usual at F0000H.
Using the BIOS "z184m v3.1d.10d", you boot into the Monitor program ("MFM-180 Monitor, Version 3.1D").
Typing "?" gives a short help, typing "b" continues to boot from the first floppy disk.
Recommended configuration: CGA video, 640 KB memory, Floppy 3,5 '' 720K.
I got MS-DOS 3.21 to start. There is also a (DOS-compatible) Zenith-DOS version floating around...
Note: The patch is against plain PCem v14 (!).
With the latest development version some adaptations are necessary, as BIOS loading was moved out of mem.c to mem_bios.c.
However, everybody who uses the development version should be able to handle this
The problem was the very special memory handling of this machine.
The SupersPort has a so called Scratchpad RAM. It is used by the Monitor program to temporarily store intermediate information used by the CPU and BIOS.
It is located from F0000H to F3FFFH in upper memory.
The BIOS (therefore) starts at F8000H, not as usual at F0000H.
Using the BIOS "z184m v3.1d.10d", you boot into the Monitor program ("MFM-180 Monitor, Version 3.1D").
Typing "?" gives a short help, typing "b" continues to boot from the first floppy disk.
Recommended configuration: CGA video, 640 KB memory, Floppy 3,5 '' 720K.
I got MS-DOS 3.21 to start. There is also a (DOS-compatible) Zenith-DOS version floating around...
Note: The patch is against plain PCem v14 (!).
With the latest development version some adaptations are necessary, as BIOS loading was moved out of mem.c to mem_bios.c.
However, everybody who uses the development version should be able to handle this