#B1-step hrdware fix
(to those of us with B-step problems),
We had major problems moving into Release 11 because of "B step"
80386 chips in our vintage (1987) Acer Model 1100 16mH machines. All
software fixes/patches were for nought. Got no help from Acer for a long
while – in part because the motherboard on these early machines were of
proprietary design. (I was told they couldn't give me just any Intel chip
– we had to wait until Acer/Intel worked out some agreement.)
Eventually Acer came forward with a $300 offer to replace these
problematic mother boards and chips with newer 20mH models. This would
have been fine but that meant (I believe) I'd have to buy a new
$co-processor$ as well. Add in downtime while units shipped back to
factory….Ugh. I didn't feel like investing too much in this hardware (no
IDE drives, no on-board cache, etc.)
Found a way out – some of you may have noticed that in early
documentation for Release 11/c1 the discussion of the B-step problem
refered to hardware fixes and mentioned a company called Ironwood. The
referenced was deleted from the presumably more up to date readme file, and
is not in 11/c2 documentation.
In my opinion it should not have been. I contacted Ironwood
Electronics, POB 21151, St. Paul, MN 55121 (612-431-7025) and had an item
called FIX-80386 shipped overnight letter for only $164. This chip fits
between the 80386 and the motherboard and has made it possible for me to
run Release 11 on my old machines. Hope this helps others.