[ILUG] Re: [OT] Bios

[Mel]

On Sun, 10 Oct 1999, Christian J van den Bosch wrote:

> You should need to get a new chip, just whip out the existing one and
> take it along to an electronics lab to get it programmed correctly. 

doh - I'll need a new chip because I was working on the board in a not so
sunny mood and the pins got bent in the old one. It's pretty busted now
whatever it was before :-(

> But
> the easiest option, which in my experience most reputable boards (not
> just Intel) support when the bios is trashed, is to boot off a floppy -
> if you stick in a dos boot floppy when you turn it on is there any
> activity suggesting that it might be booting?
> 

I saw that on the Intel boards all right and it's in recent editions of
the Gigabyte boards with dual bioses but my board only has a single bios
and it doesn't reserve enough code to boot off a floppy.

> Failing that, if you decide you do need a new bios chip, you could
> always try Farnell (01-8309277) CPC (01-4073092) Radionics (01-4153100)
> or Maplin (01-8782388), but you will need to get the same type as you
> already have.
> 

Well - there is a serial number on the bottom of the chip - is that
sufficient to describe the type?

> If you don't know what it looks like, it will almost certainly be a
> socketed chip, i.e. not soldered directly onto the board; it may be a
> DIP (about half an inch wide, two inches long with pins at 0.1"
> intervals down the two long sides) or a PLCC (rectangular thing roughly
> 0.5" square with a 45 degree chunk missing off one corner for
> orientation) with the pins at roughly 0.05" pitch (but they'll be half
> hidden if it's socketed, as the whole body of the chip goes into the
> socket, with a slot at two opposite corners of the socket to aid
> removal). For a flash part it will probably have a number on it
> beginning with 29C
> 

I'm guessing it's a DIP. It's roughly the dimensions you describe with 16
pins either side (32 total). There is three pieces of information on the
bottom of it which might describe it further for all I know

SSTTLP44
2MBit-MPF
AP0289-1

It's serial number is 171178650. None of these correspond to anything I
can see on http://www.ping.be/bios/ so I'd say it's useful information.
Anyone want to disagree?

Second, would a college have the necessary equipment to reprogram a chip?
If yes, any electronic engineering ppl on the list from UL :-) ? Failing
that, anywhere in Limerick the job could be done?

			Mel

ps sorry for all this OTingness but no computer -> no linux -> no Final
Year Project written in Linux -> no degree so I can write linux
applications :-) . Maybe it's not totally OT :-)