cem@ihlpf.ATT.COM (Malloy) (03/22/88)
> Actually, this probably exagerates the problem a little bit. Most expansion > board installation manuals list to check the interrupt and address settings > to make sure they don't conflict with that of other installed cards. I'd > get on the people at orchid for not putting that in their manual. My > favorite offender is the AT&T StarLAN card and an EGA card; but both the > manuals that we had clearly documented that you might have to change the > strap settings. > > You probably didn't need to disconnect the battery to the CMOS. When you > re-ran the setup program it probably set all the settings back to what they > were prior to when you disconnected the battery. > > Frank McGee Interesting. Very Interesting. I don't have any problem with the first paragraph. (Unless, by "exagerates" you mean removing the battery. But I'll "address" that in a minute. ;-) The manual for the scanner did mention that changing the addressing might be necessary, but the VGA card is not changable. The manual for the VGA card talks about what address range is used. But, quite "Frank"ly, I didn't put "two" and "too" together. As for the second paragraph, removing the battery was (under the conditions given): 1. Necessary. 2. Totally Necessary. 3. A Must Do. 4. No Other Way Around It. The "Users Guide" that was shipped with my system stated that there were four (4) types of video available. <monochrome> <40 column color> <80 column color> and <enchanced graphics> But when I ran the "SETUP" function only two (2) were displayed. <40 column color> and <80 column color> Because I used an AT&T VDC400 for the video controller when the system was first installed, the "SETUP" function removed the possibility for either monochrome or EGA. The only way that I found to restore the other two modes, was to remove the battery and "blow it's little mind". After I reconnected the battery, the system attempted to determine what was connected to the system. It got everything correct except for "date", "time" and "drive b". It even set the video to "enhanced graphics". This leads me to believe that it didn't remember what the values were, but instead checked to see what was there. "date" and "time" were set to some obscure values and "drive b" was set to "720k" instead of "1.44k". I did not mean to suggest that anyone that was adding another card to the AT&T 6386WGS needed to remove the battery. The only reason to remove the battery is to reset the CMOS. And, until it happened to me, I could think of no reason for ever doing that. This is obviously one. There may be others. I don't know. But, I would be VERY interested to hear about any problems that any of you may have with the AT&T 6396WGS line of computers. I would also like to start a mailing list of AT&T 6386WGS owners. So, if you have one and would like to be added to the list, send mail to ihlpf!cem and I will add you. -- ____ _______ _____ _______ ------- Clancy Malloy / __ \ |__ __| / _ \ |__ __| -====------ Unix System Administrator | (__) | | | \ \ \_\ | | -======------ ...!ihlpf!cem | __ | | | / \ __ | | --====------- IH 4A-245 x3946 | | | | | | | (\ / / | | ----------- AT&T Bell Labs |_| |_| |_| \_____/ |_| ------- Naperville, IL