This beast arrived yesterday, Its the Amstrad Mega PC 386SX an IBM-compatible PC with a difference. It contains an entire Sega Megadrive on an ISA card.
Powered by an Intel i386SX running at 25 MHz. It has 1 MB of RAM and a 40 MB Seagate hard drive, not bad for 1992!
I found mine on eBay, sold as broken and very cheap. I snapped it up thinking I could just replace a resistor and muck around with it until I got into DOS and then dump its BIOs using debug. I was overly optimistic...
This is the site that greated me when I removed the case:
A leaky NiCad has eaten its way though the tracks, No worries, I bought it as broken and the interesting bits ;) are pristine, namely the BIOs roms and the ISA card.
As I couldn't power up the board (nevermind make it into DOS, heh) Im going to have to dump the BIOs roms the harder way. Thankfully they are nicely socketed :)
As I don't have an EPROM programmer I went shopping and found that most EPROM programmers are stupidly overpriced. After a recommendation I found http://www.mcumall.com/ and picked up a EasyPRO 90B USB Universal EPROM Programmer not a very catchy name but it supports over 6000 devices! Also it doesn't come with a financially crippling pricetag. While I wait for my programmer to battle is way though the postal strike I think I'll make myself a Guru certified Chip-ClipTM
3 comments:
That has a 486 processor not a 386?
I like the helpful information you provide
in your articles. I will bookmark your weblog and check again here frequently.
I'm quite certain I will learn plenty of new stuff right here! Good luck for the next!
Feel free to surf to my web-site :: best diet
I don't even know the way I finished up here, however I thought this put up used to be good. I don't know who you're however definitely you are going to a well-known blogger for those who aren't already.
Cheers!
Feel free to visit my web blog; diet plans
Post a Comment