nusip@maccs.UUCP (Mike Borza) (05/31/88)
Apologies for bringing up something which has probably been hashed out before, but I couldn't find a specific reference to this in our news archives. Has anyone been able to get DosMerge running under Sys V/AT on a Tatung TCS-7000 AT-clone. The last time I spoke to John Sully, he indicated that the Tatung was listed as a machine that Merge won't run on. As I understand it, the problem can be either in the implementation of the keyboard driver or in the BIOS. I'm hoping that the problem is in the BIOS, so that installing either an Award or Phoenix BIOS should fix the problem. While we're at it, does anyone have (un)favorable comments about either of these products? What about Merge on AT's? I'm interested in using Merge to run: 1) a 3Com 3C501 Ethernet card 2) a Complete Handscanner thx, --mike borza
karl@ddsw1.UUCP (06/03/88)
In article <1217@maccs.UUCP> nusip@maccs.UUCP (Mike Borza) writes: >Apologies for bringing up something which has probably been hashed >out before, but I couldn't find a specific reference to this in >our news archives. Has anyone been able to get DosMerge running >under Sys V/AT on a Tatung TCS-7000 AT-clone. The last time I spoke >to John Sully, he indicated that the Tatung was listed as a >machine that Merge won't run on. As I understand it, the problem >can be either in the implementation of the keyboard driver or >in the BIOS. I'm hoping that the problem is in the BIOS, so >that installing either an Award or Phoenix BIOS should fix the >problem. While we're at it, does anyone have (un)favorable >comments about either of these products? What about Merge on >AT's? I'm interested in using Merge to run: > 1) a 3Com 3C501 Ethernet card > 2) a Complete Handscanner > >thx, >--mike borza Hi there. Merge will run on a TCS-7000 as long as you replace the BIOS with a Phoenix bios having a revision of > 3.05. Anything after that should be ok. Also check the memory cards you use VERY carefully, the Tatung is extremely picky timing-wise and will crash left and right with a cheap board at 10 Mhz (presuming you are speaking of a 6/10 and not a 6/8 machine). Oh yeah -- get rid of the Tatung disk controller -- it is NOT a complete WD1003-WA2 clone and will trash the entire disk if you ever have a physical I/O error (ie: you get one, EVERY disk I/O after that is junk. Bye-bye superblock (and nearly everything else important). Dos Merge on the '286 has one fatal flaw -- the "standard" serial I/O just doesn't work when there's a DOS session running. UUCP will barf, spit and die if you attempt to use it without an intelligent I/O board. If the additional cost of a good smart board isn't too prohibitive you should be ok (this is presuming you want to use the communications capabilities of Unix). The bottom line? Get a Phoenix BIOS, WD1003-WA2 controller and good memory and it will work. It's not great, but it does work. Now, on the TCS-7000. If you haven't bought it yet, I'd stay clear. We're a third-party service center, and have had a good number of TCS-7000s in for main board replacement from one of our largest accounts (!) Yes, the big-bucks kind of failures. All out of warranty too. At MCS we also had a TCS-7000 which failed while in warranty and was replaced with another unit -- we immediately sold it and replaced it with a '386 :-) We've done 4 out of 20 or so that I know of at one location (and all at different times, same failure mode. Yuck.) Of course, they may have improved since these machines were manufactured; there is no way to know as the failures show up 6-12 months after purchase if you're lucky, and 13 months after purchase if you're not :-) (Ps: We filed a complete beta test report on this exact system (TCS-7000) along with the needed changes in the hardware to get it running more than a year ago with Microport. That got us the "real" copy, which is what my statements above are based upon. What happened to that data is anyone's guess.) [Disclaimer: We've no affiliation with Tatung or Microport other than our third-party repair of Tatung systems and of course as a customer] --- Karl Denninger | Data: +1 312 566-8912 Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. | Voice: +1 312 566-8910 ...ihnp4!ddsw1!karl | "Quality solutions for work or play"