#SOTA 386si
9 messages in this thread
Steven,
What does the SOTA 386si do for you? Since it appears not to have
its own memory, I guess it accesses the memory and i/o stuff that you
already have. Did you have any special setup software to 'awaken' the
board upon bootup?
Sincerely,
(Mr.) Gayle Lee Fairles
'Perfessor Fearless'
PS I'm thinking of one myself, but I'm in no hurry.
Gayle,
Well, it provides a 16 Mhz 386 system which uses the BB for I/O and
memory. The card has a bus connector to which you may attach a Sota memory
card specially for it in which you can install up to 8 Meg of RAM usable as
EMS ram on the MSDOS side. I haven't done that so just have the 640K on my
8088 BB. It also has a 16K instruction cache and can also set up a
diskcache. In all it's much faster than the stock BB, which becomes
noticeable when you use programs like DesqView or PC/Geos. And I suppose
also if you use Windows, DR Dos, or New Wave alternative GUIs, but I don't
know if Windows or New Wave works on a BB. I do know that Dr Dos works,
cause someone here mentioned they had installed it successfully. I have
installed Geos successfully and DesqView 2.3. The setup is quite simple.
The board requires the removal of the 8088 from the BB and insertion on the
Sota board. Then a ribbon cable connects the Sota to the 8088 socket on
the BB. If you have an 8087 installed it must be removed. The Sota card
has a socket for an 80387 chip. Software involves adding a line to your
config.sys file and placing the Sota
sys driver in your boot path. The cache controlling software can be run in
your autoexec.bat. All in all didn't take long to install and set up.
No one that I know of has gotten the 16i memory board fully working.
Ron
Oh, that's nice to know. I wasn't planning on getting one, at least not in
the near future, but I might have. I'm about out of slots, now, so were I
to ever add extended memory I don't know where to put it. Have you had any
experience with EMS memory cards for the BB? My old list indicated the
Intel Aboveboard and AST Rampages worked, but don't know of any others. I
also don't know if both those boards will work with the 8088 BB or only on
the AT.
Thanks for your reply! I appreciate it.
You may want to check with SOTA or another SOTA user about adding
more memory. It is my understanding that you cannot use it with the BB.
Do you know if I can use my LIM 4.0 board? I know I have the
appropriate software if the hardware is compatible.
I'm the one who successfully installed DRDOS 5.0 on the XT BB. You
do lose the jlink virtual drives, but I hope to hack the program.
I've heard of someone successfully using MSDOS 5.0, too.
Sincerely,
(Mr.) Gayle Lee Fairless
'Perfessor Fearless'
P.S. The memory I'm talking about being unusable is the SOTA addon memory
for the SOTA 386si.
Gayle,
I'm glad to learn about the problem with the Sota memory add-on. I
doubt I will ever add expanded memory since I don't use the BB side all
that often. I hear Dr Dos 6.0 is much better than 5.0. Since you've had
success with 5.0, I may just give 6.0 a try. I've gotten Geos to work and
it's quite nice. Unfortunately, it only multi-tasks its own software. It
will run other msdos software, but not in multi-tasking mode. Geos doesn't
come with much application software, although I hear the new professional
version comes with the stripped down Quattro Pro from Borlund.
I don't know about your LIM memory. If it's on an Intel board it
may work. I've only heard that Intel and AST cards work. If others work I
haven't gotten any feedback on them.
Gayle,
Have you tried 4DOS? I have been using it since I installed the XTBB and it
runs flawlessly and seems fully compatible with DOS3.3. Has many of the
features of ados including command line history, editing etc. Also it takes
up less memory and has some useful enhanced commands and on line help. Well
worth a look.
Joe Wylot (UK)
– via Whap!
Joe,
I know that a version of 4DOS called NDOS comes with the latest
version of Norton Utilities. I guess I could download 4DOS as shareware
from one of the IBM clone forums. I know I could download it from GEnie so
CIS probably has it, too.
Sincerely,
(Mr.) Gayle Lee Fairless
'Perfessor Fearless'