XT & AT BiosKits
monahanz
(written mostly in C) described in the no longer printed, Annabooks
"XT & AT BiosKits". Anybody got a copy of the book?
Mr Emmanuel Roche, France
Hello, John!
You don't seem to be a book worm, because your references are
incomplete.
Regarding Annabooks, I never had much chance finding any of their
books. But, first, let us learn a little about Anabooks:
> For over 20 years, Annabooks has published some of the leading books covering cutting edge PC technologies. Today, we continue to develop books that cover unique technology topics. Here is a look at our history:
1988 – Annabooks is founded in San Diego, CA.
> After creating the first backplane PCs and the company I-BUS in the early 80s, John Choisser teamed with John O. Foster to create “The XT-AT Handbook” later to become “The PC Handbook”. The shirt pocket sized handbook was packed with technical details on the PC architecture. The handbook was a must-have for hardware and software developers looking to build their own embedded PCs. BiosMaker (later to become Annabios) and Promkit soon followed. Around this time, Annabooks became Microsoft’s first distributor for MS-DOS to the embedded market.
1989 – The XT-AT Handbook by John O. Foster and John P. Choisser
1989 – Promkit by John O. Foster and John P. Choisser
1990 – Biosmaker by John O. Foster
1990’s - Expanding on the need to help OEMs build embedded PC systems,
several industry experts signed up to be authors and cover some of the
key PC technologies of the decade. Edward Solari wrote the successful
ISA & EISA Theory & Operation, and he would later write and co-write
several other books including the equally popular PCI Hardware and
Software Architecture & Design with George Willse. Two Intel
Engineers, Brian Dipert and Markus Levy, wrote the earliest book on
flash memory: Designing with Flash Memory. Annabooks also started a PC
development training course with several of the authors taking part.
As new PC technologies were being developed, other authors covered USB
and PCI-X, and there were even a few non-PC related texts.
1992 - ISA & EISA Theory & Operation by Edward Solari
1993 - PC Keyboard Design: The PC Compatible Keyboard Design Reference
by Gary Konzak
1993 - Designing with Flash Memory by Brian Dipert and Markus Levy
1994 - PCI Hardware and Software Architecture & Design by Edward
Solari and George Willse
1995 - The PCI Handbook by Brian Dipert
1995 - The Internet Joke Book by Brad Templeton
1996 - Fuzzy Logic for Real World Design by Ted Heske and Jill
Neporent Heske
1996 - DOS Buttons v 2.0
1996 - Power Management that Works by James C. Bunnell
1997 - The Embedded PCs ISA Bus by Ed Nisley
1998 - Interrupt Driven PC System Design by Joe McGivern
1998 - USB Hardware and Software by John Garney
1998 - PCI HotPlug Application and Design by Alan Goodrum
1999 - Developing USB PC Peripherals by Wooi Ming Tan
2000 - Windows NT Embedded Step-by-Step by Sean Liming
2000 - Programming the Motorola M68HC12 Family by Gordon Doughman
2000 - USB Handbook by Kosar Jaff
2000 - PCI Power Management by George Willse, Edward Solari, Jim
Ewertz
2000 - USB Peripheral Design by John Koon
2002 – Annabooks is sold to The RTC Group, the leader in embedded
marketing. Annabooks become RTC Books. Several new book titles were
published:
2003 - Windows® XP Embedded Step – by-Step by James Beau Cseri
2003 - Embedded Networking with CAN and CANopen by Olaf Pfeiffer,
Andrew Ayre, and Christian Keydel.
2004 - Windows® XP Embedded Advanced by Sean Liming
2008 – SJJ Embedded Micro Solutions, LLC. acquires RTC Books to expand
book publishing efforts.
2009 – Annabooks.com is re-launched
> Annabooks is a wholly own subsidiary of SJJ Embedded Micro solutions, LLC.
Annabooks and Annabooks logo are trademarks of SJJ Embedded Micro
solutions, LLC.
On their Web site, they still have a Web page about "The PC Handbook":
- "The PC Handbook" (96 pages)
John P. Choisser & John O. Foster
Annabooks/Rtc Books; Seventh edition (May 1, 2001)
ISBN-10: 0929392728
ISBN-13: 978-0929392721
Price $10.00
Table of Contents:
1. Useful References· 6
BUS CONNECTORS
2. ISA 62 Pin Connector. 7
3. ISA 36 Pin Connector. 8
4. PC/! 04 Connector.. 9
5. EISA Connector.. 10
6. PCI and PCI-X Connectors· I I
7. Small PCI (SPCI) Connector 14
8. SPCI Recommended I/O Pinouts 15
(Ethernet, Token Ring, SCSI, VGNSVGA)
9. VESA VL Bus Connector. 17
10. PC Card (PCMCIA) Connector 18
11. ISA Signal Names............ . 19
12. ISA Bus Signal Summary 20
MECHANICAL DRAWINGS
13. AT Add-on Card Dimensions 24
14. Card Bracket Position 25
15. PCI Form Factors· 26
16. PC/I04 Cards 27
CABLES
17. Power Cables 29
18. Display Cables 30
19. Keyboard Cable 31
20. Parallel Printer Cable 32
21. RS-232C Cables· 33
22. Null Modem Cable 34
23. Game Controller Adapter Cable 35
24. USB Cable· 35
25. Ethernet (AUI) Cable 35
26. Disk Cables 36
27. Disk Controller Function Summary 37
28. ST506 and ESDI Cables 38
29. ST506 and ESDI Signals 39
30. SCSI Cables* 40
3 I. SCSI Signals 42
32. IDE (ATA) Cable. . 43
33. IDE (ATA) Signals . 44
FIRMWARE & HARDWARE
34. POST Notes 45
35. User ROM Scan 46
36. Memory Map 47
37. I/O Map· 48
38. BIOS Data Area 49
39. Interrupt Map 51
40. Hardware Interrupts 53
41. DMA Channels 53
42. BIOS Entry Points 54
43. CMOS Memory and Real-Time Clock· 55
44. Video 57
45. 8237 DMA Controllers 60
46. 8042 Keyboard Controller 61
47. 8259 Interrupt Controllers 63
48. 8253/8254 Counterrrimer 64
49. 8250 Serial Chip Notes 65
50. 8250 Register Descriptions· 66
51. Logical and Physical Devices 67
52. Bi-Directional Parallel Port 67
53. Enhanced (Fast) Parallel Port 67
54. PCI Configuration Space Header Type OOh 68
55. PCI Configuration Space Header Type OIh 69
56. PC Card (PCMCIA) Socket Services 70
57. PC Card Card Services 71
KEYBOARD CODES
58. AT 84 Key Keyboard Scan Codes 72
59. AT 101 Key Keyboard Scan Codes 74
60. AT Keyboard Commands 77
61. ASCII Control Codes 78
62. Screen Codes 79
MS-DOS
63. MS-DOS Commands 83
64. BATCH Commands 88
65. CONFIG.SYS Commands 89
66. DEBUG Commands 92
67. MS-DOS Keystrokes 93
68. Floppy Disk Formats 94
But, as you can see, it is hardware only.
I had the same problem, about 10 years ago, when I tried to improve
the BIOS of CP/M-86 Plus (written for an IBM XT) to run on the current
IBM AT Clowns. Something changed, during the switch from XT to AT,
which makes CP/M-86 Plus no longer booting from a HD (fortunately,
floppy disk drives changed much less than HDs, so it is still booting
from current 3.5" floppies). There is curiously very little technical
information available for the IBM Clown. (Its biggest problem being
that it is a moving target, whose hardware changes every 18 months. It
is amazing to compare my "IBM PC Technical Reference" manual with the
10-years old Compaq Presario I was given recently.) And I don't even
talk about the internals of CP/M-86 Plus, or Concurrent CP/M: to this
day, I am unsure which interrupts are used. Nobody thought of
designing an "interrupt log-on vector" which would tell us which
interrupt is used, and which ones are freely available. It must have
been too simple.
If you manage to find some of the above Annabooks (in particular,
"BiosMaker"), let me know.
Me, meanwhile, I found only 2 useful books.
Yours Sincerely,
Mr. Emmanuel Roche, France
Katzy
monahanz wrote in message ...
>Does anybody have a source for the (~1988) IBM PC compatable BIOS code
>(written mostly in C) described in the no longer printed, Annabooks
>"XT & AT BiosKits". Anybody got a copy of the book?
http://www.datapackrat.com/diskimages/page005.html
Bye, Katzy.
monahanz
Thanks Katzy for that .IMG file. Unfortunately when I download the
F2D.COM file and try and put the origional files on 1.44 or 1.2M disks
I always get an error:-
"Unable to write to output disk (write protected?). Program aborted.
The disks were not write protected and I can write and or format them
either in the CMD box of W7 or an NT system. In either case I can r/w
to the disks.
Any way you could put up the .C and .H etc files (even temporly -
would be usefull for others). I will put the files on
S100Computers.com for long term access.
Others may too be intersested in taking a write at a more modern BIOS.
Emmanual, agree they had/have some really good books. I saw their web
site yesterday but only a few are listed and BiosKit was not one. I
did come across one listing somewhere for the book but it was $90. Not
sure it was real and would like to see the code first anyway.
I have CPM86+ running on CF card/IDE/S-100 for quite a while and am
currently doing an 8259A PIC card with the long term idea of building
a PC like/S100/80386 system. Long story, strictly a hobby!
Peter Dassow
>>> "XT & AT BiosKits" [...]
>> http://www.datapackrat.com/diskimages/page005.html
>>
>
> Thanks Katzy for that .IMG file. Unfortunately when I download the
> F2D.COM file and try and put the origional files on 1.44 or 1.2M disks
> I always get an error:-
> "Unable to write to output disk (write protected?). Program aborted.
Why didn't you used "extract" from
http://www.datapackrat.com/utilities/extract.html ?
You don't need to write to a real physical floppy.
Regards
Peter
monahanz
Thanks for that Katzy,
I eventually got the BiosKit.img file expanded to:-
AT6, ATREAD.ME and UNPAKAT.EXE
However , when I run Unpakat.exe in either the DOS box of W7 or an old
NT box it says “Program too big to fit in memory” any suggestions?
Katzy
Yes, I unpacked all for you and you can download the zip file temporarily - I
made a directory like atread.me adviced and those 3 files at6, atread.me and
unpakat.exe are in the zipfile too.
www.nostalgia8.nl/tijdelijk/bios.zip
monahanz
Katzy
that url comes back:-
The requested URL /www.nostalgia8.nl/tijdelijk was not found on this
server.
AppleCPM
> server.
I had the same problem. I got around it by cutting the link text
and pasting into my browser's address line.
Willi
AppleCPM
Oops, make sure that what you cut and paste includes "bios.zip" at
the end.
Willi
glen herrmannsfeldt
(snip)
> Thanks for that Katzy,
> I eventually got the BiosKit.img file expanded to:-
> AT6, ATREAD.ME and UNPAKAT.EXE
> However , when I run Unpakat.exe in either the DOS box of W7 or an old
It worked for me in a CMD window on Win2K. Note that .EXE may be
a DOS executable or a Win32 executable. CMD should run both on
older systems. I believe that CMD on Vista and W7 won't run any
16 bit (Win16 or DOS) .exe files, though.
Well, the bios.zip file has both the expanded and .exe file.
When I ran the .exe file it asks if I want to overwrite each of
the files.
-- glen
monahanz
Katzy, sorry for being a real pain but I tried :-
http://www.nostalgia8.nl/tijdelijkwas/bios.zip
and got no URL!
glen herrmannsfeldt
(snip)
> Katzy, sorry for being a real pain but I tried :-
> http://www.nostalgia8.nl/tijdelijkwas/bios.zip
> and got no URL!
http://www.nostalgia8.nl/tijdelijk/bios.zip
the "was" is part of the "was not found" message.
-- glen
pe...@nospam.demon.co.uk
mon...@vitasoft.org "monahanz" writes:
Hello Monahan -- I have an old zip file here containing the source of
an XT BIOS (asm). Can't recall whence I downloaded it, and it is very
old (1988), but if it's of any use I'll happily mail it to you.
It's around 40K zipped, nearly 200K unzipped -- just let me know that
your email address is OK.
Pete
--
"We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors,
we have borrowed it from our descendants."
monahanz
> In article <4045a7a6-4c0c-4efc-bf63-7c991c6a7...@x18g2000prb.googlegroups.com>
>
> - Show quoted text -
Thanks Pete. I have that too. Years ago I did my own, line by line
from the PC manual
John
Mr Emmanuel Roche, France
> Emmanual, agree they had/have some really good books. I saw their web
> site yesterday but only a few are listed and BiosKit was not one. I
> did come across one listing somewhere for the book but it was $90. Not
> sure it was real and would like to see the code first anyway.
>
> I have CPM86+ running on CF card/IDE/S-100 for quite a while and am
> currently doing an 8259A PIC card with the long term idea of building
> a PC like/S100/80386 system. Long story, strictly a hobby!
<sigh> John, please, is it the first time in your life that you are
seeing "Emmanuel"? Can't you spell correctly a 3,000-years old Hebrew
word (meaning "The Elected One")? You were responding to a message
containing this very string...
I happen to be a book worm. Somewhere, in public libraries, you can
find some forgotten or lost books. (For example: the translation in
French of the DR DOS Plus manuals.) If you are serious about getting
those books, you should visit the nearest public librarian, and ask
him to make a search (The Library of Congress don't have it). Since it
is a Californian company, logically, a copy should be found in some
public library of this state, or in a second-hand bookshop.
I don't know how many copies they printed, at each "run", but it seems
to have been small. They still have the 2001 edition of their best-
seller in stock! Apparently, with the 21st Century, people are no
longer building their own personal computer.
Me, I found one Annabook for $250...
If it is another 100-pages booklet, this is far more than the cost to
photocopy it. For some unknown reason (the American-made crisis?),
there are more and more incredible price for second-hand goods. And
nobody seems to have had the idea of scanning them, despite their
rarity and unavailability.
"I have CPM86+ running" Well, it displays "CP/M-86 Plus" on my screen
(and in all the CMD files). 4 persons asked it to me, so I sent them
my heavily-patched version, with the 3 manuals (Well, 4, since I
provide SORT with CP/M-86 Plus, and I now add Dr. Logo, since it is
the most poverful PL available under it).
As for "the long term idea of building a PC like/S100/80386 system", I
have several articles explaining how to implement MS-DOS on a S-100
Bus system, and this article was mentioning several "mom-and-pop"
companies which were selling those kind of MS-DOS Version 1 ports. So,
at one time, it was possible, and people were not surprised that it
was possible to do it, alone.
For some unknown reasons, this knowledge is disappearing. For example,
notice how few "System Guides" are available, on the BitSavers.Org Web
site. Each time I visit it, I am surprised, since we all know that
Digital Research was providing each of their OSes with 3 manuals, one
of them being the "System Guide" explaining how to port or implement
this given OS on another hardware.
So, how to explain, logically, that BitSavers has all those DR
manuals, but never the "System Guides"?
Me, I happen to have the "CP/M-86 Plus System Guide" -- because I
retyped it. (Advantage: since the text is in ASCII, I can easily copy
and improve its contents.)
CP/M-86 Plus was written at a time when text-based serial consoles
were the standard I/O device. The current IBM Clown is moving more and
more away from this simplicity. However, the physical device that
changed the most, since the original IBM Clown (which had magnetic
tapes) is the Hard Disk, which provides the most difficulties.
Upon realising this, I searched for an alternative (BDOS Version 2 is
limited to 8 MebaBytes per drive/file, BDOS Version 3 has an upper
limit of 32 MegaBytes for a file, and 512 MegaBytes for a drive), and
found a source of "limited resource" Hard Disks (built by a big US
company, in addition, so, over the years, I was able to buy some for
peanuts on eBay).
Apparently, hardware types jumped on the CF card concept. Me, my
solution works, without modifying one single byte from the SYS file...
However, the GENCPM and the files mentioned in the "CP/M-86 Plus
System Guide" are missing, so I am drawn to the logical conclusion:
since CP/M-86 Plus is a single user version of Concurrent CP/M, and
that the 3 manuals and GENCPM and all the source code files are
available (outside the BitSavers.Org Web site), the logical conclusion
is to re-generate Concurrent CP/M Release 3.1, then modify its XT-
compatible BIOS to run on current IBM Clown hardware, then, once this
will be done, go back to CP/M-86 Plus, and do the same, using the
tools of Concurrent CP/M (since they are available, except on the
BitSavers.Org Web site).
I was not expecting to be obliged to recreate a multi-tasking multi-
user Concurrent CP/M operating system, of about 120KB of code, just to
recreate the source code of CP/M-86 Plus (only 55KB of code) but,
since BitSavers.Org don't have the manuals and code (and did find
nothing during the last 10 years...), the logical conclusion is to
drop BitSavers and use what is available -- outside them.
So, I come to the logical conclusion that I am obliged to port
Concurrent CP/M 3.1 to the current hardware of the IBM Clown.
(Advantage: an Internet server will be much more easier to implement,
then, since DR-Net used to run under Concurrent CP/M... Replace XMODEM
by TCP/IP, and go "surf the Internet" with CP/M!)
Of course, if you want to port it on the S-100 Bus (as it was
originally), you are the welcome, and I could share with you the
knowledge of porting one OS under a new hardware (since I am not an
hardware type). Since the regulars of the comp.os.cpm Newsgroup are
only interested in CP/M 2.2 and ASM and DDT, we could set up a Web
page dealing with this project. (I already have the 3 manuals.)
Steve Nickolas
> <sigh> John, please, is it the first time in your life that you are
> seeing "Emmanuel"? Can't you spell correctly a 3,000-years old Hebrew
> word (meaning "The Elected One")? You were responding to a message
> containing this very string...
Actually, it means "God [is] with us", there are a couple puns on this in
the vicinity of Isaiah 8.
> I don't know how many copies they printed, at each "run", but it seems
> to have been small. They still have the 2001 edition of their best-
> seller in stock! Apparently, with the 21st Century, people are no
> longer building their own personal computer.
The computer I am using now is built by myself.
-uso.
Mr Emmanuel Roche, France
> Actually, it means "God [is] with us", there are a couple puns
> on this in the vicinity of Isaiah 8.
This is the Roman Catholic interpretation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel
(Note that this Web page is based on the Catholic Encyclopedia of
1913.)
1) Since I could not care less about what the Roman Catholic think, I
directly asked a Jewish Rabbin: it is him, who told me than, in Old
Hebrew, Emmanuel means "The Elected One" (or "The Chosen One").
2) Emanu-El is a common name for Jewish synagogues.
Katzy
monahanz wrote in message
<4045a7a6-4c0c-4efc-bf63-7c991c6a7bc5+AEA-x18g2000prb.googlegroups.com>
-...
>Katzy, sorry for being a real pain but I tried :-
http://www.nostalgia8.nl/tijdelijkwas/bios.zip
and got no URL!
Like Glen wrote it is:
http://www.nostalgia8.nl/tijdelijk/bios.zip
When it still does not work for you - it does for me, it is really on the
server - I can mail you the file (at vitasoft.org).
Bye, Katzy.
monahanz
Thanks so Much folks for help on this. Finally got it!
John
Axel Berger
>I directly asked a Jewish Rabbin: it is him, who told me than, in Old
>Hebrew, Emmanuel means "The Elected One" (or "The Chosen One").
Sorry, but your Rabbi was wrong and the Catholics happen to have it
right this time. I passed my basic Hebrew some time ago and "with us
God" aren't very obscure words. And on top of that the Encyclopedia
Judaica says the same thing.
But you know, only the pope is infallible and they say "two Rabbis,
three opinions". It makes for some complications but lively discussions
and prevents Judaism from becoming static.
James Moxham (Dr_Acula)
tasking multi-
user Concurrent CP/M operating system,"
Just a teaser here, but in the last 24 hours we have got MP/M II V2.1
working on the propeller chip. Multiple 32Mb (and SIMH 8Mmb) drives on
a micro SD card the size of a fingernail. Standard SIMH code. Four
users, working on real serial ports and on local VGA/Keyboard and with
virtual I/O ports for communication between users. Xmodem file
transfers at 115200 baud.
Next step = CPM 3 or CPM Net or customised wireless packet networking.
Maybe even the Internet.
Back to coding. This is extremely fun and very addictive...
Steve Nickolas
He prolly had it confused with "Messiah" which does mean "chosen one".
-uso.
All...@localhost.net
I showed my Rabbi neighbor and that brounght howls of laughter.
Your spelling is the result of language evolution and hybridization
as most known languages as spoken and spelled are post Gutenberg.
Allison
Ruud
> Thanks Pete. I have that too. Years ago I did my own, line by line
> from the PC manual
Is it possible to have a copy, please? I created my own one as well in
this way. I used it to create another BIOS that I could use for
testing and repairing XT boards.
Somewhere in the 90's I must have made a mistake because only recently
I found out that both the original and self made source code contains
only the self made one :(
You can send it to "Ruud at Baltissen dot org". I would be very
greatfull !!!
Groetjes, Ruud
www.Baltissen.org
Katzy
Ruud wrote in message
<70903e8e-8744-4b64...@29g2000yqp.googlegroups.com>...
>Hallo John, Pete,
>
>
>> Thanks Pete. I have that too. Years ago I did my own, line by line
>> from the PC manual
>
>Is it possible to have a copy, please
Found it too, the asm file. You can download it temporarily from:
http://www.nostalgia8.nl/tijdelijk/xtbios.zip
Bye, Katzy.
pe...@nospam.demon.co.uk
Ruud.Ba...@apg.nl "Ruud" writes:
I see that Katzy has already put up this zip on a website, so I think
you can download it from there. I downloaded it to check if it was
the same file (or not) and it *seems* to be the same as the one I have
here: the file contents match [.asm and .doc] and the sizes match
exactly. I didn't check that the content matched, but given the above
I would be extremely surprised if the files are not identical.
I assembled it using masm 4.0 and it assembled with no errors and a
single warning about "assembling close to at end of segment" or
something along those lines -- not surprising as it uses the whole
64K!
Gene Buckle
James wrote:
> From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm
>
> Just a teaser here, but in the last 24 hours we have got MP/M II V2.1
> working on the propeller chip. Multiple 32Mb (and SIMH 8Mmb) drives on
> a micro SD card the size of a fingernail. Standard SIMH code. Four
> users, working on real serial ports and on local VGA/Keyboard and with
> virtual I/O ports for communication between users. Xmodem file
> transfers at 115200 baud.
>
> Next step = CPM 3 or CPM Net or customised wireless packet networking.
> Maybe even the Internet.
>
> Back to coding. This is extremely fun and very addictive...
>
It needs a BYE overlay too. *laughs*
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
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A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
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Ruud
> Found it too, the asm file. You can download it temporarily from:
>
> http://www.nostalgia8.nl/tijdelijk/xtbios.zip
Hartstikke bedankt !!!
(Thank you very much)
Groetjes, Ruud