Hi,
James Oakley wrote:
"David J. Coffin" wrote:
This card can be set for *any* ISA port 0x0 to 0x3ff,although the web page doesn't explain how. Unfortunately, this company's phone number has been disconnected.
Here's why having POST cards on two or three differentports is so important:
Another 2 reasons why building our own would be a good idea.
Company not available/reliable
a microcontroller can monitor multiple ports and display them all to
an lcd or multiple 7-seg displays mounted on front of the PC so we won't have to look inside the case (I have a small flashlight next to my computer for checking jumper settings, part numbers, etc..) all the time.
Also, Matthew Sullivan mentioned it would be a good idea to have a "dual bios" on the card that could be switched back and forth. What if we flash into the main BIOS code that would jmp to whatever bios is enabled on the card, a backup bios and a test bios. That would *really* speed up development time. The switch could go on front of the pc with the display. It all could be mounted in a 5 1/4" drive bay cover.
Whilst this is a good idea, it wasn't quite what i was thinking about, for the only reason ... wouldn't this give us flashing problems, or can you also arrange to be able to flash to the '2nd' BIOS ..? (I said I was not much good with digital electronics design ;-))
However, assuming that one BIOS can be programmed, and the other maybe read-only? any design ideas/plans etc... If this works, I'd like to get my hands on a plan ASAP cause this would be just what I need...
This is all, of course, very simple design.
I hope so ;-)
It would be great to have a post card with such a level of intelligence.
If you're carful you could even make a business plan & money from it... but more on that when we see what we've got....
Yours
Matthew