Yes, you can send a PM and i’ll add it to the archive.
I still have an older type of UPL motherboard lying around. I’ll see if i can put something together on my spare UPL to try it out from my side. Will note down the BIOS Version and perhaps dump it as well.
Will keep you updated on my findings.
It's probably a compatibility problem, between a BIOS not fully supporting LBA mode, and an SSD no longer having CHS addressing mode properly implemented. There must be plenty of similar problems among retro-gamers.
I have even tried idediag.exe, to figure out which CHS geometry is reported by the drive, without BIOS assistance. This program reported a geometry of 255 cylinders, 15 heads and 63 sectors (per track), a total of 240975 sectors. And a logical geometry of also 255 cylinders, 15 heads and 63 sectors (per track), a total of 15466575 sectors. Entering this into the BIOS produces a 39MB drive. I didn't even bother to try that.
I'm sure that this is not a size issue; I found few of my posts on the EEVBlog forum from early 2018, about upgrading my spectrum analyzer drive to an SSD: The 2GB and 4GB Transcend industrial grade SSDs I tried didn't work in either my spectrum analyzer, nor my UPL. Hence my deja vu. Perhaps it's just not possible. Or a Transcend-specific problem...
Why not try CF card? As you have checked retro-gamers know-how, you know not all CF cards are bootable.
I used transcend CF100i industrial CF card for my UPD, though UPD is a intel 486 system, it works fine.
Even industrial CF cards used one are cheapo today. I had tested other 2 Generic CF cards, but both did not work well.
I used transcend CF100i industrial CF card for my UPD, though UPD is a intel 486 system, it works fine.
Even industrial CF cards used one are cheapo today. I had tested other 2 Generic CF cards, but both did not work well.
I forgot to mention: I already tried all 6 CF cards in my box back in 2018, and none of them worked.
But are you running Windows on your UPL?Here my tools for the job.
It may be handy to know that this main board has a USB port. It is disabled, but it can be enabled in the BIOS. And specifically these may very well fit the optional P1 port on the back of the UPL:
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So far we know this instrument was sold with two different types of mainboards. Most of us have an old version, and @Brjirre has a new version.
However, it is possible, and even likely, it was sold with an even older mainboard. Perhaps even with a black&white display, and very likely without an IDE controller on board. This would be the only plausible reason why there’s an IDE controller on the R&S board.
Does anybody know about this older mainboard?
However, it is possible, and even likely, it was sold with an even older mainboard. Perhaps even with a black&white display, and very likely without an IDE controller on board. This would be the only plausible reason why there’s an IDE controller on the R&S board.
Does anybody know about this older mainboard?
Hi All,
I have looked into windows 98 on older and newer motherboards. I was able to get both of them running on windows 98. Steps are shown below and important pictures and settings are on the drive.
I have the newer motherboards as well as the older AI5VG+ motherboard.
The Bios settings for the newer motherboard can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lbk9uci04PEXxgOpGpN8ZR4wVDhDoZUq?usp=share_link
The Bios settings for the older motherboard can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lMcEhDAYmsKB589Ysd7QfK5SCQ5YqHr7?usp=share_link
Steps I have performed are:
The experience on the older motherboard is reasonable. If you wish you could go searching for better CPU’s and more Ram, but stock experience wasn’t awful at all.
With my image I’m storing also the windows 98 and 95 installation disks on separate partitions. This makes the driver installation go automatically as it finds the installation disks on it’s own.
Hopefully this helps anyone wanting to get windows 98 running on it.
Let me know if you’re still having issues. With these settings I could repeat the installation every time.
Cheers,
Bart
I have looked into windows 98 on older and newer motherboards. I was able to get both of them running on windows 98. Steps are shown below and important pictures and settings are on the drive.
I have the newer motherboards as well as the older AI5VG+ motherboard.
The Bios settings for the newer motherboard can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lbk9uci04PEXxgOpGpN8ZR4wVDhDoZUq?usp=share_link
The Bios settings for the older motherboard can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lMcEhDAYmsKB589Ysd7QfK5SCQ5YqHr7?usp=share_link
Steps I have performed are:
- Restoring an existing image on an empty CF card and using a CF adapter to IDE. The software I’m using is Paragon Partition Manager 15.
- You can use mine here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lt181nl2U4NYwdDHycNc7oOKezXMby2n?usp=share_link
- With the correct bios settings, you’ll end up at a blinking cursor. This is normal as the image restoration causes the MBR to be corrupt.
- Insert the windows 98 start disk. I have modified mine to include SYS.com. You can find it here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1leIwkkdLHGutsX6n1_c2GWZSDGDIzB9h?usp=share_link
- Make sure the UPL boot into floppy first and on the windows 98 welcome screen you can skip directly by pressing shift+F5.
- Once in the terminal. Type sys C: and press enter.
- After some time, you’ll see System Transferred and you’re good to go.
- Remove the floppy and reboot. You should see the windows 98 booting sequence.
- Screenshots can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1llft4r0L9BZSGrZK0dAcAJbgLicMu0wd?usp=share_link
The experience on the older motherboard is reasonable. If you wish you could go searching for better CPU’s and more Ram, but stock experience wasn’t awful at all.
With my image I’m storing also the windows 98 and 95 installation disks on separate partitions. This makes the driver installation go automatically as it finds the installation disks on it’s own.
Hopefully this helps anyone wanting to get windows 98 running on it.
Let me know if you’re still having issues. With these settings I could repeat the installation every time.
Cheers,
Bart
I have also found some more software and information regarding the UPL. Might be useful for some
UPL Software going back to 3.00 to 3.06: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1M6P3YIdIfB9erZTtTGd6lhNE3NS3R_qr?usp=share_link
More Manuals: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Wz85ZQ3PzXDXnmc_yg6smTkN84flfQ_A?usp=share_link
Application Notes with software: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YLLYbaRkB0z8tqyLpPlOLxPQkTPcr841?usp=share_link
Example Calibration Documents of an UPL and UPV. This might be useful to see how extensive R&S do their calibrations: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1m3dnoSMXIV1WyMh8iHmAGIpb5YnoCyZw?usp=share_link
Cheers,
Bart
UPL Software going back to 3.00 to 3.06: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1M6P3YIdIfB9erZTtTGd6lhNE3NS3R_qr?usp=share_link
More Manuals: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Wz85ZQ3PzXDXnmc_yg6smTkN84flfQ_A?usp=share_link
Application Notes with software: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YLLYbaRkB0z8tqyLpPlOLxPQkTPcr841?usp=share_link
Example Calibration Documents of an UPL and UPV. This might be useful to see how extensive R&S do their calibrations: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1m3dnoSMXIV1WyMh8iHmAGIpb5YnoCyZw?usp=share_link
Cheers,
Bart
Invalid media type reading drive C
Abort, Retry, Fail?
Just before this experiment, I have been freshly installing DOS on this drive, so I know it works and boots.
Does the Bios recognize the drive?
Did you skip the win 98 startup menu with shift+f5? The startup utility will create a “c” ramdrive where this will not work.
Are all other steps identical in my setup, or did you notice differences?
If you have the same motherboard, we should be close! ☺️
Yes, the BIOS recognizes the drive, both before and after. It even booted DOS from it an hour ago.
I skipped the win98 start menu when booting from your floppy. I did not check if C is a ram drive. I did notice however, that fdisk shows that the first primary partition the drive is marked 'non-dos'.
Well, I run linux on my workstation, so getting the image on the disk required me to convert it to a raw image first, but linux seems to recognize the drive and all 3 paritions on it just fine. I'm now looking into fixing up the MBR from Linux, but since CHS addressing was deprecated a long time ago, my hopes aren't high.
I also discovered something useful for others: The BIOS on the old board can boot from the Master drive om the Secondary IDE controller. It does from the primary too, but enabling that in the BIOS may cause bus conflicts between the on-chip primary IDE controller and the R&S primary IDE controller.
Caution to anybody trying to make use of the AI5VG+ motherboard USB connection: The USB header pin-out is non-standard. It misses two pins, and hooking it up as what intuitively seems right, will reverse polarity on both the USB power pins and data pins. Ironically, when plugging in a device, Windows will detect this event because of the way USB chirping works, but no device will be found. While you are wondering why, your mouse's power is reversed, burning it up on the inside, as there seems to be no current limitation on the mother board. My mouse survived, but is smells like burned circuit board now.
The correct way to hook up a converter in the post quoted above, plug it in as shown below:
Note that in this case only one of the two USB ports will actually work, because the missing pint on connector J1 is +5V for the second connector. When splicing both red wires on the illustration above together, both ports will work.
Ok; The ATA controller on the Rohde & Schwarz carrier board is not compatible with the Transcend TS64GPSD330 SSD. And probably not with a lot of Compact Flash cards either.
However, the on-chip ATA controller on the TMC AI5VG+ mainboard is compatible with this drive. It auto-detects it properly, and MS-DOS 6.22 can be installed on it successfully.
The reported geometry is:
7783 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors per track and a landing zone of 32690. The reported size is 64021MB. Other geometries were reported too, but this one is used for LBA mode. It is even reported to support UDMA33.
According to me it’s either automatically when local ref files are not present or during fresh install or serial number from the hdd is different. Then menu’s are shown during the startup sequence for saving the data.
Yes, you are right! I just compared my ssd contents with your image contents, and these files have changed indeed. The serial number also matches the one on the case.
I have double checked with the Service Manual, which I have just found on your Google Drive, and there it also says that if calibration data is found in both I2C EEPROM and on the harddisk, the first takes precedence and the data on the harddisk is overwritten. That makes sense, but I feared the first.
And just so you know; My UPL is booting your Windows 98 image now, and the UPL application runs. I didn't do any measurements with it, but it pases its selftest, and no errors are reported. It was a long journey, though. I could describe it here, but it involves a lot of Linux terminal commands, probably not to everybody's taste here...