canada@crash.cts.com (Diane Barlow Close) (11/30/89)
I am the proud new owner of an old ``luggable'' Televideo XL
computer. I purchased the machine (cheap) from a friend who had
tired of such an archaic machine, and switched to a '386 VGA.
The televideo is just right for my infrequent, ``portable'' use.
I do have some minor problems with it, however. The televideo
contains an old bios (BIOS REV-E, XL-Bios, 12-4-85 (28 pins) for
any chip- minded people), and this bios was created before 3 1/2
inch drives existed. I was told that this means that the
computer won't be able to format, or use, 3-1/2" disks
(720K/1.44M) and the corresponding drives, even if I buy new
controller cards for those drives. Apparently the bios has to
have certain information about the "newer" 3-1/2 inch drives in
order to recognize them, and televideo's bios is too old. Have I
got that right?
Now, what if I buy a new XT bios from someone like Phoenix (or
another 3rd party bios)? Will this new bios work in my Televideo
XL? What do I need to watch out for when switching bios?
If switching bios won't work, are there other ways to trick an XL
with old ROMS into recognizing the existence of a 720 K drive?
A friend at work thought that with a newer DOS, like 3.3, I could
use a device driver to access the drive. Is this as simple a
solution as it sounds? Then I would need just a controller and
drive. If this is possible, are there generic 720K/1.44M drivers
around? Or would I need a driver specific to the
drive/controller I bought?
Will the old bios limit the size of hard drive I can add, as
well? What about adding a hard card? The machine has 4 regular
sized slots. How do the slots work -- can you just add anything
into a slot and expect the computer to recognize it?
Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me. I hope I don't
sound too ``PC ignorant'', but this *is* my first PC. I
understand the technical concepts behind the hardware, but I
don't know the specifics as they apply to the PC.
--
Diane Barlow Close
{nosc, ucsd}!crash!canada
canada@crash.cts.com
Free Canada -- Trade Mulroney